Veronica Goodchild

Veronica Goodchild was born in the UK. An early mystical experience as a 5 year old set the stage for a life long search into the mysteries of ourselves, our earth, and of the universe. Another numinous experience in Israel at the age of 18 led her to read Theology and Comparative Religion at the University of London. However, these studies were disappointing as they never referred to religious experience, and the mystics themselves were not to be found on any syllabus. Turning to the work of Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, helped Veronica to feel more at home in the world. The domains of myth and symbol, vision and dream are fully explored in his work as meaningful psychological realities, and from her mid-twenties, Veronica became a student of his opus and that of many other Jungian analysts and writers. Moving to NYC in the early 1970s Veronica finished her BS and MSW degrees at Columbia University, and became a Jungian Psychotherapist for many years. Wanting to turn more to writing and teaching, Veronica completed a PhD in Clinical Depth Psychology, and became a professor of Jungian and Imaginal Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in California, where she was awarded a teaching medal for Distinguished Service to Pacifica's Mission. Her doctoral dissertation became her first book, Eros and Chaos: The Sacred Mysteries and Dark Shadows of Love. Her combined interest in both Jung's later work on synchronicity and the work of philosopher and theologian Henri Corbin on the imaginal world, as well as extraordinary experiences, and the insights of the new physics, led to Veronica's second book, Songlines of the Soul: Pathways to a New Vision for a New Century. Veronica has published other essays, reviews, and a book Introduction; these can be found on her website. A growing interest in ecological issues and pilgrimage walking as well as sacred sites travel to Egypt, Peru, Great Britain, and France, and key dreams, led to the creation of her own meditative walking and sacred sites pilgrimages which are offered in France and Greece, and most recently in England. Veronica is Professor Emerita at Pacifica, and now Pilgrimage Leader, uniting her background in Jungian and Imaginal Studies with the need to re-enchant our relationship to nature, our planet, and the stars, as one approach to our contemporary environmental and soul crises. She continues to offer other workshops in the US and Europe on all these themes whose underlying purpose is to reconnect with the sacred and the invisible world in this one.