Jung Club Evening Lectures
All are Welcome
- Thursday 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, unless otherwise stated.
- Cost: £20. There is no charge for Club Members.
- Friday evening lectures are held online only and many form part of a Weekend Workshop – noted on the Events Calendar.
- Cost: £25 (Members £20)
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/s: Rupert Tower et al
This multidisciplinary research project looks into the role of Virtual theoretical work that suggests immersive, virtual environments can provide a vehicle for active imagination and can act as sources for exposure to archetypal images and experiences.
On Friday we will outline the context for our research project and illustrate how Jung visualised his own virtual environment in the Red and Black Books through the technique of active imagination. We will share the results of Phase 1(a research event held at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in January 2025) when participants tested Virtual Reality as a process for exploring Jung’s concept of the shadow. Our lecture focuses on the findings which will in turn shape the future direction of our research. One major objective is to explore multiple Jungian concepts via gaming/VR to help introduce Jungian ideas to wider audiences, especially younger people. We will ask: could VR play a role in analytical psychology? Does it have relevance for, and an impact on, both its theory and practice?
The free Workshop on Saturday (see the Weekend Workshops page) will offer an opportunity to engage in a guided Virtual Reality immersion, utilizing VR material that enhances a potentially numinous experience of wonder and awe. This will be facilitated by members of the team. Afterwards, participants will discuss their experience in small groups, reflecting on its potential significance from a Jungian perspective. Art materials will be provided for those who may wish to articulate the experience visually. This will be followed by a final plenary group discussion.
Rupert Tower is joined by Prof Kevin Lu, Dr Andrew Howe and Dr Briony Clarke.
About the Speaker/s:
Rupert Tower: Jungian Analyst, Member of the Society of Analytical Psychology, BPC and UKCP Registered, Member of IAAP and the UK Umbrella Group. With: 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 Briony Clarke, artist and game designer, founder of studio "Deep Play."
Please see the Weekend Workshop page for details of the second part of this Workshop
Speaker/s: 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/s:
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/s: 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/s:
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/s: Diane Finiello Zervas
Most Jungians are aware of the similarities between the written and musical ideas of Richard Wagner and the psychological concepts of C. G. Jung, first presented by Robert Donington in Wagner’s Ring and its Symbols (1963). What has been missing, however, is a detailed knowledge of Jung’s own views on Wagner and his operas, especially the Ring and Parsifal.
Diane’s talk will highlight the recent discovery and publication of Jung’s writings and visual works during the years around the First World War and new information about the 1920 English seminar held at Sennen Cove, Cornwall, which reveal the extent of Jung’s and Emma Jung’s personal and psychological interest in Wagner’s life and works, and subsequent influence on their professional writings.
Cost for the event: £25
Club members: no charge when booking with Access Code
About the Speaker/s:
Diane Finiello Zervas PhD is an art historian and a senior analyst with IGAP. She has wri5en "Intimations of the Self: Jung’s Mandala Sketches, 1917" for The
Art of C. G. Jung (W. W. Norton & Company, 2019). Her book "Enchanting the Unconscious: Jung’s Reception in Great Britain, The Red Book, and his
English Seminars", 1919 and 1920 will be published by Routledge in May.
Speaker/s: Bob Withers
Dissociation is a common reaction to trauma. In extreme cases the psyche dissociates from the body entirely, identifying with a disembodied mind. Experiences the psyche fears to face may be split-off and projected into parts of the body, which are then experienced as "other". Under these circumstances, reuniting mind and body - one of the aims of individuation- can give rise to powerful resistances as the psyche encounters the terrifying affects associated with the original traumatic experiences.
If these traumatic experiences happened in early infancy before the mastery of language and declarative memory, a person may feel as if they have been "born in the wrong body".
In this talk Bob Withers will use themes introduced in his previous talk "Gender dysphoria, individuation and the Shadow" to develop a way of understanding and working with, not only gender dysphoria, but a variety of other psychosomatic conditions including hypochondria, and body dysmorphia. He will use these ideas to critique Melanie Suchet’s (2011) trans-affirmative paper "crossing over".
About the Speaker/s:
Robert Withers is a training analyst and lecturer with the Society of Analytical psychology, co-founder of The Rock Clinic in Brighton, former senior lecturer on the mind body relationship in medicine at the University of Westminster, international lecturer, researcher and author of a series of articles on a variety of subjects from complementary medicine to psychoanalysis the mind body relationship and gender dysphoria.