DREAMING THE END OF THE WORLD: THE BOOK OF REVELATION AS A VISION OF CULTURAL DISSOLUTION
The monsters of the Apocalypse are not coming—they appear whenever a culture forgets its soul. For nearly two thousand years, the New Testament’s Book of Revelation has been read as prophecy—a terrifying script for the end of the world. Yet from a Jungian perspective, the Apocalypse is not a prediction of the future
read more ▾
but a symbolic map of what happens when a civilization begins to dissolve. Drawing on the psychological insights of Carl Jung, this four-part seminar, beginning November 2, with Jungian analyst Muriel McMahon, will present these strange and terrifying visions not as prophecy, but as revelations—literally “unveilings”—of the collective unconscious during times of cultural crisis. Our first session will consider the Vision on Patmos and apocalypse as a psychological event. Next, we’ll turn to the beasts and the shadow that possesses a culture. After this, we’ll explore Babylon the Great and the seduction of a dying world. In our final session, we’ll ask what survives cultural collapse in the image of the New Jerusalem. What appears monstrous in Revelation may in fact be diagnostic. The Apocalypse shows us what erupts when the symbolic center of a culture collapses—and what new forms of consciousness may emerge from the ruins.