Jung Chicago Radio & Blog – C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago

Dingir.cz | Review of Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from The Perspective of Jungian Psychology

September 23, 2026

This review originally appeared in Czech at dingir.cz.

Vladislav Šolc, George J. Didier, Dark Religion: The Psychology of Denying and Discovering Reality, Prague: Malvern, 2025, 398 pages.

I opened Vladislav Šolc and George Didier’s Dark Religion expecting a scholarly Jungian study of fundamentalism and was pleasantly surprised by how much space it gives to many of the questions I ask myself at my own therapeutic desk—for example, where does healthy faith end and possession by one’s own image of God begin, and where do the concepts of psychotherapeutic work end and a genuine spiritual crisis begin?

Central Concepts: Theocalypsis and Theonemesis

The authors, both Jungian analysts, distinguish between religion, understood as a living relationship to the numinous that can never be fully grasped, and creed, a confession of faith that can so easily preserve this relationship in the form of dogmas, rituals, and institutions. According to the authors, religion becomes “dark” when creed becomes severed from its living source in the unconscious and begins to serve a defensive purpose—concealing what a person does not wish to see about themselves and about reality.

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Jung in the World is Moving

September 22, 2026

In the dead of COVID, I started interviewing people about Jung in collaboration with the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. And so, the podcast Jung in the World was born. No one, including me, expected two million downloads would follow. Six years and a couple of epiphanies later, it’s time for the Jung in the World podcast to individuate.

We’re moving to a new home: The Institute for Psyche and Culture.

I trained at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago through 2016. But my interest was never clinical; it was cultural.

Right now, I’m watching a civilizational disruption of selfhood unprecedented since the printing press. A conversation that puts depth psychology at the center of that vortex is what the Institute for Psyche and Culture was built for, and mysteriously, it’s what the podcast has been working toward all along.

“Everything psychic is pregnant with the future,” wrote Jung. A rising generation, exhausted by the performance of self, and hungry for depth is waiting.  We aim to meet the moment with conversations that advance inner life in the age of the algorithm. Jung’s not going anywhere. He’s been dead since 1961, and his work far exceeds what passes for insight on our phones.  

What’s changing is the address. In October, the podcast moves to a new feed. Season 6 starts soon, and it’s an ambitious lineup–video and audio. Come find us there. And come curious.  

For more background, check out this video:

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Jung in the World has Big News

September 9, 2026

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Announcing changes at Jung in the World, beginning with Season 6. In this episode, host Patricia Martin shares the story behind where we’re going and what’s ahead this fall. Same in-depth discussions on psyche, society, and Jung. Same great minds, deep analysis, but a new home.

If you are already subscribed to the Jung in the World podcast feed, no need to do anything. Your subscription carries over automatically when its new home is established at the Institute for Psyche and Culture.

If you are only subscribed to Jung Chicago Radio, the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago’s main podcast feed with all our shows, use the link below to subscribe to Jung in the World so you don’t miss Season 6.

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Jungian Ever After | Odysseus: Sacrifice & Hospitality

September 1, 2026

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We continue our coverage of The Odyssey with a focus on proper sacrifice and hospitality rules. As we cannot read the entire epic, there’s no main story reading for this episode. However, towards the very end of the episode, Raisa reads a summary of Odysseus’s reunion with Penelope from ⁠Claudio Patrini’s, “Odyssey: Symbols and Meaning.”⁠

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The Jungian Drift Podcast | Odysseus under Calypso’s Spell: The Seductive Power of Conspiracies with Vlado Solc (Audio)

August 10, 2026

Thanks to Claire Kohne, MS, LPCC and Robert Carriger, MS, LMFT, for interviewing Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Vlado Solc on their podcast, The Jungian Drift. From the episode description:

*Content Warning: Episode contains discussion of an age-old conspiratorial belief that a secret society is carrying out ritualized child abuse in order to extract a fabled life giving elixir.*

At the 2025 International Association of Analytical Psychology conference in Zurich, Robert Carriger and Claire Kohne got the opportunity to talk to conference presenter Jungian analyst Vlado Šolc about his application of Jungian theory to the understanding of conspiracies and cults. Dr. Šolc draws from Greek mythology and the legend of Odysseus’ seven-year captivity on the island of Ogygia under the spell of the nymph Calypso to explain the phenomena of dark religion and cults. In mythology Calypso is the personification of concealment – or covering – from which the Greek word apokálypsis – apocalypse – is derived which means “uncovering” or “revelation.” Recorded on August 28, 2025.

