Thursday, February 6, 2014

‘Jung Foundation’s spring courses’

     
Carl Gustav Jung
The C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology has announced its Continuing Education courses for spring. Eleven classes are on the schedule, with several other one-day programs being made available also. Some of the courses are fully booked already, so don’t delay if you see something you like. (In fact, two of the most attractive courses, Exploring the Spirit of Our Times and Spirit of the Times vs. Spirit of the Depths, are fully enrolled.) Click here for the full calendar and scheduling.

These are some of the courses that will begin the week of February 24 and continue for five consecutive weeks.


Poetry’s Mystery:
Creativity and the Unconscious

In The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature, Jung discusses the relationship between analytical psychology and poetry in consideration of the creative process. Jung’s thoughts provide us with an opportunity to express ourselves as writers of poetry. In his discussion of creativity, Jung gives insights into how we are to approach and develop our creative selves, as reflections of the unconscious in its dynamic movements. Poetry as an expression of the Heart supports our interest in delving deeper into unconscious processes which includes our understanding of creativity as a life force energy.


C.G. Jung on Eastern Religions

This course will introduce students to brief overviews of the primary religious traditions of India, China, Tibet, and Japan, and then present the major writings of C.G. Jung on these same religions. The text for the course will be the very accessible paperback, C.G. Jung, Psychology and the East, translated by R.F.C. Hull. This book consists of essays about and introductions to major studies of Eastern religions and to translations of Eastern religious texts written by Jung over many decades. The religions represented include Hinduism, Taoism, and Chinese religion more generally, and the Buddhist traditions of Tibet and Zen. In each case, the instructor will give an overview of the religion in question, present Jung’s ideas on this religion from the textbook, compare Jung’s ideas with current scholarly and popular thinking on the same subjects, and present the subjects from the point of view of comparative religion studies.

Jung did not approach these religious traditions from the point of view of pure scholarship, but rather from the point of view of depth psychology. During each class period, there will be time and opportunity for discussion by participants.


And a few beginning the week of April 7 and continuing for five consecutive weeks.


The Heroine’s Journey in Fairy Tales:
How It Differs from the Hero’s Journey

In western culture, we are familiar with stories of a hero’s journey. Examples include Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, and Beowulf. In this class, we will analyze tales which show an equivalent journey for a woman. These tales from cultures around the world offer insights into a woman’s development, showing ways in which that development may differ from a man’s. At another level, the archetypal feminine is a part of both women and men’s psychology and these tales show how our experience of that archetype may mature.


The Secret of the Golden Flower

Jung’s 1928 commentary on the Chinese meditation treatise The Secret of the Golden Flower was his first essay devoted to the understanding of Eastern thought in relation to Western psychology. It was a “missing link” that provided a bridge between his own insights on the nature of consciousness and already established psychological principles found in Taoist and Buddhist philosophies.

This class will review those insights and debate oversights, while focusing on the golden flower’s “secrets” for maintaining psychic balance in our fast-paced era.



Among the one-day workshops will be these:



Art as Active Imagination
Led by
Julie Bondanza, Ph.D.

and Sondra Geller, ATR-BC, LPC

Saturday, February 22
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Jung, writing in his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, about his building game: “Naturally, I thought about the significance of what I was doing, and asked myself, ‘Now, really, what are you about?’ I had no answer to my question, only the inner certainty that I was on the way to discovering my own myth. This sort of thing has been consistent with me, and at any time in my later life when I came up against a blank wall, I painted a picture or hewed stone. Each such experience proved to be a rite d’entrée for the ideas and works that followed hard upon it.”

Jung’s major exploration into psyche is described both in The Red Book and in his autobiography. Our workshop will begin with Jung’s use of active imagination and art to understand the archetypal psyche as well as to further his own individuation. This will be followed by an exploration into our own processes through a variety of art therapy techniques such as scribble drawing and tissue paper collage.

The Jungian concepts of active imagination and amplification will be highlighted as we practice using expressive art as a rite d’entrée into the unconscious.

Julie Bondanza, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist with a practice in the Washington, DC area. She is a graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York, where she is member of the teaching faculty and past Curriculum chair. She is also on the faculty of the Interregional Society of Jungian Analysts, for whom she has frequently taught. She is a member of the Jungian Analysts of Washington Association, where she is a past Director of Education and where she is a frequent instructor.

