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Soul-Searching Counseling

As many of you know, I had an archetypal astrology counseling practice for eight years before I shifted career tracks and became a full-time professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Over these last four years, many of you have reached out asking for recommendations of other people to work with. Today I’m absolutely delighted to recommend the work of my beloved husband and the father to our two sons, Maximilian De Armon, PhD, as he launches his practice in soul-searching counseling. While this offering includes archetypal astrology as an integral component, it is also broader and more comprehensive than any work I offered in the past.

If you are seeking deeper meaning and purpose in your life, or you are facing important life changes and are in need of guidance, working with Max might be the opportunity you are seeking. He is offering limited spots for soul-searching counseling, which is a personalized guided exploration of your life’s purpose that facilitates your own self-actualization process.

Max offers heart-centered deep listening and archetypal astrological transit analysis to help you map your soul’s journey in order to uncover and share your life’s legacy. He’s studied archetypal astrology for 14 years and is trained in the healing modality of Gender Equity and Reconciliation International. His archetypal analysis includes Jungian, transpersonal, and depth psychological theory, combined with an evolutionary perspective. His doctoral dissertation, The Cosmological Self: Towards a Planetary Consciousness, focuses on self-knowledge and the cosmological process of individuation that each soul experiences when moving towards wholeness.

If you’re interested in learning more about the offering, please contact Max at https://www.ensouledcosmos.com/ . There are also two other beautiful offerings listed on his page that can facilitate your life’s legacy.

I only recommend the work of those I know truly have something valuable to offer, and Max’s work is of the very highest quality. Working with him will absolutely transform your life, as many others can also attest to.

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Two Interviews with Volker Schendel

This summer, I had the opportunity of holding two substantial conversations with Volker Schendel, an astrologer and Neoplatonist based in Germany. We conducted our first interview on July 8, discussing the topics of archetypal cosmology, participatory theory, and philosophy of imagination.

Our second conversation took place on August 12—right during the total solar eclipse—and we discussed my work on Stanislav Grof’s biography. This is the most in-depth public interview I have done regarding my research on Grof’s life and work, and while I reserved the majority of stories to be discovered by readers in the written biography itself, we did explore a wide range of topics and stories that listeners drawn to Grof’s work may find of interest.

Volker is a highly skilled researcher with an expansive breadth of interests and ability to ask deep and engaging questions. His website is a rich storehouse of materials, and the page he put together for my interviews alone may be one of the largest online compilations of the work I’ve done over the last decade: Foundation for Astrology and Knowledge. I hope you enjoy the resources he has compiled, as well as our two interviews!

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Theories of Everything Podcast

I was recently invited to join Curt Jaimungal on his Theories of Everything podcast, which is devoted to exploring theoretical physics, consciousness, philosophy, religion and other such topics.

We spoke about my research on Jung’s and Tolkien’s Red Books, while also discussing archetypes, imagination, depth psychology, and expanded states of consciousness. Jaimungal’s questions are deep and go right to the heart of the matter, and I felt I needed to be on my intellectual toes throughout the entire conversation.

Our topics of discussion were largely fringe for his scientific and philosophically based audience, and I have been grateful thus far for the positive reception, as well as for the honor being asked onto such a prominent podcast.

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The Shift Networks Presents “The Cosmic Game” with Stanislav Grof

As many of you know, I’ve been working on researching and writing Stanislav Grof’s biography over the last several years. It’s been an honor to work with him, his family, and his colleagues to tell the life story of one of the great leaders in the fields of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and modern consciousness research.

For those who wish to learn more about Stanislav Grof’s research, the Shift Network is offering a 7-week course on his work, starting on Wednesday, July 22, and featuring 11 leading figures of the consciousness movement. I am honored to be one of the guest speakers for two of the sessions.

This course centers on a rare presentation about Stan’s work given many years ago at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, bringing together decades of discoveries about consciousness, healing, spiritual experience, and the deeper patterns that shape human life.

Each recorded lecture from Stan will be followed by a live discussion moderated by holotropic breathwork facilitator Jay Dufrechou and the following guests:

July 22 – Jack Kornfield
July 29 – Chris Bache
August 5 – Paul Grof & Becca Tarnas
August 12 – Will Keepin & Cynthia Brix
August 19 – Rick Doblin
August 26 – Diane Haug
September 2 – Stan Grof, Brigitte Grof, Richard Tarnas & Becca Tarnas

You can find all the details and register here for
Frontiers of The Cosmic Game With Stanislav Grof!

