Jung Society Melbourne Podcast

Chronic Fatigue is a complex, acquired condition whose cause is a topic of muchresearch and debate. The severity of symptoms vary, however, around a quarter ofpeople are unable to leave their home due to the multi-system impacts of ChronicFatigue. In this lecture, Robert shares examples of how Embodied Imagination canbe used to dream the dream onwards. By extending dreams into waking life, hispati...

The Enclosed Garden is one of the oldest expressions of civilization, and possessesa long and direct relationship to symbolism and mythology. Such a garden creates afertile place of verdant abundance, a haven of peace and quiet, shade and water,order and pleasure and a retreat from a hostile, threatening and chaotic wilderness. The world beyond the wall is boundless, expansive, universal, timeless...

This talk explores ways to engage in climate change conversations to facilitate conscious change. Sally draws on stories from facilitating in depth discussions in a research group, where participants shared their dreams, imaginings, frustrations, grief, hopes, fears and inspirations in relation to climate change. This process enabled participants to reflect on their changing personal and collectiv...

This lecture discusses the loss of feminine representation, including in the changing myths and religious stories, and its impact on society. It explores challenges for women when they feel alienated from their instinctive femininity and for men when they are only able to connect with their femininity in private. There is a strong call to re-personify the feminine values, for all genders, through...

This lecture discusses electronic gambling machines known as “pokies” in Australia, “slot machines” in the United States of America and “fruit machines” in the United Kingdom. It explores their use of symbols, how players may be entranced by the promise of spiritual connection and let down by the lack of revelation. Regulations surrounding electronic gambling machines vary greatly around the world...

This lecture explores the alchemical union of opposites through the symbolism of bees including love and war, sweetness and bitterness, the individual and multiplicity, regeneration and death. Circumambulating the hive is linked with mandala symbolism and the archetype of inner order.

Dionysus the Forgotten God discusses myths of the complex and fragile God, Dionysus - born of both parents and a third time reborn of the underworld. Both the last Olympian and the first to be cast out. Where the qualities of his brother Apollo fit more easily into a patriarchal framework, the qualities of Dionysus as, the sensuous god, are often rejected in the Western world. Music credit: https:...

Illness, Symptom & Individuation approaches the process of integration and healing through experiences of illness and trauma in the life of the body. Mary shares a personal experience of serious, prolonged illness that evaded medical diagnosis for some time. This experience led to an intense period of change where symbolism of the inner world mirrored her experience in the outer world, and led...

With a focus on the big questions of the human condition – cycles of birth and death, destiny and free will, suffering and the life journey - Maureen weaves her way through ancient rituals in honour of the earth mother and Goddesses with many names, to the rise of the patriarchal era, including the Greek tragedian plays. These plays incorporated the sacred mysteries and fundamental questions, now...

In today’s talk, Mary works with Zen Buddhist 10 Oxherding Pictures and accompanying poetry to establish a way of ‘being with’ the unconscious. These ancient pictures reflect stages an individual might progress to toward enlightenment and a return to the outer world to gift their insight and care back to the community. These images are accessible on the internet.  Mary notes how attention to our d...

In today’s talk Annette takes us through a rich array of voices and works that speak to the question of the definitions, potential origins and purpose of the mystical experience and religion. Ranging from perspectives in sociology, neuropsychology, myth, Jung, art and sociobiology, we consider the marked differences between religious and mystical experiences and how surprisingly common the latter...

Exploring the many manifestations of mother in our psyche from the Great Mother to the personal mother, the mother complex to the inner mother, Margaret draws our attention to one of the fundamental qualities of the maternal. In this talk, a rich description is provided around the ways that Mother encapsulates a primordial oneness and mystery. The invitation is to consider how we mother the unknow...

Beginning and ending with personal stories of his experience with depression, Peter guides us through two very different conceptualisations: A modern psychological approach that focuses on getting through depression or depression as somewhat of a curse, and a Jungian imaginative approach that takes note of the generative qualities of ‘transformational’ depression. With authenticity, experiential a...

