Description

In this workshop we’ll be examining Jung’s vision of a spiritually democratized world grounded in a sense of the common reality of the psyche along with the great 19th century explorer Alexander von Humboldt’s feeling for the immense unity-in-diversity that he perceived when contemplating the entire Cosmos. I’ll be drawing a connection between Humboldt, William James, and Jung, great figures on either side of Walt Whitman, in an effort to give participants a synoptic view of how the notion of Spiritual Democracy incubated itself throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. As a Jungian analyst, I believe Spiritual Democracy is the logical outcome of an important line of the later Jung’s thoughts, since behind it lies the idea of the unus mundus, Latin for “one world”: the result of bringing spirit, soul, and body together in a transformative, alchemical synthesis, a convergence of science, poetry, and religion that could unite the world.  

Steven Herrmann, PhD, MFT, is a certified Jungian analyst and an analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco; a member the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP); International Association for Jungian Studies (IAJS); and California Association for Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT). Dr. Herrmann has a private practice in Montclair Oakland, California, where he sees individual adults and couples. He is a depth psychotherapist, poet, writer, presenter, and teacher. He has published over fifty professional papers, book reviews, and essays, as well as several book chapters and seven books that have been well received. Steven’s 2015 book Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward provides the primary text for his talk and workshop.