Alchemy and the Transformation of Self

Semester and Year	FA 2011
Course Number	IDSEM-UG1277
Section	001
Instructor	Lee Robbins
Days	Tue,Thu
Time	9:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement	HUM

Description

The focus of this course is the one relationship we sustain from birth to the grave and possibly beyond—the relationship to ourselves. The quality of our relationship to work, community and intimate others is deeply affected by the level of connection we have to parts of ourselves. In this course we explore the “middle ground of psychic realities” between ego and unconscious, soul and deity, male and female, spirit and body and finally self and other. The middle ground within the psyche is presented in historical perspective from Buddha through the ancient art of alchemy to the modern depth of psychologies of Freud, Jung and Winnicott. How does each of these traditions understand the psyche as the site of struggle and radical transformation? Students will have the opportunity to discover and experience the middle ground within themselves through the crafting of personal Alchemical rituals. Readings may include: Suttas from the Pali Canon, Eliade’s The Forge and the Crucible, Plato’s Symposium, Corbin’s Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, Bachelard’s Poetics of Space, Emerson’s “Self Reliance”, Edinger’s Anatomy   o  f   t  he Psyche and especially selections from CG Jung who rediscovered alchemy as the antecedent to his own psychology of the unconsciious and so introduced the ancient art of alchemy into the modern and postmodern world.

Syllabus

IDSEM-UG1277

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)