Soul Studies is a new series of podcasts where I read excerpts from books that are currently inspiring me. In this episode I read from the first chapter of Rollo May’s 1975 book “The Courage to Create”. It struck me as a book that feels incredibly relevant to our cultural moment, particularly on the topics of despair, cultural divides and ideological fanaticism.

“People who claim to be absolutely convinced that their stand is the only right one are dangerous. Such conviction is the essence not only of dogmatism, but of its more destructive cousin, fanaticism. It blocks off the user from learning new truth, and it is a dead giveaway of unconscious doubt. The person then has to double his or her protests in order to quiet not only the opposition but his or her own unconscious doubts as well.”

Rollo May (1909-1994) taught at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, and was Regents' Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. An influential psychologist, he was the best-selling author of Love and Will, as well as the author of The Courage to Create, Man's Search for Himself, The Meaning of Anxiety, and Psychology and the Human Dilemma.

If you enjoyed this episode and want me to continue sharing work I find in the course of my Soul Studies, please let me know!

Email me: hello@brianjames.ca
Instagram: @revealingthesoul
Website: brianjames.ca

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This preview is the just the first half of our conversation. If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

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Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

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Author, researcher, curator, retreat/workshop facilitator and public speaker, Sarah Janes specializes in the ancient history and culture of dreaming and has been an enthusiastic lucid dreamer since childhood. Sarah is passionate about the potential of dreaming for physical, emotional, creative and spiritual upliftment, not just for individuals, but for culture and society.

Sarah is co-director and curator of Dream Palace Athens, a symposium and deep-dreaming residency project in Greece. She is also the host of popular online lecture series Explorers Egyptology. Sarah has collaborated with Rupert Sheldrake and the British Pilgrimage Trust to reinvigorate the practice of dream incubation at sacred sites around the UK.

Currently leading retreats to the ancient dream incubation sanctuaries of the Mediterranean, Sarah is now based between Hastings in England and Archaia Epidavros in the Peloponnese.

Sarah’s book: Initiation into Dream Mysteries: Drinking from the Pool of Mnemosyne explores the history and culture of dreaming in the Western Esoteric Tradition and is available from all book sellers and on Audible.

Sarah's website: https://themysteries.org/

Topics: dreams, imagination, ancient egypt, greece, mysticism, synchronicity

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If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

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Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

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Hellenic Tantra argues that scholarship on later Platonism has been misled by a dualist worldview. The theurgic Platonists in the school of Iamblichus (4th century CE) did not ascend out of their bodies to be united with the gods—as is the common belief—but allowed the gods to descend into their bodies. By comparing embodied deification in theurgy to Tantric traditions of embodied deification, Gregory Shaw allows us to understand the power and charisma of the last Platonic teachers. Hellenic Tantra reveals a living Platonism that has been hidden from us.

Gregory Shaw is a recently retired Professor of Religious Studies at Stonehill College, Massachusetts. He is the author of Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus and several articles on the later Neoplatonists.

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If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

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Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

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Tony Wolf is a New Zealand citizen and US resident. He is an author, producer, teacher, antiquarian and creator. A born and raised atheist, he developed a strong intellectual interest in the phenomenon of belief as a young teenager and began creating experimental, artistic “poetic faiths” during the late 1980s. Tony served as the Cultural Fighting Styles Designer for the Lord of the Rings feature film trilogy (2001-2003) and has taught performance masterclasses throughout Europe, North America and Australasia.

His novels include the popular Suffrajitsu trilogy (2015) and The Life and Fantastical “Crimes” of Spring Heeled Jack (2020) and he co-produced and directed the independent documentaries Bartitsu: the Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes (2011) and No Man Shall Protect Us: The Hidden History of the Suffragette Bodyguards (2018).

In recent years, Tony’s essays, lectures and online courses on the themes of poetic faith, secular ritual and “hidden history” have been featured via Morbid Anatomy, Atlas Obscura, OnlySky Media and Reimagine.

Tony's websites:

CultPunk Manifesto: https://cultpunk.art/2023/06/30/read-this-first-a-cultpunk-manifesto/

Alt.Death: https://alt-death.com/alt-death/

Support the podcast by making a small monthly contribution. https://plus.acast.com/s/medicinepath.

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This is an excerpt of a longer conversation. If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

Subscribe on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@howlinthewilderness

Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

IG: http://instagram.com/brianjames.soulwork

On this episode I welcome Paul Bishop to speak about his new book on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzifal and it’s importance to Western culture and why important thinkers such as Carl and Emma Jung, Joseph Campbell, Harold Bloom and Rudolf Steiner all felt it was such a central text of the Western canon.

Wolfram’s Parzival epic depicts a three-fold quest: for the hero’s identity, for vröude (“joy”), and for the mysterious Grail. In the course of this quest, Parzival undergoes a transformation from Fool to the lord of the Grail, at the same time effecting a collective transformation. It’s no wonder this tale was so significant for Carl Jung, who felt that the healing of the world is intrinsically linked to, and begins with our own healing.

