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LEARNING JOURNAL WRITE-UP

Philippe Sibaud

“We are not the artists but the drawings”1

“I am not here to learn. I am here to unlearn”. This was my answer to the question

being asked on the morning of induction day – “why have you joined the MA?”.

What I meant, really, was that I was not here to learn ab-out but to unlearn so as to

learn ab-in. Transformative learning as a tool for self-knowledge, as Dirkx

emphasizes – and this will be the angle of that review:

I want to know more about the censor and the judge who apparently hold residence within my inner world, the parent and the young child, the trickster, the deviant, the man behind the curtain” (Dirkx in Dirkx, Mezirow and Cranton 2006, p. 127).

Later on in the day, we were being invited by Maggie Hyde to participate in a

divination exercise. We collectively asked to be shown a guide for the MA. Here is

the card that we drew:

1 Philip. K. Dick, quoted in Kripal 2016, p.319

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(Robert Doisneau 1953 – Chien sur la passerelle des Arts, Paris)

Ha ha – now that is interesting….The dog invites us into the picture, staring intently

at us. Behind him (her?), an interesting perspective: the dog leads to a man, his back

to us, who watches a painter, also with his back to us, who paints…what? A woman

it seems, but all we see is a vague leg. A mysterious woman, an elusive woman,

suggested, not seen. This woman will be, I will soon discover, the real heart of this

MA for me. Sophia, the Divine Feminine. But let ‘s not anticipate.

We seem to be talking of a 4-step process. Dog to Man to Man to Woman. This is

then how I will construct this Review. Boxes within boxes. Shedding skin. Reaching

the essence (hopefully). Reflecting on reflections. Not necessarily in chronological

order. To unlearn? Or learn differently? “No process of learning”, says social

researcher Charlotte Aull Davies, “is fully reflexive until it is explicitly turned on the

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knower, who becomes self-conscious even of the reflexive process of knowing” (Aull

Davies 1999, p.7).2

4 Boxes (1) – P.Sibaud

4 Boxes (2) – P.Sibaud

Enters the concept of auto ethnography – being one’s own anthropologist. I found

the idea interesting – it inspired me to write a little vignette on the subject:

2 For sake of clarity, I will italicise the material written then versus what is written

now.

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Auto-ethnography – October 18th

Deep down in the jungle, I came a cross a tribe of one individual. He had set up camp in the thickest part of the forest, far from view. He calls himself Filip and, surprisingly, seems to speak our language. In fact, isolated as he is, he is not devoid of contact with fellow humans. He very regularly encounters other tribes, either of isolated individuals like him, or of groups of individuals living together. The name of the jungle is Academia and Filip, I learn, recently moved there. Now is therefore a particularly interesting time to interact, study, participate with him in his first steps in his new environment. I set myself the task of being both in and out, emic and etic. Placing myself in his shoes (so to speak since he does not wear any) to try and understand his struggles, his victories, his higher goals, his lower needs, while also stepping out to replace him in context, always striving to be aware of my own assumptions and bias. The very first night that he moved into his new surroundings, Filip told me that he had had a dream…

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Box 1

The dog dream - October 02nd 2015. Night of the induction day.

I was in a house and was about to greet a dog at the door to let him in. This dog was a big, grey Irish wolfhound. On meeting him, the dog told me: “No, no, no! I am not that sort of dog! I am totally committed to this and so must you be!” I was not sure what he precisely meant by “this”, although it made sense to me. I realized that he was right and that I had to be on equal terms with him. However my initial reaction was to flee him and he ended up chasing me around the house, not

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menacingly but resolutely, and he eventually caught up with me. This dog obviously knew something that I did not, he was a kind of initiate, and I had to place myself in the same disposition as him, whether I liked it or not.

Druid Animal Oracle – The Dog

Here below are my morning reflections on the dream:

On waking up in the middle of the night with this dream lingering somewhere beneath the surface of consciousness, I of course immediately thought of the dog of the Doisneau postcard. I remembered that in Celtic lore, and for Greeks as well (Cerberus), dogs are guides to the Underworld, guardians of the threshold. Now, the dog of the postcard is not threatening, nor is he fierce, but he is intense. He fixes you right in the eye, as if to ask: “Are you ready to cross? Are you really ready to cross? If you are, here is what awaits you: a man looking at a man looking at a woman, and the woman is hidden. Is she Sophia? The Holy Grail? You may one day know, or not, but you must be committed to the quest and I am making sure that you are!” Now this notion of the Underworld, of accessing deeper transformative realms, was uncannily emphasized for me a short while later. When doing the individual reading that same afternoon, I asked who would be my guardian angel for the MA. I drew the postcard of a drawing (sic) by Michelangelo (Michael-angelo?). At the back of the card was a text making an explicit reference to Pluto, Lord of the Underworld. What is going here? Dogs, initiates, Underworld, threshold, St Michael killing the dragon and, moreover, Pluto squaring my MC/IC axis for the duration of the course. I suppose that I shall know in due course….if I am willing to

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commit myself to the task!! Am I committed? Am I - WOOF - committed? WOOF WOOF?

