Jung Club Evening Lectures
All are Welcome
- Evening lectures are held at the Essex Church, 112 Palace Gardens Terrace, London W8 4RT. 7pm for 7.30pm. They are also accessible on Zoom. They are usually on Thursday but please check the Events Calendar.
- Cost: £20. There is no charge for Club Members.
Note: No recording is permitted at our Lectures and Seminars.
Booking and Payments
- Online: Prior booking online is essential to receive the Zoom link via email – click on the Book Now button for individual Events – listed below
- In-person: Cash or Card payments can be made at the door.
CPD Certificates will be emailed on request.
Note: No recording is permitted at our Lectures and Seminars.
Event Listings
The dates given are Thursday evenings unless otherwise noted. They will all be held at the venue and online, again, unless otherwise stated.
Speaker: Louise Fenton
Vodoun is an ancient religion in West Africa, misrepresented and often misunderstood. It is a powerful spiritual force that permeates every aspect of life in Benin. There is a pantheon of elemental deities whose spirits serve the people through rituals and ceremonies which connect the living with their ancestors. This talk will explore Vodoun in general, before focussing on the ceremonies that bring justice, blessings and joy to communities. Louise will then consider the history and evolution of the Zangbeto ceremony with its magic and dance by deities in straw that pulsate to the beat of the Vodoun drums, and the spinning colourful Egungun that must not be touched for fear of death.
About the Speaker:
Louise Fenton is a cultural historian and anthropologist specialising in West African Vodoun, Haitian Vodou and Witchcraft. After studying Fine Art she read Caribbean History at the University of Warwick. She has spent many years researching and working with Vodoun priests, priestesses and communities across Benin and Togo. She teaches at the University of Wolverhampton and lectures and consults across the UK and internationally.
Speaker: Maxim Ilyashenko
The author Ursula Le Guin in one of her stories, tells us about a boy who gives a box to his mother. When she asked what was in the box, he replied “the darkness”.
Since Russia first attacked Ukraine in 2014, Maxim has presented two papers about it, one in Avignon 2018 and recently another one in Sicily 2024. In his talk he will explore the inner and outer experience of the war that emerged while facilitating Jung’s “Red Book” reading group and various dream circles with Ukrainian colleagues, as an attempt to create a box which can help to contain “the terrible love of war” (Hillman).
About the Speaker:
Maxim Ilyashenko is a Jungian psychotherapist from Ukraine (MsPsy, UKCP, ECP) in private practice in London since 2015. His special interest is in music, arts, mythology, dreams and Jung’s “Red/Black Books”.
Speaker: Stella von Boch / ffiona von Westhoven Perigrinor
With increased life expectancy, more and more people have to deal with memory problems or cognitive disorders like Alzheimer's disease. The losses and behavioural changes that come with it, cause pain for those affected, as well as their carers and relatives. How can we think about what is going on in the mind? On Friday evening ffiona and Stella will discuss this conundrum from a Jungian perspective and start to explore the mystery of memory and consciousness.
About the Speaker:
Stella von Boch: Jungian Analyst and Art Historian ffiona von Westhoven Perigrinor: Jungian Analyst, Author and Independent Scholar
Please see the Weekend Workshop page for details of the second part of this Workshop
Speaker: Dr Cameron Dodds
An immersive journey into the compelling realm of "The Weird." Centred on unorthodox and subversive art practices, the discourse delves fervently into the transformative potential inherent in this concept. Drawing inspiration from the alchemical tradition, the emphasis is placed on "The Weird" as a dynamic force transcending conventional artistic boundaries. The exploration encourages scholars and practitioners to venture into uncharted territories of creativity, where "The Weird" emerges as a potent catalyst for profound and experimental artistic expression.
About the Speaker:
Dr Cameron Dodds is a research fellow at Bath Spa University and lecturer in composition at The University of West London. His research explores the “weird-as-process” and aims to uncover the complex relationship between unconventional artistic forms, fiction, and complex unconscious processes. He works under the para-academic moniker “Haunted Network Research Initiative” and lives in Godalming with his wife and his cat.
