ABOUT THE C.G. JUNG FOUNDATION
Newsletter of the C.G. Jung Foundation of Ontario
ISSN 1918-6142
Chiron is a newsletter that exists to support the work of the C.G. Jung Foundation of Ontario. It was established in 1980, and has existed in electronic form since 2006. Its name and masthead image, adopted at that time, are drawn from ancient Greek culture. In Greek mythology, Chiron was the last centaur, a son of the titan Cronus. He was famed for his wisdom, knowledge and skill at deciphering the will of the gods, to healing effect.
Volume 28, No. 2 April 2009
Editor: Robert Black
Contents
- Final public lectures of the 2008-09 season
- Philemon Foundation
- Public Programme Management
- New Analysts
- Upcoming Workshops
- From the Editor
- Letters to the Editor
- Observation on Nomenclature
- Energy from the University
- Past issues
Final public lectures of the 2008-09 season
On Friday, April 17 at 8:00 p.m., Jungian Analyst Laurie Savlov will lecture on “The Green Man,” in the Combination Room of Trinity College, University of Toronto.
On Friday, May 8 at 8:00 p.m., Jungian Analyst Patricia Berry lectures on, “The Hole In The Heart,” at Workman Hall, First Unitarian Church, 175 St. Clair Ave. W.
For more information on these offerings, and to register, please see our events page.
The Philemon Foundation’s “Second Seminar on Jung History” meets in Toronto
by Rosemary Murray-Lachapelle
The Philemon Foundation held its Second Seminar on Jung History last November in Toronto. The Foundation is a non-profit organization which seeks to bring to publication Jung’s unpublished work, and seeks financial support to do so. It is named for Philemon, an “old man with kingfisher wings,” who first appeared to Jung in a dream and became a trusted inner guide throughout his life. “Psychologically,” Jung said, “Philemon represented superior insight.” (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p.183)
To date the Foundation has published four volumes of the journal Jung History and has supported the publication of The Jung-White Letters (Routledge, 2007), Children’s Dreams (Princeton, 2008), and The Red Book which is to be released this year. An extensive body of Jung’s archival substance such as manuscripts, seminars, lectures, notes, and correspondence, is yet to be examined.
The Second Seminar of the Philemon Foundation provided a forum for historians working in the Jung archives to share their early findings with each other and with a wide range of participants, including historians of psychology, amateurs of Jung, and analysts.
Ernst Falzeder (Salzburg), scholar of both psychoanalysis and analytical psychology, opened the seminar. He compared the development of the fields of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology. Freudians, he said, established training, publication, and certification within ten years, and quickly decentralized. (This contributed to the mainstreaming of Freud’s perspective.) In contrast, analytical psychology remained centralized for a long time and took around 35 years to establish an institutional presence. Falzeder spoke about the German Seminar of 1931, so-called because most of Jung’s seminars were given in English. (It was only during the Depression, when American travel to Europe was reduced, that Jung offered a seminar in German.) Seminars, Falzeder said, were Jung’s preferred method of teaching: concentrated, spontaneous, and intended largely for people working with Jung.
Angela Graf-Nold (Zürich), senior scholar, editor, and researcher, spoke about Jung’s lectures at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, known as the ETH Lectures 1933-1941. She traced the historical origins of Jung’s thought (Leibnitz, Kant, Schopenhauer, Janet, Koerner, Flournoy, and Freud, among others) and showed how Jung developed his lectures to the general public over a period of 13 years. Complex psychology, she said, initially meant a psychology of complexities; the theory of complexes was developed later.
Sonu Shamdasani (London), Jung scholar and editor of The Red Book, spoke about Jung’s 1923 Polzeath seminar. This was a training seminar, he said, and an inspiration to all who were present. Jung gave fourteen lectures over twelve days. Lectures 1 to 10, he said, focused on the personal, that is, on analysis, transference, functions and types as well as one lecture on child development and education. Lectures 11 to 14 were on the impersonal and comprise the first extended statement of Jung on religion. Significant for Jung at this time, Shamdasani said, was the death of his mother in 1921 and the pragmatism of Emma in the face of his own theoretical attitude. Also during these years Jung started to build the tower at Bollingen.
