Dialogue with Experience:  Where is it now? 

During the past few years, I have spent less and less time travelling here and abroad doing creative writing workshops.

There are likely several reasons for this reduction. I think the most significant was the unavailability of my joyful and talented writing and performing partner of many years, Christine Coyle. Chris left radio to join her beloved friend, Julie Prendeville, as a co-partner in Julie’s unique Print, Radio and TV production business. She left with my warmest best wishes because her loyalty and hard work deserved it.

The other reason for reducing my personal workshop activity was simply that I grew weary of travel activity; I simply wanted to spend more time with my wife who had been struggling with a series of illnesses for almost a decade. And finally, I wanted to devote more time working out of my Los Angeles Headquarters.

But, despite the passing of the years and the pulls upon my life, I was not able to shake off the incredible number of requests for what my students and fans had over the years come to call our Radio Ranch workshops with Christine Coyle, DWE or Dialogue With Experience. What is most interesting about this development, Christine’s new partner, Julie, had once worked in a creative position at the Ranch with me and—out of her own fascination with Jungian philosophy, although she didn’t tour with me in operating the DWE workshops—she had actually worked with me in helping develop the Jungian creative method for our early workshops.

In short, DWE was born out of our discovery and absorption of the philosophy and life style of scientist C.W. Jung and the amazing metaphysical mythologist, Joseph Campbell.

It was only a few years after my C.G. Jung fascination began and the many hours I spent with his textual studies that I happened to visit London and discover the publications of Dr. Ira Progoff and his Intensive Journal Program. Progoff was described as “a leading authority on C. G. Jung and the explorer of spiritual experiences with creative process and other social applications.”

“Drawing on the principles of his research at Drew University, he developed the Intensive Journal method as a system of nonintegrative techniques for drawing out and interrelating the contents of an individual life.”

The outcome of the technique included an innovative method for a series of creative steps that could be applied to virtually all creative enterprises—including the ad crafting of radio and TV commercials.

At the heart of his Intensive Journal Method was a variation on and use of Jung’s DWE or, as we called it, Dialogue With Experience. Christine and I carried this method—the novel and dramatic center of which was a metaphorical play on the ancient system of converting “Lead into Gold: ALCHEMY”—all across the U.S. and into many foreign countries.

“C. G. Jung discovered that the ancient art of alchemy was describing, in symbolic language, the journey that all of us must take towards embodying our own intrinsic wholeness, the process of “individuation.” He said, “The experiences of the alchemists, were, in a sense, my experiences, and their world was my world.

Our Radio Ranch DWE could be considered a modern day form of alchemy as well.  More of this will be revealed in our soon-to-be published, “Adcrafting With Soul.”

 Watch for a detailed announcement before the year ends. – Dick Orkin

Comment below if you attended any of our workshops. What piece of knowledge stuck with you? 

Didn’t get to attend a workshop? Tell us what you would love to learn about!