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Death was sacred to some aboriginal people in Colombia. Near the town of San Agustin and Isnos, the journey to death called for a necropolis to be built by unknown indigenous tribes. Approximately more than 2000 years ago, funerary mounds, megalithic, anthropomorphic, anthropozoomorphic, and zoomorphic statues, funerary corridors, and stone slab tombs were constructed beneath the earth! Earth mounds covered stone slab dolmens that contained the dead body of important people who had natural powers or occupied important roles in their tribe (Instituto Colombiano de Antropologia e Historia-ICANH, 2011). We know very little about who these tribes were and why they abandoned this area by the 14th and 15th century. The indigenous people who currently live near this area do not seem to have a direct racial lineage with these Colombian ancestors.
Why do these aboriginal people construct and bury these “death-related” sites underground? What is the meaning of the anthropomorphic, anthrozoomorphic, and zoomophic stone sculptures? This brief article attempts to provide a psychological hypothesis to these questions, from an Analytical (Jungian) Psychology perspective, in order to emphasize “ancestral wisdom” (Leon, 2010) of indigenous for modern times.
Harvey H. Honig began his life’s work as a Lutheran minister but soon recognized his need for a more spacious and inclusive approach through which to heal and understand his inner self. This led him to spend many years exploring and experiencing other paths of religion and spirituality. In recent years, though, he found that the message, mission, and being of Jesus still played a powerful and transformative role in his life. Since common understandings of the life of Jesus are embedded within a biblical and historical framework, Honig wanted to explore the meaning of Christianity within the framework of our current world. An Interfaith Christian Theology is for fellow seekers who are drawn to the being and message of Jesus but can no longer relate to the dissonance between reality and belief that so many churches require. Honig’s approach differs from traditional Christian theology in two ways: first, it does not stem from the framework of a specific denomination, and second, it presents itself as a way of thinking about Christianity rather than the only way. After several years as a minister, Honig began Jungian analytic training and earned a PhD in psychology at Loyola University Chicago. Jung gave Honig the tools he needed to continue his personal search for a life-affirming view of Christianity and to assist others in their search for inner truth and healing.
Dear Friends of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago,
The Institute’s 2nd Annual Spring Fundraising Drive is here and I am inviting you to join with others in financially supporting the Institute. Your donation will help ensure that our educational mission of training future analysts and educating psychology professionals and the general public continues.
I’d like to share a personal story about why what the Institute does matters. While attending psychological gatherings over the years, I have invariably heard in response to my saying that I am a Jungian psychoanalyst, “Really, does anyone do that anymore?” Imagine my surprise. Yes, I do, the analyst-members of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts do, and Jungian analysts worldwide do.
This anecdote highlights the misperception that exists within the psychological field in this country about analytical psychology. Your donation in support of our educational mission is tangible proof that the symbolic-depth approach of analytical psychology is relevant and is valued in today’s world.
Analytical psychology was birthed out of the cataclysm of the Great War as Carl Jung sought to understand the promptings of psyche and make meaning of how such carnage and inhumanity could happen in the modern age.
Jung embarked on a journey within himself and the discoveries he made about psyche and psychic processes took him on outer world travels to gather the myths and symbol systems of other cultures. These collective materials helped give shape to his psychology of the unconscious, one rooted in an archetypal collective unconscious.
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,” Jung writes, “but by making the darkness conscious…a disagreeable and unpopular process.” Addressing the darkness of the outer world requires that we each do our own inner shadow work so that our darkness is not projected onto others. Analytical psychology provides a way to understand and work with this reality of psyche and make meaning of what is discovered to more consciously navigate the inner and outer worlds. Now more than ever, as the existential crises of the 21st century mount, there is a need for the education that the Institute provides.
As a small non-profit, we do a lot with limited resources. Your tax-deductible financial contribution adds needed income to revenue from tuition, the sale of our audio-lectures, and grants. Equity donations are welcome. The Institute has a Gold rating for financial transparency from GuideStar and is listed on Charity Navigator. The Analytical Psychology Foundation of Chicago is a supporting organization.
