PAN-CANADIAN SOCIETY OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Welcome to the Pan-Canadian Society of Analytical Psychology!
The purpose of this society is to increase awareness of and access to analytical psychology in all regions of Canada through training, education, conferences, and the establishment of a national community focused on the exploration and further development of Jungian thought. The society values the richness of the regional and cultural differences that, together with the vast geographical space, define the land and constitute the soul of Canada. It welcomes the enrichment of Jungian psychology through contributions and dialogue with other disciplines of analytical thought.
The Decisive Question
“The decisive question in life is: Are we related to the infinite or not? That is the real criterion. Then we can put personal sensitivities to one side. We still have them, these sensitivities, but they no longer define us.
What defines a relationship is boundlessness. The other things are personal characteristics that play a part when one assumes rights of possession. When one fails to know that this boundlessness is the essential thing, then one misplaces what defines one in futilities, in things that are absolutely not definitive.
The more false the possession is, the less satisfactory, and the more one insist that one is young or beautiful, or can do something or has something, because what is essential is not present. Then one makes up stories as if that were the essential thing. What makes you happy, what is really alive and lasting, is the infinite. Then one can no longer insist that one amounts to something because of this or that. One counts for something because of the essential; and if one does not have that, then nothing works at all.
I can have boundlessness only if I am quite finite. The self is the greatest confinement of man. It is the experience of “I am only that.” In the consciousness of the self is found the narrowest of confinement, but this is tied to the infinity of the unconscious. If I experience eternity within me, then I am limited and eternal, the one and the other. That is the fusing together into the one.
By being singular in my personal combination, meaning incredibly limited, I then have the possibility of consciousness of the infinite. But only then.
—For this reason, it is so important in an epoch like ours, where one must be conscious, to be conscious of one’s uniqueness. In an aeon that aims exclusively at the enlargement of consciousness, it is imperative that one have objective and actual insights rather than insisting on non-essential ‘possessions'” (Jung’s Life and Work, Interviews for Memories, Dreams, Reflections with Aniela Jaffé p. 140).
Individuation
“Individuation means becoming an ‘in-dividual,’ and, insofar as ‘individuality’ embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one’s own self” (Jung, CW 7, §266).
Inner and Outer Realities
“And, just as the unconscious world of mythological images speaks indirectly, through the experience of external things, to the man who surrenders wholly to the outside world, so the real world and its demands find their way indirectly to the man who has surrendered wholly to the soul; for no man can escape both realities. If he is intent only on the outer reality, he must live his myth; if he is turned only toward the inner reality, he must dream his outer so-called real life” (Jung, CW 6, §280).
Images
The two lines of colour above and below the acronym PCSAP/SPCPA are the blue of Quebec and French Canada symbolizing spirit, contemplation and the sky and the red for the rest of Canada symbolizing life, blood and the earth.
The rotating images on the opening page are from different places in Canada. It begins on the west coast, Oyster Bay on Vancouver Island and cycles through across the country eastward. After Oyster Bay, BC there is the Northern Lights, Yukon; Pyramid Mountain, Jasper National Park; Pictograph of a vision quest, near Banff National Park; Astotin Lake, Elk Island National Park; Prairie Farming, Saskatchewan; Parliament Hill, Ottawa; Le Château Frontenac and St. Lawerence River, Québec City; Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
The banner images at the top of every page are Canada’s iconic Maple Leaf and Red Osier Dogwood. The latter is a shrub that grows all across Canada, from coast to coast (including Newfoundland) and up north as well, through to Alaska.
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