Online seminars
an online seminar series in the academic year 2025/2026
by ddr. Matjaž L. Regovec, PhD, PhD, qualified psychoanalyst
PLUTO – THE RULER OF THE PSYCHE AND OF THE NECESSITY OF MAN'S TRANSFORMATION
October 4, 2025
All cultures of all times have featured symbolic narratives of an underworld deity that rules the psyche and man’s necessity of transformation. Death as a significant feature of Pluto's archetypal trajectory is both literal and symbolic, yet rarely appears as one's own demise, but as that of an important other, always symbolising an ending that is irrevocable. Endings are all vitally important because they create space for the individuation process. Myths like Demeter-Kore-Hades, Ereškigal and Innana, and Asclepius will provide us with starting points for our journey through the psychic landscape of man’s transformation as an inherent element of all of man’s individuating.
NEPTUNE, THE PHASES OF ONE’S INDIVIDUAL SOUL, AND THE BIRTH OF ONE’S PERSONAL SPIRIT
November 8, 2025
Historically, Neptune as the cosmological ruler of the Era of Pisces may be seen as an agency of the emergence, development and transcendence of the individual soul within the medieval metaphysical model. Such was the view endorsed by the theodicy and expressed by the religions and philosophies of both Christianity and Islam. This was followed by the death of the medieval image of godhead in Nietzsche in the 19th century, which opened up a new space for the necessity of the birth of the personal spirit. We shall look at the specific tasks of Neptune’s archetypal trajectory this entails for the individuation process. We need to be initiated into the psychic cogito (psychic apprehending, integrating emotional dynamics, and psychic creating of one’s own, inner images) first, then unravel its historical material and, finally, by processing and letting go of it – by both learning and forgiving. This prepares the grounds for the birth of the personal spirit as the heart and motor of one’s individuation process.
URANUS, THE COSMIC AWAKENER AND REFORMER OF LIFE AND ITS INDIVIDUATION PROCESS
December 13, 2025
Does life really have its own eccentric, yet at the same time centrally centred, individuating agency that works as a daimon (and sometimes as a demon) of one’s process of individuation? Namely: why do we experience a few incomprehensible challenges on our personal way to becoming an individuating individuum? These challenges enthuse with some ‘winds of change’ and reform that pushes us further away from our familiar world of both our personal historical past and the identity with the collective paths of development. We will explore the different facets of the awakening, reforming and upgrading of our conscious awareness that forms the crux of the Uranian component of the individuation process.
CHIRON, TRAUMA AND HEALING
January 17, 2026
The latest research into the dynamics of trauma shows that we are all familiar with trauma, given that one’s very birth is the first traumatising experience. The archetypal trajectory of Chiron requires that at times the emotional-physical tissue of our being is pierced with a poisonous arrow of life. Here, opening up to life and its individuating possibilities involves being wounded in order for the process of individuation to continue and be taken up a level. The healing of our wounds is ultimately possible with the holistic understanding of our unique and inimitable path of development that emerges as progress is made with the individuation process. Any such understanding must include working on ourselves with all four dimensions of our being: the psychic, spiritual, physical-bodily, and the thinking.
SATURN, THE RING OF PLEDGE, SMALL STEPS, COMMITMENT AND AUTHENTICITY
February 14, 2026
The individuation process is a journey to becoming truly authentic. It is only when we commit ourselves to something we experience as making us authentic that we stop losing ourselves in the twists and turns of our own process of individuation. Saturn’s archetypal trajectory as the anchor of man’s individuating comprises a few stages of development. Initially, we are all a part of a system whose boundaries we must, at some point, overlap. As the old, fixed organisation of life is dethroned, we need to cultivate our character by practising small steps within the frame of activities associated with Saturn’s position in the cosmogram. Saturn’s ring of pledge to our own development is a commitment to work on ourselves in depth steadily and at a pace that nourishes us and sustains our well-being.