The C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago acknowledges this country’s history of systemic racism and inequality and is committed to understanding and remediating these injustices through study and open discussion at all levels of our organization. We are dedicated to applying the Jungian concepts of the collective shadow and the cultural complex to better understand how the toxic legacies of slavery, bigotry, and oppression of structural racism permeate our society, our institutions, and our collective and personal psyches. As practitioners of Jungian theory we strive to name and apply concepts of collective and personal shadow, cultural complex, manifested through the dynamics of projection, leading to “othering” and the denial of our shared humanity. We endeavor to foster an atmosphere that respects, encourages, values and sincerely engages with diversity and difference in all its expressions and forms. Our member analysts, public members and administrative staff actively support policies of inclusiveness and equity by raising these issues, concerns, and dynamics in classes and meetings. As a community we also recognize and are mindful of Jung’s writings which contain harmful stereotypic descriptions of groups of people that are racially and culturally biased and prejudiced. We pledge to initiate, welcome, and maintain ongoing conversations and discussions within our analyst community, with our trainees, and with our broader community of interested participants in all our programming regarding these depictions in Jung’s collective works.
We are continuing remote learning for all programs for the remainder of this academic year. We anticipate resuming in-person programs in September 2022. Join our mailing list for updates.
Dr. John Ryan Haule (1942, USA), is a Jungian Analyst, writer, & lecturer. He graduated from the C. G. Jung Institute Zurich in 1980 and is a NCPsyA, Certified Psychoanalyst as well as a Training Analyst at the C. G. Jung Institute-Boston. He works in his private practice in Massachusetts and is the author of books on Romantic Love, Therapy as Relationship, New Age Phenomena, and many articles on these topics, as well as shamanism, history of psychoanalysis, mysticism, and popular culture.
Stefano Carpani M.A., M.Phil. (1978) is an Italian psychoanalyst-in-training (diploma candidate) at the C.G. Jung Institute Zurich and a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre for Psychoanalytical Studies, University of Essex (UK). He works in private practice in Berlin (DE).
Jason Smith’s book Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life is a concise and thoughtful exploration of the question of religion, its value, and meaning. Smith explores religion from two perspectives, as an organizing container provided by collective traditions and as an individual quest for meaning necessitating attention to the unconscious. He shows that belonging can be very important for one’s psychological health, but it must be accompanied by a sustained uncovering of the religious dimensions of life. Remaining unconscious can produce a state of god-like inflation. Throughout the book Smith examines the dangers of scientific rationalism that, as a rule, result in a naïve relationship with religion, religious symbols, and religious institutions. Wonder and the emptying of one’s mind to the experience of the transcendent (kenosis) are the essential attitudes for pursuing the symbolic life.
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Vladislav (Vlado) Šolc (pronounced “Schultz”) is a professional psychotherapist and Jungian analyst practicing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Vlado received training from the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago and Charles University in Prague. He is the author of five depth-psychology-oriented books: Psyche, Matrix, Reality; The Father Archetype; In the Name of God—Fanaticism from the Perspective of Depth Psychology;Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychologyand most recently Democracy and Individuation in the Times of Conspiracy Theories.
On Thursday, October 21 at 5PM Pacific, we are particularly excited to be featuring Dr. Dyane Sherwood giving a presentation on the alchemical illuminated manuscript, the Splendor Solis. The illuminated manuscript of the Splendor Solis is one of the Treasures of the British Library, and in recent years has become widely known for the beauty of its 22 illuminated paintings. In her presentation, Dyane Sherwood will place the Splendor Solis in context, give the audience an overview, and then focus on some of the images in depth. We will discover the sophisticated consciousness behind three series of images that portray a process of depth transformation that moves from (1) a personal process, (2) to an appreciation of a relationship between archetypal, environmental, and inner states, and (3) finally to a profound acceptance of the nature of being. Dr. Sherwood will address two interrelated themes of the Splendor Solis that are more relevant today than ever before: the fact that humans can use Nature to work against Nature and the need for, in Jungian terms, redemption of the Feminine Principle.
Dyane Sherwood collaborated with the late Joseph L. Henderson, MD on a book relating the images of the Splendor Solis to the process of transformation in analysis. Dr. Henderson had his personal analysis with C.G. Jung and was the only American contributor to Jung’s remarkable book, Man and His Symbols. Dr. Sherwood is a Jungian psychoanalyst, sand-play therapist, and author. She founded the Analytical Psychology Press.
Our Blog shares essays, articles, video, audio, and other resources by members of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts and other groups that support the education and development of our community.
The views and opinions expressed in the podcasts and blog posts are those of the respected speakers or authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
