expression of the specific activity of the psyche. I t is, pre-
eminently, the creative activity from which the answers to all
answerable questions come; it is the mother of all possibilities,
where like all psychological opposites, the inner and outer worlds
are joined together in living union (Jung, CW 6, par. 78).Most thinkers on the nature of the soul, whatever their discipline, have
entirely interiorised and relegated or associated the soul to the ‘I ’, the thinking
reasoning part of the human being. They tend to disregard the non-thinking,
irrational word of the unconscious and of the emotions and other dimensions and
that includes much of which we are not consciously aware. I remind my reader,
however, of Sendivogius’ observation that the greater part of the soul is outside the
body. Thus, one might well conclude that it is not until the soul finds a place where
it can dwell, authentically, that the individual, the group or tribe can feel complete
and whole. The soul, as the centre of the mind, the passions and the body, is to
most individuals something that remains largely hypothetical. However, in spite of
its intangibility and the various ways in which it manages to prevail over our
everyday conscious intentions, it nevertheless exercises a powerful influence over
our lives, perhaps even defines the boundaries of our existence.
(b) Soul and the Psychoid Dimension
The third element in the makeup of the psyche is what Jung called
the psychoid system. By this he meant that which in the psyche is completely
unknown: unconscious material that never comes in contact with the threshold of
consciousness, that which by its nature is unknown, the absolutely unconscious.
Yet Jung also believed that, “ ...the psychoid system is that part of the psychic
realm where the psychic element appears to mix with inorganic matter” (in von
Franz, 1988:4). Now we have to involve synchronicity, which according to Jung is
an essentially mysterious connection between the personal psyche (and by
implication of quantum mechanics the collective psyche) and the material world,
based on the fact that they are only different forms of energy. Jung said:
I t is not only possible but fairly probable, even, that psyche and
matter are two different aspects of one and the same thing. The
synchronicity phenomena point, it seems to me, in this direction,
for they show that the non-psychic can behave like the psychic,
and vice versa, without there being any causal connection
between them. (Jung, CW 8, par. 418).