Kathryn LaFevers started following the work of Lo Sguardo - Rivista di Filosofia.
Kathryn LaFevers started following the work of 2 people.
Kathryn LaFevers started following the work of Bogdan-George RADULESCU.
Kathryn LaFevers Contemplating the effects of generational trauma on my work: exile of Huguenot-Protestants from the Roman Catholic Church and our French homeland; exile on the Trail of Tears of Chickasaw Native Ame... more
Faculty Member, Humanities
Adjunct Faculty
About
Practitioner and researcher of esoteric and exoteric, Shamanic techniques since 1972, I refer to my path as “reading the book of nature.” I'm a Native American of the Chickasaw Nation, as well as of French heritage. M.A. Literature & Writing Studies, California State University San Marcos; B.A. Comparative Literature & Research in Consciousness, Maharishi International University. I also studied Hatha and Raja yoga/union, and interior world religions or esotericism in Santa Barbara for 17 years. While reading the book of nature on vision quest, I received the Indian name Three Eagles. A lifelong writer of nature and devotional poetry, I've performed original readings in 12 cities.
Between 2002 and 2011, I presented academic papers on esoteric Literature and Natural Magic at a dozen conferences. Magic and esotericism have been studied in the field of Literature for over a decade, and are well-established integral elements of the Humanities.
Continuing my research and writing on Jacques Lefèvre d’ Étaples’ 'De Magia naturali,' 'On Natural Magic,' I apply the Literary and depth psychological critical theories of Archetype-Myth and Phenomenology-Hermeneutics. Depth psychology includes Jungian and archetypal psychology.
Founder of archetypal psychology, James Hillman, pinpointed the writings of Renaissance Neoplatonist Marsilio Ficino as a direct precursor of archetypal psychology. Just as I consider James Hillman my recent spiritual father in the Academy, Lefèvre considered Ficino his spiritual father, and participated in his Florentine Platonic Academy. Alongside Pico della Mirandola's works, Lefèvre's Literary works came directly through Ficino. My writings—integrating theory-&-practice in a transdisciplinary paradigm—engage the imaginal, mythopoetic cosmologies of Renaissance Neoplatonism & Natural Magic with depth & archetypal psychology, claiming 'The Red Book: Liber Novus' as Jungian Natural Magic: a Literary Shamanic art-form.
The 'De Magia' demonstrates that the Florentine Natural Magicians’ 'prisca theologia' is this transdisciplinary Literary practice, which integrates philosophical, mathematical, psychological, and spiritual theory in an imaginal mythopoesis. It embodies this Literary art-form through: mythological beings such as Pan and Venus; imaginal cosmologies such as the Astrological Zodiac and the Dionysian Celestial Hierarchy; and archetypal constructs such as Plato's the One, the Pythagorean Binary, and the Christian Trinity.
C.G. Jung’s 'Red Book' encapsulates this archetypal tradition in a Shamanic imaginal mythopoesis. Beginning in the deep interior of the anima mundi, with archetypal images or ideas, Jung follows the images as they become fully-fleshed in archetypal personifications or characters, then travels with these figures as they interact with each other on all levels of nature, bringing him with them in return to a greater spiritual wholeness. Jung’s technique of active imagination employed in creating 'The Red Book' parallels Lefèvre’s Natural Magic technique of numerical ascension through number mysticism. Moshe Idel ascribes a term to Kabbalistic writings such as 'The Bahir' that applies to both Lefèvre’s and Jung's texts--whole divine pleroma. Albeit in English translation, this term from 'The Bahir' is clearly correlative with Jung's terms 'whole pleroma' and 'system of the whole world.' Through their mythopoetic dream-vision texts, Jung and Lefèvre both arrive at this greater spiritual wholeness.
The essential element in both the 'De Magia' and 'The Red Book' that grounds them in Natural Magic, is their engagement with spirit or soul, the anima mundi, in every aspect of humankind's life on earth. Jung's Literary, mythopoetic journey through 'The Red Book' brings him into a spiritual wholeness described as "the whole pleroma" just as Lefèvre’s Literary, mythopoetic journey through the 'De Magia' brings him into a spiritual unity that is manifest on all levels of nature. The anima mundi, soul in-and-of the world, is nature as it manifests in each living moment. Ours is the mythopoetic path of reading the book of nature, of active imagination whereby the anima mundi presents itself as nature, a unity which we participate in co-creating.
Like the Florentine dialogue of 'De Magia Naturali,' 'The Red Book' transmits humankind’s 'prisca theologia' via this transdisciplinary, Literary theory-&-practice itself, designed to guide the student on a journey of reintegration with psyche or soul. Not a religion, then or now, ours is a lived secular spirituality grounded on earth. Renaissance Neoplatonism & Natural Magic, and depth psychology unify opposites--esoteric & exoteric, ineffable & effable, transcendent & manifest--through a wholly interpenetrating exegesis whereby the literal and spiritual realms are unified within life on earth: in the anima mundi, nature. Jung's 'Red Book' is an embodiment of this Literary Shamanic art-form.
In the Engaged Humanities & the Creative Life program at Pacifica Graduate Institute, I teach HMC200, a course centered around Jung's 'Red Book' entitled, "Active Imagination, Dreams, and Psychic Creativity."
Upcoming Conference Presentation:
23rd Medieval & Renaissance Conference, Barnard College, Columbia University, NYC
http://medren.barnard.edu/annual-conference
Examples of where I've presented academic papers: in May 2007 at ICMS, International Congress on Medieval Studies; in May 2010 at ICC in Ojai, Institute for Cultural Change; at AMORC 2010 in San Jose; and at HUMANITIES 2010 UCLA.
More recent presentations:
Pacifica, Somatic Studies Guest Lecture 2012, February 13
Conference on Current Pagan Studies 2011, January 22
Pacifica, Humanities Guest Lecture 2011, February 22
KROTONA, Theosophical Society Lecture 2011, March 22
Paper published on Summer Solstice 2011:
http://www.rosecroixjournal.org/
Poem published on PGI's Alumni Association website on New Years Eve 2012:
http://www.alumniofpacifica.com/?x1=special&x2=hillman
Poem published on PGI's Alumni Association website Tribute to James Hillman, March 2012:
http://alumni.pacifica.edu/?x1=special&x2=hillman&y1=artifact&y2=1288
Poem published April 2012 in the Creative Literary section of the journal, Psychoanalytic Perspectives:
http://www.psychperspectives.com/
Essay published April 2012, "The Humanities Take a Walk Outside Time" in
'The Soul Does Not Specialize: Revaluing the Humanities and the Polyvalent Imagination'
http://www.amazon.com/The-Soul-Does-Not-Specialize/dp/0615629504/ref=s
We are currently reviewing applications for Pacifica Graduate Institute's program 'Engaged Humanities & the Creative Life' program.
Please refer interested Graduate Degree applicants to:
http://www.pacifica.edu/humanities.aspx
I'm a member of:
ACLA/ICLA
http://acla.org/acla2012/
ASE
http://www.aseweb.org/
ISNS International Society for
Neoplatonic Studies
http://www.isns.us/index.html
ISSRNC International Society for
the Study of Religion, Nature, & Culture
http://www.religionandnature.com/society/
IAJS Int'l Association for Jungian Studies
http://www.jungianstudies.org/
The Study of Myth
http://www.studyofmyth.org/
Societas Magica
http://www.societasmagica.org/
Renaissance Society of America
http://www.rsa.org/default.asp?
and ESSWE, among several other academic organizations
http://www.esswe.org/#p/individual-scholars.html
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