Know Thyself

Course Description

Provocative, electric and gentle, Bosnak’s ideas and energy both challenge and nurture those who engage with him. His approach to self-knowledge is at once deeply serious, light-hearted and vital.

Robert Bosnak utilizes the history of thought as a system of metaphor and will delve into four ways of knowing and ascribing them to four periods of Western thought. Being aware of these ways of knowing directly affects the quest for self-knowledge. Each thought pattern discussed is a prism through which we look at and explore ourselves.  Knowing the lens through which we observe ourselves makes our self-awareness truly conscious.

Participatory knowing is ascribed to thought-patterns from Plato to the decline of Neoplatonism in the 13th Century. In this thought we are in a cosmos that holds together in the adage: As above, So below. As humans we can only know cosmos because we are cosmos. Alchemy will be taken as central to this paradigm.

Doctrinal knowing was paramount (in the imaginal model of history we are following) from the 13 th to the 17 th century when the Inquisition determined what was true and what was false knowledge and the thought leader was Aristotle, by whose authority thought was ordered. We will compare this to the notion of habitual consciousness in which a particular set of ideas hold sway over all others.

Objective knowing became codified by Descartes in the 17 th century. Here the subject/object division was established as an absolute and knowledge was acquired by way of experiment and not by authoritative say-so. This objective thought lasted until the realization of the ‘observer effect’ in quantum mechanics which establishes that an observed system is disturbed by the act of observation.

Emergent knowing arose in the most recent period. It understands awareness as a complex system in a constant process of unpredictable self-organization. The paradigm of Generative Artificial Intelligence is based on emergent knowing. 

This course may look like an intellectual high-wire act but it is actually down to earth and practical, with each session concluding with a simple exercise in self-knowing.

This course is ideal if

• Expand self knowledge and discover novel ways of knowing yourself.
• Be presented with original ideas and psychological reflections.
• Gain greater understanding of the development of self knowledge throughout history.

Course Overview

In 8 live webinar classes with Robert Bosnak we will examine different ways of knowing. In this course, Bosnak will explore what happens when we look through all four of these lenses simultaneously. When we can do this, we create a kaleidoscopic awareness.

By the end of this course you will

• Describe four ways of knowing and ascribing them to four periods of Western thought.
• Recognize how the four thought patterns are prisms through which we look at and explore ourselves.
• Apply exercises in self-knowing.