“I love them… these sages and dreamers, …because they spring from ordinary life and remain profoundly human, that is, though endowed with spiritual authority, they are subject to all the flaws and weaknesses that characterize the human condition.”
Elie Wiesel, Pg 13, Sages and Dreamers
Having the work of Marie-Louise von Franz guide our studies in The Assisi Institute’s Beginner Fairy Tale Analysis course, we learned that these sages and dreamers are present in our universal stories. By following the breadcrumbs left by von Franz, we came to an even richer appreciation for the wisdom found in these stories, and how each story speaks to an archetypal passage in life.
Continuing into the Advanced Fairy Tale Analysis Certification program allows for a deepening of our understanding of the archetypal meaning of these stories. Through an in-depth working with the themes and characters in the story, we will come to see how each carries a very specific, spiritual message from the Self, teaching us about life, love, destiny and individuation.
Adolph Portmann, a longtime collaborator of Jung, and former Director of the Eranos Lectures commented “that we are now inclined to agree with the mystics that the end is in the beginning, the beginning in the end.”
Building on the profundity of this insight, a central focus in the classes will be the study of the opening scene of the fairy tale. Here one learns how the initial conditions of the story informs us about the nature of the archetype around which the story is configured, while also foretelling the nature of the journey.
In addition, this study of the beginning of the tale allows us to see how each image, scene and subsequent development, forms part of a coherent, archetypal story, and how each element is integral in the journey and presentation of the particular story.
To help students develop their craft and love of working with fairy tales, a number of classes are reserved for participants to present their work on a fairy tale and have this work supervised by Kevin Richard, our Chair of Fairy Tale Studies, who is teaching this course.
There will also be two very special presentations given by highly regarded members of the international Jungian community: Jacqueline Dürmüller, a Jungian Analyst from Zurich, and Michael Conforti, Founder and Director of the Assisi Institute.