 Carl Jung is really quite radically different in his approach to the psyche than other models of psychology. As you may know, if you've had a chance to study Jung, in recent years there's been a lot of pressure in Jungian circles to try to sort of reduce the sense of differences between Jung's psychology and other schools of psychoanalytic thought. I am not one of those who feel that that's the way to go for the future of Jung's psychology. So I want to be speaking tonight about what I think are key assumptions upon which Jung works and the way that we can be thinking about carrying those forward. What we're looking at here is an image of the Axis Mundi. Now, in mythical traditions and spiritual traditions throughout the world, there was always a sense, and I refer you to the work of Mirce Iliati, the great historian and phenomenologist of religion, who was the person, the single person who has done the most in the study of world spiritual traditions, to point to the role in world spirituality of a sense of a center out there, a center I like to say with a capital C. The quest for the center out there is at the heart of world spiritual traditions. And in Jung's psychology, unlike any other psychology, there is a sense of a center beyond the ego. For Jung, there is not simply one center in the personality, the I. There's not simply the I. So many psychologies today emphasize what we used to call ego psychology. They've got different labels now, but almost all of them focus on trying to help build the ego of the personality and to strengthen the I of the personality in relating to the various challenges of human life. Jung's psychology has, from the very beginning, and I think it is a fundamental assumption, is that there are two centers in the psyche. One has to be developed. That is the ego, the capacity to have a stable sense of I. But the archetypal self, which we're addressing tonight, was seen by Jung as a center beyond the I. And Jung's quest for his entire career was to come to an understanding of the role of the self in human life, the archetypal self. And to understand the importance of the I coming to relate to the archetypal self. An organizing center in the personality, we could say two things. That the archetypal self is an organizing center that contains a blueprint, a primordial image of wholeness and of integration in the psyche. And another thing that often is not emphasized as much as it should be, but it was implicit in Jung's work, is that the archetypal self, the center outside of the I in the psyche was an enormous energy generator. And so we'll be thinking about those different aspects of the self this evening. But one of the things that I want to just put as a frame here is the emphasis that for Jung's psychology, there is a center outside the I. Now in the ancient world, as Jung would put it, people projected that center out on many different objects. I like to point out that they're projected on sacred mountains all over the world. I have another presentation in which I show people the various archetypal images of the center out there. But in any case, the center out there is a point, as experienced as a point, all the pilgrimages that human beings go on are actually acting out, ritually acting out the journey to the center with the capital C. So this is, in ancient religions, an archetypal projection of that center out there. Now in that center out there is a lot of imagery and world spiritual traditions about the journey to the center and then the ascent to the center. With the implications that when you go to the center there is a hierarchy of spiritual development. A hierarchy of development in which one begins to connect to the center, to connect to the energy that comes in through the center. You say that the energy comes in on this vertical axis, but if you've not really connected with the center, then you live at the lowest level of human organization. We'll be seeing how this relates to the individuation process in a bit. But let's look at it this way. This is from the book, The Archetype of Initiation. So at the lowest levels of development there's a great deal of chaos experienced and there is no sense of orientation to a center. One is living in a kind of a wasteland. At some point, however, there's an experience of an epiphany. That is, there appears, we see it in the mythical traditions, there appears a star in the sky that tells the magi, the ones who know that there is a direction to go in to pursue connection with that center. And the one who represents that center. And so when that epiphany occurs, then the effort is made to move toward that center and to begin to get energy from the connection to the center. In this location here, this is when, we'll be talking later on, this is when you connect in some way with a manifestation of the sacred. Or as Jung would say, a connection with something that you experience is numinous in your life. When you make that connection there's an energy flow that starts. And that begins to issue in the flow of creativity. Jung believed that when you begin to connect with the archetypal energies of the psyche, that there will be a flood of energy coming in. And you've all heard the term inflation, if you've been studying Jung. Inflation is when you get a flood of this archetypal energy and it begins to fill you up, fill you up with energy. And then if you get really too inflated with energy, you have got to really be developing some capacity for containment of that energy. And when you are capable of having a containment of that energy, then it is better possible. It's more possible for you to be able to form relationships for both family, intimate relationships and community. And then finally, as you mature into a more generative place, you get to the point where you can really be committed, really fascinated with, interested in and committed to generativity in relationship to the world beyond the eye. So that is a traditional image of the developmental process.