All Programs

God Within: The Legacy of Christian Gnosticism
William Holt

Tuesdays, March 10, 17, 24, & 31, 2020
7 to 9 pm
Maine Jung Center, 183 Park Row, Brunswick
Members $80, Non-Members $90

Within a few years of Jesus’s Crucifixion proto-Christian communities were emerging across the Roman Empire. The most familiar to us, initiated by Peter and Paul, made the resurrection of Jesus central to human salvation and grew to become orthodox Christianity. Gnosticism, another understanding of Jesus’ meaning and our relation to God, developed in Alexandria in the same period. Blending a revised Creation myth with a Platonic cosmology, Jesus was seen as a wisdom teacher, an emissary from the highest heaven come to teach of the Divine with our soul. Their most eloquent teacher, Valentinus, went to Rome and tried to blend the two understandings. But he did not and the church fathers declared Gnosticism a heresy. This course, an updated version of Bill’s earlier courses at the Jung Center, will explore the context, the myths, and some leading figures of early Christian Gnosticism, as well as why C. G. Jung was so attracted to the tradition. His Seven Sermons is itself a Gnostic tract. We will also look at the very important Gospel of Thomas.

William Holt, MD, has presented many times at the Center on topics related to the Gnostics, the early history of Christianity, and Jung’s own Gnostic thinking. Bill is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bates College and of Harvard Medical School. A retired ophthalmologist, he is a cofounder of the Eye Care Medical group in Portland. Religion and philosophy have been lifelong interests and he has indulged these with extensive reading over many years.

Facilitated by Mary Kelley
Last Sunday of every Month:
Continuing September 29, 2019
2 to 4 pm

FREE for members and non-members; No pre-registration is necessary
(Donations Graciously Accepted)

We will explore fairy tales from around the world to see what we can learn about how these timeless tales illuminate psychic processes. Hearing and reading the stories can be entertaining and soothing. Interpreting them can unearth kernels of truth. Participants are encouraged to bring their love of stories.

Mary Kelley is a local psychotherapist, and a former member of the Maine Jung Center Board of Directors. She recently taught a class at the Center “Understanding Ourselves Through Fairy Tales”.

CANCELED DUE TO COVID-19
Major Spring Program 2020 – Sherri Mitchell
Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change

(Lecture) Friday, April 3, 2020; 7 to 9 pm
Members $20, Non-Members $25

(Workshop) Saturday, April 4, 2020; 9:30 am to 1:30 pm
Members $40, Non-Members $50

Both events will be held at: First Universalist Church, 97 Main Street, Yarmouth, Maine

Friday Lecture
This time represents a critical crossroads for humanity, a teetering point of choice that will determine the future of all life. Drawing from ancestral knowledge, as well as her experience as an attorney and activist, Sherri Mitchell addresses some of the most crucial issues of our day, such as environmental protection and human rights.

Saturday Workshop
In a more intimate setting, Sherri will host a discussion about (1) where we are now and how we got there, (2) our historical and collective trauma, (3) the foundational laws of the universe from an indigenous perspective, and (4) what does it mean to live in a time of prophecy?

Sherri Mitchell, Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset, is an Indigenous rights activist, spiritual teacher, and transformational change maker. Sherri was born and raised on the Penobscot Indian reservation (Penawahpskek). She speaks and teaches around the world on issues of Indigenous rights, environmental justice, and spiritual change. Her broad base of knowledge allows her to synthesize many subjects into a cohesive whole, weaving together a multitude of complex issues and articulating them in a way that both satisfies the mind and heals the heart.

Sherri received her Juris Doctorate and a certificate in Indigenous People’s Law and Policy from the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law. She is an alumna of the American Indian Ambassador program, and the Udall Native American Congressional Internship program.

Sherri is the visionary behind “Healing the Wounds of Turtle Island”, a global healing ceremony that has brought people together from all corners of the world. The ceremony is designed to heal our relationships with one another as human beings, and then to heal the relationship between human beings and the rest of Creation. It has been attended by people from every continent (except Antarctica), who have come together to pray with one heart and one mind for the healing of all life on Mother Earth.