JUPITER, THE SACRED SPACE OF INDIVIDUATION, AND LIMITING EXCESSES
March 14, 2026
Each individuation process is unique and inimitable – once it comes to the phase where the creating of a sacred space simultaneously becomes a need and must. It is working on ourselves in depth that brings us to the stage when developing a sense of the sacredness of living one’s own life becomes paramount. An individual image of god is born by following this sacredness. Jupiter’s archetypal trajectory requires that we all become ‘priests’ of our inimitable and unique ways of becoming an individuum, who nevertheless are well connected with the human collective. This involves regulating all the excesses in our lives so that the sacred and the profane dimensions of our lives can work together productively.
MARS, A TWOFOLD BATTLE WITH ONESELF, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF COURAGE
April 18, 2026
The archetypal trajectory of Mars contains two dimensions: the emotional (Scorpio) and the spiritual (Aries). Both reveal the two dimensions of the battle with oneself as an integral dimension of one’s own unique and inimitable individuation process. On one hand, the development of emotional depth requires us to actively pursue the path of processing our own psychic historicity. On the other, we need to become the ‘warriors’ for the integrity of our own ability to sustain and nourish our personal spirit. It is only when we do both tasks simultaneously that the emergence of courage, as one of the most valuable products of the individuation process, is facilitated.
VENUS, THE TWOFOLD DIMENSION OF FORMING VALUES
May 16, 2026
Venus represents the two dimensions of forming values. On the one hand, forming of one's value is indeed manifesting, physically-bodily (Taurus), that, which most practically symbolises object of utmost value – both on the subject level (our own body) and on the object level (the material objects one takes care about). On the other hand, one's values need to be worked through on the pure, immaterial, thinking value (the comparative thinking cogito of Libra). It is only once we work on both, possibly simultaneously, that our individuation process in the narrower sense, may be facilitated, as well as be sustainable. Alchemically, Venus is one of the components of the coniunctio she forms with Mercury, producing the lapis philosophorum, or the individuated man.
MERCURY, THE TWOFOLD DIMENSION OF COMMUNICATING
June 06, 2026
Mercury forms the two dimensions of communication. On the one hand, this is the sense of being physical-bodily on one side (Virgo) and of the thinking dimension on the other (Gemini). We shall consider the ways the two dimensions, and their archetypal trajectories of Mercury, may be practised and enacted. Whatever we think is one level (Gemini), yet what we actually succeed in manifesting by doing of the bodily cogito (Virgo), is quite another. Once our thinking has been successfully verbalised and practised in reality (Gemini and Virgo), our individuation process can reach its full potential. Along with Venus, Mercury forms one arcane component of what is symbolised by the birth of Hermes-Aphrodite – the hermaphroditic essence as the lapis philosophorum, or the individuated man.
MOON, THE EMBODIMENT, AND THE CONTINUOUS GIVING OF BIRTH
June 20, 2026
The archetypal trajectory of the Moon comprises both the mother and her child. One’s position of the Moon in one’s cosmogram is thus descriptive not just of the mothering, on both personal and archetypal levels, but of the inner child as well. The individuation process itself involves developing and sustaining a warm, yet dynamic relationship with one’s inner child. However, we need to develop and sustain ways of continuously carrying and giving birth to new forms of our own four-dimensional (psychic, bodily, spiritual, thinking) self. But the primary level of the Moon is the physical-bodily dimension of mothering – or its embodiment. This always works simultaneously parallel to the psychic dimension of mothering and embodiment of one’s unique and inimitable individuation process.
THE SUN, BEING, ITS RADIANCE, AND THE SPIRITUAL HEART
July 4, 2026
The cosmological Sun and its archetypal trajectory is really about man’s Being as the core of his being. The Being is radiating out into the world, producing the effect of the light of one’s personal spirit, in turn leading to the development of one’s individual spiritual heart. The archetypal trajectory of the Sun describes one’s journey both outwards, i.e., by expressing and (re)affirming one’s uniqueness, and inwards, i.e., by working on oneself in depth. Both are equally needed so as to improve and upgrade the level of one’s quality of life and well-being. The position of the Sun in one’s cosmogram is namely descriptive of the basic tenets and practical circumstances of these two directions in one’s always unique and inimitable individuation process.
