Course Description

This series focuses on a series of three archetypal dreams richly amplified by motifs from Alchemical, Arthurian, Egyptian, Classical, Celtic, and Nordic mythologies. An illustrated memoir of Dr. Smith’s travels with Joseph Campbell in France, Egypt, and Kenya introduces the sessions.

Learning Objectives

• Interpret the archetypal symbolism of the myths and rituals of a variety of cultural traditions

• Explore Campbell’s approaches to myth, with an emphasis on Jungian depth psychology

• Develop an understanding of the trajectory and influence of Campbell’s career

•

Creative Mythology and Individuation

with dr. evans lansing smith

Live-Video Jungian Psychology Seminar Series

SIX WEDNESDAYS
April 29-JUNE 10, 2026

4-6pm Pacific / 7-9pm Eastern
No class May 27
Live via Zoom
+ Video Recording will be available

*

Course Outline

Session 1 • April 29

Dream #1: The Night-Sea Journey and Individuation: Greek, Irish, and Nordic Mythologies

Travels with Joseph: Megalithic Mysteries and the Grail Romances in Normandy and Brittany

Session 2 • May 6

Creative Mythology 1: Mystery Bowls and the Grail

Session 3 • May 13

Dream #2: Shipwreck and Cannibal Cave: Alchemical, Greek, and Oriental Mythologies

Travels with Joseph: Egyptian Underworlds and African Encounters

Session 4 • May 20

Creative Mythology 2: Troubadours, Minnesänger, Tristan and Isolde

No class May 27

Session 5 • June 3

Dream #3: Joseph Campbell and the Open Eye Foundation

Alchemical motifs from the Rosarium Philosophorum, The Splendor Solis, and Atalanta Fugiens

Session 6 • June 10

Creative Mythology 3: The Secularization of Myth in Modernism

•

Dr. Evans Lansing Smith

Dr. Evans Lansing Smith is Professor of Mythological Studies at the Pacifica Graduate Institute, where he has taught for 20 years, serving as Chair for 10.
He is the recipient of awards for distinguished teaching from Midwestern State University in Texas, and the Pacifica Graduate Institute. His Ph.D. is from The Claremont Graduate School, and his M.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch International, and his B.A. from Williams College. He is the author of three books of poems, two novels, and ten books and numerous articles on comparative literature and mythology. His edited volume of Joseph Campbell’s writings and lectures on the Grail Romances was published in 2015, and his edition of the Selected Correspondence of Joseph Campbell in 2019.

Recommended Reading

The Masks of God: Creative Mythology, Vol.4, New World Library, 2024

The Hero with a Thousand Faces, New World Library, 2008

The Mythic Image, Bollingen Series, Princeton UP, 1975

The Flight of the Wild Gander, Study Guide, ed. Smith (New World Library, 2018

Correspondence: 1927–1987, Ed. Evans Lansing Smith, New World Library, 2019

The Romance of the Grail, Ed. Evans Lansing Smith, New World Library, 2019

The Historical Atlas of World Mythology: Volumes I and II.

In C.G. Jung’s analysis, the modern person’s alienation from their own soul is at the root of many psychological, cultural and ecological problems. An important part of this estrangement has to do with our relationship with the “shadow”, those aspects of the psyche that are repressed and rejected because they seem unacceptable to the conscious personality. When left unexamined, shadow material constellates symptom formation, projection, moral inflation, and collective polarization. When engaged consciously, it can become a vital gateway in the process of individuation.

Through short lectures, guided experiential practices, reflective writing, and dialogical work, participants will engage shadow material as it appears in their lived experience rather than an abstract concept alone. Particular attention is given to working with projection and symbolic material in a way that supports ego–Self relatedness rather than premature integration or spiritual bypassing.  In a supportive and mindful learning environment, participants learn to encounter shadow phenomena with curiosity, discernment, and care in personal, therapeutic and cultural life.

Shadow work supports personal growth and individuation:

· Deepened self-awareness and relational capacity: Through a clearer understanding of personal shadow dynamics, one develops emotional insight, reduced reactivity, and ultimately more authentic, grounded relationships.

· Greater skill in navigating cultural and interpersonal tensions: By recognizing projection and collective shadow processes, one becomes more equipped to engage difference, conflict, and polarization with curiosity, discernment, and maturity.