Sondra Geller, MA, ATR-BC, LPC is a Jungian analyst, a Board Certified Art Therapist and a licensed professional counselor. She is in private practice in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She lectures and teaches for the Washington Jung Society, the C.G. Jung Institute in Philadelphia, and elsewhere. Her lecture topics include making art in the presence of a therapist, Jungian art therapy, and sparking the creative in older adults. She recently co-edited a special issue of Psychological Perspectives on Aging and Individuation.


The Many Faces of Loneliness
Led by 
Heide M. Kolb, MA, LCSW, NCPsyA

Saturday, March 15
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.


“If a man knows more than others,
he becomes lonely.”

C.G. Jung


At a time when social media claims to turn anyone into a friend with a computer click, and a culture that wants us to believe that loneliness can best be remedied by adding more people to one’s life, virtual or otherwise, loneliness, often borne shamefully in secrecy, remains one of the most common complaints and ailments.

In this workshop, we will explore the meaning and possible purpose of loneliness through a Jungian lens. We will reflect on its many different manifestations and qualities and differentiate between a debilitating and stagnating loneliness and the potentially transformational one. Included in our reflections will be the relationship between loneliness and grief and death and dying within life, in its literal as well as symbolical sense. We will focus on what kind of attitude the conscious mind needs to develop when encountering the emptiness where nothing and no one seems to be there.

We will trace Jung’s own, often paradoxical, relationship to loneliness and how the solitary path of bearing one’s own uniqueness cannot be separated from Jung’s notion of individuation. We will include examples from literature in our reflections.

This workshop is both didactic and experiential. It is intended for anyone who wishes to develop a better understanding of how to make sense of this grand ailment of our times, including psychotherapists and other practitioners who encounter some of the many lonely people in their consultation rooms.

Participants are encouraged to bring a journal.

Heide M. Kolb, MA, LCSW, NCPsyA is a Jungian analyst in private practice in New York City. She has taught at New York Open Center, the Blanton Peale Institute and the C.G. Jung Institute of New York, where she currently serves as a supervisor and training analyst.


The C.G. Jung Center is located at 28 East 39th Street in Manhattan. All five-week courses cost $150 per person ($125 for members). Call (212) 697-6430 to register.
     

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

‘Virtue and the Artistic Imagination’

     
The Catholic Center at New York University will conclude its six-part lecture series “The Art of the Beautiful” on February 15, “exploring the nature and purpose of Art and Beauty, and their place in the social order.” It is a joint presentation of the Catholic Artists Society and the Thomistic Institute. From the scant publicity:


Virtue and the Artistic Imagination
of Fordham University

Saturday, February 15
7:30 p.m.

The Catholic Center at NYU
138 Thompson Street
Manhattan

To be followed by a reception and sung Compline




     


Saturday, February 1, 2014

‘A world of many levels’

     
The Anthroposophical Society’s ten-part lecture series “Spiritual Beings and Their Work” will continue with Part Six this month. David Anderson will discuss “The Role of the Hierarchies in Cosmology.” From the publicity:


Spiritual Beings and Their Work
by David Anderson

Wednesday, February 12
7 p.m.

Behind all we perceive with our senses there is actually a world of many levels of being and consciousness. This year we are looking systematically at these invisible beings that are intimately involved with our lives. This month, “The Role of the Hierarchies in Cosmology” focuses on the creative activity of the hierarchies in the development and evolution of worlds and their inhabitants.

The first Waldorf school in North America
is located on East 79th Street in Manhattan.
David Anderson has taught drawing and Wagner painting at Rudolf Steiner School in New York City and around the world. He holds an M.A. in Art, and certificates from Emerson College in Waldorf education, and the Wagner School at the Goetheanum in teaching painting.

Cost per person is $20 for the public, and $15 for members of the Society.


The Anthroposophical Society’s New York City Branch is located at 138 West 15th Street in Manhattan.

Next month’s lecture in this series, “Working of the Hierarchies in World History,” will take place on the 12th. In April, the Society will host its Easter/Passover Program on the 17th, which I’m especially looking forward to. Click here to see the very busy calendar of upcoming events.
     

Thursday, January 30, 2014

‘The Return of the Knapp-Hall Tarot’

     
The University of Philosophical Research, the higher education arm of the Philosophical Research Society founded by Manly P. Hall in 1934, announces the publication of The Revised New Art Tarot. Originally published in 1929 by J. Augustus Knapp, who famously painted the art in Hall’s The Secret Teachings of All Ages, this deck is considered one of the great modern tarots to come out of the early twentieth century. (Hall’s name would be added to the deck’s copyright in subsequent printings.) Read more about that here.