Speaker: Alan Mulhern
Human nature is in a state of transition. Trans-sexuality, trans-ideology, and the LGBTQ+ spectrum are part of the Zeitgeist of our time whose unfolding purpose is trans-humanism. This whole movement is deeply implicated with technological change and is only possible because of the spiritual abyss at the centre of Western culture. Will the new hybrid between humanity and Artificial Intelligence eviscerate our inner world and destroy even our capacity to introspect?
A new spiritual vision must be able to see the Faustian pact between on the one hand a highly inquisitive, knowledge thirsty, and power hungry humanity, and on the other the demonic forces it has let loose.
About the Speaker:
Alan Mulhern PhD is a Jungian analyst with a background in the social sciences and humanities. He is the creator and director of the Quest Lecture series. His podcast series is called The Quest, Vision in Age of Crisis. He has published numerous articles plus two books, one on Healing Intelligence, the other a metaphysical and mythological creation myth. His current book project is called The Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Speaker: Dr Martin Gledhill
The premise of this talk is that the role of the “outer” environment in the evolution of Jung’s sense of Self has been overlooked. That Jung dedicated an entire chapter of his “autobiography” to The Tower, indicates its pivotal role in his life and work, and yet the analysis of its evolution and interpretation found in MDR is surprisingly short. Whilst that narrative is beguiling, I contend that it is underexamined, incomplete, inaccurate, and consequently inadequate in aiding an understanding of a Jungian sense of place. In resituating the Tower, both historically and symbolically, interweaving the topography of the unconscious with the typology of place, a meaningful sense of belonging can be constructed that transcends both inner and outer worlds.
About the Speaker:
Dr Martin Gledhill, in parallel with practicing and teaching architecture, has been intrigued by Jung. In 2014 he completed a Masters in Jungian and Post Jungian Studies, where unsurprisingly his dissertation explored his Tower. Such is his fascination for Bollingen that he has developed the study of it into a Ph D, which he is in the process of publishing.
Speaker: Katerina Sarafidou
Active imagination is one of Jung’s most original contributions to the understanding of the dynamics of the psyche and to working with the contents of the unconscious and yet he only sparingly references the subject in the Collected Works. His own self-experimentation documented in the Red Book took the form of entering into waking fantasies and dialoguing with the characters that appeared. The development of this approach as a systematic way of engaging with the inner world made analytical psychology a distinct discipline of psychotherapy beyond the cure of neuroses. This seminar will explore Jung’s active imagination as this is elucidated in the Red Book and Black Books, its implications for the understanding of the psyche, and its role in individuation.
About the Speaker:
Katerina Sarafidou is an honorary member of the British Jungian Analytic Association and Head of Research at the MSc Psychodynamics of Human Development run by Birkbeck College and the British Psychotherapy Foundation. She teaches in several psychoanalytic and Jungian trainings and is one of three founders of The Circle of Analytical Psychology, which offers a 2-year study on Jung’s Red Book.
Speaker: Emily Selove
Siraj al-Din al-Sakkaki was a court magician in 13th-century Central Asia—a time and place of notorious unrest. I will read his Arabic book of magic in dialogue with Jung’s “Concerning Rebirth,” and its treatment of Faust’s bargain with the devil. Like Sakkaki, Marlowe’s Faust struck a deal with the devil in a magic circle, mastering his fear, and binding the demon with sacred oaths before signing a contract. But like Faust, Sakkaki’s shadow-work did not end well; he died in jail after losing a battle of magic in the court of a paranoid khan. Though we may read his magic as a work of failed nigredo—an alchemical experiment gone fatally awry-Sakkaki’s hands-on approach to the problem of evil provides an instructive example to our own troubled age.
About the Speaker:
Emily Selove is an associate professor in Medieval Arabic Language and Literature at the University of Exeter, where she convenes the Centre for Magic and Esotericism. She was the PI of a Leverhulme-funded research project, "A Sorcerer's Handbook," (2019-2022) which will create an edition and translation of Siraj al-Din al-Sakkaki's (d. 1229) magic handbook The Book of the Complete.
