The Guild of Pastoral Psychology
Guild Summer Conference 2025 – IN PERSON
Dancing with God – Striving for Wholeness: Reflections of Archetypal Patterns in the African Psyche
The significance for Jung of his travels in Africa is strongly expressed in his autobiographical work, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Upon glimpsing a distant figure standing motionless, leaning on a long spear and looking down at the train he was on, he thought:
“I had the feeling that I had already experienced this moment and had always known this world which was separated from me only by distance in time. It was as if I were this moment returning to the land of my youth, and as if I knew that dark-skinned man who had been waiting for me for five thousand years” (C.G. Jung, MDR, p. 283)
The Alchemy of the African Healer
Lynne Radomsky Ph.D.
“My body has two lives, my spiritual life and my physical life” – African Healer
At this time of uncertainty, when the opposites pull apart and we get caught in the cycle of destruction and we long for reconstruction, to find meaning in the chaos and for healing. With this background, and as this material may be foreign to our western predilections, we can ask: Why would it be important? What is its relevance? The rich symbolic world of the African healer offers us a glimpse into a living system from which to begin to unravel the great mysteries of life, death, and the afterlife and to find healing. Here we perhaps catch a glimpse of the relationship to the collective unconscious in order to bring something into our modern day lives.
In these talks, I will track one of the most numinous rituals in the African Healing tradition that of the calling to initiation. Psychologically, this call is an archetypal experience that potentially initiates individuation, birthing the awareness of a transpersonal other. Here we enter the realms of the unfathomable mystery of the unitary nature of spirit and nature, a pathway to a direct connection to the creator spirit, to rebirth and regeneration and most importantly – to healing. The striving towards wholeness is encapsulated in this initiation and in the symbol of the conjunction, the totality as the essence of the alchemical opus and C. G. Jung’s approach to depth psychology.
I will explore this initiation ceremony in three parts:
In my first talk, I will look at the Nigredo, the dark night of the soul.
The second talk develops the theme with the Albedo, the new dawn.
The third talk culminates with the Rubedo, the fullness of the individuation journey.
Alchemical Retreat in the Sahara Desert: Love Song of a Tamarisk Tree
Maxim Ilyashenko
I am convinced that the word “Allah” is a call in itself… and expresses a deep longing…It is eros and feeling…Allah is a cry in the desert, under an endless sky. It is a call to a Being which is omnipresent, like the wind that one senses everywhere
C. G. Jung (“Reflections on the Life and Dreams of CG Jung by Aniela Jaffe”)In my first talk, I will share my recent experience of an alchemical silent retreat in the Sahara desert guided by a Sufi. I will explore the meaning of an inner desert and the necessity of a vast and still space, as Henry Corbin says, “in order to be encountered, taken, known, that they may speak, otherwise you are alone”. I have been taken myself by a tamarisk tree and the desert which taught me not only about “the Lost speech” and Love but also about “a dark face of divinity” as well. What are the similarities or differences between the path of revelation and the path of knowledge? Is it possible to maintain the retreat practice in our daily busy life?
“The years go by. I have been to Africa, seeking. Whom? Probably him, the unknown one, the God or the fate-fortifying one”…
(Jung’s Black books entry from 16 Nov 1926)
In my second talk I will reflect on parallels among Gnosticism, Sufism (Ibn Arabi), lucid dreaming and Jung’s active imaginations he described in Black books and Red book.
Though Jung did not write much about Africa or Islamic tradition, he encountered it in his visions and dreams. We will read and explore together some of Jung’s last entries to Black books written in 1922-26 where he kept coming back to his experience and dreams about Africa. I will offer a dream incubation practice Jung’s active imagination and the Lucid dreaming technique.
The African Drums
Robert Mark
The drum is one of the most ancient of musical instruments and has been used throughout antiquity and mythology to induce trance states for healing and prophesising. The drum beat reflects the pulse of life, evoking elemental powers, activating the processes of creation and linking the individual to the rhythms of the cosmos. The Drumming experience brings to life the essence of the African plains as the drum echoes the heartbeat of the African soul. Most of the African countries have their own distinct treasure of the drum beat.
In this workshop, I will demonstrate the development of the drum beat from the central role of the drum in African initiation ceremonies, through the Slave trade, many instruments and styles have taken long journeys to the Caribbean, South America, where they influenced the development of rhythms and music. Participation is encouraged in a drum circle format.
We will begin with simple basic rhythmic concepts and coordination between the hands and the feet, we will then explore some easy to develop African drum rhythms.
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