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Cosmos and Psyche - Transforming the Modern World

April 18 - 20, 2008
A workshop with Richard Tarnas

We are living at the end of an era. The old structures of the world are cracking apart, the moment of creative chaos is upon us, and the drama of our time has become a great question: What new principles and organizing structures will emerge to shape our future? Everything is at stake, from the deep ecology of our planetary biosphere to the deep ecology of the human spirit.

Join Richard Tarnas as we explore the nature of this epochal, cultural crisis. Will we live in a disenchanted, mechanistic, purposeless universe as a randomly produced oddity of isolated consciousness, or will we discover our embeddedness and creative participation in a living cosmos of profound, unfolding meaning and purpose? There is a new horizon of possibility that this cosmological perspective opens up at this critical moment in our quest to co-create the future, providing a larger context for both understanding and action.

Click here to download the Workshop Registration Form [PDF, 31KB]

Drawing on the insights of Jung and others, we will explore the evolution of the modern world view and the forging of the modern self, which have affected everything from contemporary religion and psychotherapy to US foreign policy and the global ecological crisis.

Developments in many fields, from depth psychology to the philosophy of science, now oblige us to recognize that cosmos and psyche are deeply intertwined. Our understand­ing of the universe affects every aspect of our interior life from our highest spiritual convictions to our most intimate daily experience. Conversely, the deep dispositions of our interior life fully permeate and configure our understanding of the entire cosmos.

Tarnas' prize winning Cosmos and Psyche, published in 2006, challenges the mechanistic assumptions of the modern, alienated world view and points towards a profound new understanding of the human role in the cosmos. Based on thirty years of research, the new book sets out a remarkable body of evidence that suggests the existence of a systematic correspondence between astrological planetary movements and the archetypal patterns of human experience described in depth psychology. Tarnas' research includes the biographies of hundreds of prominent cultural figures, as well as the dynamics of the collective psyche evident in major historical events and cultural epochs.

The archetypal correlations revealed in Tarnas' research, combined with the insights of depth psychology, shed new light on the deep intertwining of individual human psyches and the unfolding drama of history.

Fri, April 18, 7pm - 9pm:
At the Threshold of a New World View

Sat, April 19, 9.30am - 5.00pm:
Jung, Cosmology, and the Transformation of the Modern Self

Sun, April 20, 9.30am - 4.00pm:
Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World

Richard Tarnas is a professor of philosophy and cultural history at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he founded the graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. He teaches archetypal studies and depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara. He is a graduate of Harvard University (BA cum laude) and Saybrook Institute (PhD). From 1974 to 1984 he was director of programs and education at North America's pre-eminent growth centre, Esalen Institute, where he collaborated with Stan Grof MD, developer of Holotropic Breathwork. He is the author of The Passion of the Western Mind, a history of the Western world view from the ancient Greek to the postmodern, that became a best seller and a required text in many universities. His most recent book, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, received the Book of the Year Prize from the Scientific and Medical Network in England.

Location:

Starlight Room, Primrose Hotel
111 Carlton St (at Jarvis), downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Special workshop room rate $99

Cost:

Early Bird (prior to Jan 31) $199
Full workshop, April 18 - 20 $250
Fri eve lecture, 7pm - 9pm, followed by book signing $25
Sat workshop, 9:30am - 5:00pm $125
Sun workshop, 9:30am - 4:00pm $125
Students with ID 20% discount

Click here to download the Registration Form [PDF, 31KB]

Website Links:

Friday, April 18, 7.00 pm to 9.00 pm: lecture followed by book signing
At the Threshold of a New World View

 

We are living at the end of an era. The old structures of the world are cracking apart, the moment of creative chaos is upon us, and the drama of our time has become a great question: What new principles, what new structures—social, political, economic, intellectual, psychological, spiritual —will emerge to shape our future? Everything is at stake, from the deep ecology of our planetary biosphere to the deep ecology of the human spirit.

This drama is taking place within an invisible but powerful context that has been fundamentally shaped by our cosmology, understood in the broadest sense. For a culture's cosmology is the encompassing framework, the metastructure of meaning, by which everything else is defined. The limits of our cosmological imagination define the limits of our existence. Will we live in a disenchanted, mechanistic, purposeless universe as a randomly produced oddity of isolated consciousness, or will we discover our embeddedness and creative participation in a living cosmos of profound unfolding meaning and purpose? World views create worlds: Our response to these questions will have enduring consequences.

Join Richard Tarnas this evening as we seek insights that might illuminate this challenging moment in our history, and provide a larger context for both understanding and action.

 

Saturday, April 19, 9.30 am to 5.00 pm: workshop
Jung, Cosmology, and the Transformation of the Modern Self

The modern mind has long assumed that there are few things more categorically distant from each other than “cosmos” and “psyche.” What could be more outer than cosmos? What more inner than psyche? Are they not informed by fundamentally different kinds of principles, the one objective, the other subjective?

But developments in many fields, from depth psychology to philosophy of science, now oblige us to recognize that cosmos and psyche are in fact deeply intertwined. Our understand­ing of the universe affects every aspect of our interior life from our highest spiritual convictions to our most intimate daily experience. Conversely, the deep dispositions of our interior life fully permeate and configure our understanding of the entire cosmos.

Drawing on the insights of Jung and others, we will explore the evolution of the modern world view and the forging of the modern self, which have affected everything from contemporary religion and psychotherapy to U.S. foreign policy and the global ecological crisis. In pursuing this analysis, we will address three overlapping topics: the nature of archetypes as that concept has evolved from Plato to Jung and beyond; Jung's concept of synchronicity, which challenged the disenchanted world view and became a major focus of his own psychospiritual practice; and the categories of "masculine" and "feminine," taking into account the more complex nature of those terms and of the human psyche than the simple classical polarity suggested.

Sunday, April 20, 9.30 am to 4.00 pm: workshop
Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View

In 1991, Richard Tarnas published The Passion of the Western Mind, regarded by many scholars such as Joseph Campbell and Huston Smith as one of the finest histories of Western thought ever written. What most of its readers did not know was that this work was written as a preparatory foundation for a second book containing a more revolutionary perspective. Cosmos and Psyche, published this past year and recipient of the Book of the Year Prize from the Scientific and Medical Network in England, challenges the basic assumptions of the modern world view and points towards a profound new understanding of the human role in the cosmos. Based on thirty years of research, the new book sets out a remarkable body of evidence that suggests the existence of a systematic correspondence between planetary movements and the archetypal patterns of human experience.

This research began at Esalen Institute in 1976, when Tarnas and Stanislav Grof, then Esalen's scholar-in-residence, discovered to their astonishment a consistent correlation between the timing of major psychological transformations and planetary transits to individuals' natal charts. In subsequent years, Tarnas expanded the compass of the research to include the biographies of hundreds of prominent cultural figures, as well as the dynamics of the collective psyche evident in major historical events and cultural epochs.

Join Richard Tarnas in this all-day seminar to explore the nature of this evidence, the new light it sheds on the human psyche and the unfolding drama of history, and the new horizon of possibility this cosmological perspective opens up at this critical moment in our quest to co-create the future. The afternoon presentation will include illustrations from representative works of art, particularly music, to provide a more profound experience of the archetypal meanings relevant to the planetary correlations.

Recommended reading:

Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View (Viking, 2006; Plume Paperback, 2007).

AttachmentDateSize
[file] April 2008 Conference Registration Form
RICHARD TARNAS WORKSHOP IN TORONTO April 18, 19, 20, 2008 Primrose Hotel (Carlton & Jarvis), downtown Toronto WORKSHOP REGISTRATION FORM
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