· A stronger connection to the deeper Self: Through conscious engagement with disowned aspects of the psyche, one can experience a renewed sense of inner coherence, vitality, and alignment with their deeper psychological center.

This 4-week experiential course offers a depth-psychological inquiry into personal and collective dimensions of the shadow, grounded in Jung’s model of the psyche and informed by post-Jungian developments. Participants are invited to explore how shadow dynamics operate intrapsychically and in the field between self and other, as well as within cultural and historical contexts.

Week 1: Intro to the Shadow
Week 2: Shadow in Family and Intimate Relationships
Week 3: Shadow in Professional and Spiritual Environments
Week 4: Shadow in Society and Culture

•

Befriending the Shadow

A Jungian Experiential Inquiry

with Helge Michael Osterhold, PhD

•

4 Thursdays
starting May 14, 2026

4-6pm pacific / 7-9pm eastern
Live via Zoom + Video recording will be available to all guests

•

Sale pricing ends May 4

Dr. Helge Osterhold

Dr. Helge Osterhold is a psychotherapist, purpose guide, and a member of CIIS’ East-West Psychology’s core faculty, where he teaches courses in Jungian Psychology, Archetypal Psychology, Dreamwork, Spiritual Counseling, and the Psychology of Death and Dying. For 10 years, Dr. Osterhold served at the University of California San Francisco, in pediatric palliative care and as an educator and program director on mindful caregiving and clinician resiliency at UCSF Children's Hospital and faculty at UCSF School of Medicine. Originally from Germany, he pursued higher education in California, earning a B.A. in Human Relations, M.A. in Integral Counseling Psychology, and Ph.D. in East-West Psychology. He is a licensed psychotherapist and maintains a depth-oriented private psychotherapy practice with a focus on life transitions. 

Course Description

Once miscast as sinner-“prostitute” and later reborn as saint, goddess, lover, and cosmic witness, Mary Magdalene may be the most restless and shape-shifting figure in Western spiritual history.

This course charts the many afterlives of Mary Magdalene as she metamorphosizes through scripture, legend, art, heresy, and modern spiritual imagination, treating her as an archetypal force unto herself. Though honored as a central figure in the canonical Gospels, she was later misidentified and diminished by Church authority, a distortion that paradoxically opened the door for centuries of mythmaking. Her unusual intimacy with Jesus, the emergence of non-canonical texts such as The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and the mid-twentieth-century discoveries of the Nag Hammadi Library all contributed to alternative visions of the Magdalene: visionary, teacher, priestess, initiatrix, and sacred counterpart.

We will trace how Magdalene lore flowed into medieval Europe, shaping troubadour poetry, Crusader myth, and rumors surrounding the Knights Templar, and how these stories intersected with the violent suppression of the Cathars in southern France. Was Mary Magdalene a cipher for forbidden spiritual knowledge, a vessel for suppressed feminine authority, or a figure through whom older, esoteric Egyptian traditions resurfaced under Christian guise? These questions reverberate into the present, where the Magdalene reappears in psychology, feminist theology, contemporary ritual, and popular culture—reborn again and again as healer, death-guide, queen, and threshold figure.

Structured as an overlapping quartet, these four weeks will explore the following archetypes: Mary the Sinner, Mary the Mother, Mary the Healer, and Mary the Mystic

Rather than seeking to recover a single “true” Magdalene, this course invites participants to dwell in her many incarnations—and to consider why this figure, endlessly dying and rising again, continues to act as a portal for spiritual imagination, renewal, and return."

•

Classes will blend short illustrated lectures, guided discussion, and close-looking and interpretive exercises using artworks, sacred texts, folklore, and modern media. Together, we will examine how different historical moments reshaped Mary Magdalene to mirror their deepest anxieties and longings—and what those projections reveal about the cultures that produced them.

•

Magdalene Metamorphosis:
Mary of Magdala as Shapeshifting
Archetype Across Time

with Teddy hamstra, ph.d.

Live-Video Jungian Psychology Seminar Series

Mondays - July 6-27

4-6pm Pacific / 7-9pm Eastern
Live via Zoom
+ Video Recording will be available

*

Early bird sale pricing ends May 6

Teddy Hamstra, Ph.D.

