£47.50 GBP

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This 50% deposit payment of £47.50 for the Awakening to Psycho-Spiritual Crisis webinar is non-refundable and non-transferable.

The balance payment of £47.40 is due by midnight on Monday 28th October 2024. Once your purchase has gone through, you will receive an email with a link to the balance payment page.

50% Deposit Payment for: Awakening to Psycho-Spiritual Crisis: a 3-Part Webinar Series

This booking serves as the deposit for the complete 3-part live webinar series. The full price is £95.00. Once enrolled you will be able to attend the live sessions and you will receive access to all the recordings.

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In this 3-part webinar, Jez Hughes & John Wadsworth will explore the question of psychosis and mental breakdown through the lens of shamanism and astrology.

They will explore the origins of what may be understood as psycho-spiritual crisis, and contrast the way it is perceived handled in our modern secular culture, from how it is perceived and responded to in indigenous, shamanic societies, and within communities that recognise the spiritual and/or archetypal dimension of existence.

Both John and Jez experienced dramatic spiritual awakenings in their early life that were pathologised as psychotic breaks: in John’s case through the psychiatric system, in Jez’s through him convincing himself that he was mad. They will speak to their direct experience of how, in each case, their encounters with an extra-ordinary reality opened up their personal healing journey and their respective vocational paths. For John, it was a powerful encounter with astrology which served both as the catalyst for his ‘madness’, and as the journey to sanity. With Jez, shamanism offered itself up a curative path after many years of mental struggle. Counter to the conventional wisdom of family members and psychiatric practitioners, they both looked toward the wisdom in the content of their supposed ‘mental illness’ as the key to their self-realisation and healing.

What you'll get from the webinar series:

Deep insights & practical knowledge from two experts in the field of shamanism and astrology, both of whom have direct personal experience of psycho-spiritual crisis.
Access to latest research into the phenomena of shamanic sickness and spiritual emergency.
An understanding of why these (often disturbing) types of initiatory experience occur and how they manifest.
Insight into the archetypal landscape that opens up for people undergoing a psycho-spiritual crisis, and how it can illuminate astrological and shamanic themes.
Learn how shamanism and astrology can assist in the integration of these experiences.

AWAKENING TO PSYCHO-SPIRITUAL CRISIS

3-PART WEBINAR SERIES

Thursdays: 31st Oct, 7th Nov, 14th Nov 2024:

6-8pm UK Time

Part 1 - Thurs 31st Oct: Origins & Causes of Mental Breakdown & Psycho-Spiritual Crisis

In this first session, we will look in depth at the background triggers that can help to bring about these types of experiences, including genetic factors, childhood trauma, grief at the loss of loved ones, relationship break-ups, unrequited love, use of psycho-active drugs, meditation practices, exposure to shocking events and more besides. We will look at the nature of the psyche from an archetypal perspective, and how the development of western society from a religious to a secular state has changed cultural attitudes toward mental health crises and spiritual experiences; how modern society is set up to control and mitigate against non-rational experiences.

Part 2 - Thurs 7th Nov: Manifestations of a Psycho-Spiritual Crisis

In this second session, we will explore how a psycho-spiritual crisis may manifest in an individual’s life. For some people, a rich archetypal landscape opens up, that discloses an extraordinary sense of synchronicity, meaning and connection. For others, it can be a terrifying experience of losing control, feeling persecuted, hunted, assailed by demons. We will also look at how an individual’s experience is typically received and responded to by the people around them in their families and communities, and by society at large. We will look at the consequences of mental breakdown and psycho-spiritual crisis, how it is managed and suppressed through drug medication, misunderstood and reductively stigmatised; how the experience from the inside is often so vastly different from what is perceived from the outside.

Part 3 - Thurs 14th Nov: Integrating a Psycho-Spiritual Crisis

In this third session, we will explore the process of return. For a variety of different reasons, it can be very challenging to return to your life the way it was before. How do you come back to your everyday life, after your perception of yourself and the world has been utterly shattered? How do you relate to the people in your life again; after seeing so deeply into the complexity of the human experience, after having been exposed directly to the power and magnficence of the spiritual world, or having been possessed by entities or come face to face with to the darker aspects of your own psyche. We will look at how a person might integrate back into their family, their community, and adjust to what may be a very different relationship with society. We will explore healing pathways that can open up and help a person come to terms with what’s happened. We will look at ways of restoring a sense of perspective, the need to appreciate the metaphorical and symbolic aspects of their experience, the importance of humility, ways of building bridges between the material and spiritual worlds. We will consider what support is available for people, what can help and what can hinder the integration process. And also the value of people who have undergone this initiation sharing their experience with others, potentially being in such a unique position to share and hold space for others.

About Your Teachers: John Wadsworth & Jez Hughes

I work as professional astrologer, author and teacher. My passion for astrology began in 1990, following a profound experience of communion with the night sky, which opened my mind to the poetry of the cosmos, radically altered my worldview, and became the catalyst for my psycho-spiritual crisis and vocational calling. I have been teaching astrology for the past 25 years, and founded the Kairos School of Astrology in Glastonbury in 2008, running a two-year professional training. Deeply versed in mythology and archetypal psychology, I am known in the field as a pioneer of the experiential approach, including astrological theatre and astrodrama. I am the founder of The Alchemical Journey, a twelve-month zodiac mystery school pilgrimage, originally based around The Glastonbury Zodiac. I am the author of the book: Your Zodiac Soul , drawn from this work with the zodiac as a medicine wheel, as twelve gateways to wholeness. I hold an MA in Cultural Astronomy & Astrology from Bath Spa University (UK), and for my 2005 thesis he produced a seminal work on astrodrama, in which I coined the term “Embodied Astrology”, and founded an epistemological framework for astrology as a form of healing theatre. I am in the process of completing a 3-year anthroposophical training in mental health at Emerson College, Forest Row, and has been a part of its teaching faculty.

John Wadsworth

I have been on the shamanic path for twenty five years and am the founder of the training centre Second Sight Healing which offers a variety of accredited programmes of shamanic courses and initiation up to practitioner level. I have worked full time as a shamanic healer for over twenty years, treating thousands of people from the U.K and across Europe. I work closely with the indigenous Wixarika (Huichol) nation of north central Mexico, as a cultural liaison for their work in the U.K. and also through a ten-year commitment to apprentice with the sacred sites and teachers of their land. My own initiation involved a fifteen-year journey through various mental illnesses and psychotic breaks before finding a cure in shamanism, hence my passion for this subject. My work has featured all across the national press and on ITV television and BBC radio. I am the author of The Wisdom of Mental Illness- Shamanism, Mental Health & the Renewal of World and The Heart of Life- Shamanic Initiation & Healing in the Modern World.

Jez Hughes