‘Our first 2026 IAJS seminar took place online, on 31st of January, with Joel Crichton, who presented: “The King of the End of the World: Shakespeare’s Henriad and the Archetypes of King and Apocalypse”.
Moderator: Robin McCoy Brooks
Summary:
An original, intellectually adventurous and theatrically stirring talk that gets to the heart of the archetypes of King and Apocalypse, at a time when both seem to be more relevant than ever. Shakespeare and I Ching provide the psychological and cultural raw material for the analysis.
Though the protestors across the land may cry, ‘No Kings’, yet, we see… Kings. It would seem, despite our North American pretensions to having achieved true democracy, and draining the King of his influence, the King archetype will not go down so easily, and perhaps this is in part because he has not been understood in a long time. But just as likely it is part of his nature: The King Will Not Be Ignored. In Shakespeare’s Henriad, we may recognize our own world in the way that political and ideological stability seem to have been undermined, perhaps permanently. Shakespeare keeps his audience related to the individuals involved, from the peasantry to the knighthood all the way to the King himself. Shakespeare and C. G. Jung seem to have a shared motto: “nothing human is alien to me”, and we will explore the anachronistic premise that Shakespeare was, in certain key ways, a Jungian, and that Jungian ideas have been hiding in plain sight for centuries, embedded in the ever-present plays of the greatest writer in the English language.
This presentation will make these critically important Shakespearean dramas accessible to those unfamiliar with Shakespeare, exploring them from a Jungian perspective, with careful attention paid to the unmatched power of Shakespeare’s language. A Jungian view offers a unique key to Shakespeare’s work, allowing it to reveal aspects of itself that would otherwise remain hidden. Shakespeare’s work has a great deal to offer in return, augmenting and transforming our psychological perspectives.
Bio:
Joel Crichton is a Jungian Analyst, living and practicing in Victoria, Canada, and trained at the C.G. Jung-Institut in Zürich. A classically-trained actor, he worked in theater for over a decade and has a deep appreciation for the creative process and its necessities. He is the author of Jungian Shakespeare: Coming Down to Earth in King John, Twelfth Night, and Cymbeline (2025, Routledge), and creator of the iPhone/Android app Retell, which teaches depth psychology through stories.’.