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Kosmos Institute Colloquium 

The Kosmos Institute is hosting a colloquium this winter solstice in Ascona, Switzerland, near to where the legendary Eranos meetings were hosted by Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn. At the Eranos conferences, C.G. Jung, Erich Neumann, Karl Kerényi, Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, Henri Corbin, James Hillman, and numerous other luminaries shared their work in development. 

Leading up to the colloquium this December, Kosmos Institute is offering six free online presentations from a variety of scholars in the field. The theme for the colloquium, and the online presentations, is the relationship between the transcendent and the immanent. I will be speaking on this theme on Sunday, July 19 through the lens of archetypes and synchronicity, and how they may relate to what we call magic. 

Archetypes, Synchronicity, and Magic

Sunday, July 19, 2026 — 10:00 am PT/ 1:00 pm ET/ 6:00 pm GMT

Presentation Description:
In recent years, astrology and magic have caught the collective imagination and are enjoying an unexpected renaissance through new social platforms. Astrology and magic have ancient roots and persisted across the centuries through multiple evolving world views before the modern, scientific mind disavowed them. Yet, while astrology is being quietly accepted in certain small corners of the academic and depth psychological spheres, magic is still firmly barred at the gates. How can we even begin to understand astrological magic in the contemporary world? Doing so requires reconciling different cosmologies and paradigms, synthesizing ancient and medieval spiritual and religious perspectives with modern philosophy and psychology to bring forward language and concepts that speak to our place in an evolving cosmos. In light of such a synthesis, this presentation will explore archetypal theory and the concept of synchronicity—a term coined by the depth psychologist C.G. Jung—to illuminate a contemporary understanding of astrological correlations and magical praxis. 

Here is the recording of the presentation “Archetypes, Synchronicity, and Magic”:

This is the second presentation in the series. The opening event was offered on the summer solstice by Richard Tarnas. The recording for his presentation, “The Arc of the Transcendent,” is available here:

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Forever Jung? C.G. Jung’s Continued Relevance During Challenging Times

Over the autumn equinox weekend, September 19–21, the East West Psychology Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies will be co-hosting a hybrid online/in-person conference with the San Francisco Jung Institute entitled, Forever Jung? C.G. Jung’s Continued Relevance During Challenging Times.

The keynote speakers of the event will be John Beebe and Richard Tarnas, and many other CIIS faculty will be offering presentations. My own graduate program at CIIS, the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program, is well-represented with Sean Kelly, Matthew Segall, and myself all offering presentations.

My own presentation is titled “Jung’s Participatory Imagination.” Here is the description of my talk:

The Red Book of C.G. Jung is a personal record of one man’s experiential encounter with the great mystery of the unconscious. And yet, The Red Book also documents powerful visions and fantasies with collective import pertaining, in some ways, to the whole of humanity. This presentation posits the idea that the fantasies Jung encountered through the practice of active imagination can be understood not just as a subjective experience, nor as an objective spiritual disclosure, but as a participatory co-creation between the human faculty of the imagination and the archetypes of the collective unconscious.

Please visit the Conference Website for more information and to register!

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Stanislav Grof Audiobooks

I am so happy to announce that the audiobook of Stanislav Grof’s 2006 memoir, When the Impossible Happens, narrated with my voice, is now available on Audible and through the publisher Sounds True!

I had the honor of recording this audiobook last year, just a couple weeks before my son was born. Reading Grof’s memoirs aloud was a rich and intimate experience, and also an extraordinary opportunity to deepen into the research for his biography that I have been writing these last several years.

Also, in case you haven’t heard the audiobook narration I recorded of Grof’s two-volume 2019 encyclopedic work, The Way of the Psychonaut, this is also available through Audible.

We hope you enjoy these performances of Grof’s groundbreaking writings on transpersonal psychology, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and holotropic states of consciousness, among other profound topics!

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The Beautiful Work Challenge: On Birth Conversation

I had the honor to join my colleague and fellow Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness faculty member Sean Kelly on the podcast On Birth Conversation. In this episode, we explored the effect birth has on our psychology and on adulthood. We discussed the archetype of birth, the work of C.G. Jung and Stan Grof, and the roots of transpersonal psychology. I also was able to share some of what I learned going through my own experience of birthing my son Aurelio last year.