Enjoy photos of this event under the Recent Happenings page!

Program Descriptions - Accommodations - Registration
Tentative Schedule of Events

Program Descriptions

Pre-Conference Workshop with Carl Greer, Ph.D., Psy.D.
“Portals”
            Beginning at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, November 18 and concluding with lunch on Thursday, November 19, 2009, this Pre-conference meeting is a spiritual preparation for the “Portals to the Sacred” conference to follow.
            When we learn knowingly to open the pathways between ourselves and the sacred, we experience the one in the many and the many in the one. Portals to the sacred are in us and surround us; to find and access them, we are limited only by our imagination. Our inner imaginings, journeys, and dreams are portals to the sacred — the manifest and un-manifest. The natural world also provides portals to the sacred.
            We will play with images of portals through metaphor, shape, movement, sound, and poetry. We will open ourselves to the grace of spirit, asking for assistance in accessing our portals as we change our perceptions through scent, music, ceremony, and ritual. Through the opened portals of our imagination, we can journey to the sacred spaces within and around us. We will taste the sacred and whet our appetites for more to come.

Carl Greer , Ph.D., Psy.D., is a businessman, practicing Jungian analyst in the Chicago area, clinical psychologist, and has a shamanic healing practice. Over the course of his career, he has been an entrepreneur and university professor, and has a lifelong interest in the martial arts and Qigong. He has published articles in various journals, served on a number of boards of directors, and taught courses in shamanism and Jungian theory and practice. 

Lionel Corbett, M.D.
Presentation: Varieties of Sacred Experience
            We often perceive the sacred by means of a rarely acknowledged psychospiritual sense that gives it a quality of reality as intense as perception through any of the five senses, as if something objective is presenting itself to us. Dr. Corbett will discuss the distinctive qualities of sacred experience, the occurrence of which, as Jung pointed out, is an empirical fact. This is especially important to those whose spirituality can no longer be contained within traditional religious institutions. Dr. Corbett will relate how the sacred manifests in dreams, as psychopathology, in the body, in relationships, in the natural world, and in visionary experience.

Lionel Corbett, M.D., was trained in medicine and psychiatry in England, and as a Jungian analyst at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. Dr. Corbett is a core faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. His primary dedication has been to the religious function of the psyche, especially the way in which personal religious experience is relevant to individual psychology. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Religious Function of the Psyche, and Psyche and the Sacred: Spirituality Beyond Religion.

James Hollis, Ph.D.
Presentation: Untune That String: the Necessity of Private Myth
“Untune that string, and, hark, what discord follows.” William Shakespeare
            Analytic psychology offers many useful tools, including the development of private myth in the face of the bankruptcy of public myth. Dr. Hollis will consider questions such as “What is spirituality?” and “What characterizes a mature spirituality?” as well as “What are the ways we may serve a life of growth, development, integrity, purpose, and wonder?” He will also provide exercises to help us make more conscious those autonomous complexes and patterns that each of us assumed in our early adaptations to our environment. The goal is to begin to develop a personal myth that is more attuned to our adult selves.

James Hollis, Ph.D., is a Zurich trained Jungian analyst in private practice in Houston, Texas, and is also Director of the San Francisco Saybrook Graduate School of Jungian Studies.  Dr. Hollis is the author of more than 50 articles and reviews, and 12 books — including, The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning at Mid-Life; On This Journey We Call Our Life; The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other; Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path, and Why Good People Do Bad Things.

Sylvia Brinton Perera, M.A.
Presentation: Ritual Created in Psychotherapy as a Portal to the Sacred
            Vignettes from the story of a long psychotherapy reveal the relational process through which a need becomes a ritual with archetypal roots. Moving from concrete actions to emotional and symbolic expression, the created rite becomes an increasingly conscious portal to the sacred and a source of personal transformation.
Workshop: Celtic Well Rites
            In Ireland and Wales many rituals of the ancient cult of sacred waters survived into modern times and have relevance for contemporary Jungian therapy. The holy wells were considered sources of fertility, regeneration, deepened and expanded vision, sovereignty initiations, and are still visited for healing. Some of the rituals are similar to the Christian Eucharist, which Jung termed “the rite of individuation.” In this workshop we will each make our own imaginary journey to the wellspring to explore how the stages of the healing rites can attune us to the source and help us transform our relationships to our complexes.