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The seminars take place online (via Zoom) on Saturdays between 4.30 and 6.30 pm CEST (UCT +2, GMT +2), be aware of summertime zone change.
There is a 120-minute time format: the theoretical presentation takes 90 min, which is followed by a 30-min workshop in which we shall work with two participants from the group.
Each seminar costs €45. A 20% discount applies to a bundle of 2, 5, and 10 seminars.
Recordings will be available.
Contact: institut.ipal@gmail.com,
+381 69 320 8774 (Stefana)
an online seminar series in the academic year 2024/2025
by ddr. Matjaž L. Regovec, PhD, PhD, qualified psychoanalyst
NECESSITY AND FREE WILL AS THE ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE AND INDIVIDUUM
October 5, 2024
In the introductory seminar on the individuation process, we are going to focus on the concepts of the necessity and free will, which are the important precursors of man as an individual and the collective in the (post)modern times. We are going to look at the planetary archetypes of fate and free will and how does their dynamics help to reveal our individual destiny as symbolised by our natal charts, or cosmograms as maps of our own authentic self-unfoldment and ways to personal prosperity. In the latter part of the seminar, we are going to work individually with the IPAL Method.
SYMPTOM AS A SYMBOL OF THE INDIVIDUATION PROCESS:AN INCENTIVE, BUT ALSO THE INEVITABILITY OF LIFE
November 9, 2024
Symptoms are symbols of our development, growth and transformation, for symptoms not only remind us that we are alive, but may also offer us an incentive to work on ourselves in depth. Symptoms are actually a parallel track of symbolisation of life that we normally perform with our egos, i.e. with our thinking, intuition, bodily and psychic perception and creation of ourselves and the world. Symptoms are therefore symbolising our own personal individuation process from another, non-ego source, which is none other than our own core Being and its dynamics of wholeness. This is why symptoms are inevitable, as well as tremendously important, signposts of our individuation, and the resultant prosperity and wellbeing. We are going to see how placing symptoms into our cosmograms facilitates our working on ourselves in depth and thus enhances awareness and quality of life in general.
THE METAPHYSICS OF INDIVIDUATION:FROM PLUTO AND ARISTOTLE TO THE MODERN DIVERGENCE OF MAN INTO THE COLLECTIVE AND INDIVIDUUM
December 7, 2024
Western philosophical tradition shows that the very notion of the individual has always been of paramount importance. What is it that distinguishes the individual from the universal? We are going to browse through the history of the development of an individual – up to the Big Bang of the New Era, when the individual was finally born in the form of a human individuum – with the very birth of man’s ego and his-her four-dimensional cogito. Yet the gradual birth of a human individuum during the first centuries of the Age of Aquarius the Man is fraught with difficulties and detours. We are going to look deeper into the archetypal dynamics of Leo and Aquarius in order to facilitate our understanding of both human individuum and the collective, and then look for personal implications of this process in our birth charts, as well as individual lives.
IDENTITY, IDENTIFICATION AND SELF-PORTRAITURE AS AN ART OF INDIVIDUATION: HOW DO WE FASHION OUR OWN SELF-IMAGE?
January 18, 2025
By living our own individual lives, we are perpetually creating ever new images of ourselves, important others, as well as of the world and god. Creation in the Age of Aquarius the Man is still sacred, albeit it no longer depends on a prescribed, universal image of a god-creator-the father, but rather on our own individual cogito as a power to create, act and implement images that we bring into being with our own thinking, intuition, as well as with our own bodily and psychic activities. What we are essentially doing in our own individuation process of becoming who we are, is generating a self-portraiture of our own individuating human being. In this seminar, we are going to look at the astrological archetypes of this process and how we can work with them in our own birth charts, or cosmograms.