In this meaningful talk, Reverend Curran points to the way that imagination enables us to step outside of ourselves and look at ourselves fully. With imagination we can take what we have experienced directly, what resides in our memory and what we haven’t experienced, and work with these to produce not only images & possibilities but also changes in our embodied and psychological experiencing....

In today’s talk, internationally respected author and Jungian analyst Robert A Johnson speaks about the practice of active imagination, a practice that for C. G. Jung was just as important as working with dreams. With the inclusion of evocative and practical examples, Robert describes the four steps involved in active imagination toward psychological dialogue, integration and balance.   

In today’s talk, psychiatrist and specialist child, adolescent and family psychotherapist, Dr Averil Earnshaw takes us on a journey through her innovative theory about the toxic familial waste that can plague our inner psychological space. She describes how family members can experience ‘age-linked major life events’ noting that experiences that are ‘undigested’, not spoken about or shared in the...

Jungian analyst Helen Phillips presents us with an understanding of envy from a powerful perspective, diving deep into the creative as well as destructive possibilities of envy. Drawing on a Jungian conceptualisation of the development of consciousness toward individuation, we encounter the constellation of a new archetype, coined by Brazilian psychoanalyst Carlos Byington. This Alterity Archetype...

Carl Jung described four different types of consciousness that we all possess. On one axis we have the Thinking and Feeling functions, on another Sensation and Intuition. Individuals and cultures tend to favour one type of consciousness at the expense of another, leaving the complimentary function in the shadows. In this talk, Robert explores our Western, English speaking world’s Grail Myth , as a...

Dr Peter O’Connor, a retired psychologist with an abiding interest in Jungian Depth Psychology, speaks about the “human fragility and human failure” experienced at the heart of the mid-life crisis. He describes how the first half of life involves a pursuit of the qualities traditionally associated with the sex of one’s birth but that in mid-life, those qualities of wholeness that were sacrificed,...

In this wonderful talk, Joan Harcourt brings the wisdom of Marion Woodman, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Jane Prétat as well as her own life experience and work with older women’s groups to the powerful image of the Crone. Once a source of respect, healing and wisdom, with the rise of patriarchy the image of the Crone was diminished and demonised. However, as Joan says, the word ‘Crone’ is derived from Coro...

With reference to Homer, Hesiod and the Orphics, Dr Chris Gribbin provides a rich exploration of two versions of death and the afterlife in Ancient Greece. Myth captures so much of what humanity understood then and understands now, of how we make sense of the world and each other. Chris conveys how the ancient Greeks did not have a codified system of beliefs and that for many, the ritual act of sa...

Today we explore the wonderful Adventures of Pinoc chio with Jungian oriented psychotherapist Anne Di Lauro. Anne invites us to consider the powerful archetypal energies and images present within the story including the Child and the Puer Aeternus, the Hero’s Journey, the Father, the Anima and the Mother. This talk provides fascinating insights into the developmental experiences of Pinocchio as he...

Today we’ll be listening to mindfulness therapist Colin Thompson as he takes us on a journey from the origins of Buddhism to modern practice. Ranging from the understandings of the Buddha to Jon Kabat Zinn, W. H. Auden, Ezra Bayda and Carl Jung, Colin describes how mindfulness develops our attention to the present moment. The intersections between Jungian psychology and mindfulness are explored pa...

In today’s talk, David Tacey explores the similarities and differences between spiritual experiences and mental illness. He describes the relationship between our sense of a discrete self, the Ego, and a larger sense of an interconnected spiritual self through the Unconscious. From the mystical experience to psychopathology, David details how the Jungian conception of the psyche provides us with i...

In today’s talk, David draws on his experience as a lecturer and teacher at La Trobe University. He weaves student’s voices throughout revealing a deep yearning for what spirituality represents. He notes how in this generation young adults frequently turn toward their inner world and intuition rather than structured religion as a trustworthy source of guidance and meaning making. The intimate rela...