Facilitated by Jennifer Morris
Second Saturday every Month:
Continuing October 5, 2019
10 to 12 pm

FREE for members; No pre-registration is necessary

Required Text: What Matters Most by James Hollis

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
– C. G. Jung

Please join us for Jungian focused discussions about books, mythology, and fairy tales. Together we can explore the stories that, throughout time, give us important clues on how to live our lives more fully.

We will begin by reading What Matters Most by James Hollis. Taking a fresh look at the concept of happiness, Hollis uses a warm, accessible tone to encourage readers to learn to tolerate ambiguity, embrace growth rather than security, respect the power of Eros, engage spiritual crises, and acknowledge the shadow of mortality.

James Hollis, Ph.D., is a Jungian analyst in private practice and executive director of the Jung Society of Washington. Educated at Manchester College, Drew University, and the Jung Institute in Zurich, he was a humanities professor for more than twenty years and is the author of fifteen books, including the best selling The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning at Midlife and The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other. Based in Washington, D.C., he lectures frequently throughout the country and worldwide, and has spoken at the Maine Jung Center numerous times.

Jennifer Morris’s Jungian experience started with seven years of personal work with a remarkable Colorado analyst, Katherine Kuisle, PhD. This experience profoundly changed Jennifer’s life, opening her heart to the guiding symbology around us and within us. She grew up in Yarmouth and lived in Maine for 40 years before moving to Colorado where she lived—when not working as a physician assistant in Alaska or adventuring on a sailboat in the Bahamas—for 23 years. Now retired, she and the cat are quite settled in South Portland, surrounded by her gardens.

CANCELED DUE TO COVID-19
SoulCollage®: A Creative Process for Introspection and Integration
Lillian Harris

Saturday, April 11, 2020
1 to 4 pm
Maine Jung Center, 183 Park Row, Brunswick
Members $40, Non-Members $45

SoulCollage® is an intuitive creative process developed over 30 years ago by the late social worker, Seena Frost. Today SoulCollage® is a supportive tool in exploring, acknowledging and integrating the many parts of ourselves, some that we are conscious of and others that emerge unexpectedly through the collage process. The workshop will be an opportunity to experience this technique first hand. We will start with a brief overview of the process and the theoretical framework that has informed the evolution of the technique, including the significant influence of C. G. Jung’s work. Then we will move into card making. Each participant will create, using found images, scissors and glue, their own 5 x 8″ SoulCollage® cards. We will then dialog with our cards, drawing out the wisdom of the images, and our own ability to learn from what we have made. All supplies will be provided.

Lillian Harris, LCPC-C, is a psychotherapist and trained SoulCollage® facilitator based in Yarmouth, ME. She integrates creativity and mind/body approaches into her work with clients through individual therapy, workshops and therapeutic groups. More information at www.lillianharriscounseling.com

Facilitated by Peggy Schick
Third Wednesday every Month:
Starting October 16, 2019
6 to 8 pm

FREE for members and non-members; No pre-registration is necessary

Required Text: Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change by Sherri Mitchell

The Maine Jung Center is pleased to offer a new book group beginning Wednesday, October 16, that will meet to read and discuss Sherri Mitchell’s 2018 book Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change. The Center is also excited to announce that Ms. Mitchell will be speaking to our community on April 3-4 in Portland. 

This book discussion experience will serve as an immersion into Mitchell’s profound and loving insight around affecting true global consciousness and change. Sacred Instructions is described as a narrative of Indigenous wisdom that provides a road map for the spirit and a compass of compassion for humanity.

Sherri Mitchell is a Native American attorney, author, teacher and activist from Maine. She has been actively involved with Indigenous land and water rights and the Indigenous way of life in the US, Canada and abroad for more than 25 years. Drawing from ancestral knowledge, as well as her experience as an attorney and activist, in Sacred Instructions Mitchell addresses some of the most crucial issues of our day, such as environmental protection and human rights. Sharing the gifts she has received from elders around the world, Mitchell urges us to decolonize our language and our stories. For those seeking change, this book offers a set of cultural values that will preserve our collective survival for future generations.

This book group will be gently led by Peggy Schick, astrologer, Reiki practitioner, activist, and co-chair of the board of the Maine Jung Center.

