C.G. Jung Society, Seattle

Bette Joram, Ph.D.

COURSE OFFERING

Experientia Testi Est: This is the experience of the witness

Class: Friday evenings, 7 to 9 p.m., March 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30, and April 6, 2007
Good Shepherd Center, Room 223, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N., Seattle
$120 members, $130 nonmembers
12 CEUs

The registration deadline for this class is February 26. To learn more about preregistering for the class, see Preregistration Policy and Form.

The course has been drawn from Experientia Testi Est, a work based on an anonymous alchemical manuscript, Les Vaisseaux D’Hermes (c. 1700). C. G. Jung understood that the drawings and narratives of the alchemists represented a living, psychoactive process of transformation and change wherein the observed is not separate
from the observer. What transpires in the flask has permutations that affect the witness in affective, physical, mental, and spiritual ways. Jung wrote extensively about the processes of projection and transference, the union of opposites, and the creation of the lapis philosophorum as he understood them to be a metaphor for individuation and the realization of the archetypal self. The entire process can be observed in these five alchemical illustrations.

In this course we will read and discuss selected passages of the text. Participants will be encouraged to be quietly attentive to outer phenomena as well as to dreams that present themselves over the six weeks, so that we can observe our own countertransference to the material as it works upon us. This course is relevant to anyone interested in alchemy and in the process of transformation and change. Bette Joram has made spiral bound copies of her doctoral dissertation, Experientia Testi Est, available to course participants at the Jung Society Library.

Class 1: Friday, March 2

• Chapter 1: Introduction: An overview of Les Vaisseaux D’Hermes, the alchemical manuscript that forms the
  armature of the work; the theoretical bases of the work: Jung and Jungian authors, object relations and self psychology, alchemy.
• Chapter 2: The Hermeneutic method; Meta-analyses: the fourfold structure; the Alchemical operations.

Class 2: Friday, March 9

• Chapter 3: The second illustration, Experientia Testi Est, This is the experience of the witness. The role of witness in the psychotherapeutic encounter; the flask of dismemberment; trauma, splitting, and projection; the alchemical actors: Solvimus, Putrefacimus, Sublimamus, Dividimus, Componimus.

Class 3: Friday, March 16

• Chapter 4: The third illustration is the Pictura Continens Hominia Propria. The Uroboros and the dead horse; the vital significance of the history of alchemy to the living psyche; from narcissistic omnipotence to sui generis—the generating of a self; the role of body in individuation.

Class 4: Friday, March 23

• Chapter 4, continued, and Chapter 5: The fourth illustration, Intelligentibus Speculum—to the intelligent a mirror. The hermaphrodite and the integration of the opposites; reflection: seeing and being seen, mirroring of self and other, mirroring of ego and Self by the Solar and Lunar trees.

Class 5: Friday, March 30

• Chapter 5, the fourth illustration continued: Mercurius duplex: the double headed dragon, or why the Pushmi-
  Pullyu eats with one mouth and talks with the other. The four rivers: Aqua solis rubei, aqua mercurialis, aqua viva, and the unnamed river. Lapis noster quesitus a multis, inventis a
  paucis—our stone is sought by many, found by few.

Class 6: Friday, April 6

• Chapters 6: the fifth illustration, Sigillum Hermeticum—the seal of Hermes. A Rosicrucian emblem, a synthesis of all that came before: the impaled heart, the cross, armature of the fourfold structure; the transcendent function; the shofar sounds; the ineffable name; the caput mortuum, Ezekiel’s
  Fiery Man and the illumination of matter.
• Chapter 7: The final quotation about the seal, Sine me nihil potestis facera . . . without which you can do nothing to me . . . The lapis philosophorum bestows its blessing.

Bette R. Joram, Ph.D., LMHC is a psychotherapist in private practice in West Seattle. She has been practicing depth psychology since 1989. A former member of the board and past president of the C. G. Jung Society, Seattle, she obtained her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Bette has taught at Bastyr University, Antioch University Seattle, and the C. G. Jung Society, Seattle. She spent five years researching and writing this manuscript.

The source document from the Getty archives is: Les Vaisseaux D’Hermes (c. 1700).

This program has been approved for 12 CEU’s by the Washington Chapter, National Association of Social Workers (NASW) for Licensed Social Workers, Licensed Marriage & Family Therapists and Licensed Mental Health Counselors. Provider number is #1975-157. The cost to receive a certificate is as follows: 12 units for 12 hours of class time $10.

Updated: 20 January, 2007

webmaster@jungseattle.org