Dr. Teddy Hamstra is an author and educator based in Austin, Texas. An English Literature & Visual Studies PhD recipient of the University of Southern California, his dissertation was entitled "Enchantment as a Form of Care: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Mysticism." He has published numerous online articles ranging from the fiction of Patricia Lockwood to the cinema of David Lynch to the music of the Mississippi Delta Blues, and is a frequent collaborator with the Back from the Borderline podcast. He works with the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and has taught online courses on mystical and mythological topics from the Eranos Conferences to Mary Magdalene.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course, students will come away with:

• A clear understanding of Mary Magdalene’s historical, mythic, and symbolic transformations

• Tools for reading religious figures as cultural archetypes rather than fixed identities

• Insight into how suppressed or marginal figures carry enduring psycho-spiritual power

• A richer framework for thinking about resurrection, transformation, and the sacred feminine

• Finally, students will be invited to produce a creative final project based upon this archetypal, and metamorphic, approach to Mary Magdalene and their own spiritual histories and journeys.

•

The Dark Goddesses is a four-part descent into the underworld of the feminine psyche, guided by myth, Jungian theory, and depth psychological practice. Through the figures of Persephone, Hecate, Medusa, and Nyx, this series explores the archetypal dimensions of descent, liminality, wound, and shadow. Each class opens a symbolic landscape where the participant encounters the disowned aspects of the feminine—rage, instinct, intuition, and power—long relegated to the unconscious.

Somatic patterns and psychic material are approached as living expressions of these archetypes, revealing how they emerge at thresholds of transformation. The program parallels the process of individuation by cultivating the capacity to remain present within disorientation, to see in the dark, and to reclaim what has been split off. The final integration emphasizes ritual containment, allowing the psyche to metabolize these encounters and return with a deeper, more embodied sense of self.

Each week includes Q+A, reflections, and deepening of the presented content.

Course Schedule:

Week #1 Persephone: descent as passageways into deeper authenticity.

Week #2 Hecate: Crossroads and liminal spaces as necessity for individuation.

Week #3: Medusa: Alchemy and core wounds.

Week #4: Nyx: Shadow of the feminine, the dark mother and the rejection of instinct. 

•

The Dark Goddesses:

Archetypes of Feminine Power, Rage, and Transformation

with Melissa Kim Corter, Ph.D. (ABD)

•

Wednesdays

August 5-26, 2026

4-6pm pacific / 7-9pm eastern
Live via Zoom + Video recording will be available to all guests

•

Melissa Kim Corter

Melissa Kim Corter is a depth psychologist, writer, and shadow work practitioner specializing in the darker dimensions of the psyche. Author of Apothecary for the Afflicted Shadow Work for Invisible Wounds and Esoterica A Shadow Worker's Codex, she explores unconscious patterns through myth, fairy tales, film, and forensic themes. Trained in Jungian shadow work, her work revolves around psychopathy, the dark night of the soul, and the symbolic life of the unconscious. Melissa is a certified medicolegal (death) investigator and received her PhD in depth psychology and Jungian archetypal studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)

Born in 1875 in Basel, Switerzland, C. G. Jung was a medical doctor and psychiatrist who, along with Freud, opened up our research into the nature of the human unconscious and founded psychotherapy. Their work led to the modern re-popularization of interest in dreams and archetypes.

Jung gave us the psychological type categories that led to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and coined the terms introvert and extravert.  He also coined the terms synchronicity (and his writing on that topic is the main reason for its continued popularity in our culture today) and collective unconscious – giving us a term for the deeper layer of the psyche that transcends the personal.

Jungian psychology is a larger on-going tradition rooted in psychotherapeutic approaches to the unconscious.

JUNGIAN FUNDAMENTALS SERIES:

•

Overview of Jungian Psychology

WEEKLY TOPICS:

1. Jung’s attitude to psychotherapy. The ego; the unconscious and its levels; the archetypes

2. The archetypes continued; archetypal motifs in myth and folklore

3. The archetype of liminality and initiation; archetypal structures in the psyche; the shadow; anima and animus

4. Complexes; puer-puella; the divine child; the trickster; the wise old man

5. The symbol; individuation; Jung on myth

6. The Self; Jung on religion; dreams and active imagination

7. Jung on alchemy

8. Jung’s typology; the Freud-Jung break

Video Seminar Series:

7 Sessions
10+ Hours

with author and Jungian Analyst
dr. lionel corbett

Dr. Lionel Corbett trained in medicine and psychiatry in England and as a Jungian Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. Dr. Corbett is a professor of depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California, where he teaches depth psychology.

