The interplay of love's dark and light forces is the essence of long-lasting relationships between people. The same is true for alchemists, though their love language is that of the mixing of metals. Jung insisted that it is useful to look at the language of alchemy as if it were the language of the relationships between people. He used alchemical language to study transference, the relations between patient and doctor.
One of the leading Jungian analysts, Robert Bosnak pioneered a new methodology in dreamwork based on alchemical psychology and is currently working on the alchemy of relationships. Based on a detailed series of 78 alchemical etchings, which he treats--following Jung--as if they pertained to human interaction, he sees five phases in long-term human relationships: nature, when chemistry does the trick; labor, when work replaces natural attraction; sacrifice, when something excruciatingly precious has to be left behind; refinement, when poison is made into remedy; and entering the core, when self and other merge completely while, paradoxically, leaving individuality intact.
In any relationship, it is essential to be able to experience life from the perspective of one's partner, which is easier said than done. Dreamwork has developed a method enabling self to identify with others, and this ability carries over into actual relationships. Dreamwork lets us enter the dreamworld from the perspectives of the various characters in dreams, letting us experience a range of consciousness in a single moment, which lets us extricate ourselves from our ingrained mental habits. The ability to see others with their own eyes affects our relationships.
Dreaming creates an experiential reality surrounding us from all sides; a reality that convinces us we're awake. We don't know what creates these realities, these unknown lands in undiscovered continents, this true wilderness, every night. Dr. Bosnak is interested in dream-incubation techniques, which help dreams respond to daytime concerns, be they psychological, emotional, scientific, professional or artistic.
The depth of dreaming transforms us; we become aware of the interior landscape of others. If we can recapture the old notion, a part of Western culture until the 12th century, that the creative imagination reveals a real and true realm, a true return to roots becomes possible, freeing us from the exclusive yoke of that linear imagination we call "history." Join us for profound explorations.
Robert Bosnak is a psychoanalyst, a graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute of Zurich, and a lawyer trained in criminology. He has been teaching dreamwork internationally and wrote A Little Course in Dreams, Dreaming with an AIDS Patient, and Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming. In 1986 Mikhail Gorbachev asked Robert Bosnak, "Why aren't the world's intellectuals doing anything?" so Robert organized international conferences about nuclear war, xenophobia, the shadow, dreamwork, self-destruction and paradox. Rowe is honored to welcome this brilliant dreamwork pioneer on his second visit here.