The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat: Engaging the Power of Archetypes and Deities for Radical Transformation/ Exploring the Seven Souls with Langston Kahn and Demetrius Lacroix
Date: Tuesday, July 12th
Time: 7pm
Admission: $12
Location: Morbid Anatomy Museum, 424 Third Avenue, 11215 Brooklyn
Tickets Here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2530860
The Dagara, an indigenous culture in West Africa have a phrase, Yielbongura, roughly translated as “the thing which knowledge can’t eat”, the ecstatic and mysterious experience of the numinous that can’t be grasped completely by the mind. In indigenous cultures around the world, engagement with these forces is seen as integral to basic health. While in the west, the importance of myth, symbol and archetype in the psychological healing process have become part of popular consciousness, in large part due to the work of Freud and Jung, the lens of scientific materialism often reduces these complex forces to constructs of the mind, castrating their cosmic potentialities.
In a lecture to some of his students Jung stated, “You cannot get conscious of these unconscious facts without giving yourself to them. If you can overcome your fear of the unconscious and can let yourself go down, then these facts take on a life of their own. You can be gripped by these ideas so much that you really go mad, or nearly so. These images form part of the ancient mysteries; in fact, it is such fantasies that made the mysteries.”
To truly engage the power of the numinous to create change, it helps to understand the difference between psychological archetypes, cosmic Archetypes, and Gods, and how to work with them effectively. In this presentation, we will examine some of Jung’s own transformative experiences with Archetypes and Deities, how they parallel indigenous and shamanic understandings of these energies and discuss how we might more skillfully invite these powers into our lives to facilitate health. Through looking at the deeper cosmology of Vodou, most importantly the nature of the soul and how it is viewed, we can see a nurturing side of spiritual and mental development and growth.
This event is part of a series exploring the intersection, integration and application of psychoanalytic theory, the arts, and the occult, curated by psychoanalyst, Dr. Vanessa Sinclair. Throughout the series, Sinclair hosts a variety of psychoanalysts, psychologists, artists, writers, and occultists from a range of backgrounds and theoretical orientations. Presenters discuss their work, personal experience, and areas of research interest, opening up a dialogue between practitioners in fields of study that rarely have a chance to engage with one another yet often operate in similar and complementary ways.
Langston Kahn is a shamanic practitioner specializing in emotional healing. His practice is informed by Inner Relationship Focusing and African American Conjure with a foundation in the contemporary shamanic cosmology of the Last Mask Community.
Demetrius Lacroix has dedicated his life to the study of the occult, spirituality and religion of Traditional societies in the ancient and modern world, having studied many forms of traditional belief. From his own upbringing, and later initiation into Haitian Vodou, Lacroix comes from a multicultural background, offering a worldview shaped by his immersion into misunderstood and vilified cultures. Lacroix seeks to present the underrepresented “occult” in an understandable and edifying way. Lacroix is a professional Psychic, spiritual counselor, and advisor in Salem, Massachusetts
Vanessa Sinclair, Psy.D. is a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City. She is a founding member of Das Unbehagen - A Free Association for Psychoanalysis, which facilitates psychoanalytic lectures, classes and events in and around New York City. She contributes to various publications including The Fenris Wolf (Edda Publishing), DIVISION/Review: A Quarterly Psychoanalytic Forum, the Brooklyn Rail, and Eris Magazine. She is co-hosting a 3 day symposium on Psychoanalysis, Art & the Occult in London May 6-8, 2016. For more information visit http://dasunbehagen.org/
Photo credit: “Dreamtime Sisters” Aboriginal art by Colleen Wallace Nungari
Tickets are non-refundable unless the event is canceled.