Silk Road Seminar: Jung, Meaning, and Cognitive Transformation

25 snips

Jan 20, 2026

Guest

Kevin Lu

Guest

Anderson Todd

Kevin Lu, Jungian psychoanalyst and scholar who studies myth and individuation. Anderson Todd, cognitive science lecturer blending Buddhism, philosophy, and transformative practice. They explore Jung’s relevance to cognitive science, numinous and religious experience, myth versus science, individuation as complexification, IFS and parts work, and risks of collective archetypes.

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INSIGHT

Psyche As A Living System

Jung frames the psyche as a living, self-organizing system rather than a hydraulic machine.
This aligns with 4E cognitive science ideas like autopoiesis, relevance realization, and predictive processing.

INSIGHT

Complexes As Parasitic Processes

Jungian complexes resemble self-reinforcing processes that can hijack cognition and behavior.
These map well onto relevance-realization machinery and dialogical, extended-self models in cognitive science.

INSIGHT

Jung And The Meaning Crisis

Jung addresses the modern meaning crisis by engaging the spiritual and numinous dimensions psychotherapy often ignores.
Integrating Jung with cognitive science could make his resources more epistemically grounded and clinically useful.

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Thank you for joining us live for this month's Silk Road Seminar, featuring Kevin Lu and Anderson Todd.

Kevin Lu is a Jungian psychoanalyst, lecturer, and scholar whose work bridges analytical psychology, philosophy, and religious studies. As a senior lecturer at the University of Essex, his research explores symbolic thought, depth psychology, myth, and individuation, with a focus on reintegrating Jungian wisdom into contemporary conversations around meaning and transformation.

Anderson Todd is an award-winning lecturer at the University of Toronto, teaching in Cognitive Science and Buddhism as well as Psychology and Mental Health. With a background spanning philosophy, complexity science, and transformative practice, Anderson brings clarity and rigor to questions of wisdom cultivation, existential resilience, and mental health.

Together, Kevin and Anderson bring a rare synergy of psychological depth and cognitive precision to the Silk Road Seminar, offering insight into meaning-making and transformation in the modern world.

Silk Road Seminars are live, hour-long conversations hosted by John Vervaeke, weaving together ideas from cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, and wisdom traditions. Each seminar is streamed live on YouTube and followed by an exclusive Q&A where participants can engage directly with John and the guests.

To be entered onto the guest list for the live Q&A, sign up at the Gamma Tier (or above) on The Lectern: https://lectern.teachable.com/p/lectern-lounge

University students (undergraduate through doctoral level) receive free access to the Q&A. Email proof of student status to: ethan@vervaekefoundation.org

Students added to the guest list also receive access to previous Silk Road Seminars.

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