This deck has been out of print, I think, since the 1980s. Used and new old inventory copies fetch several hundred dollars each today.

For ordering information, send an e-mail to inquiries(at)uprs.edu


     

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

‘Thomas Wijck’s alchemists’

     
Another great program at Observatory will be presented Friday night: a discussion of Thomas Wijck’s paintings of alchemists led by a Wijcks scholar.


An Alchemist by Thomas Wijck.

From the publicity:

Painted Alchemists:
Thomas Wijck at the Intersection
of Art, Science, and Practice

A Presentation by Elisabeth Berry Drago

Friday, January 31 at 8 p.m.

Observatory
543 Union Street
Brooklyn

Admission: $10
Presented by Phantasmaphile

Dutch images of alchemists in the laboratory have long been overlooked by art historians as moralizing satires catering to a disbelieving audience. This project examines afresh the alchemical pictures of Thomas Wijck (1616-77), seeking to understand how artistry and alchemy met and merged in the early modern studio and laboratory. In addition to iconographical and historical concerns, emphasis is placed on Wijck’s paintings as transformative objects produced in a studio-workshop: raw materials, pigments, and chemical processes will shed light on the practices of painters and their role in a greater “Golden Age” of discovery.

Elisabeth Berry Drago is a Ph.D. candidate in art history, specializing in 17th-century Netherlands. Her dissertation centers on Thomas Wijck, whose pictures of alchemists in the laboratory offer new perspectives on early modern science and artistry. Berry received her M.A. in art history from Temple University in 2010, and holds a B.A. in fine arts from SUNY Fredonia. In her free time she enjoys volunteering with the Fleisher Art Memorial, a community arts organization, and the Free Library of Philadelphia, teaching youth workshops in painting and drawing, comics, and picture-book illustration.
     

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

‘Taste of Yeats’

     
It’s a bit early for an announcement, especially since the program for the event is yet to be announced, but since today is the 75th anniversary of the death of William Butler Yeats, here goes:

New York University and the WB Yeats Society of New York will co-host a daylong celebration of Yeats on April 5 at the university’s Glucksman Ireland House in the Village. From the publicity:



Taste of the Yeats Summer School
Saturday, April 5
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Glucksman Ireland House
New York University
One Washington Mews
New York City



William Butler Yeats
Every summer, aficionados of the poet William Butler Yeats come from all over the world to enjoy two weeks of lectures, readings and theater in Sligo, Ireland, and to tour nearby “Yeats Country.” Here is an opportunity to sample the Yeats International Summer School for a day in New York. Along with a full day of programs, there will be information on the Yeats Summer School in County Sligo.

Speakers will include Geraldine Higgins, C.L. Dallat, and Anne-Marie Fyfe, as well as the Spiral Theatre’s production of “Gonne/Yeats.” (Professor Higgins also will speak at Glucksman Ireland House on Thursday, April 3 on “News That Stays New: The Future Life of W.B. Yeats.”)

The full program will be available online in late February. To receive an e-mail notification when program and registration information is available, contact ireland.house(at)nyu.edu.

Then, we will send you an alert when registration with the WB Yeats Society is available. (All registration will be through the Yeats Society of New York.) Glucksman Ireland House NYU members will receive discounted registration rates.

Presented by the WB Yeats Society of New York in partnership with Glucksman Ireland House NYU. For queries about the event, please contact the Yeats Society at info(at)yeatssociety.org.

All events are supported by members of Glucksman Ireland House. Click here to become a member.


If you wonder why Yeats might be important to the world of Western esoteric wisdom, this very special event may answer that. I have been told that 1) as of now there is no speaker booked to discuss Yeats and his spiritual life, but that 2) there is room in the program for one more lecture, so maybe that can be arranged. (It was the WB Yeats Society that brought Keith Schuchard to Manhattan for that very purpose a few years ago.) Ill share the details here when theyre announced.
     

