Tag: Kosmos Institute

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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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The Mythopoetic Imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien: Reading “The Lord of the Rings”

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Have you always wanted to read The Lord of the Rings but never got around to it? Or have you been longing to return to Middle-earth, but perhaps have been waiting for the right occasion to do so? If the answer is yes, the moment could be ripe to take a journey through this great myth for our time—alongside a fellowship of student travelers and with a guide who has been exploring this world for nearly twenty-nine years.

It is my absolute honor and joy to be teaching the course “The Mythopoetic Imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien: Reading The Lord of the Rings” in collaboration with Kosmos Institute this Autumn 2025. Please join us as we spend twelve weeks reading our way through J.R.R. Tolkien’s great work, The Lord of the Rings.

Learn More and Register

Course Description

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien has been a beloved story to several generations since its publication in the mid-1950s. The story has a timeless quality to it, and engages with a complex struggle between good and evil, death and immortality, power and freedom. The Lord of the Rings blends otherworldly romance with the high rhetoric of epic mythology, at times interwoven with the internal depths of the nineteenth century novel and the political climate of the twentieth century. As Tolkien’s close friend and colleague C.S. Lewis once said: “Nothing quite like it has been done before. This book is like lightning from a clear sky . . . here are beauties which pierce like swords and burn like cold iron.”

The Lord of the Rings is a text treated by many as a sacred text, one to be returned to year after year, or read aloud with loved ones. The Lord of the Rings has become a myth for our time. This course offers a journey through Tolkien’s magnum opus in a community of learning, guided by a scholar who has spent more than two decades engaging Tolkien’s writings and artwork. This course is designed both for newcomers to Tolkien’s narrative, and for veteran travelers through Middle-earth’s many realms. Together we will explore the grand themes and hidden nuances of Tolkien’s epic story, connecting The Lord of the Rings to the larger mythology of Middle-earth, and situating Tolkien’s process of writing within his own powerful experiences of the imaginal realm.  

To learn more and register, please visit: Kosmos Institute – The Mythopoetic Imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien