The Soul's Symbolic Code:
Jung's non-literal approach to Scripture

Four special Thursday Evenings   7.30pm-9.00pm

Richmond Library Meeting Room
415 Church St  RICHMOND  3121

September 3  -  Week 1:  The Ancestral Mind and the language of the Soul

September 10  -  Week 2:  Miracles and Wonders as Psychic Images

September 17  -  Week 3:  Apocalypse, Individuation and Revelation

September 24  -  Week 4:  Jung's Contribution to a Global Spirituality

(Note, the titles of the lectures above were modified on 21 August)

This short course follows-on from Professor Tacey's lecture to the Jung Society on Friday, 21st August 2015. It is a 4-week encapsulation of his new book: "Beyond Literal Belief: Religion as Metaphor" (Melbourne: Garratt Publishing, 2015).  For more information, or to order the book, click here

Biblical stories were metaphors appropriate for their time. The virgin birth, physical resurrection, heaven, son of God and the Apocalypse – all this meant something once and made sense. But they no longer make sense. Even students in religious schools recoil from the ‘fairytales’ of religion. They seem unbelievable and make a mockery of their intelligence.

But we ought not ‘believe’ religious language. To do so is to miss its spiritual meaning. To ‘believe’ it suggests that we take it literally, at face value. Such language was not designed as historical reporting, as eye-witness accounts of events. Biblical language is florid, metaphorical. It should not be read as history and was never intended as literal description. Jung argued this decades ago, and in recent times, interpreters of scripture have moved along Jungian lines in their appreciation of symbolism and myth. It seems that religion has systematically misread its own stories. Miracles and wonders that fundamentalism reads as facts can be re-read as metaphors of the interior life. 

David Tacey, Emeritus Professor, La Trobe University, is an interdisciplinary scholar and public intellectual. He is the author of fourteen books, and his most recent is Beyond Literal Belief: Religion as Metaphor (Garratt Publishing, Melbourne and Transaction Publishers, New York, 2015). David is a specialist in Jungian psychology, and his books on Jung include: Gods and Diseases: Making Sense of our Physical and Mental Wellbeing; How to Read Jung; The Jung Reader; and The Darkening Spirit: Jung, Spirituality, Religion. His books have been published internationally and How to Read Jung has been translated into Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

Participants will be encourage to join in discussion of the topics.
For this reason this course will be strictly limited to 20 participants on a first-come basis.  A waiting list will be kept.

 Members - $140 /  Non-members - $180 / Concession - $160    

Registration requires a non-refundable 50% deposit.

Payment accepted via cheque or Direct Deposit: 
BSB 633-000    A/c 120 760 780

To register, please email the Membership Secretarycgjungsocietymelbourne@gmailcom
with your contact information and details of your payment