ABSTRACT
Towards the end of the twentieth century there was a resurgence of interest in the nature of consciousness. But it took a very different form from its predecessor for it grew from roots in analytic philosophy, neuroscience and quantum theory, sources far divorced from the mesmerism and spiritualism that had inspired the earlier movement. The most radical type of neutral monism was advocated in the late 1940s by Wolfgang Pauli, the sparky and spiky genius who originated the 'Pauli exclusion principle' of quantum theory, and Carl Jung, the well-known psychiatrist and guru. They formulated what has since been termed the 'Pauli/Jung conjecture'; the proposal being that the basis of reality is an unknown something in which consciousness and matter form an indivisible unity. The overall message about consciousness given by empiricism is that 'mentality' is a function of a somewhat compartmentalised brain, aspects of which enter conscious awareness.