The late Dr. Lionel Corbett trained in medicine and psychiatry in England and as a Jungian Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. Dr. Corbett was a professor of depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California, where he taught depth psychology.

He was the author of numerous professional papers and six books: Psyche and the Sacred; The Religious Function of the Psyche; The Sacred Cauldron: Psychotherapy as a spiritual practice; The Soul in Anguish: Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Suffering, and Understanding Evil: A Guide for Psychotherapists and his latest: The God-image: From Antiquity to Jung. He was the co-editor of four volumes of collected papers: Psyche’s Stories; Depth Psychology, Meditations in the Field; Psychology at the Threshold;  Jung and Aging.

Dreams speak to us at night and shed light on what we miss and can’t see during the day. In the morning, its language escapes us and so often we lose the thread that was so clear the night before, we forget. Although elusive and enigmatic, if you learn to listen you will find that, dreams speak of what is kept most secret and intimate about who we are. In working with the unconscious, we come to find that dreams are the royal road to soul.

Video One: INTRODUCTION TO C.G. JUNG’S APPROACH TO DREAMS

This session introduces C.G. Jung’s approach toward analyzing dreams and explores their compensatory function in our psyche.

1. Dreams and their function in the psyche

2. From subjective to collective: Types of dreams

3. Connecting the dots: Dream analysis through associations

4. Getting a wake-up call: Meaning of nightmares

*

•

The Symbolic Language of Dreams

VIDEO SERIES

•

2 Videos + Bonus Material
4 hrs

•

In this 2-part course we look at C. G. Jung’s way of working with dreams and some of his approach to their symbolic language. We consider how one can cultivate a dream practice and come to gain some insight into one’s unconscious. We’ll try to get a grasp at what it’s like to honour and interpret a dream.

•

Video One: INTRODUCTION TO C.G. JUNG’S APPROACH TO DREAMS

*

Short bonus video - How to enter the dream setting.

*

Video Two: DREAM INTERPRETATION

•

Receive immediate access to this course with your purchase below.

•

david pressault, Iaap

David Pressault is a Jungian analyst with a strong background in the Arts. He has a Masters in dance from UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) and was a professional dancer and choreographer for 20 years. He developed a relationship to the unconscious through that art form. Today, he works in private practice and is a faculty member of the Ontario Association of Jungian Analysts.

*

Video Two: DREAM INTERPRETATION

The second session looks at the nature of dream symbols and reflects on the significance of recurring dreams and how to identifying the most common dream themes.

1. Missing the message: The meaning of recurring dreams

2. Dream interpretation: The art of asking questions

3. Layers of meaning: Working with symbols and dream images

4. Analyzing common dream themes

*

This lecture series will contrast Jung’s notion of the Self, which he refers to as the God within, with traditional theistic approaches to the divine.

Dr. Corbett will illustrate the range of ways in which the Self may appear within the psyche. We will look at the ways in which Jung’s approach avoids the philosophical problems associated with the idea of God found in the Judeo-Christian tradition and allows for the development of a personal spirituality rather than one based on doctrine and dogma.

Dr. Corbett will contrast Jung's approach to the Self with the Atman of the Upanishadic tradition. We will consider Jung’s notion of the dark side of the Self – as illustrated in his Answer to Job – and the arguments with theologians this book produced.

Throughout the course, participants are invited to reflect upon their personal experiences of the Self.

