“Matter is spirit moving slowly enough to be seen.”
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
Throughout his life, C.G. Jung maintained an unwavering interest and fascination in the confluence of matter and spirit. From his alchemical studies, to the realm of the Psychoid, each speaks to the inexorable relationship between Psyche and Matter and Matter and Soul. Towards the end of his life, he commented that if he were still a young man, he would gather together a group of Physicists to study the work of archetypes and the emergence of dynamics from the realm of the psychoid, and then have a group of analysts who would take the time to study the guiding principles in Physics. In this way each would know something of the other’s work, and perhaps together could arrive at an even richer understanding of the presence and workings of the Psyche in the material world.
Based on Jung’s insight, The Assisi Institute’s vision has always followed an interdisciplinary discussion into the nature of the archetypes, the emergence of form and patterns, and the evolution of the psyche, from the individual to the Unus Mundus. Please join us in this 5-part series where some of the most recognized pioneers in evolutional biology, neuropsychology, quantum physics, and cosmology share with us their understandings of how the forms and patterns of the archetypes show up in nature and the Psyches of all living organisms.
The Lectures
April 14, 2022
Aesthetic Evolution: Animal Subjectivity, Diversity, and the Nature of Art
Darwin’s theory of sexual selection by mate choice proposed that many organisms choose their mates based on their subjective desires. He further proposed that secondary sexual ornaments – like bird songs, displays, and colorful plumages – co-evolve with the corresponding preferences for them.
In work spanning ornithology, evolutionary biology, and aesthetic philosophy, Richard Prum proposes that Darwin’s insights provide the broad intellectual tools necessary to understand the nature of aesthetics generally. In biology, sexual selection by mate choice introduces the agency of organismal subjectivity – literally what individual organisms like or don’t like – into the process of evolution which is otherwise occurs by random (i.e. mutation, genetic drift) or objective (i.e. natural selection) processes.
The aesthetic co evolution of display and preference – desire and the object of desire – create a class of phenomena that cannot be described as adaptations. Recognizing the aesthetic agency of mate choice provides additional insights into the evolutionary consequences of sexual violence, documenting that sexual autonomy is an evolved feature of many animal social systems. Lastly, by defining art as a form of communication that co-evolves with its evaluation, this authentically Darwinian account establishes a co-evolutionary aesthetic philosophy that provides rich new intellectual tools for understanding the breadth and diversity of the human and non-human arts.
April 21, 2022
Quantum Theory: The Reality of Possibility
There is a need for a paradigm change in the way we think about the world of space, time, and action in the Western tradition. One limiting notion is the idea that anything real must be tangible by the external five senses. Another is the assumption that real objects are separate, localized “things” that move from place to place in a container called “spacetime.” Yet another is the notion that dynamical action, energy, is emitted by one entity that does all the work and ends up at another point as a passive, secondary effect. This can be understood as a “Yang-only” view.
Yang-type processes are generation, initiation, and creation. In contrast, Yin-type processes include reception, response, and dissolution; they are every bit as important, but have been largely unseen by Western science. One consequence is that physics has long overlooked a Yin-based approach to field interaction that could shed new light on the significance of quantum theory for our understanding of reality. The paradigm change required by quantum theory includes the recognition that potentiality, or possibility, is just as real as actuality. Thus, quantum theory opens the door to an understanding that the phenomenal level of our experience rests upon a vast ocean of possibility from which creativity emerges.
Suggested reading materials:
Kastner, R. E. (2015). Understanding Our Unseen Reality: Solving Quantum Riddles (World Scientific)
Kastner, R. E. (2019). Adventures in Quantumland: Exploring Our Unseen Reality (World Scientific)
April 28, 2022
The Enigma of Time in Physics, Philosophy and the Psyche
Time is the ultimate enigma for contemporary physics. In the formalism of quantum physics, it is treated differently from all other variables. In the fundamental equations of physics there is no arrow of time, time can flow forward or backward in a perfectly symmetric way.
Yet in the Second Law of thermodynamics and in our lived experience it very definitely flows in one direction and not in the opposite one. We remember the past and not the future. We grow older and not younger. A cup of tea left on the counter cools down by warming the surrounding air, but we never see the surrounding air warming up a cold cup of tea. Does the key to the enigma reside in the Big Bang? Does it imply multiple universes?
May 5, 2022
Our Anxious Selves: The Broad and Enduring Influences of the Fear System
This talk explores the outsized role that the fear system plays in forming fundamental aspects of who we are. It examines how inevitable and commonplace adverse experiences during our development create predictable emotional effects that shape our unconscious and conscious patterns; how we tend to think, feel, and act. After years of practice, this topic reflects Efrat Ginot’s realization that most of our internal and interpersonal difficulties and struggles are the result of the powerful and ever-present fear system.
We are all unique in our individuality and greatly differ in the ways we see ourselves, in how we feel about others, and in how we cope with the inevitable emotional injuries and painful turmoil that are part of life. Most of us, however, share the emotional consequences of innate fear and anxiety – facets of the fear system – that are inevitably part of development. The effects of the strong presence of fear and anxiety in our psychic life are not confined only to how we consciously experience the scary, dysregulating emotions of fear and anxiety. Rather, throughout development these emotions influence other feelings and most of our mental functions. Patterns of attention, expectations, thought processes and our typical narratives about ourselves and others are greatly affected by the early presence of the fear system. This is the result of the brain-wide integration among regions and neural circuits.
Specifically, from the very beginning, the vigilant amygdala and its related circuits are interconnected with all other brain regions, thus negatively influencing many aspects of our conscious and unconscious patterns. The tendency to experience oneself and the world with excessive insecurities, worries, self-hating negative ruminations and avoidant behaviors are only a few examples.
This talk further explores in detail the many aspects of the fear system and their enduring influence on how we develop and who we become.
May 12, 2022
Archetypal Influences: Form and Potentia in the Individual and Collective Psyche
This presentation offers an investigation into the nature and form of archetypal dynamics.
The activation of an archetype within the Psyche creates a constellation within the Psychic system. Here the archetype exists as a sense of readiness, of moving from potential to form within the individual and collective Psyche. From the perspectives of Archetypal Astrology and Jungian Analytic practice by two of the pioneers in the field of archetypal patterning, Richard Tarnas and Michael Conforti will discuss the influence, mobilization, and conversion of archetypal potentiality into form.