CANCELED DUE TO COVID-19
Kaleidoscope: Three Analysts Speak
Jungian Perspectives on Death and Dying
Teresa Arendell, Patricia Vesey-McGrew, & Will Furber

Saturday, April 18 2020
9:30 am to 3:30 pm
Maine Jung Center, 183 Park Row, Brunswick
Members $50, Non-Members $60

The birth of a human being is pregnant with meaning, why not death?
~ C. G. Jung, CW Vol. 8, pg. 408

C. G. Jung, one of the foremost thinkers about the human psyche, made major contributions to the study of death and dying. He argued that, particularly in the later decades of life, we live preparing for death. Dying is in itself a stage of life, and is as normal as being born. He wrote, “How much our life needs death . . . Joy at the smallest things comes to you only when you have accepted death” (2009:275). Yet death, in the modern Western world, remains largely a taboo subject. Jung urged us to find our personal myth of death as we learn to live with paradox: certainty and uncertainty, the known and unknown. Even though death poses innumerable, unanswerable questions—that is, it remains a mystery—we must nevertheless grapple with it. “Not to have done so is a vital loss. For the question . . . is the age-old heritage of humanity” (Jung Speaks about Death video clip). Considerations of death and dying enrich our quest to understand the meaning of life and consciousness.

Psyche: Questions of Life after Death
Teresa Arendell

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.
~ Emily Dickinson

Ideas of afterlife abound in myths and stories—ancient and contemporary, secular and religious. Such ideas are elemental in the human imagination and the dance between creation and destruction, life and death. Jung, reflecting in later life and after his near-death experience, stated, “When I speak of things after death, I am speaking out of inner prompting, and can go no farther than to tell you dreams and myths that relate to this subject.” He asserted that neither religion nor science can provide a definitive answer to the question of what happens after death and whether or not there is an afterlife. Drawing on Jung’s work, we explore such questions as: What happens in death? Does the body die but the soul survive? Does consciousness persist beyond death? In addition to images from religion, poetry, dreams, and stories, we also consider current research findings on near-death experiences and what they offer us in consideration of the idea of immortality.

Teresa Arendell, PhD, is a practicing Jungian analyst. A college professor in sociology for many years, she’s held multiple postdoctoral fellowships. She’s taught and offered lectures and seminars and served on committees at the Maine Jung Center, the Boston Jung Institute, and various Jungian associations. She enjoys teaching and living in Maine.

Living Into Death
Patricia Vesey-McGrew

My aim is to bring about a psychic state in which my patient begins to experiment with his own nature—a state of fluidity, change and growth where nothing is eternally fixed and hopelessly petrified.
~ C. G. Jung 1929b, par. 99

If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life—and only then will I be free to become myself.
~ Martin Heidegger

Constantly surrounding us are modern paeans honoring aliveness. We celebrate many expressions of our energized liveliness including athletic, dance, gymnastic, artistic and intellectual accomplishments. We revere many anniversaries, especially the ones marking our births. We often seek to discover the ‘elixir of life’, a potential spiritual quest which, at times, transposes into a hunger for physical longevity. Seldom is the reality of death exalted and embraced. The mystery of death frightens us and we circumambulate its power with a slow, distant caution. The death of a loved one causes loss and, frequently, unimagined suffering. An unexpected or untimely death generally results in inner chaos and anxiety about our own mortality.

Nevertheless, Jung challenges us to a different appreciation of death. “If I accept death, then my tree greens, since dying increases life. If I plunge into the death encompassing the world, then my buds break open. How much our life needs death!” (Red Book, pg. 274). His wisdom is not a voice shouting in the barren desert. Many, not legion, experience his words as truth. Writings as early as those of Heraclitus have also echoed a similar understanding of death and laid the groundwork for bringing death into life and living into death. We will use a prismatic lens to explore and ponder what this might look like today. What is a state of fluidity which includes
and honors death? How might we acknowledge death and face it squarely?

Is authentic living possible without this stance toward death? We will look at the impediments internally and culturally that seek to deny the significance of death in a truly vital life. Jung and other lovers of wisdom will be our guides.

Patricia Vesey-McGrew, MA, NCPsyA, is a diplomate Jungian Psychoanalyst in private practice in Cambridge and Rockport, MA. She is a supervising and training analyst at the Boston Jung Institute, where she is a past president and a faculty member.