Other speakers were Giovanni Sorge (Zürich) on the 1933 Berlin Seminar, Judith Harris (London, Ontario) on the Children’s Dreams Seminar, and Suzanne Gieser (Stockholm) on the Jung/Bjerre relationship. (Poul Bjerre was a Swedish psychiatrist.)
More information about the Philemon Foundation and forthcoming projects is posted on the organization’s web site, at www.philemonfoundation.org. The journal Jung History is also available there free of charge.
Rosemary Murray-Lachapelle is a Jungian Analyst practicing in Ottawa/Gatineau.
The coming of the PPMC … a road ahead for Toronto’s Public Programme
by Tim Pilgrim
“How can I get there?” asked Dorothy?
“You must walk. It is a long journey through a country that is sometimes pleasant and sometimes dark and terrible. However, I will use all the magic arts I know to keep you from harm.”
(Frank L. Baum, The Wizard of Oz)
The Toronto Jungian community has often been touted as one of North America’s largest and most vibrant public organizations formed around the appreciation and study of the ideas of C. G. Jung. By the time the Analytical Psychology Society of Ontario created The C.G. Jung Foundation of Ontario in 1971, our burgeoning membership was well on the way to the highs of the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, when our unrivalled member count well exceeded four hundred.
However now, like other organizations competing for the time, energy and “cultural dollars” of an increasingly busy (and distracted!) public, the C.G. Jung Foundation has also felt some pains of shrinking interest. Fortunately, we are still among the leaders in the public domain and continue to provide one of the most dynamic programs of lectures and seminars around.
Despite our continuing good fortunes, it has become clear over recent years that our program needs more attention. This is partly due to the effort that was drawn away from the public program and redirected to the development of our Analyst Training Programme, now the second largest in North America. Now, with the new challenges of our times, but with more available resources from a growing body of analysts, we feel the time is ripe for renewed energy and fresh ideas.
It is with great enthusiasm that we announce the formation of a new committee to bolster the efforts and activities of our public program in support of both our members and the public at large. The Public Program Membership Committee, or ‘PPMC,’ is a new body comprised of four analysts: myself as convener, Robert Black, Caroline Duetz, and Robert Gardner (ex officio).
The PPMC has been mandated by the Board of Directors both to give well-needed support to Catherine Johnson, our dedicated administrator, but also to review current membership practices and provide more energy, ideas and structure to the public program. Specifically the PPMC has been given a broad mandate to address:
- Membership management (renewal, recruitment);
- Member relations (communications, outreach, member feedback);
- Public Programme development (new initiatives, venues, ideas, member input);
- Communications and public outreach (ongoing public communications, PR, joint ventures, cultural/educational affiliations, co-sponsorships, community participation).
We are excited about this new initiative. A guiding principal of the renewed mandate is the anticipated participation of our members themselves, who we feel are a source of enthusiasm and ideas that has not been adequately tapped. In due time, we expect to form a group comprised of member participants who will help the PPMC re-evaluate the program and implement some of the new initiatives.
There is much to do and certainly there are as many challenges as opportunities. However, from the continued encouraging feedback of our members and the evident energy that has attended the formation of the PPMC, it is clear that the road ahead has many interesting possibilities and will open up new horizons for our program.
New Analysts
A ceremony on January 17 saw two more candidates of the Analyst Training Programme of the Ontario Association of Jungian Analysts graduate with their Diploma in Analytical Psychology, and join the rank of Jungian Analyst:
8. Elisabeth Pomès
Born in Paris, France, Elisabeth's first love was Literature and Art. Completing a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature at the Université de Paris-Nanterre, she taught for a few years and then immigrated to Canada, where she pursued her interest in Music. She studied singing at the University of Montreal and the University of Toronto, where she was awarded a Master’s Degree in Vocal performance, and started a career as a singer.
Her inner journey led her to study and practice yoga (becoming a certified yoga teacher) and then to enter analysis, during which she discovered Jung’s Analytical Psychology. Elisabeth’s experience leads her to believe that there is a potential for wholeness in each human being; it is a vital as well as spiritual force that longs for freedom and wholeness. Her conviction is that this in-depth journey towards self-acceptance and self-realization, although difficult and relentless at times, is what gives life meaning.