Sunday, January 26, 2014

‘Life as a Spiritual Teacher’

     
Sounds like a great opportunity coming this week to the Rosicrucian Cultural Center. Julian Johnson led the very instructive discussion of Martinism there (which I still have to tell you about) last November. From the publicity:


Life as a Spiritual Teacher
with Julian Johnson

Tuesday, January 28 through Friday, January 31
Nightly from 6:30 to 7:30

Rosicrucian Cultural Center
2303 Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard
New York City


There are many sources of wisdom to aid us on the spiritual path. The Rosicrucian teachings, the holy books of the major religions, writings of illumined individuals, poetry, art, and many other sources all can serve as important guides. Life also presents each individual with a personalized guide for spiritual development. Life’s wisdom is perfectly timed and exactly fitted for our stage of evolution. Through this series of discussions we will explore how to discern life’s unique wisdom for each of us, and how to use it to speed our spiritual evolution.



Facilitating this workshop will be longtime Rosicrucian and EGL Board Treasurer Julian Johnson.

Preceding each workshop will be our Council of Solace ritual at six o’clock, which we hope you can attend.
     

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

‘New Joseph Campbell book’

     
The definitive work of Professor Joseph Campbell was his mapping of the “monomyth,” that single, common theme that shapes seemingly unconnected legends and myths from throughout human history around the globe. Because of Campbell, it has come to be known as “The Hero’s Journey” by name; it involves a man’s quest in which he reluctantly envisions, then pursues, and inevitably realizes his destiny. (I would say Luke Skywalker is the easiest understood modern example of this, which is no accident because George Lucas had Campbell and his Hero’s Journey very much in mind when writing the Star Wars story decades ago.) Campbell shared his findings with the world in 1949 with the publication of his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, but he never did author a book that did the same for the females of myth and legend.

Until now, kind of.


Safron Rossi, Ph.D., curator of collections at OPUS Archives and Research Center, the repository of Campbell’s work, did the legwork to compile this brand new book Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine. She dug and sifted through decades-old manuscripts, lectures, papers, notes, and other documents and recordings to compile the mass of research that Campbell undertook and presented between 1972 and 1986. It is she in 2014 who publishes it under a single title for the first time, making her a sort of heroine herself.

I have a stack of books to get through, but I’ll read this before long. As the late John Priede used to say, “I will add it to my bookshelf.”
     

Friday, January 10, 2014

‘Flashback Friday: Perspectives on Mystical Union’

     
You’ve heard of Throwback Thursday? Well, this is Flashback Friday, the second post of a hopefully weekly feature that will discuss topics from the past that I didn’t get around to writing about in a timely manner.


Today we revisit October 16 of last year on the campus of New York University, where the Mindfulness Project at NYU hosted the Psychology Department’s Dr. Zoran Josipovic, who presented “What Is Nonduality: Perspectives on Mystical Union” to an audience of about thirty students of neuroscience—and me. I ask that as you continue reading, please know that I am no scholar of any kind on this amazing subject, and that any errors discerned by the knowledgeable reader are attributable to me, and not to Dr. Josipovic.

Okay, so what is Nonduality? The Nonduality Institute says:

Nonduality is understood as the realization of a very subtle, non-conceptual, unbounded consciousness that is experienced as the essence of one’s own being and of all life. This is a mutual transparency of self and other, in which everything, including one’s own being, is revealed as made of a single, vast expanse of consciousness. It arises together with phenomena; it pervades the movement of perceptions, thoughts, emotions and sensations. This nondual consciousness is not known as an object separate from ourselves; rather, it knows itself.

This level of consciousness has been regarded as the source of positive qualities of being, in the sense that such qualities as compassion, insight, joy and equanimity manifest spontaneously when one realizes it. These qualities are experienced as non-referential, in other words, not a specific compassion for someone, but an open-ended state of compassion that pervades one’s entire field of experience….

Approaches to nonduality that focus on recognizing and dissolving mental constructions also de-construct the notion of the self. Any fixed ideas of the self, such as "I am a teacher" or "I am a good person" will obscure our realization of nondual consciousness. However, when we realize nondual consciousness pervading our body and environment, we uncover a qualitative, authentic sense of our individual self. Nonduality is neither the subject nor the object of experience. It is the unity, the oneness of subject and object.


Courtesy Dr. Zoran Josipovic
Buddhist monk exits MRI machine as part of the
neuroscience research of 
Dr. Zoran Josipovic, at right.