“Jung’s approach gives us a personal connection that does not require a Bible or a religious hierarchy. It frees us from being told what to believe, and it frees us from notions such as the idea that we are intrinsically sinful creatures. We no longer have to believe that some people are specially chosen or saved . . . We don’t need the tribalism and hostility that religions have fostered. We don’t need to be bound to the belief systems that began in the Bronze Age or in the early 4th century. We have a different consciousness than those people; we need a [different] spirituality.”*

– Lionel Corbett

Session One: Jung’s Approach to Spirituality

Session Two: The God Within

Session Three: The Projection of the Self

Session Four: The Dark Side of the Self

Session Five: Criticisms of Jung’s Approach

Session Six: Experiences of the Self

•

The God-Image and the Self: From Antiquity to Jung

with Acclaimed Author
and Jungian Analyst Dr. Lionel Corbett

VIDEO SEMINAR SERIES

6 Sessions / 8+ Hours

•

• All pricing in US dollars.

with acclaimed author
and Jungian Analyst
dr. lionel corbett

The late Dr. Lionel Corbett trained in medicine and psychiatry in England and as a Jungian Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. Dr. Corbett was a professor of depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

He was the author of numerous professional papers and six books: Psyche and the Sacred; The Religious Function of the Psyche; The Sacred Cauldron: Psychotherapy as a spiritual practice; The Soul in Anguish: Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Suffering, and Understanding Evil: A Guide for Psychotherapists and his latest: The God-image: From Antiquity to Jung. He was the co-editor of four volumes of collected papers: Psyche’s Stories; Depth Psychology, Meditations in the Field; Psychology at the Threshold;  Jung and Aging.

His video course offerings will remain available on our site in perpetuity:
Overview of Jungian Psychology - Available now free newsletter subscribers
A Depth Psychological Approach to the Bible - Coming Soon!
The Question of Evil - Coming Soon!

We herald the return of the feminine as the antidote to balance what has been damaged in the West by too much masculine. In modern men and women, the hero’s quest has dominated our consciousness and the maiden’s quest has been largely ignored. That being said, anything that has been denied, repressed, or disavowed, rarely returns intact. A feral animal is infinitely more dangerous than a wild or tame beast. Let us not be naïve. When She returns, her rage and her wrath must be calibrated with consciousness.

Join Jungian analyst and Keeper of the Stories, Muriel McMahon as we explore the archetype of the Crone. Figured as ‘Baba Yaga’ in Slavic tales, and deformed into a ‘Witch’ in more Eurocentric tales, this ambiguous figure of the feminine at the crossroads must be understood or else we be devoured by her. We must learn how to look her in the face, tend to her wounds, and remind her and us that the feminine in women and in men is a fierce energy that is rightly both feared and revered.

•

Through a Jungian archetypal lens, we will address the following:

1. Acquaint ourselves with Jung’s essays: The Dissociability of the Psyche (CW8~365) and The Psychological Foundation for a Belief in Spirits (CW8~570).

2. Learn and practice a formula for Archetypal Fairy Tale Analysis

3. Discover an orientation to the archetypal figure of Baba Yaga

4. Recognize the distortion of the wise woman in our western culture

5. Prepare consciously for the re-emergence of the feminine in both men and women

Session One

‘Kissing the Witch’ and ‘Mother Holle’

Session Two

‘The Witches’ Excursion’ and ‘La Loba’

•

VIDEO SEMINAR

2 Sessions / 4 Hours

+ Available for immediate purchase and viewing

 In this TwO Seminar series we will
collect the bones of the old woman,
and sing them back to life

with Jungian Analyst
Muriel McMahon

Muriel McMahon, M. Ed., is a Zurich-trained Jungian analyst who leads an international weekly fairy tale seminar. Trained extensively in indigenous wisdom traditions, Muriel is a Keeper of Stories. She formerly served as chair of the Fairy Tale Certification program with The Assisi Institute, a training analyst and faculty member of the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich, the managing editor of the Assisi Journal, and the director of studies for The Assisi Institute’s Archetypal Pattern Analyst program. Based in Canada, she has a busy online international praxis and has offered workshops and teachings in Russia, Zurich, Colombia, France, United States, and Canada. Muriel has a passion for story and the ways in which our wounds and our wonders are expressed in the enduring narrative of our lives.

www.murielmcmahon.com

This course will discuss some of the psychological processes that underpin various biblical stories. The course is based on Jung’s ideas that “religious statements are psychic confessions” (CW11, para. 555), and “statements made in the Holy Scriptures are also utterances of the soul” (ibid., para. 557). The course will show that some biblical and theological ideas arise from human psychodynamics, often of a narcissistic type, while some originate in the archetypal level of the psyche.

