Description
HUMAN INDIVIDUATION: SELECTED TOPICS
an online seminar series in the academic year 2026/2027
by ddr. Matjaž L. Regovec, PhD, PhD, qualified psychoanalyst
PROJECTION AND COMPLEXES
October 3, 2026
Projection and complexes are terms from Jungian psychology and psychoanalysis. From the viewpoint of our model of integrative anthropology, whatever has not yet been integrated by the symbolic level of one’s ego-awareness and its cogito coniunctionis (perception, action, and creation of one’s own images), will invariably appear both on the psychological level of an important other and the human collective, as well as on the physical-material level of these. The element of projection, which may take place on all four dimensions of one’s being (and not just the psychic one), stems from the presymbolic. This is why the element of the shadow, containing both the repressed as well as not yet developed parts of our individuation process, represents the potential ‘gold’ of our working on ourselves in depth with the IPAL Method and elsewhere.
THE ETERNAL CHILD AND ITS DYNAMICS IN THE INDIVIDUATION PROCESS
November 7, 2026
The eternal child forms one of the core dynamics of the individuation process. The eternal child is an archetype. As such, he or she needs to be distinguished and disentangled from one’s inner, developmental child, who is historic. The eternal child is not historic, and therefore not personal. We are going to explore some different dimensions of the eternal child, e.g., in Dionysus, Jesus, etc. in order to elucidate its importance in the individuation process both in its wider, general dimension, as well as in its narrower sense. We are going to explore in what ways the eternal child may both impede and facilitate one’s individuating, with the symbolism of some cosmological agencies that are intertwined with the eternal child’s fungating.
SPIRIT OF THE DEPTHS AND THE IPAL METHOD
December 5, 2026
Why is the spirit of the depths of central importance when working on oneself thoroughly, both in the IPAL Method and elsewhere? This is because the psychic dimension of one’s being may only be explored vertically, i.e., by uncovering layer by layer of one’s own historical, vertical, personal dimension of one’s emotional life of one’s childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and even later. It is the psychic dimension of one’s personality and the psychological dimension of one’s own being (or self) that represents the core of one’s individuality. The psyche and the spirit of the depths, as an all-important spirit of the initiation process in the narrower sense, are therefore the most fundamental prima materia of one’s developing quality of life and wellbeing.
INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE IMAGES OF GOD
January 16, 2027
Images of god in the Age of Aquarius (or the New Era in the extended sense) are essentially twofold. This is because the New Era form of man and its anthropodicy has irrevocably bifurcated into man as the collective, and as an individuating individuum. Unlike all pre-New Era metaphysical models, where the image of god was of a unitary nature, its twofold nature has several consequences in the Age of Aquarius. On the one hand, humanity as the collective is developing perpetually new images of what is sacred on a general, wider scale of human symbolic forms. The images of god within the collective are changing in accord with the changing dynamics of the spirit of the times. An individual image of god is, however, as we shall see in the seminar, inherently intertwined with one’s advancement throughout the individuation process in the narrower sense. In the seminar, we are going to explore the whys and hows of the vital process of developing one’s own image of otherness in its most sacred form.
EGO, PERSONA, BEING (being), AND BEING (Being)
February 13, 2027
The sense of I is experienced on all four levels: The physical-bodily; the psychic (psychological); the spiritual-intuitive, i.e., one’s heart as the seat of the personal spirit; and the thinking ego, which coordinates all thinking activity, the interpreting, judging and creating of new thoughts, i.e., the thinking cogito. The latter’s counterparts are the bodily cogito (bodily action, perception, and creation of images), the psychic cogito (psychic perception of images, acting, and creating them), and the intuitive cogito, i.e., the perception of archetypes, acting intuitively, as well creating meaning. Whilst persona represents the outer adaptation to the world, is the inner structure on man’s all four levels consisting of both the symbolic (ego-awareness), as well as its presymbolic parts. At the seminar, we are going to explore the mutual relationships between the ego, persona, one’s being (or the self), and one’s fifth-dimensional Being, as well as their functions in one’s individuation process.
