Public Programs
Writing Our Way Trough the Dark: The Creative Uses of Nigredo [LECTURE]
By Elizabeth Éowyn Nelson
October 17 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm MDT
Nearly a century ago, when Freud and Jung witnessed the rise of fascism in Europe, they turned their keen depth psychological eye to cultural nigredo in works such as Civilization and its Discontents and “Wotan.” Jungians can follow their example by writing our way through today’s social, cultural, and political nigredo. Indeed, darkness is a writer’s friend.
Friday evening’s lecture describes how creative writing practice can thrive in the dark; indeed, it is nourished by the slow, somber, ruminative processes characteristic of nigredo. Jung described the creative process as the unconscious activation of an archetypal image, which is entwined with the artist’s fate. In the darkness of nigredo, the daimon, guiding spirit or genius of creative work can emerge with special poignance and clarity.
“The daimon motivates. It protects. It invents and persists with a stubborn fidelity,” says Hillman in The Soul’s Code, and often forces “deviance and oddity upon its keeper.” At a time when political leaders actively repress deviance and oddity, the presence of the daimon empowers Jungians to continue counter-cultural work: in our creative practices, in our professional life, in our communities and in the world.
Saturday’s workshop has one aim: to show how writing in the dark is a way to build an enduring relationship with the daimon, a formidable imaginal ally. It is organized around provocative writing and somatic exercises to help participants follow an archetypal image in their work. The aim is to dislodge a purely intellectual approach to the image and inspire soulful, embodied engagement.
ELIZABETH ÉOWYN NELSON, PhD, a Pacifica Graduate Institute faculty member since 2003, has been a professional writer and editor for four decades. An internationally-known speaker and teacher, Dr. Nelson’s books include Psyche’s Knife, The Art of Inquiry, coauthored with Joseph Coppin, and The Art of Jungian Couple Therapy, coauthored with Anthony Delmedico. In her consulting practice, she embodies depth psychological and imaginal practices to coach individual authors across a variety of genres and styles. www.elizabethnelson-phd.com.
Get Tickets to Register
Select one of the ticket options below. Online registration ends on Friday, October 17, 2025 at 9:00 am Mountain Time.
If you register to attend online via ZOOM, the ZOOM link will be sent out on Friday, October 17, 2025 at Noon (12:00 pm) Mountain Time.
This lecture will be video recorded. Everyone who registers will receive access to the video one week after the event.
**Note: You must attend the LIVE lecture — in-person or online via ZOOM — to receive CEU credit (ie: no CEUs offered for only watching the video recording after the event).
In-person Location
contact@santafejung.org
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