February 7-8, 2025 Beyond the Red Book
Sheldon Culver St. Louis, MO
Seminar Description
In 1928, at age 53, Jung stopped writing and painting in the Red Book. He stopped mid-sentence, almost as if to suggest that he would return to it, which he did, 30 plus years later.
In 1959, he wrote in an Epilogue to RB: “My acquaintance with alchemy took me away from it. The beginning of the end came in 1928, when Wilhelm sent me the text of the “Golden Flower,” an alchemical treatise. There the contents of this book found their way into actuality and I could no longer continue working on it (RB)….” This epilogue, in Jung’s normal handwriting, unlike the formal script of RB, was also abruptly left off mid-sentence…perhaps awaiting the world’s verdict upon publication of RB in 2009.
So what was happening in those 30 years? How did Richard Wilhelm transform the trajectory of Jung’s opus and focus? What did Jung discover in the second half of his life, beyond the Red Book? This Seminar will explore Jung’s encounter with Eastern philosophies and how the ancient writings of China confirmed his psychological theories and directed him to discover his western roots in alchemy.
Objectives
Participants will be able to
1. Articulate the concepts of Chinese philosophy, as Jung understood them, in
“The Secret of the Golden Flower” and the “I Ching”
2. Delineate the events/engagements in Jung’s life after 1928
3. Describe Jung’s understanding of the relationship between western and eastern thought
4. Explain the psyche’s experience of synchronicity
5. Share their personal experience(s) with images from Chinese philosophy
Required Reading
Supplemental Reading
Assignment
Select an image from “The Secret of the Golden Flower” or the “I Ching” and write 2 pages (at most) describing it and how it speaks to your journeys psychologically.
Biography
Sheldon Culver, M. Div., D. Div. is a Jungian Analyst with an active, soul-healing practice in Columbia, IL. She is a graduate of Washington University and Eden Theological Seminary, both in St. Louis, MO. She is a Senior Analyst with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts (IRSJA), graduating in 1996. She is an active member IRSJA, and The International Association of Analytical Psychology (IAAP). She is a member and participant of the C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis, providing lectures and workshops.
Sheldon is a founding member of the Heartland Association of Jungian Analysts (HAJA) which was developed in 2016 and was recognized as a Local Training Seminar with IRSJA in 2019.
HAJA provides training Seminars from September through May, alternating between St. Louis, MO and Rogers, AR.
Sheldon’s analytic practice focuses on dreams and how they serve to guide soul’s journey. She is particularly interested in the specificity of dream images and the dynamics within the dream. She has done extensive study on “home” and belonging, on difference and the process of individuation, on women’s spiritual and psychological journeys, and on “the Fool” as a compelling and liberating archetypal image. Since Jung’s Red Book was published in 2009, Sheldon has focused attention on this seminal work which is the key to understanding Jung and his sense of “soul” whose language is “image”. She has a deep love for poetry, classical music and fine arts.
Sheldon is an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ, having served congregations and middle judicatory ministries in Missouri and Illinois since 1974. She is now retired from this realm of service.
Sheldon Culver St. Louis, MO
Seminar Description
In 1928, at age 53, Jung stopped writing and painting in the Red Book. He stopped mid-sentence, almost as if to suggest that he would return to it, which he did, 30 plus years later.
In 1959, he wrote in an Epilogue to RB: “My acquaintance with alchemy took me away from it. The beginning of the end came in 1928, when Wilhelm sent me the text of the “Golden Flower,” an alchemical treatise. There the contents of this book found their way into actuality and I could no longer continue working on it (RB)….” This epilogue, in Jung’s normal handwriting, unlike the formal script of RB, was also abruptly left off mid-sentence…perhaps awaiting the world’s verdict upon publication of RB in 2009.
So what was happening in those 30 years? How did Richard Wilhelm transform the trajectory of Jung’s opus and focus? What did Jung discover in the second half of his life, beyond the Red Book? This Seminar will explore Jung’s encounter with Eastern philosophies and how the ancient writings of China confirmed his psychological theories and directed him to discover his western roots in alchemy.
Objectives
Participants will be able to
1. Articulate the concepts of Chinese philosophy, as Jung understood them, in
“The Secret of the Golden Flower” and the “I Ching”
2. Delineate the events/engagements in Jung’s life after 1928
3. Describe Jung’s understanding of the relationship between western and eastern thought
4. Explain the psyche’s experience of synchronicity
5. Share their personal experience(s) with images from Chinese philosophy
Required Reading
- Wilhelm, R. Trans., Jung, C. G. Commentary (1962) The Secret of the Golden Flower, Harper Collins
- Wilhelm, R. Trans., Jung, C. G. Foreword, I Ching, Bollingen Series XIX, Princeton University Press, OR CW 11, paragraphs 964-1018. Please follow Jung’s footnote number 12: “The reader will find it helpful to look up all four of these hexagrams in the text and to read them together with the relevant commentaries.”
- Jung, C. G., CW 8, Synchronicity: an Acausal Connecting Principle, Bollingen Series XX, Princeton University Press, pages 419-531 in 1978 edition
- Jung, C. G., CW 11, Psychology and Religion: West and East, pages 475-493
Supplemental Reading
- Jung, C.G. (1965) Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp. 200-222, Vintage Books, New York
- Wing-Tsit Chan, Trans. (1963) The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching), Bobbs-Merrill, New York
- Mitchell, Stephen, Trans., (1988) Tao Te Ching, Harper & Row, New York
- Le Guin, Ursula, rendition (2019) Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching, Shambala, Boulder
- Loori, J. D. (1999), Riding the Ox Home, Shambala, Boulder
Assignment
Select an image from “The Secret of the Golden Flower” or the “I Ching” and write 2 pages (at most) describing it and how it speaks to your journeys psychologically.
Biography
Sheldon Culver, M. Div., D. Div. is a Jungian Analyst with an active, soul-healing practice in Columbia, IL. She is a graduate of Washington University and Eden Theological Seminary, both in St. Louis, MO. She is a Senior Analyst with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts (IRSJA), graduating in 1996. She is an active member IRSJA, and The International Association of Analytical Psychology (IAAP). She is a member and participant of the C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis, providing lectures and workshops.
Sheldon is a founding member of the Heartland Association of Jungian Analysts (HAJA) which was developed in 2016 and was recognized as a Local Training Seminar with IRSJA in 2019.
HAJA provides training Seminars from September through May, alternating between St. Louis, MO and Rogers, AR.
Sheldon’s analytic practice focuses on dreams and how they serve to guide soul’s journey. She is particularly interested in the specificity of dream images and the dynamics within the dream. She has done extensive study on “home” and belonging, on difference and the process of individuation, on women’s spiritual and psychological journeys, and on “the Fool” as a compelling and liberating archetypal image. Since Jung’s Red Book was published in 2009, Sheldon has focused attention on this seminal work which is the key to understanding Jung and his sense of “soul” whose language is “image”. She has a deep love for poetry, classical music and fine arts.
Sheldon is an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ, having served congregations and middle judicatory ministries in Missouri and Illinois since 1974. She is now retired from this realm of service.