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE: AUTHENTICITY, WHOLENESS, AND THE FOUR-DIMENSIONALITY OF MAN'S BEING
February 15, 2025
“To thine own self be true” is a well-known Shakespearean quote. One should be true to their own principles and who they are. They should not strive to please other people by changing what they believe in or acting in any way that is outside what they really want to do. Yet, such an absolute authenticity is not easy to attain and to adhere to, for it essentially comes out of the wholeness of man as an individuum that only becomes stronger with the advancement of the individuation process. The authentic wholeness has four dimensions of its own existence and expression: personal spirit, one’s own unique psychology, one’s own physical body, as well as one’s own developing personal mindset. By assessing these four dimensions in connection with our personal cosmograms, we are building upon our own personal power of becoming an individuum as a fully functionable authentic whole within the collective.
THE INDIVIDUAL IMAGE OF GOD AS AN ENACTMENT OF THE INDIVIDUATION PROCESS
March 8, 2025
Becoming an individuum is nothing but a sacred process in the Age of Aquarius the Man. It is only by becoming an individuum that we are appropriately fulfilling the most important, yet twofold mission: By becoming a fully functionable human individual we are not only attaining a better quality of personal life, enhancing our own psycho-spiritual-bodily well-being, but are most meaningfully contributing to the human collective at the same time. The otherness or alterity of the sacred dimension of the individuation process is something that gradually emerges as a most natural dimension of individuation. The dialogue that needs to be established with the emerging individual image of god is essential in order to stay focused on our own inimitable and non-repeatable path of individuation. We are going to examine the cosmological significators and archetypes of the individual image of god in order to facilitate this important dimension of both our individuating, as well as living a fulfilling life within the collective.
THE PSYCHIC COGITO, THE LOWEST AND THE INITIATION INTO THE INDIVIDUATION PROCESS
April 5, 2025
Every individuation has two dimensions. Besides being a natural, spontaneous growth and development of a human individual, there is also a specific, in-depth dimension that has its own personal specifics. How do we come to be initiated into the latter dimension of individuation? What are the hallmarks of this process? How do we turn on the inwards and start to explore our own, inner psychic landscape? By starting to pay respect and attention to the images of our dreams and pieces of active imagination, we are gradually discovering our own psychic dimension – a dimension that is always unique and therefore characteristic of our own individuality. This is because it contains important clues for both our present situation, as well as for our personal historicity from the earliest childhood onwards. By studying the three dimensions of our psychic cogitos – Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces, we come to create and clarify a vision of our own deepest and most authentic roots of ourselves as individuums.
THE BODILY COGITO AND INDIVIDUATION AS AN EMBODIMENT AND CONCRETISATION
May 10, 2025
With physical bodies, we are already the most naturally demarcated creatures, differing most markedly from the human collective. However, this physical embodiment, which we acquire at birth, is nothing in itself, for it is only through psycho-physical development that we gradually acquire certain individualised bodily-physical experiences with our five senses of bodily cogito, which interact with the other two dimensions – the personal spirit and the emerging and gradually developing personal mindset. It is only through the bodily cogito – the bodily perception, action and creation of bodily images (visual, olfactory, gustatory, tactile and auditory) – that we can truly individuate ourselves, for it is only in this way that we can create and develop both the individual and the collective world of the ‘here and now’. We will examine the three cosmological archetypes of embodiment – Capricorn, Taurus and Virgo – to ground the ways and patterns of our embodiment and concretisation in the process of individuation.
THE INTUITIVE COGITO AND THE PERSONAL SPIRIT OF THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
June 7, 2025
The three archetypes of the personal spirit – Aries, Leo and Sagittarius – represent the invisible yet indisputable pathways and patterns by which our personal spirit emerges and evolves from the depths of our individual Being. These archetypal pathways are, in turn, individually situated and can be identified through our personal cosmogram (birth chart) with the help of our intuitive cogito (intuition). The individual archetypes of individuation are of utmost importance, for by studying them we can make meaning (as opposed to sense) of our individual lives, which emerges and develops through the process of individuation. This meaning, in turn, increases and strengthens the power and vitality of our personal spirit, which is the foundation of our spiritual as well as psycho-physical well-being, since the personal spirit is both the source and potential of all the energy needed to live our individual life.
