Next Lecture - June

14 June 2025: Kurt Lampe

Darkness Reborn: Satanism and the Problem of Hatred

‘Hatred’ is one of those words that makes people uncomfortable, though we’re quick to label it in others. Whether we’re on the left or the right, we accuse our political opponents of being ‘hatemongers’. In popular culture, we hear all the time that someone ‘hates himself’, ‘hates her parents’, or ‘hates their life.’ There’s a long tradition of theorizing hatred in depth psychology, starting with Freud’s ‘death drive’ and Jung’s ‘shadow’. Donald Winnicott warns that psychiatrists must be honest about feeling hatred toward their patients, just as parents must be honest about feeling hatred toward their babies. ‘You may have to let your client hate you’, supervisors tell their psychotherapy trainees.

In this event, we’ll attempt to shine just one small light into the abyssal darkness of hatred. The figure we’ll strive to see there is another one that makes people uncomfortable, namely the lord of darkness himself: Satan. Despite Satan’s continuing vitality in the western imagination, few have explored how the study of Satanism can illuminate the dynamics of hatred. Here we’ll experiment with an archetypal approach to the phenomenon of Satanism today, ranging from Satanic panics and Luciferian politics to black metal music and demonic dreams or visions. Approaching this in a creative spirit, our hope is to understand both the dangers and opportunities in our own hatred just a little bit differently.
 
Kurt Lampe is a Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Bristol and a trainee at the Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling. He currently works with people both in private practice and in the local NHS.

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General information

Since the early eighties, the C.G. Jung Public Lectures have played an important part in establishing and maintaining Bristol's reputation as an acknowledged centre of interest in Depth Psychology.

The monthly lectures are on current issues and topics broadly related to the field of analytical psychology and are given by a variety of professional and established speakers. They are open to everybody with an interest in depth psychology, the therapies, philosophy, religion, mythology, life and the arts.

The aim is to provide a friendly, informal space for Jung's ideas and philosophy to reach a wider public. There is time for refreshment, socialising, and networking after the lecture followed by participative discussion with the speaker in the round.

 


A reduced-price bookstall is sometimes provided by Bookmark, Bristol. Their website includes a good selection
of Jungian and Analytical Psychology titles (also at reduced prices)!
Tel: (0117) 9672928  www.psychologicaltherapybooks.co.uk

 

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