Tag: Red Book

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Summer 2023 Speaking Engagements

The season has already been off to a rich start full of travels, beginning with a research trip to Prague and the Rhine Valley, a constellation of inspiring astrological stars at NORWAC in Seattle, the enchanting Jung by the Sea conference in Cornwall, England, and attendance at the world’s largest psychedelic conference, with a total of 12,000 participants, at Psychedelic Science 2023 in Denver, Colorado.

Polhawn Fort, Cornwall

Recordings of the presentations I gave at NORWAC and Jung by the Sea are available for those who were unable to attend these events in person. At NORWAC, I gave two talks: “Permutations of Venus” and “Psychedelics and Astrology: A Symbiotic Relationship.” The latter talk offers a glimpse into some of the material I’ve been working with during this last year of research, for those who might be curious what I’ve been up to! At Jung by the Sea, I presented once again on “The Synchronicity of the Two Red Books: Jung, Tolkien, and the Imaginal Realm,” although there were some new elements of the talk particularly related to the exquisite setting on the cliffs of the Cornish coast, and I feel this was my best presentation of the work thus far. It was an extraordinary honor to present this material not only to this insightful Jungian audience, but especially to my fellow presenters, several of whom were major inspirations during my research into the two Red Books: Liz Greene, Tom Cheetham, and—the editor of Jung’s Red Book himself—Sonu Shamdasani.

As the summer progresses, I’ll be focusing almost entirely on writing—albeit with the delightful exception of three new talks I’ll be presenting to the astrological community. On Sunday, July 2, I’m returning to Adam Elenbaas’s Nightlight Astrology speaker series to present on “Jupiter-Uranus: The Creative Genius” in anticipation of the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction that is just beginning and will enliven our collective zeitgeist for the next 14 months.

A few weeks later on Saturday, July 22, I’ll be offering a presentation for NCGR San Francisco titled “The Compassionate Astrologer,” exploring practical guidance on how to create an ethical and therapeutic container in which the astrology client is empathically mirrored, while also being empowered to fall in love with their own birth chart. Although this presentation description refers to working with clients, the material is applicable for anyone who practices astrology, whether the seasoned professional or the novice astrology student.

Finally, on Saturday, August 5, I’ll be giving a class at Nadiya Shah’s Synchronicity University on “Creating a Thriving Transit Practice.” In the class, I’ll be giving step-by-step instructions on how to calculate your own transits using just your birth chart and an ephemeris. This is an extremely empowering and liberating skill to have for all astrology enthusiasts and will allow you to deepen your practice and enhance your relationship to the starry sky above you and its archetypal dynamics within you. This is one of the more practical classes I have offered, and I’m excited to enter into the technical details with a new group of astrology students. If you sign up before June 30, you can choose your own tuition rate for the entire summer series that Synchronicity University is offering—a rare opportunity to learn from five different female teachers over the course of a month.

Whether you decide to attend one talk or all of them, or go back to catch the recordings of those already past, I would be so delighted to know this material is reaching those who need to hear it at this time. May your summer months be resplendent with new adventures, wild awakenings, and timely insights!

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Lecture & Workshop for the Oregon Friends of C.G. Jung

On November 11 and 12, I will be bringing my lecture and workshop on The Red Books of C.G. Jung and J.R.R. Tolkien to the Oregon Friends of C.G. Jung in Portland, Oregon. 

This is the first workshop I have offered in person since 2019, so I’m inordinately excited about it! We’ll actually be able to hear one another laugh, sigh, and all the other wonderful sounds a live audience makes, and hopefully clap together at the end (if you like what you hear!). And in the workshop, I’ll be leading a guided practice of active imagination, and you’ll have the opportunity to make drawings of your experiences, discuss them in small groups, and share your reflections in a large circle all sitting together. Many things we used to take for granted, we can now celebrate in this workshop in a shared space.

For those who are in the area, I will be offering a lecture on Friday, November 11 at 7:00-9:00 pm on The Synchronicity of the Two Red Books: Jung, Tolkien, and the Imaginal Realm. The following day, on Saturday, November 12, I will be offering the workshop Jung’s Red Book and Active Imagination from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.

To register for the lecture and/or workshop, please visit: https://ofj.org/shop/. I hope to see some of you there!

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Jung’s Red Book and Active Imagination

This Wednesday, June 9 at 7:30–9:30 pm Pacific time I will be offering an online presentation for the C.G. Jung Society of Vancouver entitled “Jung’s Red Book and Active Imagination.” The presentation is based on the chapter I wrote for the fourth volume of Jung’s Red Book for Our Time: Searching for Soul Under Postmodern Conditions, edited by Murray Stein and Thomas Arzt.