On Saturday afternoon, participants will have a
choice of 1 of 4 "breakout" sessions:

Mala-making and Meditation
With Sandy Cooper, M.A., M.A.P.S.
When our hands and breathing are consciously involved in prayer practice, the mind is freed to focus more deeply. This afternoon we will string colorful malas using 108 crystal beads plus a summit bead called a sumeru or guru bead. We will consider some of the many meanings of the number 108 throughout the world and across time. Finally, we will initiate our new malas with a time of meditation together.
Sandy Cooper, the current president of the C.G.Jung Society of Saint Louis, has been a spiritual director, hospital chaplain, and English teacher. She is now a realtor with Dielmann Sotheby’s International Realty.

Discerning the Personal Myth
With James Hollis, Ph.D.
What are the affect-laden images which drive and direct our lives, and from whence do they come? In a series of exercises we will attempt to discern some of the core mythic themes which run through our personal lives. Please bring pen and pad for personal response to a series of questions and exercises.
James Hollis, is a Zurich trained Jungian analyst in private practice in Houston, Texas, and is also Director of the San Francisco Saybrook Graduate School of Jungian Studies. Dr. Hollis is the author of more than 50 articles and reviews, and 12 books.

Cahokia Mounds Tour
Guided by John Kelly, Ph.D.
One of the greatest cities of the world, Cahokia was larger than London was in AD 1250. The Mississippians who lived here were accomplished builders who erected a wide variety of structures from practical homes for everyday living to monumental public works that have maintained their grandeur for centuries.
Cahokia Mounds is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.
John Kelly, is on the faculty of the Department of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. He recently excavated an early Mississippian village in the uplands east of Cahokia. This has important implication on the role of ritual in the organization of space. Presently, his research is based upon the role of ritual and kinship in the mix of ingredients that contribute to the dispersal of the Mississippian population in the fourteenth century.

"Bones”: A 3D Image-making Experiential Workshop
With Deborah Stutsman, M.A.
As symbol, bones, the non-decaying structure of the living organism, represent death and yet carry living energy and meaning. Working 3D, with found objects and sun-bleached driftwood, participants will allow Psyche to express herself visually in resurrected form. No art experience necessary, just a willingness to play and explore one's imagery.
Deborah Stutsman is an LPC and Art Therapist working with adults in private practice in St. Louis. She served as president of the C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis from 2004 to 2009, and is the art therapist on the Psychology & Religion Program team at the St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute. She is currently enrolled in training to become a Jungian analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago.

Accommodations and Seminar Site

Toddhall Retreat and Conference Center
320 Todd Center Drive
Columbia, IL 62236 
            Toddhall Retreat and Conference Center is located on the bluffs overlooking Columbia, Illinois, conveniently close to metropolitan Saint Louis and only 45 minutes from the airport. Nestled in the woods, Toddhall offers beautiful scenic views in a relaxing and peaceful setting. This is truly a “get away” place — a haven for study, reflection, and renewal. Wild turkey, deer, and a wide variety of birds are only some of the natural elements you will find. Take time to meander along the meditative labyrinth, visit the butterfly garden and natural prairie-grass preserve or walk the wilderness trail.
            Spacious and simply furnished, each room has a private bath and individually controlled thermostat, although electronics are notably and purposefully absent. All linens are provided. Hearty, home-cooked meals are served buffet style in the dining room. Vegetarians are easily accommodated. Rooms and buildings at the Conference Center are non-smoking.

Scenic images from Toddhall:
              

Accommodations and site facilites:
       

Registration