The Guild of Pastoral Psychology
The Red Book: four seminars led by Brenda Crowther – (1)
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Seminar 1: Beginnings and Jung’s objective: how he searched for the truth beyond the personal.
The timing of the publication of The Red Book in 2009 was a synchronicity. It brought into focus how Jung’s work was an antidote to the shadow of materialism. This has intensified in the 21st century. He was able to view what was happening from the underbelly situation almost a century ago, as he witnessed it in the unconscious. It is understandable why Jung felt he had failed to communicate, to emphasise the great value of the soul. The spiritual light grew dimmer through the consumer society, and now is overshadowed by a materialistic force that threatens to engulf the globe. Jung offered a solution. It was the tough and difficult path of consciousness, not as an intimate, personal or privileged choice but as an unrivalled objective necessity for survival.
With this attitude we will study The Red Book through four seminars.
The intense periods of Jung’s experiments were around 1913 – 1918. The work continued long after and came to a halt in 1933 when Jung discovered The Secret of the Golden Flower. Richard Wilhelm, the translator and scholar, (best known for his translation of the I Ching) sent the book to Jung for his reflections. After reading it Jung named his myth as alchemy. Again this was not alchemy in its personal application, but as a global phenomenon, on a level with Jung’s description of the Anima Mundi, the World Soul. “No man is an island”. . . as John Dunne said, and it is true of objective psychological work. Whoever works with himself on the objective level, works for the world. The book points to the future and challenges the spiritual condition of the souls of modern men and women.
Brenda Crowther is a senior Jungian analyst trained at the Guild of Analytical Psychology in London and at the Centre for Depth Psychology in Switzerland. She is a member of the Association of Jungian Analysts and is a training analyst with the Jung Institute in Zürich. She gives many international conferences in USA, Switzerland, UK and Germany, and has written many articles. Her speciality is alchemy and this will permeate some of the material we will discuss in The Red Book seminars. This approach will entwine with the difficult period that we pass through, when materialism seems to have the upper hand. She lives in Foix, South West France. Thus the four Zoom lectures will come from her home in the foothills of the Pyrenees.
Participants will need a copy of The Red Book, the Reader’s Edition, a very reasonably priced copy of the text: about £20. Your local library may have a copy too. Brenda will project the images from The Red Book onto the screen so the group will be able to view them and not need the large facsimile edition.
This series of seminars is not intellectually based, but seeks to go into the depth, the human aspect of the soul in The Red Book – to find what is expected of us in our times. We search, seriously, for what Jung said and experienced whilst working on this marvellous book to bring light on all our experiences. In this respect, we work objectively, rather than from a personalised angle. Closer to the time, when we know the number of participants, Brenda will send out the specific parts of The Red Book that we will study, for those who would like to read and prepare for the seminars.
All seminars are on Saturdays at 16:00 in the UK.
Seminar 1: 30th September 2023 – Beginnings and Jung’s objective: how he searched for the truth beyond the personal.
Seminar 2: 21st October 2023 – The dark part of the journey and the shadow discoveries of the nature of the human soul. How consciousness challenges this.
Seminar 3: 11th November 2023 – How the light comes out of the awareness of the shadow. It leads Jung and it leads us all if we listen to soul whilst reading the Red Book.
Seminar 4: 2nd December 2023 – The unconscious reflects Jung’s achievements and how they instruct us today.
Please note:
This is a series of four seminars. Participants must sign up for all four – we are not offering them on a single seminar basis as together they form an integrated whole. These seminars are limited to 24 attendees, so please sign up early to avoid disappointment. Everyone taking part will have the opportunity to switch on their videos and microphones, and we would encourage everyone taking part to do so, and to contribute where appropriate.