I’ve been wanting to cover Parzifal on the podcast for a long time, and am really happy that I waited to have this conversation with Paul, whose work on Jung and religion I’ve admired since I heard him on Jakob Lusensky’s podcast Psychology & The Cross.

Paul Bishop was born in 1967 in Southend-on-Sea. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, and he is currently William Jacks Chair of Modern Languages at the University of Glasgow. His books examine the history of ideas and the histories of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology, with particular emphasis on Nietzsche, C.G. Jung, and Ludwig Klages.

Webpage for Paul's Book

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This is an excerpt of a longer conversation. If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

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Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

IG: http://instagram.com/brianjames.soulwork

On this episode I welcome Jungian-oriented psychotherapist and author Robert Hopcke to speak about his work on the depth psychology of homosexuality.

Robert Hopcke has been a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in Berkeley, California since 1986, specializing in working with issues around sexuality, religion and spirituality. Known internationally for his ground-breaking work within Jungian psychology, he is the author of the first full-length work in English on homosexuality within the field of analytical psychology, Jung, Jungians and Homosexuality published in 1989.

This was a really fun and enlightening conversation, and even after nearly two hours of diving deep on Jung and some of the key archetypal themes within homosexuality and gay eroticism, I feel like there was still a lot more to explore.

A special thank you to Patreon member Chris for suggesting I get Rob on the podcast.

https://www.robhopcke.com

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If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

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Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

IG: http://instagram.com/brianjames.soulwork

On this episode I welcome New York-based journalist and editor Glenn Belverio to the podcast.

In our conversation we talk about the 90s queer punk and post-queer movements, gay activism, his collaborations with Camille Paglia and Canadian gay icon Bruce LaBruce, and Gen Z’s growing interest in 90s counter culture.

In the 1990s, Glenn was a filmmaker and performance artist, whose 1993 collaboration with Camille Paglia on the short film Glennda and Camille Do Downtown, gained international attention. The film played at the Sundance Film Festival and won first prize for best short documentary at the Chicago Underground Film Festival.

Throughout the 1990s Glenn appeared on his public access TV show as his drag alter ego Glennda Orgasm. Harvard scholar Laurence Senelick noted that Belverio's performances as Glennda represented a radical edge in gay culture at the time, "as the politically correct gay community turned its back on drag." Through these performances, Belverio was thought to be engaging in the kind of political and cultural critique that Paglia termed "drag queen feminism".

Lately, Glenn has been participating in exhibitions of the underground zine culture as part of the Copy Machine Manifestos exhibit that is currently running at the Vancouver Art Gallery, as well as hosting screenings of his 90s film and TV work.

Glenn's video archive: https://www.vdb.org/artists/glenn-belverio

Glennda & Camille Do Downtown: https://youtu.be/aE2014xRGMQ

East Village Drag Queens Get Ready: https://youtu.be/1XT4AS-qwPA

Copy Machine Manifestos: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/copy_machine_manifestos_artists_who_make_zines

Support the podcast by making a small monthly contribution. https://plus.acast.com/s/medicinepath.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is an excerpt of a longer conversation. If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

Subscribe on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@howlinthewilderness

Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

IG: http://instagram.com/brianjames.soulwork

On this episode I welcome back archetypal astrologer and teacher of depth psychology, Safron Rossi to speak about her recent book on the Kore archetype.

Safron is Core Faculty in the Pacifica Graduate Institute Jungian and Archetypal Studies program, teaching courses on mythology, symbolism, archetypal cosmology & astrology, and scholarly praxis. For many years she was Curator of the Joseph Campbell, James Hillman, and Marija Gimbutas manuscript collections at Opus Archives. Her writing and scholarly studies focus on Greek mythology, archetypal psychology, archetypal astrology, and goddess traditions. Safron is the author of The Kore Goddess: A Mythology & Psychology (2021), co-editor of Jung on Astrology (2017), and editor of Joseph Campbell’s Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine (2013).

Safron and I have a wonderful conversation that explores the archetypal significance of the Ancient Greek Kore figures, who are often depicted as young strong women. Safron describes the Kore as, “…the archetypal Virgin or Maiden, a youthful figure who is one-in-herself … associated with psychological integrity … to be grounded in one’s essential nature as an individual. As the figure most directly concerned with our connection to the interior rhythms of our being, contact with this archetype brings a sense of sovereignty and potency…it is the function of the Kore to safeguard us from losing ourselves to collective forces by turning us inward.”

As you might imagine, this feminine archetype is relevant to both men and women, particularly in times like these where collective forces are constantly trying to get us to pick a side and go to battle for one ideology or another, and spend all our energy feeding the social media machine. The Kore invites us to turn away from the screen and look inward to find what is true and good for each of us.

Safron's website: https://www.thearchetypaleye.com/

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