Register for the Event!

In this talk I will speak about Jung’s Red Book, and how the active imagination fantasies Jung experienced can be understood as a co-creation of the human faculty of imagination in participatory relationship with the archetypes of the collective unconscious. After the presentation we will have time for questions and dialogue!

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Jung’s Relationship to Astrology

This Saturday, May 29 at noon Pacific time I will be offering a presentation for the Jung Archademy on “Jung’s Relationship to Astrology.”

Register for the Event!

In recent years, new scholarship has been emerging demonstrating the essential role the discipline of astrology played in the development and practice of C. G. Jung’s analytical psychology. In 1911, Jung wrote a letter to Freud in which he said that his nights were occupied with the study of astrology, to which Freud responded that Jung would be “accused of mysticism.” Jung kept his practice of astrology relatively concealed, but based upon evidence in his own writings, as well as statements he made late in his life, Jung was drawing on astrological wisdom regularly for both personal use and with his patients.

Drawing on the research of Liz Greene, Keiron Le Grice, and Safron Rossi, this presentation will demonstrate the role astrology played in Jung’s analytic practice, as well as the significant ways in which he drew on astrological symbolism in the transformative process of creating The Red Book. By understanding how astrology influenced the development of Jungian psychology—and how depth psychology has subsequently shaped modern astrology—we can see how the astrological discipline can complement, enhance, and deepen the psychotherapy practiced today.

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Practical Jung

For those who might be interested in joining a live interview I am doing tomorrow, I will be speaking with Aiden Moore of the Practical Jung series about Jung’s and Tolkien’s Red Books!

The event will take place on Sunday, January 31 at 11:30 am–1:30 pm Pacific time, and will include the interview, a question and answer segment, small group discussions, and a closing dialogue. I would be delighted to see you there!

Register for this Event

About the Practical Jung Series
“Practical Jung is a regular series spearheaded by Aiden Moore within the 52 Living Ideas community. We meet for two hours every other Sun at 2:30 Eastern time to explore how we can practically apply the wisdom of Carl Jung to our everyday lives. Jung’s ideas are often cloaked in abstract language that is hard to digest. Given that fact, I wanted to create a conversation and community around Jungian psychology that is for the rest of us! A conversation that works to demystifying some of his ideas and make them applicable to our daily living—regardless of our previous experience with Jungian psychology.

Each session will include an interview with an expert in the field of Jungian psychology and the conversation will revolve around a specific topic (like romantic relationships, anxiety, projection, shadow, etc.). These sessions are for people of all levels – newly curious about Jung to established Jungian analysts – so whatever your previous experience in the field you are sure to walk away with something practical to apply to your own life!”

Format
1) Interview
2) Q&A
3) Break-out room discussion
4) Takeaways

Register for this event: https://www.meetup.com/52LivingIdeas/events/275653908/.

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Jung’s Participatory Imagination

This Sunday, August 30 I will be offering an online presentation for the Carl Jung Depth Psychology Reading Group. The presentation is titled “The Participatory Imagination,” and is based upon the chapter I wrote for the fourth volume of Jung’s Red Book for Our Time: Searching for Soul Under Postmodern Conditions, edited by Murray Stein and Thomas Arzt.

In this talk I will speak about Jung’s Red Book, and how the active imagination fantasies Jung experienced can be understood as a co-creation of the human faculty of imagination in participatory relationship with the archetypes of the collective unconscious. These are ideas that arose while I was writing my dissertation, and while they have implicitly informed many of my presentations and classes, this is the first time I am giving a lecture entirely devoted to this topic! After the presentation we will have time for questions and dialogue.

For those unable to attend the live event, the recording is now available:

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The Astrology Podcast

A dream came true for me this week when I had the opportunity to be a guest on Chris Brennan’s The Astrology Podcast. We ranged through a variety of topics, beginning with my background in archetypal astrology and what it is like to be a second generation astrologer, before picking up the topics of the Archai journal, why C.G. Jung’s Red Book is important and relevant to astrologers, and the connection between outer planetary cycles and the unfolding dynamics of world events.

To listen to the episode: Becca Tarnas in Outer Planet Cycles and Jung’s Red Book

I am deeply grateful to Chris Brennan for the invitation to converse with him on one of my favorite podcasts!

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Two Nightlight Astrology School Presentations

Over the last couple years I have kindly been invited by Acyuta-bhava Dasa to present for the Nightlight Astrology School on topics dear to my heart: “The Astrology of J.R.R. Tolkien” and “The Astrology of Jung’s Red Book.” I am now sharing the videos of each of these presentations, which were recorded about a year apart. Thank you to all those who expressed interest in seeing these presentations and who have waited patiently for the recording!