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Jung in the World | Synchronicity at the Deathbed: Jung and Meaning at the End of Life with Daniel Ross

July 21, 2026

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Carl Jung called it “an acausal connecting principle” — but for Dan Ross, a Jungian analyst working in hospice care, synchronicity isn’t just theoretical. In this episode, Dan reveals what thirty years of end-of-life work taught him about Jung’s most misappropriated theory, its roots in Jung’s relationship with physicist Wolfgang Pauli, and why studying synchronicity seems to produce more of it. This episode is rich with poignant examples blended that will leave you thinking differently about how synchronicity works in your own life.

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Jungian Ever After | Odysseus: Trickster and Homesickness

July 9, 2026

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In preparation for the upcoming Christopher Nolan film, we begin our coverage of The Odyssey with a focus on the isles of Polyphemus and Calypso. As the story is far too long to read aloud, Raisa reads a summary of Odysseus’s encounter with Polyphemus from Claudio Patrini’s, “Odyssey: Symbols and Meaning.”

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Dingir.cz | Conspiracism as a Private Religion: A Jungian View of the Longing for Hidden Truth – Interview with Vlado Šolc

June 14, 2026

This interview with Vladislav Šolc by Jitka Schlichtsová was originally published in Czech at dingir.cz.

How does conspiracism appear from a Jungian perspective?

Psychologically speaking, conspiracy theories are, in essence, theories about hidden connections between reality and fantasy. The desire to discover reality and explore the deeper meaning of existence is instinctive. Mythology and ritual behavior testify to humanity’s ancient effort to grasp the mystery of life and use that knowledge to navigate reality more effectively through the expansion of consciousness. Similarly, religion responds to the human longing for salvation and the revelation of eternal truth—a desire, one might say, to crack the ultimate code of existence. Conspiracy theories are driven by the same instinct.

From a Jungian perspective, conspiracy theories may be understood as private—or what I have elsewhere called dark religious—systems through which the ego attempts to come to terms with the overwhelming impact of numinosity. Numinous experience arises from an encounter with the paradox of the holy, what Rudolf Otto termed the mysterium tremendum et fascinans: an experience that simultaneously evokes fascination and awe. The less conscious the ego is of these opposing emotional forces, the more likely it is to become possessed by them. The key is to minimize the phenomenon of splitting so that the ego may proceed further in the quest for the integration of the Self.

Conspiracy theories may thus be regarded as partially protective and partially healing constructs through which a person is able to experience relief from existential anxiety while simultaneously achieving a provisional grasp of reality. They provide the conspiracist with a feeling of personal power and control over reality. By “revealing” evil and its causes, they alleviate so-called negative feelings and temporarily restore a sense of meaning, orientation, and certainty.

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Jung in the World | Judith Herman, M.D. on Trauma and What Remains

May 25, 2026

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Judith Herman is widely known as a defining voice in trauma psychiatry for more than fifty years. Her work bridges the personal and the political, framing trauma as not only an individual experience, but a public health and human rights issue. In this interview with host Patricia Martin, Judith Herman tells the story of how her work evolved, what remains to be done for CPTSD victims, and what all of us can do to create conditions survivors need to heal.

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    Jung Chicago Radio is home to a variety of podcasts that range from archival seminar recordings (Institute Archives), to interviews (Jung in the World) to discussion on film (Healing Cinema), fairy tales (Jungian Ever After), and our programs.

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