Thursday Lectures
THURSDAY LECTURES 2009-10
Lectures take place on the third Thursday of most months at the Essex Church, 112 Palace Gardens Terrace, London W8 4RT at 7.30pm.
It is not necessary to book in advance for these lectures. Admission payable at the door £10 (£8 concessions).
The lectures are followed by discussion and sometimes by refreshments. Hover on speaker's name to get biographical details.
Plan your journey here (Nearest Tube Station: Notting Hill Gate): 
September 17
Jungian Literature and Ecology
SUSAN ROWLAND
Jung’s pioneering work with the unconscious leads to ideas such as the psychoid, the point where psyche and body/nature meet, and also to synchronicity that suggests in his words ‘acts of creation in time’. Such profound insights also anticipate many ideas in modern ecology with its founding principle that ‘everything is connected to everything else’. This precept embodies the realisation of quantum science that the observer affects what is observed. Jung was aware of how his work offered a deep dimension to such changes in world time. With reference to literature, Susan’s talk will explore some of the possibilities of Jungian thought in an era of ecological anxiety.
October 15
The Question of Conscience
JULIAN DAVID
The only theory of ethics current in our culture is that of the super-ego, the voice of the father internalised in the psyche and able to make us feel intolerably guilty if we go against it. For Jung, the sense of right and wrong is not the product of social conditioning, but an instinctual sense of what matters. It is identical, therefore, with the feeling function, and grows as that grows.
November 5
J M Coetzee: Narrative & Redemption
ARLENE TEPASKE LANDAU
This talk is based on the story of his gardener by the South African writer, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003, which fascinated Arlene. She will show us how the heartbreaking narrative reveals subtle redemption. The novelist conveys with remarkable imagination the agony of the disenfranchised and an inner sense of integrity that this character achieves or discovers.
This is a joint event with the Guild of Pastoral Psychology.
November 19
God is a Trauma: Monotheism and the Ultimate Metaphor
MARIOLINA GRAZIOSI
This talk will explore the relationship between monotheism, trauma and the process of soul making drawing on Greg Mogenson’s book and James Hillman’s helpful insights about polytheism. Mariolina will consider Mogenson’s contention that God’s image has become a clamp, a dominant metaphor that prevents the formation of other metaphors whenever a deep experience is involved.
January 21
On Rumi
DARIANE PICTET
“The polishing of the heart” is the Sufi mystic poet Rumi’s phrase for the processes that ground the ego and prepare it to open to the infinitely expanded dimensions of Self and divine love.
http://www.dariane.net/dariane/Home.html
February 18
Eckhart and Jung: The Godhead and the Nature of Souls
KEVIN POLLEY
In Psychological Types (1921), Jung remarks: “For Eckhart, God is a psychological or, to be more accurate, a psychodynamic state.” Through a reading of Jung’s remark on the relativity of the God concept in Meister Eckhart, as explored in Chapter 5 of Psychological Types, we will seek to understand what Jung meant by this remark. This will lead us to a consideration of Eckhart’s meditation on the nature of the soul and Jung’s remarks on what he calls the soul image of the Self.
March 18
Programme change, Anne Maguire's lecture is now on 16 Sept
Art and Psyche
PETER AMMANN
Club lecture will be given by Peter Ammann, about Fellini's dream book. Federico Fellini's imaginative exuberance powered many memorable films. He also spent some years in a Jungian analysis with Bernhard in Rome, and recorded dreams in a book which he illustrated. Peter Ammann, a Jungian analyst in Switzerland, was the director's assistant at one time in Rome. He will discuss aspects of Fellini's achievements and has offered to show photographs of Fellini's dreams. This should be a fascinating evening.
April 15
Themis and Right Order: Exploring the Balance of Justice
ANN SHEARER
Ann has written a book on the subject of Themis, and is continuing to explore this fascinating vein of thought and insight and reimagining.
May 20
Witchcraft in Ancient Mesopotamia
DANIEL SCHWEMER
Assyrian and Babylonian healers and exorcists regarded witchcraft as one of the three basic causes of illness, whose symptoms and general seriousness demanded a counter-intuitive, out of the ordinary (yet culturally acceptable) diagnosis. This talk will give a general introduction and discuss the proceedings of the most extensive Babylonian anti-witchcraft ritual that involved numerous ritual actions and recitation of almost a hundred incantations
June 17
Fairy Tales and Marie Louise von Franz
CHUCK SCHWARTZ
Fairy tales are the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes. The meaning of the fairy tale is contained in the totality of its motifs connected by the thread of the story, and our understanding depends on the feelings they provoke. Chuck will talk about his memories of working with Dr von Franz and applying her insights concerning fairy tales into his life and work.
July 8
Divinity, Tragedy, Violence
LEON FEBRES-CORDERO
What is the force that gives tragedy necessity, continuity and validity in man’s life as opposed to its utter absence in the listless life of beasts and other hostages of nature? Divinity and Violence certainly play salient roles in Tragedy, but without the passionate intercession of the generation of men we would certainly have none. We are Tragedy’s protected species. Note: This date is the second Thursday of the month.
September 16
Memories of Marie Louise von Franz
ANNE MAGUIRE
This year the club looks again at the legacy of Marie-Louise von Franz and considers her books in greater depth. Dr Maguire knew Marie-Louise von Franz well, and was naughty enough to offer forbidden chocolates to her dog, Nibby. She will share some of her memories with us. Kinko Sayama is offering a series of reading groups throughout the year based on some of Dr von Franz’s books.