Life on Earth is transforming at scales of magnitude and in dimensions that cannot be mental-rationally prehended. The planetary emergence/emergency is now real and present. We can recognize and describe archetypal patterns of accelerating changes, efficient and deficient, in personal and world life.
As a philosopher of consciousness, Gebser describes ever-present structures of awaring— archaic, magic, mythic, mental, and integral. His central concern is the mutation of consciousness that is now occurring—“our conscious participation in the construction of a new reality.”
For Jung the individual is the center of transformation, and he emphasizes that his work concerns primarily the suffering of individuals. Still, Jung is deeply concerned with “the spirit of the times” as well as “the spirit of the depths.” Gebser writes of “an increasingly intense luminescence of the spiritual” and Jung of “the numinosum of divine experience.”
The work of this conference is to distinguish/synthesize the ideas of Gebser and Jung, and others. Our immediate aim is to connect their important and useful insights in order to advance our understanding of what is happening to us and through us, now.