Class Structure and Format

The reading packages will be usually 25 to 30 photocopied pages. I will try to provide some study guidelines to focus your reading. There will be music mixes given to elucidate various themes, and you will be asked to make a mix of your own.

The class structure will be a 2hr lecture /question/discussion period, a small break, and then it’s time for something completely different. We will utilize DVD’s, for example, that will present the material in a different format (e.g. DVD’s on Jung, Zizek, transpersonal psychology) as well as more entertaining DVD’s, such as HEP rock’n’roll classics and avant guarde beat poets performing. These are more in the line of consciousness development – they come from a HEP place in philosophy and culture and evoke consciousness expansion by their nature as art. I will try and keep these to around 1hr so that we have time for some discussion and reflection.

The learning on a cognitive level is via reading, listening, reflecting, discussing, and reflecting some more. On a more complex level, this is an immersion experience that goes beyond discursive learning. The class format involves a lot of questioning and discussion. There are, however, concrete learning goals, for example re specific language and ideas that are part of the HEP tradition philosophical and cultural background.

A particular goal of this course is to expand your thinking, ideas and language in a way that will enable you to converse with each other, and with other professionals in the field, as well as enable you to begin to read more extensively and write with some reference to tradition in these fields. We will also focus this as consciousness development through the arts - literature, poetry, music and visual art, (including beginning to compile your own resource base), class storytelling, and poetry composition.