Jungianthology Blog

In Memoriam: Don Troyer

Don L. Troyer, M.D. died on November 11, 2023 at his home in Three Rivers. He was born on January 13, 1949 to Dana O. Troyer, M.D. and Verna (Burkholder) Troyer in Dhamtari, India, where they were serving as medical missionaries. He grew up in Goshen, Indiana where he graduated from Goshen High School and Goshen College with High Honors. During medical school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland he married Verna Hostetler on August 27, 1972. After completing a residency in Family Medicine at Williamsport, Pennsylvania in 1978, he and Verna moved to Paoli, Indiana to join Comprehensive Health Care, a medical group dedicated to serving one of the most medically underserved counties in southern Indiana.

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Freddie Taborda | The Continuum Between Aluna and its Spirits, Jungian Analysis, and God

“God does not call those who are worthy, but those whom He will.” Therese of Lisieux

The interface between indigenous spiritual life and Christian Mysticism may prove to be a fruitful ground towards addressing some worldwide challenges such as psychological alienation and climate change.

For example, Indigenous Sacred Geography -the idea that Nature is sacred and that Geography is the map that describes where the sacred spirits dwell- could help us see the divine aspect of Nature, in order to address the rampant destruction of the Earth. Also, the Jungian view of the Self -the center and totality of the individual- ,understood as the Divine within, could provide an epistemological and an experiential framework in which a fragment of God dwells in the human heart. There is a Divine Without and a Divine Within -two aspects of God located in Nature and, also, located in us. A continuum of Divinity.

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In Memoriam: James Wyly

Remembrance by Mary Wyly

Jim on his 84th Birthday

James Wyly was born in Kansas City Missouri. His mother came from an old family in St. Joseph, Missouri. His father from a family of Presbyterians in South Carolina. He was educated in public schools. For college he chose Amherst because it was far away and hard. He majored in English and studied organ at Smith Henry Mishkin. His friends included Tom Eighmy and Kelley Edey. His fraternity was Chi Phi I think. He graduated in 1959.

After Amherst he enrolled in the new DMA program at the University of Missouri at Kansas City earning his degree in 1964. From 1961 through 1963 he was supported by the Fulbright Commission for his research and dissertation on historic pipe organs of Spain, living in Madrid, the city he regarded as his real home town. He was prepared to teach organ, harpsichord, music theory, music history. 

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From the President | November 9, 2023

Our times are so full of change and confusion that one can feel like these poor creatures from the Clavis Artis, a mysterious late 17th century alchemical text signed by “Zarathustra.”

In the past few years, more people are finding their ways to Jung’s work and our Institute. Jung taught that by paying attention to dreams and the true imagination, we may discover creative solutions to problems that cannot be solved by will or by science alone. Jung also valued the development of an attitude of tolerance for the unknown and for the Other.

The programs at the Chicago Jung Institute offer opportunities for the personal growth that comes—for example—from the hard work of learning to hold the tension of the opposites and to recognize projections of our own Shadows rather than reacting, blaming, or scapegoating.

Each Fall and Spring we reach out to you to ask you to make a tax-deductible donation to support our programs, which include in-person and online workshops and lectures, podcasts, analytic training, and a two-year in depth study program.

These programs are priceless, yet we depend on your donations to make them possible.

Please give whatever you can!

Dyane Sherwood
President
C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago

Freddie Taborda | Aluna, the Collective Unconscious & God

ENGLISH/SPANISH

“In the Dark Night of the Soul, Bright Flows the River of God” (Juan de La Cruz)

Human beings have been seeking to periodically experience the profound love towards the Divine as well as the intense beauty and ecstasy that comes with it. This union was sought by the poet, Juan de Yepes y Alvarez (better known as Juan de La Cruz – John of the Cross), and this article will focus primarily on understanding some sentences from a mystic poem that he wrote as well as amplifying them with the wisdom of the Kogi Indians.

On a side note, I make the contention that a similar experience is reached by the individual, at some point, at the farthest end of the process of individuation and wholeness, during a Jungian Analysis that is methodologically conducted in the manner delineated by Jung, which was closely followed by his early collaborators (Von Franz, Hannah, Harding, Edinger, etc).

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Freddie Taborda | Our Panting Soul Cleaves to God…

It is rather deflating and narcissistically painful for the so-called adult human ego to humbly accept that there is a colossal spirit that nourishes, guides and determines his/her life.

The mystical writer, Francis De Sales wrote the following:

“There, as the famished babe cleaves to its mother’s breast as though it would fain absorb it, so our panting soul cleaves to God as though to be forever absorbed in Him, and He in us!”

The industrialized fascination with visibility and the scientific discrimination against the soul has led the human ego to erase, from consciousness, the idea that there is a soul. The human ego has appointed itself as the primary and exclusive factor in the psychology of the individual.