Religious experiences and the theology to which they give rise are products of the psyche. They do not need to be seen as emanating from a metaphysical deity in a transcendent realm. The experience of transcendent reality reported by characters in biblical stories is the result of contact with non-ego, archetypal or transpersonal levels of the psyche, which is the actual source of sacred experience.

•

A Depth psychological Approach
ato the Interpretation of

The Bible

and the Religious Traditions
that Arose from It

VIDEO SEMINAR SERIES

with dr. lionel corbett

•

6 Sessions
6+ Hours

Dr. Lionel Corbett

The late Dr. Lionel Corbett trained in medicine and psychiatry in England and as a Jungian Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. Dr. Corbett was a professor of depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

He was the author of numerous professional papers and six books: Psyche and the Sacred; The Religious Function of the Psyche; The Sacred Cauldron: Psychotherapy as a spiritual practice; The Soul in Anguish: Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Suffering, and Understanding Evil: A Guide for Psychotherapists and his latest: The God-image: From Antiquity to Jung. He was the co-editor of four volumes of collected papers: Psyche’s Stories; Depth Psychology, Meditations in the Field; Psychology at the Threshold;  Jung and Aging.

One way in which depth psychology can contribute to collective transformation in the 21st century is by helping us to move beyond the disenchanted worldview. This disenchantment arose out of our cultural monomyth of rational science being redemptive, which began with the Enlightenment.  With this in mind, we can understand Jung’s experiences during his Red Book period as amply demonstrating his efforts, conscious and unconscious, to re-spiritualize the world. 

In this presentation, we will look at how the concepts of individuation, synchronicity and the psychoid aspects of the archetypes entered Jung’s formulations of the psyche and nature.  Following upon this, we will reexamine these ideas in terms of complexity theory which offers tools to help us envision a re-enchanted world. These tools will help us listen to synchronistic attunements linked to ecological awareness along with opening the psychoid imagination to help us better detect and understand our relationship with the universe.

•

SYNCHRONICITY
&
RE-ENCHANTMENT

WITH DR. JOE CAMBRAY, IAAP

•

To watch the video from this dialogue, please subscribe to our email newsletter:

In his recent exhibits Self-Summoning (shadow work) and Shadow Work (chapters) (both 2022), Lehmann Maupin artist Dominic Chambers’ work pours color into the Jungian concept of the Shadow. He shares how working with Carl Jung’s theory of shadow was revelatory for his artwork. 

We are pleased to present Dominic in conversation with artist and JUNG Archademy faculty Chantal Powell for a special event Saturday Jan. 20, 2024.

Dominic sees the Shadow as an enduring presence to be encountered, “It’s always there. The shadow manifests when a light source hits it”.  He will be discussing his use of color and light in depicting the shadow, and the power of art to give expression to unconscious processes.

“Shadow working is essentially when you do some introspective work to uncover parts of your identity or your personality you have potentially neglected or not addressed, but effect your personality and your life. So you have to go back and uncover what has happened to you, relationships with people and environments, and to re-contextualize those things and to revise them in a way that’s suitable for your life today.”
- Chambers, interview with ArtNet: Painter Dominic Chambers on How Jungian Theory Shaped His Art, and the Transformational Role of Therapy in His Own Life

Transferring his personal learnings within Jungian therapy, his recent paintings point to the importance of looking inward and the transformative power of the imagination.

“In Chambers’s vivid paintings figures rest, read, and reflect in quiet peaceful settings straddling real and imaginary worlds. The bucolic landscapes are at once familiar and nostalgic, yet magical in their tonality. The rainbow-colored ghostly silhouettes in To encounter a shadow (2022) and Self-Summoning (shadow work) showcase Chambers’s connection to spirituality and self-actualization. A strong sense of vulnerability provides moments of respite and empathy for the viewer.”  –  Folasade Ologundudu for Art Seen - Dominic Chambers: Soft Shadows

•

Soft Shadows

DOMINIC CHAMBERS, M.F.A.

IN CONVERSATION

with

Chantal Powell, Ph.D.

x min

•

Hosted by Chantal Powell

Chantal Powell is an UK-based artist, educator and curator. Her art practice explores the symbolic language of the unconscious and is informed by a PhD in social psychology and an ongoing study of Jungian theory and inner alchemy.

