Psyche and beyond

After a brief critical examination of the ‘disenchantment’ (to use Weber’s term) of the world, theoretical models leading to the Psyche–Gaia conjecture are introduced in approximately the chronological order in which they first appeared. The first of these is analytical psychology, with an emphasis on Jung’s later thinking about the structure and dynamics of the psyche and the ontological psychoid domain, and on his lifetime developmental theory. The establishment of connections with systems theory in post-Jungian research is briefly reported. Next, a variety of approaches to the mind–matter problem are summarised. Two examples of post-Cartesian dual-aspect monism building on Spinoza—David Bohm’s theory of implicate order, and the Pauli–Jung conjecture and its ongoing development—are reviewed. Both models emerged in the second half of the 20^th Century, and arose from the extraordinary developments in theoretical physics in the first half of that century. Lastly, relevant outcomes from the Sursem project, convened under the auspices of the Esalen Center for Theory and Research (CTR) for 15 years into the 21^st Century, are presented. This was an interdisciplinary empirical investigation of the theories of nonlocal mind first proposed by Frederick W.H. Myers and William James at the end of the 19^th Century, which concluded by advocating a new worldview of evolutionary panentheism to reconcile timeless spirituality with cutting-edge science.