THE SECONDARY THINKING COGITO AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE PERSONAL MINDSET AS A PRODUCT OF INDIVIDUATION
July 5, 2025
What we think is not always individual, since we always rely primarily on collective ways (the “primary thinking cogito”) of thinking and learning about the “truth” of all that is, in the formative years of childhood, adolescence and sometimes young adulthood. It is only through our own individual experiences in our personal lives that we begin to form our own thinking. This individual thinking, or ‘secondary thinking cogito’, aka “the personal mindset”, which emerges with the process of individuation, is subordinate to the process of individuation itself and only arises as a natural consequence and product of it. We will look at the three types of thinking – as indicated in their primary and secondary forms by the archetypes of Aquarius, Gemini and Libra – and see what we can learn from their position within our individual cosmograms.
an online seminar series in the academic year 2023/2024
by ddr. Matjaž L. Regovec, PhD, PhD, qualified psychoanalyst
THE ALCHEMY OF RELATIONSHIPS – AN INTRODUCTORY SEMINAR INTO THE SERIES
October 7, 2023
In this introductory seminar to the series, we are going to explore some basic tenets of the traditional alchemy as art and science. We are going to deal with the four elementary processes – the burning (calcinatio), solidifying (coagulatio), evaporating (sublimatio) and dissolving (solutio), as well as the three phases – the starting blackness (nigredo), the developing whiteness (albedo) and the final redness of full life (rubedo) and their corresponding planetary archetypes. We are going to see how alchemy can be used as the basic tool of relatedness – both to our own inner selves, as well as to important others and the collective.
ALCHEMY OF SPIRITUAL RE-ALIGNMENT AND THE INTUITIVE COGITO
November 11, 2023
What is spirituality if not living our life to its fullest potential? Yet, to live it, we need to discover what constitutes our individual meaning first. By working on ourselves with the techniques of active imagination, psychoanalysis, as well as our physical action in our daily lives, we are going to be able to free the very spirit that alchemists knew was imprisoned in the very matter of our own inner potential. In order to understand this process, we will draw upon the dynamics of the planetary archetypes of personal spirit: Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, and the Sun.
SUBLIMATION AND THE SUBLIME, THE ALCHEMY OF MIND
December 9, 2023
The mind or ‘thinking cogito’, as we named it, is the most eccentric of all human capacities to perceive, operate and create. It has no body, yet its basic tools – concepts and essences – are very powerful. They offer a perspective on life, which is from above and neutral, bringing freedom and non-attachment of living – indeed, the sublime. The alchemy of the mind is traditionally called sublimatio. This is a process in which the material of our lives evaporates into knowledge about ourselves. The process involves the workings of transiting Saturn and Uranus, which we will explore in some depth.
THE SPIRIT OF THE DEPTHS – ALCHEMY OF EMOTIONAL TRANSFORMATION
January 13, 2024
What Jung termed as “the spirit of the depths” in his Red Book, is in fact a journey towards one’s very individuality. But how is this to be achieved? The alchemical process of dissolution (solution) entails a departure from the surface and superficiality of our everyday lives into the depths of our own being where the treasure of our individuality can be uncovered. Often this means letting go of our safe attachments and bonds with the collective. We are going to explore the alchemical solution with the use of the workings of transiting Neptune, Jupiter and Pluto.
ALCHEMY OF THE PHYSICAL AND THE BODILY COGITO
February 10, 2024
The alchemy of the body and its cogito (perception, action and creation of our physical bodies) can be experienced as most powerful, since it materializes the whole of the alchemical process of our personal journey and the resulting transformation of our lives. It is the birth of the individual. In alchemy, the corresponding traditional process was “coagulatio”. Coagulation means that we are not only witnesses, but also objects of our very own alchemical opus, yet this process involves some challenging emotional processing, which we are going to describe along the tracks of Saturn in transit.
