The I Ching — Oracle and Book of Wisdom
Presented by Dennis Merritt, LCSW
Sunday, February 21, 2021, 4:00 – 6:00 pm
link to video with Chinese subtitles
The I Ching is one of the oldest and most profound books of wisdom whose origins go back to Chinese shamanism and prototypical Chinese ideograms. Jung, who used it extensively, described the I Ching as a book of archetypal imagery first assembled in 1050 BCE. Every major Chinese thinker, artist, and philosopher had been influenced by I Ching until the modern era. One can put a question to the book and via synchronicity get a meaningful answer. Examples will be given to illustrate how the book can be used personally and in the therapeutic setting for guidance on relationships, difficult life situations, and psychological and spiritual development. Links will be made between dream imagery and the hexagrams in the I Ching.
Learning objectives:
Describe three ways that the I Ching can be used for psychological development and in the psychoanalytic process.
Become familiar with the relationship between dream imagery and the archetypal imagery depicted by the hexagrams in the I Ching.
Dennis Merritt, LCSW, PhD, has a PhD from Berkeley in insect pathology, microbial control of insect pests; an MA in Humanistic Psychology from Sonoma State; and is a graduate of the C. G. Jung Institute – Zurich. He is the author of the four volumes of The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe – Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology. He began studying and using the I Ching in 1975 and his 1983 Jung Institute thesis was titled “Synchronicity Experiments with the I Ching and their relevance to the Theory of Evolution”. His published article “Use of the I Ching in the Analytic Setting” has been translated into Chinese and the lecture “Hexagrams from the I Ching appearing in the Dreams of a Western Man” is available through the Chicago Jung Institute. EcoJung.com and JungianEcopsychology.com