If you’re like me, you had to read that a few times, and that is largely because we Westerners are imbued with a tradition that makes us dualists by default. It dates back to the ancient Persian religion Manichaeism, a belief that existence is starkly divided into two struggling forces: spiritual light of good versus material worldly darkness. Manichaeism spread far, taking root throughout the Near East, in Africa, and even China. In the early centuries of the Common Era, Manichaeism was the principal rival to Christianity as inheritor of the pagan world about the Mediterranean. While it did not outdo either Judaism or Christianity, it did influence both to varying degrees; so it is in our collective consciousness today. (I won’t go into manifestations of Manichaean belief in esoteric symbolism, but it’s there.) Perhaps Manichaean thought is illustrated best by the archetypal image of the little angel on one’s shoulder imparting moral guidance while the little devil on the other shoulder encourages something else. I don’t mean to say Nonduality is exactly the opposite of Manichaean duality because Nonduality aims for the transcendent—achieving oneness with the world.


Powerpoint slide courtesy Dr. Zoran Josipovic.


Back to the Nonduality Institute:

Nondual awakening is not dependent upon a particular spiritual lineage. When we realize nonduality, we are not realizing Buddhism or Hinduism. We are realizing our own fundamental nature—the spiritual foundation of our being is self-arising. It is naturally there, and it appears spontaneously as we become open enough to uncover it. Although the different spiritual lineages describe nondual awakening in different ways, the arising of nonduality itself is unmistakable.

And now back to the lecture.

Zoran Josipovic, Ph.D., is the director of the Contemplative Science Lab in the Psychology Department at NYU, and an adjunct assistant professor for cognitive and affective neuroscience. He is the founding director of the Nonduality Institute in Woodstock, New York. His research interests are states of consciousness cultivated through contemplative practice, what these states can tell us about the nature of consciousness and its relation to authentic subjectivity, and the relevance they have for understanding the global and local organization in the brain. He is a long-time practitioner of meditation in the nondual traditions of Dzogchen, Mahamudra and Advaita Vedanta.

The substance of the lecture explained how mindfulness exercise, or meditation, helps reorganize the brain. It is not a secret that Buddhist monks achieve higher attentional skills, and greater tranquility and happiness thanks to their meditations. Josipovic’s research into the neuroscience of all that is unlocking the very real secrets of blood flow in the brain and other activities of the cerebral cortex during the act of meditating. In other words, the human brain is capable of Nonduality; the question is, how to master the practice of achieving it.


Powerpoint slide courtesy Dr. Zoran Josipovic.


The neural networks in experienced meditation practitioners change as they lower the psychological wall between themselves and their environments, Josipovic explained, and this “reorganization” in the brain is believed to cause what meditators describe as the harmony between themselves and their surroundings that they enjoy. Scientists refer to this as the brain’s “default network.”


Powerpoint slide courtesy Dr. Zoran Josipovic.


Josipovic defined the brain as being two networks: the extrinsic, which concerns things like motor skills, and the intrinsic—or default—network, which is actuated by mental reflection and emotions. The two do not work in conjunction for most people, and take turns in being active. They are in competition. This permits people to focus intently, being free from daydreaming, but can this competition be affected by cognitive strategy, such as meditation? Among the Buddhist monks participating in Josipovic’s research, there is evidence of the two networks being active together during their meditations, the key to the monks’ sense of oneness with their environs.


Powerpoint slide courtesy Dr. Zoran Josipovic.


Additional benefits to this research include gaining greater understanding of Attention Deficit Disorder, in which the internal goes uninterrupted with no balance with the external; and of autism, which is somewhat the opposite in that there is no internal awareness. Study into Alzheimer’s Disease also profits from this work.

For further reading into Josipovic's research, especially the specifics on the cognitive exercises, see his paper, Influence of Meditation on Anti-Correlated Networks in the Brain here.


Powerpoint slide courtesy Dr. Zoran Josipovic.



Powerpoint slide courtesy Dr. Zoran Josipovic.



Powerpoint slide courtesy Dr. Zoran Josipovic.

   

Thursday, January 9, 2014

‘The Tramp and the Fool’

     
“God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise…For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.”

Corinthians 27:3


Sure, I wish the History channel would incorporate historical documentary into its programming, but I don’t think that’s “in the cards” any more, and I do enjoy some of its popular shows, like Pawn Stars. The episode broadcast this evening caught my eye thanks to an Al Hirschfeld caricature of Charlie Chaplin that was shown. To wit:





Titled “The End,” this is the final work of the artist intended for sale. I had no idea Hirschfeld was a lifelong friend of his subject. That story is explained here:

Al Hirschfeld and Charlie Chaplin were life-long friends. And Chaplin was the subject of Hirschfeld’s pen many times in Hirschfeld’s long career. The affection and respect that Hirschfeld had for Chaplin is fully evident in this and every other Chaplin that Hirschfeld drew.

