Carl Jung: The development of Western philosophy
Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation
The development of Western philosophy during the last two centuries has succeeded in isolating the mind in its own sphere and in severing it from its primordial oneness with the universe.
Man himself has ceased to be the microcosm and eidolon of the cosmos, and his “anima” is no longer the consubstantial scintilla, or spark of the Anima Mundi, the World Soul.
Psychology accordingly treats all metaphysical claims and assertions as mental phenomena, and regards them as statements about the mind and its structure that derive ultimately from certain unconscious dispositions.
It does not consider them to be absolutely valid or even capable of establishing a metaphysical truth.
We have no intellectual means of ascertaining whether this attitude is right or wrong.
We only know that there is no evidence for, and no possibility of proving, the validity of a metaphysical postulate such as “Universal Mind.”
If the mind asserts the existence of a Universal Mind, we hold that it is merely making an assertion.
We do not assume that by such an assertion the existence of a Universal Mind has been established.
There is no argument against this reasoning, but no evidence, either, that our conclusion is ultimately right. In other words, it is just as possible that our mind is nothing but a perceptible manifestation of a Universal Mind.
Yet we do not know, and we cannot even see, how it would be possible to recognize whether this is so or not. Psychology therefore holds that the mind cannot establish or assert anything beyond itself. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Psychological Commentary to the Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, Page 476, Paras 759-760.