Furthermore, God does not exist for a large segment of the population and, therefore, the experiential and practical idea that there is a God image in us that determines our lives, as Jung brilliantly demonstrated through the experience of Jungian analysis, has little acceptance and relevance in industrialized and technological societies.

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Letter from the President | May 9, 2023

Our Spring Fundraising Drive coincides with the completion our first year of in-person classes and events since the COVID crisis.  The predominant feeling this year has been one of joy to be able to be together in person.

It began at our September graduation celebration of five new analysts from the Analyst Training Program.  More recently, our annual “Community Day” presented a day long program on the work of Marie-Louise von Franz at Loyola’s Lakeside Campus.  Our academic year will conclude this June with the graduation celebration of students completing the two-year Jungian Psychotherapy and Jungian Studies Programs.

Group Discussion on Community Day

In May, we are honored to present a lecture by Donald Kalsched “Opening the Closed Heart: A New Look at Jungian Depth Psychology in Light of Trauma, Affect Theory and Defense.” This event is being held at the Union League Club preceded by a Communal Supper and is open to JPP/JSP graduates and to anyone who becomes a member of the Institute. The fee is less than half of the actual cost, thanks to a generous grant from an anonymous donor.

Our podcast, Jungianthology, ranks in the top 50 social science podcasts in the United States on Apple Podcasts and this January passed 1 million downloads. We are working toward consistently publishing two episodes every month to our 10,000 listeners spread over 100 countries.

I am inviting you to join with others in financially supporting our exciting plans for the coming year, which includes welcoming a new cohort for the JPP/JSP two-year program, planning for more online and in person public programs, continued expansion of our podcast, and, of course, continuing the excellence of our Analyst Training Program with the largest number of students in recent memory.

Candidates in the Analyst Training Program

Please visit the Support Us page to learn more details about our programs and when you do, kindly give a generous donation to our Spring Fundraising Drive. Members of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts have donated $6,000 as a matching grant to kick things off, but we need your generous contributions to reach a minimum goal of $30,000 to meet our programming needs.  

Sincerely,

Dyane N. Sherwood, Ph.D.

President

Dennis Merritt | “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Revisited” published in Psychological Perspectives (Full Text Free Until July 31, 2023)

Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Dennis Merritt is co-author, with Kevin Lu and Frazer Merritt, of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Revisited” in the Psychological Perspectives. Abstract:

The publication of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in January of 1886 created a shock wave in the consciousness of its readers. It was an instant success in and beyond the literary world as people were confronted with the uneasy thought that evil originated within the individual and not from an external source like the Devil. This was nine years before Freud conducted his first psychoanalysis, and decades before Jung introduced the concept of the shadow.

Stevenson was known as the author of Treasure Island and children’s poetry, but had long been looking for a vehicle to write about the strange “Other” he had been aware of since his childhood nightmares. The inspiration for Jekyll and Hyde came directly from a dream, and he attributed most of his literary success to help from the “Brownies,” the “little people,” in his interior world and dreamland. The novel can be viewed in relation to the love-hate relationship with his father, whom he depended upon for financial support during his lifelong struggles with severe respiratory illness, which led to drug addiction from his attempts to cope with the illness. For Stevenson, the Other was primarily the dark side of the strict Calvinistic religion of his father and proper late 19th century Scottish culture, yet the concept is even more relevant today as we face the evils of terrorism, racism, white-collar crime, Putin and rising authoritarianism, and intolerable levels of polarization in many modern societies.

The article is free to read in full until July 31, 2023. PDF and EPUB files available.

Dennis Merritt, PhD, LCSW grew up on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin where he established a deep connection with the land as reflected in his four volumes of The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe: Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology. He obtained a Ph.D. from Berkeley in insect pathology, microbial control of insect pests, before training at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich. He practices as a Jungian analyst and ecopsychologist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is a senior analyst in the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. More at JungianEcopsychology.com.

Dr. Merritt is the author of Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology: The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe Volumes 1 – 4.

Links: Dennis Merritt on Jungianthology | Dennis Merritt’s lectures at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago

Self-Study CE Courses Now Available

We have completed a major website update to allow learners to complete self-study courses for CEs. Self-study courses require that visitors listen to/watch a recording and complete a quiz to receive a CE certificate. CE certificates can be downloaded from your My Account > Courses page at any time.

View our Self-study courses on the Self-Study CE Courses page. Courses and recordings are sold separately. We currently have two self-study courses available, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche and Approaching the Unconscious: The Matrices of Jung’s Analytical Psychology.

Join our mailing list to be informed when new self-study courses are published (a new Self-Study Courses sidebar has been added to our emails).

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