What Does the Psyche Want Us To Understand About Our Death?
Will Furber

The theme of death and dying in dreams is often used interchangeably with other symbols relating to transformation and initiation. Usually these dreams suggest an outmoded ego adaption that is no longer serving well and must die, in the sense of giving way, so that a new adaptation can replace it. As applied to the idea of literal death, this suggests that if we did not die we would end up being stuck within the auspices of outmoded, blocking generative processes of rebirth that are struggling to emerge and which need our literal death to achieve their potential. When dreams touch on the idea of death more specifically they frequently use the theme of harvesting. Life then is seen as a season, and this season’s growth is harvested so that it can be made use of. But it is at the same time it is cleared out of the way so that it will not impede the generative capacity in the rhizome which below the surface is already working on the new season to follow. The hope is that there is something about the old season’s growth that has changed something in the rhizome in a beneficial way and that the new season will be better.

Will Furber is a Jungian analyst who helped found the Maine Jung Center 30 years ago and has taught numerous classes and seminars here. He has also served on the Board and faculty of the Boston Jung Institute, where he currently co-leads a recurring seminar on collective process.

Facilitated by Jeff Pinnette
Third Sunday every Month:
Starting October 20, 2019
10 to 12 pm

FREE for members; No pre-registration is necessary

Required Text: Projection and Re-Collection in Jungian Psychology by Marie-Louise von Franz

This work is a classic of Jungian literature that at its most basic level provides a map and guide to the recognition and reclaiming of projections. More broadly, this book explores the Jungian foundation to consciousness and the collective unconscious.

The format of the discussion group will be to read one or more Chapters each month prior to the discussion group as shown in the syllabus (see website for more information). Key passages will be read again during the session so that it will be possible to not keep up with the reading, but still participate in a meaningful way in the discussion.

Projection and Re-Collection 2019-20 Discussion Group Syllabus

Jeff Pinnette is a longtime member of the Center who served on the Board for six years including two as Board chair and four as Program Committee chair. He is currently serving a new term on the Board as Co-Chair of the Program Committee.

CANCELED DUE TO COVID-19
Russian Ark (2002) | Directed by Alexander Sokurov
Viewing facilitated by Cybele Brandow

Told in one fluid shot, Sokurov presents a tale which floats like a dreamlike journey through the majestic spaces of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Real and imagined characters from Russian and European history are engaged in seamless and mysterious transitions from one room to the next. The nameless protagonist, a 19th-century French diplomat, guides the audience through a lost, sumptuous dream that was the Enlightenment period. Staged among some of the greatest masterpieces of western art tradition, the film culminates in a pageant of color, motion, and music, leaving its viewers in a state somewhere between awe and somber reverie.

Facilitated by Mary Kelley
Last Sunday of every Month:
Continuing September 29, 2019
2 to 4 pm

FREE for members and non-members; No pre-registration is necessary
(Donations Graciously Accepted)

We will explore fairy tales from around the world to see what we can learn about how these timeless tales illuminate psychic processes. Hearing and reading the stories can be entertaining and soothing. Interpreting them can unearth kernels of truth. Participants are encouraged to bring their love of stories.

Mary Kelley is a local psychotherapist, and a former member of the Maine Jung Center Board of Directors. She recently taught a class at the Center “Understanding Ourselves Through Fairy Tales”.

CANCELED DUE TO COVID-19
Tools of Individuation
The Experience of God in the Individuation Process: From Chaos to Cosmos
Diane Croft

Sunday, May 3, 2020
2 to 4 pm
Maine Jung Center, 183 Park Row, Brunswick
Members $15, Non-Members $20

Jung had a great deal to say about God, which for him was not a belief but a fully realized, living presence: “I don’t need to believe. I know.” His God experience was so powerful, so potentially destructive, that he felt grateful “to have escaped from death.”

This lecture will explore Jung’s belief that the psyche is, by nature, religious. “[The Self] . . . might equally be called the God within us.” Diane Croft will share the religious symbolism that emerged, unexpectedly, during her own three-year encounter with the Transpersonal Self, and how she is attempting to reconcile its sacred energies as a non-practicing Christian. Intended for believers and non-believers.

