Wednesday 9 November 2016

Magic School: Creating Personal Mythology


Tutor Ken Rees is running a two-day Saturday course called Creating Personal Mythology starting at the end of November. The classes will run at the Mary Ward Centre, Queen Square, London WC1 on Saturday 26 November and Saturday 3 December from 10.30am – 5.30pm. Fees are £53 or £19 concessions.

Here is the description of the course supplied by Ken Rees:
In this two-day workshop/seminar course we will consider the recovery of one’s ‘personal myth’ as part of modern society’s quest for the ‘self’. We will explore whether issues such as personal identity can be productively pursued through the cultivation and evolution of personal mythologies. The course will be partly experiential, involving a range of exercises including drawing, role play and drama, as well as reflection on which societal and familial myths we relate to in our lives – to what extent do we allow individual and cultural myths to live us and how far do we live and mould them? How functional are our present personal myths, etc? An analysis of the concept of personal myth will be presented and we will work within the interfaces between myth, psychology and spirituality to help see through contemporary confusions around the `self', identity formation and change.

We will encourages the development of a mythological perspective on society and on oneself in respect to the guiding myths of one's family upbringing, culture, social class, political or religious ideology. Gaining awareness of such control systems helps us to see how they impinge on us all and assist in realising a sense of authentic selfhood in contrast to the array of pseudo-selves promoted by a range of narratives – familial, political, religious, social media, New Age and the like.

By the end of the course students should be in a better position to evaluate the effects of wider sociological and psychological influences on themselves and should be able to diagnose what changes they may want to make (if any!) in terms of current life-styles, life chances and overall attitudes. Thus an overall course goal is to enable individuals to realise a more fulfilling personal myth, and achieve an increased understanding of how personal identity is constructed.
Enquiries: 020 8671 6372 or email: kenrees@talktalk.net
Enrolment (credit/debit card): 020 7269 6000 or on-line via: www.marywardcentre.ac.uk - Course No. 444

The picture at the top shows the Mary Ward Centre.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This looks very interesting, sadly I am a long way from London.

Norm.