THE ALCHEMY, COSMOLOGY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUATION

an online seminar series in the academic year 2024/2025

by ddr. Matjaž Regovec, PhD, DFAstrolS, DPsychAstrol, qualified psychoanalyst

October 5, 2024: Necessity and free will as the archetypes of the collective and individuum

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.

November 9, 2024: Symptom as a symbol of the individuation process: an incentive, but also the inevitability of life

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.

December 7, 2024: The metaphysics of individuation: from Plato and Aristotle to the modern divergence of man into the collective and individuum

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.

January 18, 2025: Identity, identification and self-portraiture as an art of individuation: how do we fashion our own self-image?

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.

February 15, 2025: To thine own self be true: authenticity, wholeness, and the four-dimensionality of man’s being

“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.

March 8, 2025: The individual image of god as an enactment of the individuation process

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.

April 5, 2025: The psychic cogito, the lowest and the initiation into the individuation process

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.

May 10, 2025: The bodily cogito and individuation as an embodiment and concretisation

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.

June 7, 2025: The intuitive cogito and the personal spirit of the process of individuation

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.

July 5, 2025: The secondary thinking cogito and the emergence of the personal mindset as a product of individuation

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.

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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 120-minute time format, of which 90 minutes is the theoretical presentation, followed by a 30 minutes workshop, where we are going to work with the IPAL Method with two participants from the group.

The fee for an individual seminar is 39,50€. There are packages of 2 seminars (71,10 €), 5 seminars (158€) and 10 seminars (316€). Recordings will be available.

Ddr. Matjaž 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.