Dante’s Divine Comedy

Dante’s Divine Comedy presents us with an archetypal landscape of the Soul—a terrain that reveals itself both as a Place and as a lived experience. Individuation, from this perspective, requires us to journey through this landscape with full awareness. We will approach the Poem as if it were a Living Being, layered with ancient archetypal patterns that continue to animate Dante’s imagery within and around us.

As we descend into its imaginal topography, we become fellow pilgrims with Dante, allowing images of the Soul to emerge. By staying with the imaginal body of The Divine Comedy, we discover deeper aspects of ourselves and invite the Ego to re-member itself as an activity of the Self.

From a Jungian perspective, Dante the Poet is charting his own Individuation process—from an Ego “lost in a dark wood” to a Self that is “experiencing the Numinous.” Through Dante’s descent into Hell, his purgation of archetypal sins in Purgatory, and his ascent to Paradise, the Poet offers a vivid portrayal of the Soul’s embodied journey of Individuation.

On another level, the Poem invokes our personal complexes and guides us to their archetypal roots. According to Jung, our complexes serve as bridges to the Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious—the living Places of Soul.

The imagery in this timeless Poem is both sublime and strange—pregnant with meaning and chilling in its mythic depth. Yet by clothing visionary experience in historical and mythical imagery, Dante renders the chaotic depths more accessible to psychological insight.

Over the course of three sessions, we will follow Dante as both Poet and Pilgrim, witnessing how Jungian theory comes to life through Dante's journey, which is, at the same time, our journey.