Diane Croft, EdM, is a graduate of Wittenberg and Harvard University. She spent most of her career as a vice president at National Braille Press in Boston, MA. For three years, Diane had access to a hidden, animated realm, described by C. G. Jung as “the primordial unconscious”, which she describes in her book The Unseen Partner: Love & Longing in the Unconscious. A review in Quadrant: Journal for Analytical Psychology described it as “an extraordinary book, comparable in many ways to the Red Book of C. G. Jung.”

CANCELED DUE TO COVID-19
Tools of Individuation
A Yoga Journey to Sacred Spaces and Places in India
Phyllis Stibler

Friday, May 8, 2020
7 to 9 pm
Maine Jung Center, 183 Park Row, Brunswick
Members $15, Non-Members $20

With a Yogi guide and four companions, Phyllis spent several weeks in southern India in January 2019. The purpose of their yoga journey was to seek “a yoke to the divine, one consciousness”. They spent time in Hindu temples, on sacred mountains, at two ashrams and in related spaces and places. Phyllis does not consider herself an experienced yogi or a master at spiritual guidance in any way. She went on this journey as a perhaps, somewhat typical New Englander who observes Congregationalist traditions, enjoys a gentle physical yoga practice with meditation, and most importantly, has an open and curious mind. The experience was intense, rewarding and thought provoking.

In her talk, Phyllis will share her experiences, sketch journal and observations while on this journey.

Phyllis Stibler received a BFA in Interior Design from Syracuse University, School of Art. Over her design career, she has been honored by the American Institute of Architects – NH Chapter, the American Society of Interior Designers, Leadership NH, Boy Scouts of America – Daniel Webster Council, Granite State YMCA and other organizations for professional achievement and community service. Phyllis also served on the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee at the NH Institute of Art, from 2008 to 2017.

In retirement, Phyllis has illustrated three children’s books, serves as Chair of the Trustees for the New Castle Congregational Church, listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, and travels extensively, always with a sketch journal. She enjoys any outdoor activity, any musical offering involving baroque recorders and gentle yoga. Phyllis lives in the heart of New Castle, NH.

CANCELED DUE TO COVID-19
Death Café Series (III)
Tuesday, May 12, 2020; 6:30 to 8:30 pm
FREE for Members and Non-Members

Maximum Participants: 18 (Pre-registration is Required)

Death is psychologically as important as birth, and like it, is an integral part of life.
~ C. G. Jung

Let’s gather together to talk about death. Not to grieve, not to seek therapeutic support, not to proselytize, but simply to have a group discussion with the intention to seek more awareness about death. Perhaps more awareness might help us to value the time that we have here on earth as fully alive human beings. How might we choose to live, imbued with more awareness of our own exit?

Death Cafés are happening all over the United States and Europe as open opportunities to the public, offering this simple intention for death to be a topic of group discussion without any agenda, objective, or conclusion. Donations may be made to the Jung Center in appreciation for providing a comfortable, accessible venue where attendees will be invited to speak and be listened to with respect and confidentiality. Please register for each two-hour event even though there is no fee. The discussion dates do not mean to imply a progression of any theme, and there is no expectation for a participant to attend consecutive discussions. Refreshments will be provided.

Martha Spruce, founder of Hearts & Hands Reiki, has been practicing and teaching Reiki in Brunswick and the greater mid-coast area for over 23 years. During much of that time she has also cared for dying people as a certified home Hospice volunteer. She also volunteered as a certified pastoral chaplain at Mid Coast Hospital. She is very grateful to the people who have invited her to be part of their lives at such a profound time of transition, because of the gifts of raw honesty and unwavering integrity that they brought along to give to those who were left behind. She has noticed that when people are dying, they usually want to talk about death, but she’d rather not wait till then. Martha has been a Maine Jung Center member for 12 years.

Journey of the Universe: Conversations (2013) | Directed by Patsy Northcutt & Adam Loften
Viewing facilitated by Thankful Butler

Journey of the Universe: Conversations is an expansive, multidisciplinary project that re-imagines the universe story and the human role in the flourishing of the Earth community. The series invites viewers to become fellow travelers on an immense journey—from the beginnings of the universe, to the origins of life, to our current emergence as a planetary presence. These conversations are designed to accompany the Journey of the Universe film (screened at the Center last year), book (Yale University Press), and curriculum.