In addition to her private practice in Toronto, Elisabeth teaches workshops and classes on the psychology of performance. She is the author of An Island of Serenity, a practical guide to relaxation and well-being. Her thesis focused on addiction: Pathological gambling: Misstep on the Path of Individuation.
9. Sherin Shumavon
Born and raised in California, Sherrie has lived in several places over the years including Latin America where she served in the Peace Corps with the person who would become her spouse. Since 1979 they have lived in Ohio and now reside in Cincinnati where Sherrie maintains a private practice. She and her husband have two grown sons and three grandchildren.
The eldest of seven children, Sherrie has had a life-long interest in family and children. Initially a primary school teacher, life circumstances forestalled her later desire to become a nurse midwife. Instead she pursued a Master's degree in Family Relations and Child Development which led to a career as a consultant in mental health. Encouraged by others to become a therapist, Sherrie had long resisted and yet found herself hanging around that world. Seemingly overnight, “something” inside pulled the plug on her career and Sherrie entered Jungian analysis—feeling truly “lost at sea.” Years into analysis, the liminal uncertainty cleared synchronistically just as OAJA opened its new Analyst Training Programme. The rest is, as they say, history. Sherrie felt she had come home to herself — and in a way she could not have foreseen, she was becoming a “midwife” after all.
Although she attempted to write a different thesis, again the deeper Self prevailed—bringing Sherrie full circle. The thesis she surrendered to became Love and Loyalty—A Jungian Perspective on Family and Individuation. Sherrie has described it as a beginning effort to commit to paper what has felt so personally and archetypally important a story, and her life's work.
Upcoming workshops
GIFTS, GIVING AND FORGIVENESS
with Beverly Bond Clarkson and Austin Clarkson
10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday, April 26, 2009
Combination Room, Trinity College, 6 Hoskin Avenue
The workshop begins with the Giveaway Ceremony. According to tradition, the gift that we give leaves space for the gift we are about to receive. In this way we move around the Medicine Wheel of life. Bring a wrapped gift that has held great value for you (not necessarily monetary) and that you are ready to part with. We shall then discuss some topics around gifts, giving, and forgiveness. What are our gifts? How do we value our gifts (psychological type)? What is the purpose of exchanging gifts? How do we feel when we give and receive? Gift exchange and relationship. Gift exchange with strings attached. Does giving and receiving call for sacrifice?
I see that I must give what I most need. (Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces)
With every gift . . . there is always an unspoken “give that thou mayest receive.” Consequently the gift always carries with it a personal intention, for the mere giving of it is not a sacrifice. It only becomes a sacrifice if I give up the implied intention of receiving something in return. If it is to be a true sacrifice, the gift must be given as if it were being destroyed. Only then is it possible for the egoistic claim to be given up.
C.G. Jung, CW 11, §390
What is said of gift-giving and gift-receiving can be said of the act of forgiveness. What expectations do we have when we forgive or accept forgiveness? How does blame prevent or falsify forgiveness? What is the cost of true forgiveness? What is unforgivable?
The workshop will continue with an active imagination exercise around the new gift, making pictures with oil pastels (no artistic background necessary), and sharing with the group.
Beverly Bond Clarkson is a Jungian analyst with a practice in Toronto. Her essay on “Care and Apathy” will appear in the spring 2009 issue of Quadrant. Austin Clarkson, musicologist and educator, directs the program Exploring Creativity in Depth for children and adults (www.exploringcreativity.ca).
Please see our Public Events page for more details and to register.
MORE ALCHEMY FOR BEGINNERS
with Helen Brammer Savlov
10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Sunday, May 3, 17, 2009
223 St. Clair Avenue West, Third Floor.
Responding to requests for “More” following the well-attended 2007 Alchemy series, these two seminars will continue our exploration into the world of the alchemical imagination. First time attendees are welcome to join with others from the earlier series as in this work we all truly need to come with a “Beginner’s Mind”.
