Seminar 1: Fall 2022
12 Mondays: 6:00 – 7:30 pm EST
September 19 – December 12 (excluding September 26)
Instructor: Royce Froehlich, PhD, MDiv, LCSW
“The main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous.”—C.G. Jung
“It doesn’t take long for the experience of the numinous to unhinge the mind.”—Umberto Eco
According to C.G. Jung, “Religion is a careful and scrupulous observation of the numinosum, a dynamic agency or effect not caused by an arbitrary act of will.” This seminar will engage Jung’s method of psychoanalytic treatment, which attends to the numinous and a religious nature that can be cultivated through spiritual practices or spontaneously arise in response to one’s life experiences.
From a deep well of Judeo-Christian scholarship and a point of view that finds an innate attitude of religiosity in the human psyche (homo religiosus), Jung was a master of seeing common ground among the major religions of the world. He was able to craft a psychologically oriented language suitable for contemporary readers to learn from and wrestle with in relation to their own imago dei, their personal God-image.
On the collective level, social concerns that affect the religious spirit of the time are underscored by Jung as he points his readers toward “the way of what is to come” after we learn from Nietzsche that “God is dead.” This course will draw from the long trajectory of Jung’s writings on the clinical function of the religious nature of the human psyche, East and West, in the Collected Works, his recently published lectures on yoga and meditation, as well as the work of individuals who influenced Jung’s thought—and some who help us better understand his thinking.
Learning Objectives
By attending this course, participants will be able to:
- Describe how the social milieu of Jung’s early life informed what became his theoretical understanding of the development of the personality;
- Assess Jung’s contribution to the understanding of the human psyche and its value for clinical treatment;
- Discuss the transpersonal dimension of religious practices;
- Describe Eastern and Western religious symbol-systems and integrate some key concepts in Jung’s work within a context of cross-cultural understanding;
- Cite the relevance of religious practice, as understood by C.G. Jung, in everyday life;
- Apply theoretical principles of Analytical Psychology for reflection upon their own imago dei.
Individual Class Objectives
Class 1
To introduce the predominant theme of the course: the clinical value of addressing the religious nature of the human psyche.
Class 2
To introduce the “meditation complex” (Odajnyk); it’s use and misuse.
Class 3
To learn psychotherapeutic techniques from an ancient Taoist text.
Class 4
To establish a framework for understanding the unitary nature of polarity (yin-yang).
Class 5
To see the archetypal nature of the trinitarian Godhead and it’s psychological function.
Class 6
To find the symbolic richness behind the celebration of the eucharist.
Class 7
To introduce Gnosis and its importance to Jung’s understanding of human nature.
Class 8
To introduce Jung’s wrestling with ‘God is dead’ theology as it stems from Nietzsche.
Class 9
To raise a discussion around the subject of ‘Jung and anti-Semitism’.
Class 10
To further develop a Jungian understanding of the values of yoga and meditation.
Class 11
To find parallels between Buddhist and Jungian notions of psychological liberation.
Class 12
To weave a meaningful thread through Tibetan Buddhism, Jung, and the Beatles.