CANCELED DUE TO COVID-19
Mythical Consciousness and its Reflection in the Russian Folk Tale “Ryaba the Hen”
Michael Klimov

Saturday, May 16, 2020
2 to 4 pm
Maine Jung Center, 183 Park Row, Brunswick
Members $20, Non-Members $25

In The Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Marie-Louise von Franz writes “our interpretations are relative and not absolute. But we interpret for the same reason as that for which fairy tales and myths were told: because it has a vivifying effect and gives satisfactory reaction and brings one into peace with one’s unconscious instinctive substratum, just as the telling of fairy tales always did.” Michael Klimov will demonstrate how mythical consciousness emerges in “Ryaba the Hen”, among the most famous Russian folk tales and among the first that children of the Russian-speaking world learn.

Michael Klimov, MA, holds a master’s degree in Foreign Languages (English and French) from Kyiv National Linguistic University, Ukraine, and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Modern Languages degree in Russian and French through Middlebury College in Vermont. This presentation is related to Klimov’s dissertation research on mythical consciousness in Russian fairy tales. Michael Klimov has been a member of the Maine Jung Center for a number of years, and has always appreciated its intellectual, welcoming, inspirational, and healing atmosphere.

Facilitated by Jeff Pinnette
Third Sunday every Month:
Starting October 20, 2019
10 to 12 pm

FREE for members; No pre-registration is necessary

Required Text: Projection and Re-Collection in Jungian Psychology by Marie-Louise von Franz

This work is a classic of Jungian literature that at its most basic level provides a map and guide to the recognition and reclaiming of projections. More broadly, this book explores the Jungian foundation to consciousness and the collective unconscious.

The format of the discussion group will be to read one or more Chapters each month prior to the discussion group as shown in the syllabus (see website for more information). Key passages will be read again during the session so that it will be possible to not keep up with the reading, but still participate in a meaningful way in the discussion.

Projection and Re-Collection 2019-20 Discussion Group Syllabus

Jeff Pinnette is a longtime member of the Center who served on the Board for six years including two as Board chair and four as Program Committee chair. He is currently serving a new term on the Board as Co-Chair of the Program Committee.

Facilitated by Peggy Schick
Third Wednesday every Month:
Starting October 16, 2019
6 to 8 pm

FREE for members and non-members; No pre-registration is necessary

Required Text: Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change by Sherri Mitchell

The Maine Jung Center is pleased to offer a new book group beginning Wednesday, October 16, that will meet to read and discuss Sherri Mitchell’s 2018 book Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change. The Center is also excited to announce that Ms. Mitchell will be speaking to our community on April 3-4 in Portland. 

This book discussion experience will serve as an immersion into Mitchell’s profound and loving insight around affecting true global consciousness and change. Sacred Instructions is described as a narrative of Indigenous wisdom that provides a road map for the spirit and a compass of compassion for humanity.

Sherri Mitchell is a Native American attorney, author, teacher and activist from Maine. She has been actively involved with Indigenous land and water rights and the Indigenous way of life in the US, Canada and abroad for more than 25 years. Drawing from ancestral knowledge, as well as her experience as an attorney and activist, in Sacred Instructions Mitchell addresses some of the most crucial issues of our day, such as environmental protection and human rights. Sharing the gifts she has received from elders around the world, Mitchell urges us to decolonize our language and our stories. For those seeking change, this book offers a set of cultural values that will preserve our collective survival for future generations.

This book group will be gently led by Peggy Schick, astrologer, Reiki practitioner, activist, and co-chair of the board of the Maine Jung Center.

Facilitated by Mary Kelley
Last Sunday of every Month:
Continuing September 29, 2019
2 to 4 pm

FREE for members and non-members; No pre-registration is necessary
(Donations Graciously Accepted)

We will explore fairy tales from around the world to see what we can learn about how these timeless tales illuminate psychic processes. Hearing and reading the stories can be entertaining and soothing. Interpreting them can unearth kernels of truth. Participants are encouraged to bring their love of stories.

Mary Kelley is a local psychotherapist, and a former member of the Maine Jung Center Board of Directors. She recently taught a class at the Center “Understanding Ourselves Through Fairy Tales”.