Charlie Chaplin, The End was the last edition that Hirschfeld signed. And there is something else that is very important about Chaplin: In the 1930s Hirschfeld took a sojourn around the world as a passenger on successive commercial cargo ships. It was not comfortable, no, but as a young artist, Hirschfeld didn’t mind. The cargo ships carried him around the world, and when Hirschfeld found a port of call to his liking he would disembark and then continue his journey when the wanderlust grabbed him again.

When his ship docked on the isle of Bali, Hirschfeld fell in love with the magic he found around him. During the weeks that he stayed there, it was his routine to set up an easel near the piers and capture his surroundings with his brush.

Hirschfeld became used to the crowds of passengers from luxury liners who would often gather around him as an audience, onlookers over the artist’s shoulder. On one particular afternoon, Hirschfeld could feel the crowd thinning behind him as usual, but he was aware that one person still lingered to watch him work. Not wanting to be distracted by idle conversation, Hirschfeld was determined not to turn around. Hirschfeld continued to watercolor.

His fan kept watching. After what seemed to be an interminable amount of time, the man spoke: “Tell me how much money it would take for you to support yourself for one full year, so that you can continue to be an artist without worrying about money.” Hirschfeld took this question as idle chatter and fired back an unconsidered answer as he continued to work. A few moments later, Hirschfeld saw a hand reaching over his right shoulder. In that hand was a piece of paper. “Take this,” the man said. The piece of paper was a check made out in the exact amount that Hirschfeld had cited. The signature read: Charles Chaplin.

It was the beginning of a life-long friendship.

It brings tears to my eyes, still, that Hirschfeld’s first patron would also be the last portrait that Hirschfeld would ever sign, on January 20, 2003. The name of that portrait had been settled before Hirschfeld even began the working on it. Its title: “The End.”

Margo Feiden

(Emphases mine.)

It was Chaplin’s character, the Little Tramp, which made him an international superstar and Hollywood’s first millionaire actor. As iconic as any personality ever invented for film, the Tramp magnificently portrayed the eternal outcast—socially undesirable and suffering all manner of dangers and degradations, yet triumphant in the end thanks to his quick wittedness and happy adaptability. Like any of the fools in Shakespeare’s tragedies, Chaplin’s Tramp sees the truth, because he is not foolish at all, and he speaks the truth when truth is needed most. We’ve all seen him ambling about in his distinctive, humorous gait, with his cheap bamboo cane, and finding a flower to display in his scruffy lapel to attain some semblance of dignity and beauty.

Now consider The Fool of the Tarot:





Author Gordon Strong in his The Five Tarots writes:

The Fool has no identity; he is the phenomenal element, one always at odds with the causal. And we must never neglect his sense of the absurd for he refuses to accept any conventional or absolute truth. He also teaches us that humor is a path to the transcendental. We must never be too serious where transcendental matters are concerned, for this makes us heavy-hearted and it is impossible for our joy to take wing. The Fool thrives on improvisation, spontaneity—making the moment exclusively his own. He does not reflect or employ reason, yet his elevated state of awareness enables him to grasp the unity within chaos—the apparently haphazard events which make up existence. The Fool is every one of us, but he is also beyond our understanding. From that place originates his power—he is part of the unknown.

He carries in his left hand a white rose, the Rosa Mundi—soul of the world. The most perfect of flowers, the bloom of Eden—it sustains purity and passion, life and death… The rose is a sign of paradise, that of expanding awareness—its five petals representing the five senses… The Tarot Fool never causes sorrow by committing a rash deed; he is without guile. He never hides the truth from us; it is there for all to behold—if we have the sense to recognize it. It lies always within us, if only we could acknowledge it.

(Again, emphases mine.)



Charles Chaplin in City Lights, 1931.


I have no idea if Charlie Chaplin had any interest in hidden wisdom of any kind, let alone the Tarot, but the Rider-Waite deck, with its illustrations by Pamela Coleman-Smith, was published for the public and began its ever rising popularity in 1910, only five years before Chaplin stars in The Tramp, indelibly imbuing the collective consciousness with that loving and lovable symbol on celluloid.

