Events

Public Programs in Depth Psychology 2013

 

Thursday, April 11, 2013: A Thursday Conference

Join us to hear Dr. Tom Cheetham explore the links between Spirituality and Psychology, in conversation with Dr. Michael Lerner of Commonweal

Thomas Cheetham, PhD, A Thursday Conference Exploring the Spiritual Imagination in the Work of Henri Corbin, C. G. Jung and James Hillman

Thursday, April 11, 2013, 9 am - 6 pm Sonoma State University 9 am - 6 pm (Refreshments provided, with lunch on your own 12 – 2 pm) WE'RE SORRY, CONFERENCE REGISTRATION IS CLOSED. WE ARE AT FULL ROOM CAPACITY. Doors open at 8:30 a.m. $30 6 hours CE for therapists (BBSE); CE registration at the door $5 daily parking. Lot J, E and F recommended; Lot D is closed. $8 parking fee in Lot A (download campus map)

Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was a visionary Protestant theologian and a ground-breaking scholar and translator of Islamic mysticism. His understanding of the Imagination as the fundamental creative principle in the world is urgently needed in our pluralistic and interconnected global society. Corbin taught in Paris and Tehran and lectured annually at the Eranos Conferences from 1949 to 1978. He was a friend and colleague of C.G. Jung and shared his view of the significance of the active imagination in human life as well as his profound grasp of the importance of alchemy for religious psychology.

Corbin's works have had a lasting impact on a wide variety of scholars of religion, visionary thinkers and artists. James Hillman ranked Corbin, Freud and Jung together as the foundational figures in the development of archetypal psychology. Corbin's great book Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi is a classic initiatory text of visionary spirituality that transcends the tragic divisions among the great monotheisms. His life was devoted to the struggle to liberate the religious imagination from fundamentalisms of every kind. His work marks a watershed in our understanding of religious diversity and makes a profound contribution to psychology, spirituality and liberal theology in the contemporary world.

Dr. Cheetham will present on Corbin's work and the links with Jungian psychology, and have a conversation with Dr. Michael Lerner on aspects of this topic.

 

Tom Cheetham, Ph.D, holds degrees in philosophy and biology. He is the author of four books on Henry Corbin and the implications of his work for our understanding of ourselves and the world. The most recent is All the World an Icon: Henry Corbin and the Angelic Function of Beings. He compiled the Bibliography of Archetypal Psychology for James Hillman's Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account and is editing On Melancholy, a collection of Hillman's seminars on the meaning of depression in modern society. He has lectured extensively on Corbin's work in Europe and the US. He and his wife have two grown children and live in rural Maine.

Michael Lerner, Ph.D, is president and co-founder of Commonweal in Bolinas, California, whose internationally recogized programs, with their focus on healing and resilience, address health, environmental, educational and justice issues worldwide. The recipient of a McArthur Prize Fellowship for his contributions to public health, Lerner is president of the Jennifer Altman Foundation and the Barbara Smith Fund; co-founder and chair of Smith Center for Healing and the Arts in Washington, D.C.; past chair of the Consultative Group on Biodiversity; co-founder and chair emeritus of the Health and Environmental Funders Network; and serves on the boards of Global Greengrants in Boulder and the Wildflowers Institute in San Francisco. He is the author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Approaches to Cancer.

Commonweal's signature programs include the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, an internationally recognized support program for cancer patients, depicted in the documentary, Wounded Healers, part of Bill Moyers' prize-winning PBS series, Healing and the Mind; the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness, offering "Healer's Art" programs in 70 medical schools; the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, engaging 4500 partners in 90 countries in environmental health science dialogue; and The New School at Commonweal, offering free live conversations and podcasts with thought leaders of our time.

Susan Thackrey, PhD, Manifesting the Image: C. G. Jung's Paintings in The Red Book

Saturday March 9, 2013, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. Art 108, Sonoma State University Donations accepted Doors open at 9:30 a.m. $30 fee for 3 hours CE for therapists (BBSE); CE registration at the door the morning of the event $8 parking in Lot A next to the Art Building or $5 in Lot E, F, G (download campus map)

This presentation concentrates on the pictorial elements of the Red Book by C.G. Jung; all images are original and by his own hand. While these paintings are some of the most fascinating elements of this book, they are also an extraordinary meditation upon a series of spontaneous visions and dreams that Jung experienced, along with the images that arose from his experiments in active imagination upon himself, starting in 1913. They move with the written contents of the Red Book, and so can provide a way of moving into the sometimes daunting and always dense text.

We will explore their possible meanings as well as their relationship to the Spirit of Jung's own historical Times, including the artistic and innovative movements of early modernism. There will be time for audience questions and comments.

Susan Thackrey, Ph.D., is a member and teaching analyst in the C.G. Jung
Institute of San Francisco, and is a widely published poet. Her recent essay, Manifesting the Vision: C.G. Jung's Paintings for the Red Boo, will be published in Routledge's book of essays from The International Red Book Conference held by the C.G. Jung Institute in 2010. She is a founder and was the active owner of the Thackrey and Robertson Gallery in San Francisco for many years. She is the author of Empty Gate; George Oppen: A Radical Practice; and Andalusia (in press).