Speaker: Rupert Tower et al
This project draws on theoretical work that suggests immersive, virtual environments can provide a vehicle for active imagination and acts as sources for exposure to archetypal images and experiences. This lecture will share the results of Phase 1 (comprised of a one-day research event at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama) of an ongoing initiative. Participants tested Virtual Reality as a process to explore Jung’s concept of the shadow. The lecture focuses on the findings and learning taken away from Phase 1, which will in turn shape the future direction of the research project. One major objective is to explore multiple Jungian concepts via gaming/VR to help introduce Jungian ideas to wider audiences, especially younger people. Friday evening will show how immersive virtual environments provide a secure container for active imagination and enable a “lived experience” of archetypal images and affective engagement. There will then be an exploration of the game environments used in a one-day research event and a summary of participants’ feedback with specific emphasis on Jung's shadow concept.
About the Speaker:
Rupert Tower: Jungian Analyst, Member of the Society of Analytical Psychology, BPC and UKCP Registered, Member of IAAP and the UK Umbrella Group. Professor Kevin Lu: Professor of Applied Psychoanalysis and Head of Department (Practice), Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Dr Andrew Howe: Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychodynamic Psychotherapist, Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, BPC Registered. Dr Nic Abraham: Senior Lecturer in Applied Theatre Practices, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Please see the Weekend Workshop page for details of the second part of this Workshop
Speaker: Rev Erin Clark
Who is the Black Madonna and who is she for? Representations of black- or brown-skinned Madonnas exist across Europe, with no clear agreement on their origin. Some say she is the shadow aspect of the divine feminine; others believe she has persisted within and beyond Roman Catholicism from ancient Mediterranean goddess cults. Some argue she’s just gone dusky from all the candle-smoke.
Often sidelined, frequently disfigured, occasionally an outright embarrassment to organised religion, these Madonnas retain the ability to attract numerous, passionate devotees. This talk will look at beliefs and practices associated with the Black Madonna, listen out for the radical messages that emerge, and suggest what the Black Madonna might have to say to us today.
About the Speaker:
Erin Clark is an American writer and priest living in London. She is the rector of St Matthew’s, Bethnal Green, and the author of Whom Sea Left Behind: a Leviathaniary, Sacred Pavement, and a coauthor of The Book of Queer Prophets: 24 Writers on Sexuality & Religion.
Speaker: Julian Rose
‘The truth is illusive’, some say. But that is only because we don’t give enough importance to how to be true to ourselves and to our imperative to call-out injustice in the outside world.
The psychology of being a good citizen in a globalised neoliberal society/world demands complying to the rules of the game as played by the prevailing status quo: make money, make an impression and make sure to avoid the search for truth. This is the perfect receipt for democide and ecocide – which is precisely where we are going.
The vision required to avoid Armageddon builds on another agenda, one that recognises that answers do not come from ‘above’ but from ‘within’. Those answers have their source in a Universal Truth which is omniscient and omnipotent. Only when such truths are adopted as the way forward for humanity, will we see the future as bright. Iridescent even.
About the Speaker:
Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, a writer, broadcaster, international activist and owner of the Hardwick Estate in South Oxfordshire. He is author of three books, the most recent of which is ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind’.
Speaker: Bob Withers
Dissociation is a common reaction to trauma. In extreme cases the psyche dissociates from the body entirely, identifying with a disembodied mind. The body may then come to store split-off experiences the psyche fears to face. Reuniting mind and body - one of the aims of individuation - thus entails re-encountering those experiences. Understandably this can give rise to powerful resistances. In this talk Bob Withers will develop ideas touched upon in his previous talk ‘Gender dysphoria, individuation and the Shadow’ and draw on the work of Jung, Winnicott, Kalsched and Ogden to look at some of the obstacles encountered when working with mind body dissociation.
About the Speaker:
Robert Withers is a training analyst with the SAP and former senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Westminster. In 1990 he co-founded The Rock Clinic- a charitable, community-based psychotherapy clinic in Brighton. His interest in transgender issues began in the early nineties when he worked analytically with a male to female to male (MtFtM) detransitioner. This experience alerted him to the vital importance of trans people thoroughly addressing their psychological issues before making permanent changes to their bodies. His 2015 paper ‘The Seventh Penis’ won the Michael Fordham prize.