Not making a point. Just an observation.
     

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

‘Cosmos Becomes Man’

     
I had been planning on checking out the open house at the Center for Symbolic Studies at New Paltz on Saturday—a program on neuroscience on the agenda—but instead I’ll stick to the city, and return to Centerpoint. You should check it out also. The second installment of the “In the Midst of Life” lecture series will be presented. (The temperature is forecast to rise to a tropical 42 degrees, so there’s no problem there.)

From the publicity:



Mr. Eugene Schwartz
Eugene Schwartz will continue his four-part lecture series “In the Midst of Life: Understanding Death in Our Time” on Saturday evening at seven o’clock. In case you missed the first lecture, here’s the overview of his whole series: Rudolf Steiner spoke frequently about the importance of understanding the role of death and the Dead, but the subject remains unpopular among American anthroposophists. Eugene explores Steiner’s often surprising and sometimes counter-intuitive indications about the nature of life after death, and suggests how much help they may provide as we face the challenges of modern life.

Lecture 2: “Cosmos Becomes Man” – This lecture will focus on the “second half” of our life after death, beginning with what Rudolf Steiner termed the “Midnight Hour” and ending with our new birth. As we examine this lengthy descent into matter, Steiner grants us insights into such issues as heredity and individuality, love and gender, and karma and human freedom.


Lecture 3, titled “Life Against Death,” is scheduled for Saturday, April 5.

In other news is this announcement:

Ryan Freeman and Paul Hertel are launching a new weekly study group Wednesdays, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. (following the St. Marks Group), “to begin humble, slow, but reverent work with the supersensible.” The first text is What is Anthroposophy?

The New York City Branch of the Anthroposophical Society is located at 138 West 15th Street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues.
     

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

‘Spiritual Laws Discussions’

     
The Rosicrucian Cultural Center in New York City will host Dr. Lonnie Edwards again for a week of discussions on “Spiritual Laws” later this month.

Monday, January 20 through Friday, January 25, daily from 3 to 7:30 p.m. The Cultural Center is located at 2303 Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, at 135th Street, in Manhattan.

From the publicity:

It is important for us, as students of spirituality and mysticism, to become aware and acquainted with the tremendous resources that are available to make our lives more harmonious.

Once we learn to tap these inner resources, living will be an invigorating affair, continuing and picking up where we left off in previous life experiences, and thereby advancing and expanding the consciousness.


We need to keep foremost in our consciousness certain principles, conditions, and laws to gain access to spiritual tools and to arrive at permanent solutions to life’s challenges.

Through lectures, participation in meditation, and visualization exercises, we will be given the opportunity to experience the value of discussing these principles in a group setting.

Facilitating the discussions will be Dr. Lonnie Edwards, Vice President of the EGL Board of Directors, and author of Spiritual Laws that Govern Humanity and the Universe.

Click here for more on Dr. Edwards.
     

Sunday, January 5, 2014

‘Rosicrucian Digest for download’

     
Rosicrucian Digest, the periodical of the Rosicrucian Order, has made its most recent issue (Vol. 91, No. 2) available on-line. Click here.

Titled simply “Rosicrucianism, this issue appears to be (I’m not through reading it) the ideal primer for people like me, the perpetual novice. It features sixteen essays and other articles that trace the legendary and factual histories of the Order from the 1600s through 1801.

As the editors put it:

Courtesy AMORC
Each issue of the bi-annual Rosicrucian Digest provides readers with a compendium of materials regarding the ongoing flow of the Rosicrucian Timeline. The articles, historical excerpts, art, and literature included in this Digest span the ages, and are not only interesting in themselves, but also seek to provide a lasting reference shelf to stimulate continuing study of all of those factors which make up Rosicrucian history and thought. Therefore, we present classical background, historical development, and modern reflections on each of our subjects, using the many forms of primary sources, reflective commentaries, the arts, creative fiction, and poetry.

Contents include:

Rosicrucianism: An Introduction,
The Rosicrucian Manifestos,
The Tomb of Christian Rosenkreuz,
The Rose Cross. Rosicrucian Invocation,
Living the Rosicrucian Life,
The First Rosicrucians in America,
Benjamin Franklin as a Rosicrucian,
Be a Rose-Croix!,
various pieces on Rosicrucian symbols, and more.