Four Sessions Live on Zoom
Thursdays, January 22 - February 12, 2026
7:00 - 8:30 pm ET (NYC Time)
$150 Paid Patreon Members / $175 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
As the shadows of the Third Reich gathered in the late 1930s, a small coterie of scholars engaged in the esoteric began gathering in Ascona, Switzerland, in the hopes of generating a counterforce, a mystical response to history's dark turn that would light a new path. Lofty though this ambition seems, the intellectuals who participated in the Eranos Conferences believed that through their interdisciplinary exchange of wisdom, the storm clouds of totalitarianism might encounter the power of mysticism as a source for hope and care.
By drawing together luminaries such as Carl Jung, Gerschom Scholem, Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell, Henri Corbin and D.T. Suzuki (among many others), Eranos became mysticism's premier midcentury space. The insights of psychoanalysis, mythology, religious studies, literary criticism, cultural history, and even the sciences, were brought to bear for a common purpose beyond mere intellectual exchange.
This course draws upon the instructor’s archival research into Joseph Campbell's role as the editor of The Eranos Yearbooks, along with primary and secondary sources to suggest that the legacy of Eranos remains a provocative and rich text for contemplating mysticism's relationship with history. Over the course of four weeks, we will examine the project of Eranos, from its ambitions to its shortcomings, as a crucial episode in the history of spirituality itself, and how its insights might offer us a model for what a "commons" grounded in the mystical may entail for our contemporary moment.
Teddy Hamstra, Ph.D., is an author, professional mythologist, and creative consultant based in Los Angeles. He works with the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and recently completed a PhD program at the University of Southern California in English Literature and Visual Studies with the dissertation "Enchantment as a Form of Care: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Mysticism."
Images: Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch, folio 129? Drachen Hilpoltstein 1533; Ravenna Basilica of San Vitale mosaic
Four Sessions Live on Zoom
Thursdays, January 22 - February 12, 2026
7:00 - 8:30 pm ET (NYC Time)
$150 Paid Patreon Members / $175 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
As the shadows of the Third Reich gathered in the late 1930s, a small coterie of scholars engaged in the esoteric began gathering in Ascona, Switzerland, in the hopes of generating a counterforce, a mystical response to history's dark turn that would light a new path. Lofty though this ambition seems, the intellectuals who participated in the Eranos Conferences believed that through their interdisciplinary exchange of wisdom, the storm clouds of totalitarianism might encounter the power of mysticism as a source for hope and care.
By drawing together luminaries such as Carl Jung, Gerschom Scholem, Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell, Henri Corbin and D.T. Suzuki (among many others), Eranos became mysticism's premier midcentury space. The insights of psychoanalysis, mythology, religious studies, literary criticism, cultural history, and even the sciences, were brought to bear for a common purpose beyond mere intellectual exchange.
This course draws upon the instructor’s archival research into Joseph Campbell's role as the editor of The Eranos Yearbooks, along with primary and secondary sources to suggest that the legacy of Eranos remains a provocative and rich text for contemplating mysticism's relationship with history. Over the course of four weeks, we will examine the project of Eranos, from its ambitions to its shortcomings, as a crucial episode in the history of spirituality itself, and how its insights might offer us a model for what a "commons" grounded in the mystical may entail for our contemporary moment.
Teddy Hamstra, Ph.D., is an author, professional mythologist, and creative consultant based in Los Angeles. He works with the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and recently completed a PhD program at the University of Southern California in English Literature and Visual Studies with the dissertation "Enchantment as a Form of Care: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Mysticism."
Images: Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch, folio 129? Drachen Hilpoltstein 1533; Ravenna Basilica of San Vitale mosaic
