AREAS OF STUDY

Ideas we’re interested in

Our four areas of study

Our approach is rooted in a rich set of ideas and theories from the Western wisdom traditions, depth psychology and intersecting fields of study – but always with a strong focus on the practical and embodied. No matter how beautiful and fascinating an idea might be, if it can’t teach us something about how to understand the world and live well in it, then we’re probably not going to include it in our program. Here are the key subjects we’ll be including in our explorations, divided into four categories: philosophical traditions and the soul’s journey, cosmologies, mythopoetics, and depth psychology.

Philosophical traditions and the soul’s journey

  • Philosophy as a way of life, not just an intellectual exercise
  • The Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions: context and key ideas
  • The Sufi connection: the ‘eye of the heart’; imagination and the imaginal world
  • The Perennial Philosophy
  • Hermeticism and its influence on the Western wisdom tradition
  • How ancient philosophy intersects with ideas from Celtic and Christian traditions
  • The Romantics and Neoplatonism
  • The nature of the soul; fate, calling and the soul’s journey
  • Value ethics and practical wisdom to live by, including Plato’s Truth, Beauty and the Good; The Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Cosmologies

  • Sacred geometry as a contemplative and spiritual practice. Working with mandalas; Celtic knotwork
  • The nature of the Divine and the Divine Feminine; feminine personifications of wisdom
  • Archetypal cosmology and archetypal astrology; the practice of astropoetics
  • Synchronicity and spirituality: the nature of reality and wider patterns of meaning
  • The anima mundi; contemporary animism and panpsychism

Mythopoetics

  • Mythology: the nature of myth; why myth matters; developing a mythic sensibility; cultivating the mythic imagination
  • Personal mythmaking and other acts of mythopoesis
  • Understanding cultural mythology and the stories we live by, from the Hero’s Journey to the post-Heroic Journey
  • Storytelling and mythtelling as sacred ritual

Depth Psychology

  • Individuation and the journey to wholeness
  • James Hillman’s Archetypal Psychology and the primacy of image
  • Dreamwork (a post-Jungian approach)
  • Mysticism and contemplative practices, including lectio divina
  • Alchemy: from the ancient and medieval alchemists to Carl Jung
  • Active and guided imagination, and the practice of reverie
  • Tarot and other symbolic languages
  • The embodied imagination
  • Creative practice and the archetypal artist; shaping the world through the creative imagination
  • Creating meaningful ritual; developing a liturgy of the imagination
  • Spiritual ecology. Psyche and nature: a psyche the size of earth

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