What in the World Is the Soul?

(Soul & Psyche)

Robert Neuwoehner PhD

Soul & Psyche – 2

The Unconscious

• It is not conscious• not in awareness

• not observed directly,but through images

• It is unknown terra incognito• boundary, limits uncertain

• Typical images:• water, the sea

• darkness

• underground spaces

Soul & Psyche

The Shadow

• one’s “evil twin” or alter-ego

• the “personal unconscious”• the Freudian id

• contents:• repressed material, complexes

• unrealized potentials• the so-called “bright shadow”

• collective core

• complexes are autonomous

• Examples:• Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde

• Jacob and Esau

Soul & Psyche

Projection

• What is not brought into consciousness, and integrated into the ego complex,presents itself in the outer world

Examples:• “The pot calling the kettle black”

• “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye,but do not see the log in your own eye?” (Mt. 7:3)

• Key indicator in an encounter with a projection isexcessive affect, unusually high feeling value

Soul & Psyche

Anima & Animus

• the most controversial concept?

• figure(s) of the opposite sex

• anima ≈ soul, maternal Eros

• animus ≈ spirit, paternal Logos

• personifications of fate, destiny• pulls one toward the beloved

• opens one to the journey

• a guide in soul work, spirituality

Soul & Psyche

IndiviuationThe path to wholeness

• enlarging consciousness by engaging the unconscious

• integrating unconscious contents• bring them into relationship with the ego complex

• engage with both personal and collective contents

Soul & Psyche

The Inner WorldArchetypes

• innate patterns of behavior• eons of human experiences

• typical images and situations• people

• animals

• things (natural and cultural)

• geometrical abstractions

Examples:Mother, Child, Hero, Enemy, Father, Beloved, the Trickster, the Helper

point, circle, spiral, square, cross,

sacrifice, rebirth

Soul & Psyche

The Self

• the center of the total psyche

Soul & Psyche

The Self

• the center of the total psyche

• the psyche as a whole• consciousness and

the unconscious

• appears as images of wholeness• circle, square, cross

• quaternity• as a cross

• as a tetrahedron

• mandalas

• royalty: king, queen

• a deity

• a God-image

Soul & Psyche

Quaternity as a Cross and as a Tetrahedron

Soul & Psyche

Soul & Psyche – 2

Ways the unconscious presents itself:

• projections and other symptoms

• symbols (symbolic images)• dreams, fantasies

• fairy tales, legends, myths

• literature, art

• synchronicity• meaningful coincidences

• Christ as the “first fish of the Age of Pisces”

• Are the inner and outer worlds linked? If so, how?

Soul & Psyche