Chantal is also the founder of the artist residency program Hogchester Arts in West Dorset and hosts the speaker program "The Red Book Club". She presents illustrated talks and workshops on psychological alchemy from an artist’s perspective and has co-curated exhibitions with a focus on archetypally symbolic art. 

Dominic Chambers (b. 1993 St. Louis, MO; lives and works in New Haven, CT) creates vibrant paintings that simultaneously engage art historical models, such as color-field painting and gestural abstraction, and contemporary concerns around race, identity, and the necessity for leisure and reflection. Interested in how art can function as a mode for understanding, recontextualizing, or renegotiating one’s relationship to the world, the artist sees painting as a critical and intellectual endeavour, as much as an aesthetic one. A writer himself, Chambers draws inspiration from literature, especially Magical Realism and the writing of W.E.B. Du Bois, particularly Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk, and one of its central themes―the veil. A product of racial injustice that is a metaphorical lens through which Black bodies are observed and experienced, references to the veil appear throughout the artist’s work, whether in the large swaths of color that obscure the figures in his Wash Paintings series, or in his recurring use of a raindrop motif as both an active and passive element in his paintings. Many of Chambers’ compositions incorporate Fabulist elements, including ghostly silhouettes meant to be stand-ins for the artist and surreal landscapes that feel both familiar yet unplaceable.

Chambers received his B.F.A from Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Milwaukee, WI in 2016, and his M.F.A. from Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT in 2019. Solo exhibitions of his work have been organized at The August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Pittsburgh, PA (2020); Luce Gallery, Turin, Italy (2020); The Millitzer Studio and Gallery, St. Louis, MO (2017); and the Residential Gallery, Des Moines, IA (2017).

Chambers’ work is in a number of private and public collections, such as the Green Family Foundation, Dallas, TX; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA; and Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL.

*

Dominic was included on Forbes - 30 Under 30 to watch in 2021.

Balan’s new book Why Am I Like This? A Journey Into Psychological Astrology provides an excellent overview of the basic archetypal approaches to the planets and signs of astrology. This symbolic approach to self-understanding is a path that provides a middle way between the empty solely rational modern worldview and the rigidity of older dogmatic approaches.

In this conversation, we discuss how astrology provides a language for understanding our most important life experiences. Planets, aspects, signs and houses when viewed with an archetypal eye, enable us to discover ourselves as living in a meaning-filled world.

We talk about the gods as drives within us. We look at Saturn - the god of time - in our charts, Mars - the archetypal Warrior and the process of getting curious about our own patterns.

“Part memoir, part astrology, Jungian psychology and global mythology, Why Am I Like This? is an orchestral overview of the moving parts that come together to create what OG wellness influencer Carl Jung calls “wholeness”.

Wholeness, as Judy writes, “is not about becoming better or perfect, nor is it about aspiring to some collective standard of what is good, beautiful or successful. In the Jungian sense, wholeness is about becoming yourself or all that you potentially are, by facilitating a dialogue and a connection with your unconscious, and all the parts of you that are trapped in there.”

– Priyanka Mookerjee,
review on Scroll.in

Why Am I Like This?

A JOURNEY INTO
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASTROLOGY

A Conversation with author Judy Balan

•

60 min

To watch the interview video, please subscribe to our email newsletter
(you can unsubscribe at any time):

Author Judy Balan

Judy Balan is a writer and consulting psychological astrologer with a Post Graduate Diploma in Jungian Studies. Her most recent work Why Am I Like This? A Journey Into Psychological Astrology was published by Simon & Schuster, India in Feb 2023 and is equal parts memoir and primer in natal astrology through a Jungian lens. Judy lives with her daughter and two retrievers in Chennai, India.

Interview hosts:

Gary S. Bobroff is the founder of the JUNG Archademy and Jungian Online. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada and a master’s degree in Jungian-oriented counselling psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. He is the author of Knowledge In A Nutshell: Carl jung (2020) which is a Jungian psychology best seller.

Irina Avdeeva is a business development manager and course host for JUNG Archademy. She holds two Master's degrees in International Affairs from Berlin, Germany and from the Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, DC. Irina has published academic articles and organized political debating workshops in Europe and North America. Irina has a passion for studying the works of C.G. Jung and applying the archetypal lenses to the analysis of world politics.