That same day I came across this line from Jung’s Red Book: “To find the

mandrake, one needs the black dog, since good and bad must always be united

first if the symbol is to be created” (2009, p.392). The mandrake? “The mandrake

that was once a thing full of demonic power is now a soul-healing flower”

(Rahner 1971, p.275). There is hope then…

Learning Journal – entry of Oct 03

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Learning Journal – entry of Oct 03

Academy and Self-reflexivity - October 16th

Re-reading my notes, it is obvious that I was struggling with the self-reflexive part. I

was clearly resenting the cool, detached academic stance that we were asked to

adopt with regards to the course material and to the treatment of our inner life:

I attended today my first tutorial and I have felt a bit overwhelmed. I can’t escape the discomfort that I have immediately felt on the self-reflexive part. Why am I so annoyed at having to do that exercise that, deep down, I know is valuable? I am new to the Academy, it is a new world for me, and I realise how much I resent that attempt at objectivity of the Hanegraaf school. Yes, Hanegraaf in particular, seems to encapsulate all that bothers me. I want to be carried away by words, by emotions. Stepping back from them, exposing them under the crude light of criticism feels like a soulless exercise. “The Academy is wary of enthusiasm3”, said Geoffrey. Oh dear…What am I missing? This is puzzling, since I find the notion of Kripal’s third classroom, of being in

3 Enthusiasm: literally, ‘to be possessed by the gods’. In that light it makes sense not be enthusiastic – for then one is stuck in the first classroom with no chance to reach the academic second classroom, let alone, crucially, the third one (Kripal 2007, pp. 22-24)

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and out, a really interesting and valuable stance. It’s just that I seem unable to apply it to myself.

And future essays will indeed show that I am rather poor at stepping back from my

own thinking and emotional processes. Maybe it is because I am coming from an

NGO background, and NGOs are not known for their objectivity. How can they?? Is it

even their roles? I was struggling, no doubt. Even today I find the self-reflexive

attitude quite bothering. It feels dry. One sentence from Charlotte Davies rings in my

(stubborn) ears: “In [its] fullest form, reflexivity…becomes destructive…as we are

led ‘to reflect on our own subjectivity, and then to reflect upon the reflection in an

infinitude of self-reflexive iterations’” (Aull Davies 1999, p.7). I can’t help feeling

that this whole thing about self-reflexivity is a rabbit hole for intellectuals, a navel-

gazing exercise catching us in endless loops. A severe comment? Yes no doubt, and

unfair, I admit it. Because in truth, engaging in this process, albeit reluctantly, has

given me the opportunity to reflect on my lack of reflexivity…. Oh dear, oh dear…

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Boxes 1 and 2

What initially enticed me to join the MA was coming across Geoffrey’s ‘The Moment

of Astrology’ (2003) a few years previously. Upon reading it I immediately liked

Geoffrey’s take on astrology and I was very eager to probe it further in the context of

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the MA. The first essay question about divination and Jung’s theory of synchronicity

was therefore perfect. And in the spirit of the question (and in no small measure

inspired by Jung’s similar endeavour, as narrated in his Foreword to the I Ching), I

decided to consult the I Ching to give me an insight into the essay and its theme.

The I Ching4 reading – October 19th

Hexagram 14. Ta Yu/Possession in Great Measure.

By leaving the Sage in charge, one remains gracefully balanced but one must not forget that power comes from Higher Power. One should not be deluded that one is in control.

Hexagram 50. Ting. The Cauldron

My first reflection was that Jung had received the exact same hexagram 50 in his

introduction to the I Ching - the I, ultimate trickster! I wanted to parallel what Jung

did, and I somewhat got a similar answer. Boxes within boxes.

