The 2023 Zurich Lecture Series: Archetypal Astrology and Alchemy as a Guide to Psychospiritual Transformation

Astrology was of lifelong interest to C.G. Jung, both professionally and personally. He employed it as an aid to his analytical work with his patients, and saw it as the “sum of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity.” The burgeoning interest in the field in the late nineteenth century and beyond was a compensatory response, Jung thought, to the rationality championed after the Enlightenment and to the decline of religion in the modern Western world. For astrology offers something the modern age is sorely lacking: the sense of participation in a cosmic order, in which individual lives—even the intimate depths of our personal experience—are meaningfully related to the universe at large, mapped by the shifting cycles and configurations of the planets.

Over the last thirty years, my work has helped to establish and develop an archetypal approach to astrology. At the same time, I have been especially interested in understanding experiences of deep psychospiritual transformation in the context of the evolution of consciousness and civilization. In this series of lectures, these two areas of interest are brought together. In the accompanying book, The Lion Will Become Man, I share details of my own experience of a period of psychological crisis and transition, which I approach chiefly through a Jungian understanding of alchemy. In the lectures, in reference to the book, I will then explain how one might use astrology to illuminate experiences of psychological transformation. The overarching aim is to convey something of the potential value of archetypal astrology as a cosmological perspective that can offer a source of mythic and psychological orientation for our lives.

The opening lecture and dinner on Wednesday, 27 September will be held at the “Zunfthaus zur Schmiden” (Guild House for Blacksmiths), a beautiful city palace located since 1412 at Marktgasse 20, close to the Limmat River in the heart of old Zurich. The sumptuous late-Gothic Guildhall and the historic rooms with style, warm hospitality and tradition will make you feel welcome. It is a special privilege to celebrate the Zurich Lecture Series at this grand location. More lectures will follow on Thursday, 28 September at Lavaterhaus, located near St. Peter's Church. Lavaterhaus at its core consists of two medieval buildings, probably constructed in the 13th century. In 1922 they were joined to form the parish hall St. Peter, and in 1959 the building was renovated to have fewer, larger rooms and given a new facade. In 2016 Lavaterhaus was further renovated and made available for public events and meetings. The house is named after Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801), a good friend of Goethe's and whom Goethe visited several times at this location.

Lectures:

1. Ego-death and Evolution—from Sublimatio to Nigredo
2. Archetypal Astrology and Individuation
3. Neptune: Solutio and the Night-sea Journey
4. Pluto: Calcinatio, Mercurius, and the Underworld
5. The Metamorphosis of the Gods: Astrological Transit Cycles and the Regeneration of Myth

Postlude to the Zurich Lecture Series 2023

You are invited to participate in a day of Postlude lectures following ZLS at the International School of Analytical Psychology in Zurich.

Friday, 29 September 2023

10:00-11:45 Panel: "Individuation and Synchronicity: Personal and Cultural Dimensions," with Murray Stein, Ann Chia-Yi Li, John Desteian, Bernard Sartorius, and Brigitte Egger
The panel will speak on the topic of individuation and synchronicity, followed by discussion with the audience.

13:00-14:45 | Peter Ammann
In Search of the Re-enchanted World - From Fludd and Kepler to Jung and Pauli and Beyond: About Synchronicity and Divinatory Techniques
This lecture will deal with Robert Fludd's concept of the world as a musical cosmos, his controversy with Johannes Kepler and the disenchantment of the world; Jung's concept of synchronicity as re-enchantment of the world; the role of synchronicity and divination in indigenous African healing systems.

15:00-16:45 | Nancy Krieger
Practical Alchemy: The Alchemical Process Applied to the Work with Complexes
Jung saw alchemy as a process of physical and spiritual transformation (CW XIII, §139-40). What about the work with the lowly complex? Through a pictorial review of the processes of classical alchemy we will question to what extent the archetypal images depicted by this process can be applied to the analytic work with complexes.