Unveiling the Soul
The Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology
“Unveiling the Soul” was Jung’s original title of a talk which his English translators called “The Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology”. In this essay Jung discusses his soul centred psychology against a historical background of scientific materialism. Jung’s psychology is a reaction to the bleak psychology of his day, which he calls ‘psychology without the soul’. But Jung refused to adopt a romantic or idealistic conception of the soul. For him it is a subject of scientific scrutiny and only a sober attitude can do justice to its complexities, functions and pathologies. He derives the term soul from the Greek psyche, and thus ‘psycho-logy’ literally means ‘the logos or study of the soul’. Jung wants the discipline of psychology to return to this original foundation. He sees no reason, apart from modern prejudice, as to why psychology has taken a turn to reductive materialism. The study of psyche ought be given back its mystery and philosophical depth.
Professor David Tacey
David is a specialist in Jungian studies and has edited The Jung Reader and co-edited The Idea of the Numinous (London: Routledge). He is the author of sixteen books, including: How to Read Jung, 2009; Jung and the New Age (2000); Remaking Men (1997); Gods and Diseases (2012); Religion as Metaphor (2015); and The Darkening Spirit: Jung, Spirituality, Religion (2013). The Postsecular Sacred: Jung, Soul and Meaning in an Age of Change (2020).
David’s writing and research have been influenced by classical and archetypal traditions of Jungian psychology. He conducted postdoctoral work with James Hillman in Dallas. He taught courses at the summer school of the Swiss Jung Institute from 2001 to 2010. His books are published internationally and have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Turkish, Portuguese and French. He is Emeritus Professor of Humanities at La Trobe University, Melbourne, where he taught Jung’s Cultural Psychology across three decades.