ANIMA AND ANIMUS IN THE INDIVIDUATION PROCESS
March 13, 2027
Anima and animus are interesting and useful categories of C. Gustav Jung and his psychology and psychoanalysis. Being the contrasexual dimensions of one’s being (or self), anima and animus are first fungating in the shadow of one’s own presymbolic. Generally, they are initially projected, but sometimes anima and animus, respectively, may also overwhelm one’s symbolic part, or one’s personality and one’s ego-awareness. In both cases, anima and animus need conscious recognition and integration so that they may start serving one’s individuation process in a most positive and fruitful manner. In an individuating personality, anima and animus continue to form a bridge with the presymbolic, thus bestowing guidance to the very source of life and its renewal. We are going to explore the archetypes of anima in a man, and animus in a woman, and their function in the individuation process of a (post)modern individuum.
THE TWO FACES OF SATURN INDIVIDUATING
April 10, 2027
The two faces of Saturn individuating are connected with this archetype’s double rulership over the thinking cogito (Aquarius) and the systemic dimension of the physical-bodily cogito (Capricorn). It is interesting that the thinking object and its thinking mindset is, in its primary form, of a collective nature, and its individual form (the personal mindset) only emerges with the advancement of the individuation process – for it is its very result. The systemic dimension of one’s physical-bodily cogito, however, inherently has a twofold nature, since both the collective man and man as an individuating individuum are systemic units, endowed with their internal, self-regulating, as well as change-resisting defence mechanisms. Saturn is thus an archetype of both individuation and resistance to it. By examining this ambivalent archetypal dynamics in more depth, we hope to produce a better understanding of the pitfalls and opportunities in developing one’s quality of life, and in attaining one’s life-goals.
DEVELOPMENT AND DYNAMICS OF IDENTITY IN THE INDIVIDUATION PROCESS
May 8, 2027
The two fundamental forms of identity, the collective and the individual, have some specific dynamics and development. Whereas the child’s collective identity, i.e., their identity with the symbolic forms of the human collective (the primary family, forms of education, peer groups, clubs, one’s job in early adulthood, etc.) develops slowly in due time, one’s individual identity is historically rooted in the historicity of one’s childhood and later emotional experience, yet is on the other hand to be uncovered, upgraded and made visible in the human collective during one’s individuation in the narrower sense, in the second half of life. We are going to look closely into both forms of human identity that underpin one’s own unique and inimitable individuation process on the whole. In the exploration of our own identity, we can draw on some important guidelines offered by one’s specific archetypes of individuation, as revealed by one’s personal cosmogram.
INCOMPLETENESS AND WHOLENESS OF ONE’S UNIQUE INDIVIDUATION
June 5, 2027
Each and every individuation is both unique and inimitable on the one hand, but also ever incomplete. The unfinishedness of man’s continuous development is due to the very nature of man’s own constitution, whereby the ‘Central Intelligence Agency’ of one’s own four-dimensional and twelve-faceted cogito coniunctionis plays a metasymbolic role of connecting the presymbolic, still unknown dimension of one’s being (or one’s self) with the already symbolised world of one’s ego-awareness, its personality, and one’s state of personal spirit. We will elaborate on various dimensions of one’s wholeness and look for the specifics of distinguishing among the four of them, in order to gain some deeper and wider understanding of one’s invariably unique and inimitable individuation process in the narrower sense.
FORMS OF TRANSCENDENCE IN ONE’S INDIVIDUATION
July 3, 2027
By “transcendence” is normally meant the state of going beyond regular limits, surpassing ordinary experience, or rising above physical, material, or temporal constraints. What kind of transcendence do we experience in human individuating? The first form is to relativise one’s collective existence, for an individual identity is emerging as an entirely distinct entity – in the form of a unique and inimitable personality, (non)acts and (non)deeds, as well as one’s personal spirit and unique personal mindset. The second form of transcendence is however connected to overcoming one’s own historicity which, with the process of individuation in the narrower sense, is being conjoined with the futurity of the archetypes of one’s individuation. At the seminar, we are going to look at the cosmological agencies of both types of human transcendence inherent with human individuating.
