ABSTRACT
Andrew Fellows argues that both psyche and Gaia appear to be teleological, capable of reconciling the conflicting requirements of stability and change. Structurally, their potential pathologies, together with independent but similar conclusions by Jung and James Lovelock about the global role of human consciousness, suggest equivalent relationships of ego to Self and of homo sapiens to the natural world. Evidence-based theory from multiple fields collated by the Esalen Center for Theory and Research supports the Jungian view that we inhabit a psyche–matter continuum.
The co-incidence of our ‘monotheism of consciousness’, decried by Jung, with the Anthropocene epoch, manifest in existential threats such as climate change, is therefore not unexpected. The mind–matter properties outlined above evince a new ethos equivalent to Jung’s concept of individuation. Specifically, the psychological shift of the centre of the personality from the ego towards the Self translates into a cultural shift of our worldview from anthropocentrism to biocentrism. This shift was independently proposed by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss in the 1970s as a long-range deep ecology movement. Like Jung, Næss distrusted ideology and explicitly valued diversity within wholeness. This holistic planetary ethos challenges each of us to transform our relationship with nature, and redirect our actions accordingly.
