That Jungian Arts Based Research is happening in academia and in therapy settings is like the water of life in a parched desert. The era of purported dispassion in academia is over; our collective anima mundi has stilled the turbulent surface of illusion, as our self-reflective gaze sees into the depths.
Now, that was impassioned, and therefore truthful to me, rhetoric. That each of us can now claim the right to speak our truth, in language that is natural to us personally, is the miracle. My personal experience of the world as living myth, can only be translated by the poetic voice. Speaking with a poetic voice opens the oracle, opens consciousness to the cosmic depths. The cosmic is where Jung speaks from, and that’s why we are so fascinated by him, so transformed by his teachings.
Coming to Jung through another new phenomenon in academia—Esoteric Studies—is natural, since Jung follows in a vast network of creative, visionary esotericists, who have graced us with archetypal images and words that draw us into our shamanic depths. Now, naming something ‘esoteric’ has, in the past, been equivalent to calling that something ‘not for the masses.’ ‘Esoteric’ was actually defined that way by one of my professors (who was not in Esoteric Studies). A literal translation of ‘esoteric’ is ‘out of this world.’ To many Jungians and archetypal psychologists, his teachings are out of this world, cosmic, cosmological. Jung is being included in Esoteric Studies throughout greater academia, so Jungians and archetypal psychologists can join in that conversation if we choose.
While some academians cling to a turbulent illusion of dispassionate, scientific discourse, we have the responsibility to speak with heart from the depths of the anima mundi and beyond. That’s why the current slogan, ‘fighting for the soul of America’ strikes a deep chord in us, and why even poets felt the call to step into the political arena of the Analysis & Activism 2020 + U.S. Presidency Conference.