THE ALCHEMY OF LIFE OPPOSITES
March 9, 2024
The opposites we encounter in life, like day and night, conscious vs. unconscious, active and passive, giving-accepting, etc. all have corresponding archetypal tracks that reveal their deeper dynamics and meaning. In terms of cosmology, they are contained in the planetary pairs of Sun-Moon, Mars-Venus, Jupiter-Saturn, Uranus-Pluto, Neptune-Saturn, etc. Working through of the alchemical opposites of life is essential for understanding, as well as for working practically and productively with, the inner and outer conflicts that arise because of life’s continuing advancement into ever new and more evolved forms. In order to attain to the highest goal of alchemy, namely of producing “gold”, we first need to adhere to the very dynamics of the opposites.
ALCHEMY OF CARDINALITY AND THE ARCHETYPE OF INITIATION
April 13, 2024
How are we initiated into new forms of life and what are the levels of this very primary movement of our Being? The archetype of initiation and its alchemy finds its way through the cosmological fields of Aries (spiritual birth), Cancer (being born emotionally), Libra (birth of mind) and Capricorn (being born in a material body). Cardinality and its initiation archetype are supported by the planetary archetypes of Mars, the Moon, Venus and Saturn. We are going to explore the specific developmental challenges of each of them.
THE DIAMOND OR THE ALCHEMY OF FORM, STABILITY AND VALUES
May 11, 2024
Cosmological fixity has a function of preserving and enhancing the already born and the established. Without fixity, things and processes would not grow to their full form, stability and wealth. These forms of the body, psyche, spirit and mind are represented by the archetypes of Taurus, Scorpio, Leo and Aquarius. By exploring the planetary archetypes (Venus and Saturn, Mars and Pluto, the Sun, Saturn and Uranus) of their values we are going to draw near to their very alchemical essences – in order to participate in one of life’s greatest mysteries, that of maturation and of coming to fruition.
CADENT QUALITY, ALCHEMICAL DECAY AND THE RENEWAL OF LIFE
June 8, 2024
Cadence in cosmological terms entails the sophistication of everything already formed and brought to fruition. Full forms now need to be distributed, and not only sophisticated, but also decayed in those cases, where further development is no longer viable. Cadence is thus both a great test, as well as an opportunity for upgrading life. This is where we discover what remains permanent yet sophisticated on one hand, and what needs to be let go of, in order for a new cycle of life to be initiated in the future, on the other. The alchemy of Gemini (mind analysis), Virgo (practical sophistication techniques), Sagittarius (the cadent paths of the spirit) and Pisces (the emotional transcendence) is going to be explored with the help of the archetypes of their planetary rulers.
SEPARATIO AND CONIUNCTIO – THE HIDDEN DIMENSIONS OF MAN’S TRANSFORMATION
July 6, 2024
In this final seminar of the alchemy-cosmology-psychoanalysis series, we are going to track the archetypes of separation and unification that feature prominently in the alchemical tradition. The two processes can be seen as complimentary and essential to each other, for there is no unification of male and female, child and parent, conscious and the unconscious, love and power, progression and regression, etc. without their, albeit temporary, separation. The planetary archetypal tracks of coniunctio (Neptun and Pluto) and those of separatio (Uranus and Saturn) are going to lead our way into the two hidden dimensions of woman’s and man’s transformation and the resulting progression of their lives.
About the author
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Ddr. Matjaž L. Regovec, holds doctorates in psychology and philosophy. Trained and qualified originally as a Jungian, he is nowadays an independent psychoanalyst at the IPAL Institute. Having been working as a psychoanalyst and a psychotherapist for 30 years now, he also offers some individual consultations with the IPAL Method. He is the author of numerous books in Slovenian, Serbian, Hungarian, Russian and English language. He lectures and holds workshops worldwide.
Matjaž works best directly under the Sun, and his third-house Saturn in Pisces draws him next to the sea, on the island of Crete, where he wrote some of his recent books. He enjoys cooking, the art of horticulture and travelling, exploring different cultures, their ancient history, religion and other historical facets of human spirit and cosmological heritage. He understands alchemy and symbolic cosmology as a means and inspiration for the integration of the divide between mind on one hand, and body-psyche-spirit dimensions of man on the other. The very same processes that once upon a time were identified on the alchemical stove, may nowadays be usefully applied in working upon oneself in order to enhance one’s quality of life and well-being.