My reflection on this draw is that the two hexagrams are remarkably resonant. By listening to the Sage, one gets success. . I do see the Sage as an allegory for synchronicity. I am also quite interested in the last two lines of Hexagram 50’s Image. Fate is obviously a key concept in divination, especially in astrology, and often is at the heart of the most potent attacks against it (Augustine, Pico). So I understand from the I Ching that the issue of fate has to be debated in the essay, not only for the sake of the essay but for my sake also. I understand that “making one’s position correct” is a reference to synchronicity, which brings together inner and outer. Divination and magic, as staged acts of synchronicity, are therefore also in themselves the container of profound wisdom. My own I Ching reading could be seen as wisdom reflecting on itself, revealing itself through the image of the Sage, holding a mirror to itself. And its message to me is: “TRUST, you man of little faith!”

The essay question inevitably pushed me to engage further with Jung, as chronicled

in the post below.

4 I am using Richard Wilhelm’s translation, rendered into English by Cary Baynes (1930). Reissued 2003. London: Penguin Books.

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On Jung – November 01st I first came across Jung twenty odd years ago and I remember the excitement that I then felt. Even though I was far from fully grasping what I was reading (and still am..), the sense of liberation, of wonder, was overwhelming. By delving deep into Jung’s material again I am once more experiencing the same electrifying buzz. It is abundantly clear that my intellect is not able to do justice to the vast new landscapes that Jung opens for us. The Red Book of course has shown the price that Jung paid to give birth to the substrata of his thoughts. No doubt many people take Liber Novus as confirmation of Jung’s dangerously mystical, bordering on madness, character. For me it reinforces the prophetic endeavour of his work – and more importantly it reenergises his message. The paintings of LN shine like bright stars in the firmament of his work and they provide endless sources of fascination, beauty and, dare I say, poignancy, for the sheer ambition of Jung’s work and his readiness to surrender to his inner world. So what is it that captivates me? Jung is making new from the old. “To give birth to the ancient in a new time is creation” (2003, p.394). We then get a sense of continuity with the past, a retelling of a story in a new guise, the intimation of a far away echo. One feels the long story of humanity breathing through the pages. Jung’s voice is prophetic but it is also the carrier of very old stories. This continuity with the past is incredibly reassuring and comforting. It links us, the reader, to an ancient lineage and places us firmly in the steps of those who came before us. We can then explore new territories with their blessing. We feel part of a collective endeavour stretching back to the first month, as Jung puts it, the month of the Twins, Gemini. We inherit their experience and our task is to enrich it by helping to birth a new aeon. Jung’s work is also incredibly liberating for the synthesis it seeks and manages to offer. It is healing, as is the hieros gamos which is the object of his quest. It is re-enchanting, a source of constant wonder and a courageous stance it is for refusing the dead ends of modernity, for re-engaging with old, wise but looked upon, practices, revitalising them and showing how they may point the way forward, or at least a way forward. It reawakens sleeping dragons and gives them wings for us to ride on and explore beautiful, rich and mysterious landscapes from a new vantage point and with a new sense of direction. “Salvation is the resolution of the task” (ibid).

Today my enthusiasm (sic) for Jung has not abated but in the light of the content of

the last box (Divine Feminine), I am more aware of Jung’s blind spots – his relation

to the Feminine in particular. Not that I have a firm opinion on it but definitely

something to explore.

And as a tribute to Jung, the mandala cropped up in a dream:

The mandala dream – October 23

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A proper crop circle that I was seeing from above. A sign of wholeness? That would

be too good to be true but it felt very healing. A longing for wholeness? No doubt.

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Learning Journal – entry of Oct 23

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I was still somewhat struggling though, trying to adjust to the rigour of Academia

but – was it my engagement with Jung? – things were looking brighter.

Feeling much better – October 30

Feeling much better today…exhilarated even! A nice contrast to last Thursday when I felt totally out of my depth. Geoffrey had intrigued me with his talk of the Renaissance magus and how Jung was highlighting a difference with him. I think I eventually got the point but who knows. Anyway I feel well equipped with the background for my first essay. The writing itself, of course, is another kettle of fish. I am excited about the writing part, although somewhat bemused and worried by the stylistic constraints imposed by Academia. I look outside the window from the pub where I am sitting, a glass of port on the table, reflecting the light of the candle in its dark, warm robe, and I feel that the proximity of Marlowe theatre should be a good source of inspiration. Hell, this place should be a regular gathering joint for the Muses, especially on a Friday evening! Everybody hits the town on Friday evening, even the Muses! Oh well, and then there is more to come. After Jung and divination comes Corbin and psychedelia. What great subjects! Well what can I say….I feel in a great mood tonight, it’s all rosy and full of intellectual riches, and emotional rollercoasters, and unexpected encounters in the green, and fiery landscapes of the mundus imaginalis.

