Upcoming Events

Individuation is a call to wholeness. It is also a call to community. It involves, as Jung put it, “the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology,” which, at the same time, “must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and not to isolation” (CW 6, par. 757-58). Individuation involves numinous experience. In 1945, Jung wrote to a colleague, “The approach to the numinous is the real therapy and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology” (Jung Letters, Vol. 1, p. 377).

The realization of wholeness in relation to oneself, to a diversity of others, and to our shared environment will be presented as inseparable from an experience of the numinous or the Sacred. This is the unus mundus of which Jung spoke and of which we are all a part: human, animal, plant, cell, molecule, electron, quark…. And it is this awareness of this fundamental oneness that is so needed in our fractured lives and in our fractured world.

To assist in this realization, two thinkers will be introduced as they relate to Jung’s psychology. First is the mathematician-physicist-philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, who elucidates relational process as fundamental to all experience. Second is the paleontologist-priest-mystic, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who opens-up an unorthodox spirituality based on an evolution of the soul. Together, these thinkers, along with Jung, take us on a journey toward the healing realization of the deep oneness of self-and-other – would we only awaken to it.

The presentation will include references to studies that provide evidence-based support for the pro-social and pro-environmental effects of the realization of the Sacred as well as the powerful effects of mystical experience on psychotherapy outcomes.

Overall objective:

To raise awareness regarding the philosophical, psychological, scientific, and spiritual bases for the unity that underlies the diversity of experience, in order to motivate openness to the Sacred within oneself, within the diversity of self-and-others, and within the environment we share, for the purpose of finding a responsible path for personal transformation that contributes to the development of others in their uniqueness and to an enriched relationship with the environment.

Learning objectives:

• Participants will be able to articulate Jung’s basic approach to the numinous.
• Participants will be able to define and describe the relevance of Whitehead’s panpsychism.
• Participants will be able to relate experience to Teilhard’s teleological vision of human evolution.
• All three of these objectives will include the articulation of some aspect of each to the healing of self and self-and-other.

Implications for clinical practice

Much of psychotherapy is technique oriented. The most enduring positive psychotherapy outcomes, however, have been repeatedly demonstrated to be tied to the quality of relationship. Relationship, in turn, is most vital when it becomes a vehicle of the numinous or Sacred. The presentation will include considerations of how the numinous might enter into and impact the therapeutic relationship.

GCFJ Film Study Event 

Dream Tending

with Stephen Aizenstat

EVERY ONE OF US DREAMS…EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

Stephen Aizenstat's groundbreaking DreamTending DVD is an invaluable resource. Dr. Aizenstat's innovative and deeply humanistic approach takes viewers deep into the mysteries their own dream life, revealing a vast untapped source of meaning, tenderness, and understanding. This documentary-style film is enhanced by rare on-camera interviews with Robert Johnson, James Hillman, Marion Woodman, and Michael Meade. In addition, it features a wealth of rich, mythic images that illuminate Dr. Aizenstat's compelling narrative. It is a film filled with ideas, nuance, and valuable information -- all of which become revealed more fully with repeated viewing.

 

Dream Tending with Steve Aizenstat. A Film by Russ Spencer

53 min. DVD

First Unitarian Church on Linton Street

526 Linton St. Cincinnati, Ohio 45219

Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00PM

Date: Saturday, April 6th, 2024

*Donations collected at the door 

Call for reservations: 514-324-0570

COME JOIN US FOR THIS EXCITING GCFJ SPRING EVENT!