From Angels to Aliens: A Lecture Series

Wednesdays, Feb. 6-27
5:45 - 7:15 pm
$75 ($65 Jung Center members) for all four lectures | $20 individual lecture

What has happened to those who report seeing UFOs or being abducted? "The conclusion is: something is seen, but one doesn't know what." That was the conclusion in 1958, anyway, when Jung published his fascinating short work Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. What would he say now?

In this lecture series, we will use Jung's Flying Saucers - as well as anecdotal reports of alien encounters - as entry points into the modern history of the UFO and the Alien. Numerous models have developed over the last fifty years to explain the UFO phenomenon.

Of particular interest, the psychosocial hypothesis suggests that the "something" experienced in UFO reports is shaped by the cultural imagination of our modern technological society. In a previous era, the "something" may have been experienced as angels and demons.

We will discover that Jung's argument - that we are witnessing the birth of a new living mythology, an "alien mysticism" - was prescient and remains surprisingly convincing fifty years later.

Jeffrey J. Kripal is the J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religious Studies and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University. He is the author of Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion, Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism, and Kali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna.

You can click here to REGISTER ONLINE for this series. If you prefer, you can call The Jung Center at 713.524.8253 to register for this event. You can also click here to download a registration form - fill it out and fax or mail it to us. If you would like to register for individual lectures, call in advance or simply come early the night of the event.