Seminar 1 will describe and illustrate anew the primary symbols of the alchemical procedures. We will then begin a rare opportunity to study in depth one of the most beautiful alchemical picture series that exists. Individual colour pictures will be provided for shared study guided by the seminar leader.
Seminar 2 will continue to develop an interpretation of this series that can provide us with an illustrated “map” of the transformative processes of the living archetypal psyche. The work will include opportunities for informal discussion and group amplification from myth, fairytales, dreams and personal experience.
Registration occurs on a series or seminar-by-seminar basis
Helen Brammer-Savlov is a Jungian analyst with a practice in Toronto and in her home on Lake Scugog, Port Perry.
Please see our Public Events page for more details and to register.
TISSUE PAPER COLLAGE WORKSHOP
with Robert Black and Patricia Goss
10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Sunday, May 24, 2009
223 St. Clair Avenue West, Third Floor.
It always feels wisest, with this workshop, not to let too much out of the bag beforehand. Sitting in silence with a group of fellow seekers-after-consciousness might not seem like much fun, but when you randomly add bits of coloured tissue paper, white card stock and brushes with watered-down glue into the mix with – not least of all – the operation of the Unconscious, marvels can result.
Jung often quoted gladly the words of Augustine of Hippo in De vera religione (39:72), “Go not outside, return into thyself: truth dwells in the inner man.” This workshop is a living experience of that dictum. We work without prior plan, our minds receptive and at the service of the deeper Self. What results – two or more collages – are then displayed without connection to their creators. Members of the group, with guidance, observe what they see.
At the very least, this exercise is relaxing; and at its best, insightful. It requires presence, not talent nor brainpower.
Robert Black is a Jungian analyst with a practice in downtown Toronto. Patricia Goss, a founding member of the C.G. Jung Foundation of Ontario and first art instructor of the National Ballet School, is a sculptor and workshop presenter in Toronto.
Please see our Public Events page for more details and to register.
From the Editor
It’s really far more interesting (for most of us, anyway) to focus on other things, but we’re all pretty much in the same boat when considering the topic of money. Money allows us to do some things, and not do others. It’s there, or it’s not. It largely determines the basics: for example, what kind of food we eat, what kind of clothing we wear, where we live, but also (in so very many ways) how we “live and move and have our being.”
A helpful insight we have from Jung is that psychologically, “the money question” is really about libido, in his sense of that term as “available psychic energy.”
The outer restrictions are what they are, and may demand their due, but if a reciprocal connection with the Unconscious has been forged, somehow the pinch does not feel so cruel nor prospects so hopeless.
This relates specifically to us as members of the C.G. Jung Foundation of Ontario, but by no means is limited to that body. An interesting financial fact that the analysts have been tackling for years, and indeed one that many of us wrestle with in our private lives, is that revenue does not come close to covering our actual costs. We try to stay conscious of this challenge. In the Foundation’s context, on the one side, the “promotional” or “educational” model sees the necessity of soldiering on ahead (offering courses and workshops and seminars) at all costs and no matter what. In accordance with this, analysts offer what they can with available energy, and (another interesting fact) are paid nothing for their educational labours. One consequence of this can be weariness, a drain of psychic energy. The “business” or “fiscal” model sees the necessity of income matching expenses, and so costs rise and promotional efforts increase. One consequence can be that we price some very fine people out of our market.
Holding the tension of these opposites while staying faithful to the challenge is the only thing we can do, but the length of years we have done so makes this analyst wonder: is there any possibility that a “reconciling third” might make itself known any time soon? Is there another way of looking at this question, a different model to employ, or a ready solution to “the money problem” that has escaped us? Perhaps readers can offer their mullings and musings.
In the end, what actually we do to present Jung’s thought to new audiences; how we enrich peoples’ existing knowledge of Jung; how we extend with our own labours the many directions he left us for exploration or amplification; all of this is a serious concern but one which we bear with equanimity.
Jung once wrote a discouraged correspondent, “An old alchemist gave the following consolation to one of his disciples: ‘No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you.’” (Letters, II, September 14, 1960) He elaborated, “If the archetype, which is universal, i.e., identical with itself always and anywhere, is properly dealt with in one place only, it is influenced as a whole, i.e., simultaneously and everywhere.” This is an amazing, and wonderfully encouraging, if simple idea.
