Special Lecture: Gates to the Numinous – An Archetypal Understanding of Dreams

Presenter : Dr. Michael Conforti
Venue: Online via Zoom
Time: Monday evening, 5 February 2024 19:00 SAST (GMT +2)
Fee: ZAR300. Booking essential.

About the Lecture

“The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego-consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness extends.”
C.G. Jung

It is the simplicity of the dream, communicating to us in a language derived from the natural world that moves us so deeply. Similar to the apparent simplicity of French composer Eric Satie’s music, we are mesmerized and taken to a realm far beyond everyday life into something that may be the domain of the Numinous. Just listening to the opening stanza of Satie’s Gymnopedie we sense that he was already transfixed, and needed to create music expressive of this world existing beyond the veil. Like the image, these sounds and rhythms convey the movement of the Self as it so gently transports us into relationship with the sacred.

In the dream, patterns of life, of growth, and of endings are revealed through a rich collective language. So too, the dream allows us to see that something in our life – perhaps a relationship, a job, or an attitude – is outdated, and that the Self, the soul is in need of renewal.

Carl Jung was once asked why the dream speaks through symbols and not in the language of everyday life. To this question Jung responded by saying that such a direct communication would fall on deaf ears, and that the Self speaks through an iconographic, pictorial voice of the ages, the language of the “Antique Soul”. So too he reminds us that from time eternal, humanity has been moved by images, by sounds, parables, and symbols.

Could the majesty and utter beauty of Satie and Debussy’s music or DaVinci and Michelangelo’s art ever be conveyed in words?
Offering a glimpse into the world of the archetypal, and closely alighted to Jung’s and von Franz’s work, this presentation promises to enrich your appreciation and understanding of the archetypal images in dreams and the relationship between our personally created meaning of symbols, to their innate, archetypal meaning.

This lecture acts as an introduction to a four-part lecture series on Archetypes and Dreams which will be presented by Dr. Conforti in September 2024. Once bookings are open and live on SAAJA’s website, we will notify our subscriber database.

However, if you would like to secure your seat in the meantime, please send an email to saaja@mweb.co.za, and state that you would like to do an early manual registration for the course with Dr. Conforti. Manual registration details will then be shared with you via email.

The cost for the four-part course is ZAR1,200 and will take place on Wednesdays (September 11, 18, 25 and October 2nd, 2024) at 19h00 SAST (GMT +2).

About the Presenter

Michael Conforti, PhD, is a Jungian analyst and the Founder and Director of the Assisi Institute. He is a faculty member at the C.G. Jung Institute – Boston and the C.G Jung Foundation of New York. A pioneer in the field of matter-psyche studies, Dr. Conforti is actively investigating the workings of archetypal fields and the relationship between Jungian psychology and the New Sciences. He has presented his work at The C.G. Jung Institute – Zurich and Jungian organizations in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Indonesia, Italy, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, and Venezuela. He is the author of Threshold Experiences: The Archetype of Beginnings and Field, Form and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature & Psyche, which have been translated into Italian, Russian and Spanish.

BOOKING INFORMATION | Advance Booking Essential
Bookings close at 12:00 SAST on Monday,5 February 2024. The Zoom link will be distributed at 14:00 SAST on the day of the event.
In the event of tickets being sold out or sales closed, a recording of the lecture will be available for purchase. For more information, contact SAAJA at +27 21 689 6090 or email saaja@mweb.co.za