And we are like Angels Of the Corbin type

Trying to stand On the point of a needle

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Learning Journal – entry Oct 30

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Psychedelia….a fascination of mine for decades…I love the art, the music, the whole

gamut…and yet….

On the use of psychedelics – December 12

So here we are. Toying with the idea once more. Is there still a part of me reluctant to take the jump? I do feel like a fraud, treating a subject on psychedelics without having had the experience myself. “Are you experienced?”, asked Jimi Hendrix? Well, no. Reading all these accounts of acid trips sends me in a total spin though. I want to know that too, explore the wild frontiers of the mind but…but…I want to do it properly. In a sacred context, not as a mindless cowboy riding a wild stallion just for the thrill of it. But what about Corbin’s material? The essay requires me to deal with Corbin’s mysticism and God knows I know nothing about mysticism!! Do I get it? Will I ever access the mundus imaginalis? What to make of these inner encounters? ‘I is another’ said Rimbaud, in his customary fulgurance.

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Learning Journal – entry Nov 17.

Old map of the mundus imaginalis found at Nag Hammadi

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Underlying it all is a deep questioning of the nature of the imagination. At this point

we are biting deep into what this MA is about, or at least what I understand this MA

to be about.

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Boxes 1,2 and 3

And ‘imagination’ starts with ‘image’.

The Image – November 11

So this week is going to be about the images, and what we can learn from them. I must say that I am rather confused about the whole thing and that I am not sure where all this is leading. Can an image teach? Yes I suppose so…’A picture is worth a thousand words’…who said that? Can an image have as profound an effect as a text, or a book? I think deep down I have always assumed the primacy of the word. In the beginning was the Word. I do love images but they do not carry the same weight for me. Hence my curiosity about the idea that images teach. I read Angelo’s text yesterday, it left me rather baffled, almost angry. I think this has to do with her insistence to go into so

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much detail inside the image. This is pretty much the opposite of the way I am usually approaching images – or landscapes, for that matter. What I look for is a general impression, take it all at once, not linger into this or that corner. Be filled with the texture, the atmosphere, the dream. I find it difficult, almost painful, to direct my attention to details, to split the image into a thousand pieces, a shattering glass. I can sense much of my Pisces/Virgo opposition here. When it comes to images I want to dwell in Neptune’s lair. But maybe I am missing something. It is good to be challenged in one’s assumptions (says he…) so I will go along and try and approach the image differently. Break it down before putting it back together, and gaining something in the process? Because, truth be told, staying on the surface of the image, being content with an overview…does that lead anywhere apart from an aesthetic satisfaction? Could this be the very reason why I have never given images the credit they deserve, and the power that (apparently) they have to profoundly change one’s view? A tropological move? Let us drop our guard for a minute and go, not so much with the flow, but with the thousand water drops that, together, make it.

I was full of goodwill then and I have tried. But I am not sure I have gone anywhere.

Old habits die hard. Put simply, I haven’t ‘got it’. This minute approach to

images?…hmm…why can’t I get it in my system?

‘I saw my lady weep’ – November 13

One of Dowland’s songs. When addressing the class I referred to the song as ‘I saw

my lady sweep’. Dr Freud would be happy.

Looks like I have some way to go before embracing the Divine Feminine…

‘To think symbolically we must think like the mythopoeic man’ –

January 27

This quote suddenly strikes me as pregnant with a lot of riches. Why? It seems to encapsulate all my pet interests:

- Indigenous societies and their cosmologies - Symbols and their roles (astrology, Tarot) - Mundus Imaginalis – fantasy vs imaginatio vera - Criticism of modernity (Weber, disenchantment), literalism - Jung&Synchronicity, and its role on divination - Evolution of consciousness

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But I have been unable to find the author of the quote – very annoying - is it Levy-

Bruhl? Or Geoffrey? Or?

“We are being written’ – March 03

“We are writing our stories, even as we are also being read by them (since

we are born into stories that we did not write)” – Kripal 2016, p.115.