Simply put, we as people striving to be conscious, and as Foundation members, do what we can with what we have. We reproach neither ourselves nor others for deficits and we believe that we cannot fail. If and when more is needed, then unknown friends – ideas, people, funds – will come. Only then will we, and can we, do more.
Letter to the Editor
(From Edith Leslie)
The new Chiron looks beautiful! CONGRATULATIONS! And how nice to have pictures of analysts – I have always asked for more pictures. (…) As Tidbits, I submit some quotes which are dear to my heart:
“Give up the feeling of responsibility, let go your hold, resign the care of your destiny to higher powers, be genuinely indifferent as to what becomes of it all, and you will find not only that you gain a perfect inward relief, but often also, in addition the particular goods you sincerely thought you were renouncing. This is the salvation through self-despair, the dying to be truly born….“ (The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James, p.95)
And on a lighter note, “The inner marriage doesn't warm my feet at night.”
A Little Observation on Nomenclature
Has anyone else ever noticed how plain a divide there often seems to be, in referring to Jung by his given name, between those very closely connected to his school of thought, and those who use bits of his thoughts to promote their own agenda?
Those who knew him, and those who were trained by him, called him “C.G.” – in the original German it sounds a bit like “sey gey.” He is on record in his published Letters as signing notes “C.G.” and of course the many Institutes founded by his immediate pupils are always the “C.G. Jung” Institute of this or that place, never the “Carl Jung” Institute.
Yet despite this there abounds, on the Internet and elsewhere, a presumption of familiarity with Jung particularly among those who do not – in this analyst’s opinion – come anywhere close to reflecting the careful balance that he tried always to keep when communicating his ideas.
So when you see the words “Carl Jung” attached to something, and it doesn’t refer to the famous non-alcoholic wine of that brand name, you might consider being just a little bit cautious about what is being proposed.
Vital Energy from the University
Some readers will be aware that there is a “Panda Programme” at the University of Toronto, which has been adding the enthusiasm of university students to our Public Programme. These are not endangered black-and-white creatures from China, but undergraduates drawn from the “Paradigms and Archetypes” programme, housed at New College in the University of Toronto, and established by Marion and Ross Woodman. (www.newcollege.utoronto.ca/programs/panda.htm) Jung-related courses are taught to undergraduates, at first by co-founder analyst Ann Yeoman, then dean of New College, and now by analyst Bruce Barnes, the first-ever locally-trained Jungian analyst. It is directed by Prof. Deborah Knott.
These students have organized themselves into a body, the Jungian Society at the University of Toronto, and even have a Facebook group, “All Things Jungian @ the University of Toronto” which anyone may join. Recently, your Editor contacted its head, David Taylor, for information about the group.
David replied enthusiastically, in part, “"At the Jungian Society, we meet to explore the theories and wisdom of C.G. Jung in a number of ways: formally, at lectures and seminars with Jungian analysts and related professionals in the field, many offered by the Jung Foundation; informally, in attendance at culturally relevant activities, such as a film rich in archetypal content or mythological symbolism, followed by discussion; intensively, through explorations in a workshop environment, led by professionals; and of course socially, through conversation and sharing food. In addition to his theories, we also find it useful to explore some of Jung's other interests, such as humour and red wine.
”I wonder what might be done with/for students who are enthusiastic about Jung now, in terms of sustaining their interest for the years between graduation and reaching the criterion age for Jungian training. This can involve 10+ years of being out in the world, working, and other realities that can interrupt the crossing from undergrad to enrolment in the Analyst Training Programme. Contributing our members’ names to your mailing list for the Public Programme brochure might sustain contact with the wider Jungian community. However, the U. of T. Jungian Society continues to be interested in strategies that could facilitate and maintain interest through the years in question.”
These and a few other questions are being pursued as energy, memory and time permit. In the meantime, we welcome these terrific folks to our midst, and are grateful for all the efforts expended by everyone concerned to spread knowledge and understanding of Jung’s approach.
Past issues available online
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