CANCELED DUE TO COVID-19
Dana Sawyer Spring Lecture Series
Friday, June 5, 2020; 7 to 9 pm
& Saturday, June 6, 2020; 10 am to 12 pm
Both events to be held at: First Parish Pilgrim House Chapel, 9 Cleaveland St, Brunswick

“America and the Religion of No-Religion”
Friday, June 5, 7 pm
Members $20, Non-Members $25
Today, the fastest growing demographic in the U.S. relative to “religion” is the category of “Spiritual but not religious”. This is especially true of Millennials, who are three-times as likely to abandon the religion of their parents than those of earlier generations. Where is this cultural change taking us? What are the implications, good and bad, of this shift for the future of American spirituality? Are some trends of this change more useful than others for the growth of a compassionate society? In this talk, Dana Sawyer discusses new trends in spirituality, including the growing synchronicity between “religion” and “psychology”. For instance, “enlightenment” and “beatitude” have increasingly morphed into “self-actualization”, “individuation”, “Mindfulness”, and “optimum wellness”. Furthermore, we will discuss the general characteristics of this movement, including its premium on personal experience, the sovereignty of personal choice, and the shift toward co-learning over structures of teacher/disciple. The goal of the talk is not only to give an overview of what is occurring but to suggest directives that can be useful for those on the spiritual path today.

“The Future of Psychedelic Mysticism”
Saturday, June 6, 10 am
Members $20, Non-Members $25
In 1954, Aldous Huxley published a small book that triggered a huge reaction, The Doors of Perception, dealing with his first experience with mescaline. During the subsequent nine years, Huxley developed several theories about psychedelic drugs as legitimate triggers of mystical experience and insight that have been hugely debated ever since. Part of the initial reaction involved Timothy Leary’s admonition that youth culture should “Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out”, causing Richard Nixon to then label him the “most dangerous man in America”. However, since that time, and after the wholesale prohibition of psychedelic drugs by the U.S. government, even for scientific research, there has been a reassessment—including a resumption of research. What is the status of scientific research with psychedelics today? What are the views among academics and therapists regarding the values and dangers of psychedelic experience? How well do Huxley’s theories of psychedelic spirituality hold up today? Based upon two years of concerted research regarding this topic, Dana Sawyer shares his findings. This is a controversial topic but, thanks to Michael Pollan’s recent book on the subject, How to Change Your Mind (not to mention current research in England and Switzerland, and at Johns Hopkins), it is also a timely one.

Dana Sawyer is professor emeritus of Philosophy and Religion at the Maine College of Art and a member of the Advisory Board of the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine. He has written biographies of Aldous Huxley and Huston Smith as well as articles for such magazines as Tricycle, Yoga Journal, and Parabola. Currently, he is writing a handbook of the Perennial Philosophy and helping the Esalen Institute determine its future curriculum.

Facilitated by Jeff Pinnette
Third Sunday every Month:
Starting October 20, 2019
10 to 12 pm

FREE for members; No pre-registration is necessary

Required Text: Projection and Re-Collection in Jungian Psychology by Marie-Louise von Franz

This work is a classic of Jungian literature that at its most basic level provides a map and guide to the recognition and reclaiming of projections. More broadly, this book explores the Jungian foundation to consciousness and the collective unconscious.

The format of the discussion group will be to read one or more Chapters each month prior to the discussion group as shown in the syllabus (see website for more information). Key passages will be read again during the session so that it will be possible to not keep up with the reading, but still participate in a meaningful way in the discussion.

Projection and Re-Collection 2019-20 Discussion Group Syllabus

Jeff Pinnette is a longtime member of the Center who served on the Board for six years including two as Board chair and four as Program Committee chair. He is currently serving a new term on the Board as Co-Chair of the Program Committee.

Facilitated by Mary Kelley
Last Sunday of every Month:
Continuing September 29, 2019
2 to 4 pm

FREE for members and non-members; No pre-registration is necessary
(Donations Graciously Accepted)

We will explore fairy tales from around the world to see what we can learn about how these timeless tales illuminate psychic processes. Hearing and reading the stories can be entertaining and soothing. Interpreting them can unearth kernels of truth. Participants are encouraged to bring their love of stories.

Mary Kelley is a local psychotherapist, and a former member of the Maine Jung Center Board of Directors. She recently taught a class at the Center “Understanding Ourselves Through Fairy Tales”.