This quote is not entirely clear to me. What I get from it is the necessity to engage creatively with one’s life. This echoes Jung’s words: “what remains unconscious comes to us as fate”. Fate is a story written by others. What I take from Kripal’s quote is that by engaging with our fate, we may alter it. “Fate is negotiable” (Cornelius 2003, chapter VII). Synchronicity and divination are tools to creatively engage with one’s fate and as such, magically, to become co-creator with it. This, to me, is the profound legacy of Jung, the gift he has given us. A hermeneutic loop, to paraphrase Kripal. Are we creating our reality, as New Age proponents claim? No. Are we co-creating it? Yes. We are engaged in a dialogue and the idiom of this dialogue is the symbol. Hence the profound role played by art – art understood as meaningful, heartfelt, carrying the ‘himma’ of the artist…not Deschamp’s urinal.

At this point, a quote by painter Emil Nolde springs to mind:

”The colour of the flowers drew me magnetically to them, and suddenly I was

painting”. YES!!!!

Back to the original text:

Hence, also, the role of the imagination, which allows us to engage and dialogue. The true language of the soul. But one must realise that this language is both objective and subjective. “When the individual goes further and comes to recognise that these interpretations are both reflections of something real and human creations, that one is being interpreted as one interprets, being seen as one sees, then we call this paradoxical practice ‘hermeneutics’” (Kripal 2016, p.116). Being interpreted as one interprets. Like the astrologer reading a chart for a client. That reading, I always thought, says as much about the astrologer as it says about the client. Is this the secret mutual connivance that Jung is talking about? “If you believe it, it will save your life”, said Socrates.

4.

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Boxes 1, 2, 3 and 4

Has the search for Sophia on the ‘passerelle des Arts’ been what it has all been

about??

Plato, Aristotle and the union of opposites – February 10

This is the title of a text by Jeremy Naydler that we have been given as course

material. Naydler is talking about the school of Chartres, which was regarded as a

high point of medieval Platonism. Its founder, Fulbertus, gave a sermon on

September 8th, the festival commemorating the birthday of the Virgin Mary, and in it

he made a parallel between Mary (Stella Maris) and Sophia, “through whose wisdom

the ship of soul may be guided to its right destination” (Naydler, 2016 p.10).

Here are my reflections then:

This text, as well as the passage in the Odyssey when Ulysses sails by night when released by Calypso, points to the wisdom – Sophia – that is gained by peering into the night. There is an obvious analogy with the wisdom of astrology but I am more interested in the figure of Sophia, of which I know very little. To me, we find here everything that I have been looking for in this MA, without necessarily consciously knowing it. Navigation by night, away from the blinding and overwhelming light of

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consciousness (although not denying it) – accessing deeper, more mysterious realms, invisible from view. Reminds me of a text I wrote during the very first days of the MA:

I want to go under the skin of Reality Tickle the dragon in its cave Lift its eyelid – the left one

And hysterically hurl screams of joy

And her Tender

With milk in her eyes Spreads her wings around me

And weeps

(Note: initially I used the masculine pronoun for the dragon. Interesting…this

dragon is obviously the carrier of feminine energy. Hence the correction). But back

to the text:

Finding an inner guide, allowing the Feminine (the Divine Feminine) to point the way and initiate me. I am deeply grateful to do this MA with women and that a major theme is the expression of the Feminine and the rediscovery of the Divine Feminine, buried under layers of solar consciousness. I am writing this in the darkness of the pub at night, with little candles flickering on the table, like stars in the sky. And I wonder: is Sophia however necessarily a creature of the night?

I am on my ship, looking for Sophia, then as now.

Except now, I know I am.

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REFERENCES

Aull Davies, C. (1999). Reflexive ethnography. London: Routledge.

Cornelius, G. (2003). The Moment of Astrology. Bournemouth: The Wessex

Astrologer Ltd.

Dirkx, Mezirow and Cranton (2006). Musings and Reflections on the Meaning,

Context and Process of Transformative Learning. Journal of Transformative

Education 2006; 4; 123. DOI: 10.1177/1541344606287503

Jung, C.G. (2009). The Red Book. A Reader’s Edition. New York: Norton and

Company.

Jung, C.G. (2003) Foreword to the I Ching. London: Penguin Books.

Kripal, J. (2016). The Super Natural. A New Vision of the Unexplained. New

York:Tarcher/Penguin.

Kripal, J. (2007). The Serpent’s Gift - Gnostic reflections on the study of religion.

Chicago and London: University of Chicago.

Naydler, J. (2016) Plato, Aristotle and the union of opposites. Course material.

Rahner, H. (1971). Greek myths and Christian Mystery. New York: Biblo and Tannen.