16th. International Transpersonal Conference from
ITA - International Transpersonal Association
"Only a new spiritual vision - cosmic in its dimensions and global in scope - can rescue civilization."
__Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic.
Dear Friends,
We would like to welcome you to the Sixteenth Transpersonal Conference focusing on the role of mythic imagination in modern society. It has been eight years since the last ITA conference, entitled Technologies of the Sacred: Ancient, Aboriginal, and Modern, that took place in Manaus, Brazil. For many of us, experiential and theoretical exploration of various ways of entering the sacred realms, powerful ambience of the Amazonian jungle, and the special atmosphere created by the presence of many shamans, healers, spiritual teachers, and serious seekers made this conference a truly magical event.
In the interim period, we have received a large number of enthusiastic letters from participants, indicating that the Manaus meeting was for them a life-transforming event. As the years went by, we also received many inquiries from people, who were impatiently expecting another ITA meeting and were curious when the next one would take place. Unfortunately, the financial resources of the ITA, a non-profit organization critically dependent on the income of its conferences and donations, were not sufficient for launching another large conference.
Two years ago, unexpected financial contributions from several generous friends provided the seed money for another international meeting. It is thanks to them that we can continue the tradition of the ITA conferences that now reaches back more than three decades and have another opportunity for cross-cultural sharing and exchange of transpersonal ideas and values. This meeting takes place at a point of history when the transpersonal perspective seems more important than ever before. In the last few years, the dangerous political, military, economic, and ecological trends in the world have escalated to such an extent that we are facing a global crisis of unprecedented proportions.
Diplomatic negotiations, administrative and legal measures, economic and social sanctions, military interventions, and other similar efforts have had very little success in alleviating this crisis. As a matter of fact, they have often produced more problems than they solved. It is becoming increasingly clear why they had to fail. The strategies used to alleviate this crisis are rooted in the same ideology that created it in the first place.
In the last analysis, the current global crisis is above all a psychospiritual crisis; it reflects the level of consciousness evolution of the human species. It is, therefore, hard to imagine that it could be resolved without a radical inner transformation of humanity on a large scale and its rise to a higher level of emotional maturity and spiritual awareness. And this is where the transpersonal vision can play an important role.
Three centuries following the scientific and industrial revolution have brought undreamed of technological triumphs - nuclear energy, space travel, laser, computers, color TV, breaking of the genetic code, the wonders of modern medicine, and many others. However, in the course of the second half of the twentieth century, it became increasingly obvious that this intoxicating progress has a dangerous shadow side. The toll for the rapid accumulation of scientific knowledge and technological triumphs has been loss of spiritual values and progressive alienation – alienation from our bodies, from each other, from nature, and from the cosmic order. Increase of violence and addictive behavior, plundering of non-renewable resources, ecological devastation, and industrial pollution threatening the very basis of life on this planet have been logical consequences of the disenchanted world view of the technological civilization.
Among the few hopeful developments in this generally discouraging situation have been discoveries in depth psychology undermining the hegemony of the mechanistic materialistic worldview by rediscovering the hidden numinous dimensions of reality. This new perspective was closely connected with the recognition of the mythic elements governing the unconscious dynamics of the human psyche. It first appeared in Freud’s work as a vague intimation associated with concepts, such as the Oedipus complex, Eros, and Thanatos and reached a full and mature form in the explorations and theoretical speculations of C.G. Jung.
Jung’s pioneering research led him to the discovery of the collective unconscious and its governing principles, or archetypes. While he initially saw archetypes as transindividual but essentially intrapsychic phenomena, his later study of synchronistic events convinced him that they were universal in nature and played an equally critical role in shaping processes in the external world. These observations challenged the very cornerstones of the mechanistic worldview - the Cartesian dichotomy between the subjective observer and the objective world and the belief in determinism and linear causality as exclusive explanatory principles. These observations opened up the possibility of bridging the gap between spirituality and science and began the process of re-enchantment of the world.
One of the most important consequences of Jung’s research was a radically new understanding of the nature and function of myth. His initial breakthrough insights in this regard have been later further developed by his students and followers, such as Marie-Louise von Franz, Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade, James Hillman, Marion Woodman, and others. These scholars have shown that myths are not fictitious products of human fantasy, but reflections of archetypal forces, primordial cosmic organizing principles that form and inform the dynamics of the psyche, events and movements in human history, and evolutionary processes in nature.
In the course of the twentieth century, the discoveries of archetypal psychology validated by findings of modern consciousness research revolutionized thinking in many areas of modern life – psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy, biology, anthropology, philosophy, theology, history, economy, and politics. The resulting transpersonal vision of the world turned out to be easily reconcilable with paradigm-breaking advances in various scientific disciplines, particularly philosophical implications of quantum-relativistic physics, optical holography, and systems theory.
Because of the great authority that science has achieved in the industrial civilization thanks to its many practical triumphs profoundly changing our everyday life and transforming the face of our planet, the emerging worldview capable of integrating the best of spirituality with the best of science is a necessary prerequisite to overcoming the alienation of humanity and disenchantment of the cosmos, two products of the materialistic worldview that lie at the core of the current global crisis. In this situation, understanding the role of archetypal forces underlying the processes in the human psyche and in the material world is of critical importance for the future of humanity and of life on the planet.
Joseph Campbell, arguably the greatest mythologist of the twentieth century, often emphasized in his lectures that the life of all past civilizations has been shaped and informed – unbeknownst to its members - by archetypal dynamics; each of them had a leading myth or myths. Campbell believed that it was essential to identify and understand the myth driving modern society and support emergence of a new myth, one that would inspire peaceful coexistence, tolerance, cooperation, and synergy of various human groups, as well as reverence for life and respect for ecological imperatives.
Building on the legacy of the pioneers of modern mythology from Jung to Hilmann and Campbell, the Sixteenth International Transpersonal Conference will explore the importance of myth in human history and modern society. Like previous ITA events, the format of this meeting will combine lectures, experiential sessions, rituals, music, dance, and visual arts. Since the year 2004 marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Joseph Campbell, the conference program will include homage to this great scholar of mythology and his legacy.
We wish you a very enjoyable and productive time. Christina Grof and Stanislav Grof