While my dissertation research focused on the parallels between the Red Books of C.G. Jung and J.R.R. Tolkien, these two presentations treat their works separately, viewing them each through an astrological lens. If the presentations are viewed in conjunction, you will certainly see the overlaps and parallels, in the timing of events and the correlated astrological transits, and in the symbolic content of each.

The Astrology of J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien is best known as the author of the fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings, first published in the mid-1950s and now translated into almost 40 languages. Tolkien first began writing about the world of Middle-earth during World War I, and continued doing so almost until the end of his life in 1973. Although he is best known as a writer, Tolkien was also a visual artist and an extraordinary linguist, holding a position as a professor of philology at Oxford University in England. As his close friend and colleague C.S. Lewis once said: “He had been inside language.” Drawing on an archetypal astrological perspective, this presentation will explore the natal chart of J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as his transits during the creation of some of his major works of art and writing.

The Astrology of Jung’s Red Book

Recently, new scholarship has been emerging demonstrating the essential role astrology played in the development of C.G. Jung’s analytical psychology. Although Jung kept his practice of astrology relatively concealed, he was using it regularly with his patients. With particular focus on Jung’s remarkable manuscript Liber Novus, better known as The Red Book, this presentation looks at the role astrology played in shaping Jung’s psychology and world view, drawing significantly on Liz Greene’s work to explore the astrological symbolism throughout The Red Book, as well as the transits Jung was experiencing at the time of his self-described “confrontation with the unconscious.”

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Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio: Jung, Tolkien & the Imaginal

When I first started researching the parallels between Jung’s Red Book and Tolkien’s Red Book of Westmarch, I came across a wonderful 2011 interview with the Gnostic scholar Lance S. Owens, conducted by Miguel Conner of Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio and titled “Gnostic Themes in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.” The ideas set forth both affirmed and furthered my thinking on the two Red Books, and Owens became an essential source in my research.

Now, seven years after I first heard that interview, I had the great honor of being invited myself onto that same podcast to discuss my new book, Journey to the Imaginal Realm, with Miguel Conner. To listen, here is the interview: “Jung, Tolkien, and the Imaginal.”

Jung Tolkien and the Imaginal with Becca Tarnas

We intimately understand the events and processes that allowed C.G. Jung and J.R.R. Tolkien to enter the Imaginal. Can we access those creative energies and charged symbols from the realm of archetypes to alchemically transform ourselves and the surrounding culture for the better? Our quest into the minds of these magicians of the imagination leads us as well to discover the deeper meanings in such hallowed works as The Lord of the Rings and The Red Book.

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The Two Red Books in Orange County

For those who are in the area, I will be bringing my lecture The Synchronicity of the Two Red Books: Jung, Tolkien, and the Imaginal Realm to the C.G. Jung Club of Orange County! I will be presenting on Sunday, November 10 at 4:00–6:00 pm at St. Wilfrid of York Episcopal Church in Huntington Beach.

For more information, please visit the website of the Orange County Jung Club.

Jung & Tolkien

The Synchronicity of the Two Red Books

Beginning in the years leading up to the Great War, both C.G. Jung and J.R.R. Tolkien independently began to undergo profound imaginal experiences. They had each stepped across a threshold and entered into another world, the realm of imagination, the world of fantasy. Jung recorded these initially spontaneous visionary experiences, which he further developed using the practice of active imagination, in a large red manuscript that he named Liber Novus, although usually it is referred to simply as The Red Book. The experiences narrated in The Red Book became the seeds from which nearly all of Jung’s subsequent work flowered. For Tolkien, this imaginal journey revealed to him the world of Middle-earth, whose stories and myths eventually led to the writing of The Lord of the Rings, a book he named within its own imaginal history The Red Book of Westmarch. There are many synchronistic parallels between Jung’s and Tolkien’s Red Books: the style and content of their works of art, the narrative descriptions and scenes in their texts, the nature of their visions and dreams, and an underlying similarity in world view that emerged from their experiences. The two men seem to have been simultaneously treading parallel paths through the imaginal realm.

The revelations of this research hold deep consequences for modernity’s assumptions of a disenchanted world and bring to the surface implications concerning the nature of imagination and its participatory relationship to the collective unconscious. This presentation will point to the possibility that Tolkien and Jung are preliminary guides on a journey to the depths of an ensouled cosmos in which imagination saturates the very foundations of reality.

​Course objectives:​
• Explore the nature of imagination and its participatory relationship to the collective unconscious.
• Understand the relevance of Jung’s and Tolkien’s Red Books to modernity’s assumptions of a disenchanted world.