Dr. Kalsched's lecture with us revolved around the theme written below. Please share your thoughts on the ATL Jung Society's most recent lecture in the comment section on this page. Today, the violence in Fairy Tales seems mild — even quaint — in comparison with a profusion of terrifying films, horror videos on TV, video games that specialize in killing, and the mind-numbing violence of actual mass-killings in our schools, synagogues and churches. It is as though violence has jumped the tracks — breaking free of its origins in human “stories” — and becoming something truly demonic, senseless, meaningless, and traumatic.  [...]

James Hollis invites us to read a poem written by a good friend of his, Stephen Dunn. Stephen was an American poet and educator who authored twenty-one collections of poetry. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 2001 collection, Different Hours, and received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Stephen was a close friend of Hollis' for half a century. He died on his 82nd birthday in June.  John and MaryJohn and Mary had never met. They were like two humming birds who also had never met. — From a Freshman’s Short [...]

James Hollis's recent lecture with us explored the themes below. Our personal stories are part of a much larger story. Jung’s articulation of a triune psyche: the conscious sphere, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious reframes each of our very unique stories with those of our species, and with the timeless, formative energies which generate our desires, our patterns, and our cultures. Examples of this timeless, archetypal image formation will be illustrated and questions raised about the subtle relationship between the individual and the universal, the time-bound and the immortal. Please comment with your thoughts about the lecture and examples [...]

As a community, we gain strength and wisdom from sharing one another’s experience of loss and hardship. In light of Jerry Ruhl’s lecture this month, Living In the Fire, we invite those of you who have experienced your own deep, sometimes paralyzing, loss and emotional pain, to share a few words with us about how you have coped with and grown from those life losses. Leave these thoughts or other comments in response to Jerry’s lecture in the space provided below.    Thank you for your ongoing participation in our Jungian Community.

"We come from mystery and return to mystery, and in between we breathe mystery... At it's best, religion does not seek to solve the mystery in which we reside and of which we are a part, nor does it make the mystery more manageable. It merely provides a myth and accompanying rituals to live into the mystery responsibly, i.e., to be a conscious conduit for the powers and presences  that are always seeking us ..." (p. 73-74) “It took real courage to write this book, in which we are led on a journey to let go of our ‘old time religions', [...]

Please post your comments and continue the discussion on this lecture by Jeanne Lacourt. Jung’s meeting with the people of Taos Pueblo had a tremendous effect on him. It impacted and permeated his life’s work and theory and it influenced how he thought and wrote about “the primitive.” But could he have been mistaken? And what might native people have to say about his ideas of them?