Great and enduring civilisations like those of the Hindus and Chinese built upon this foundation

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The psyche may be regarded as a mathematical point and at the same time as a universe of fixed stars. It is small wonder, then, if, to the unsophisticated mind, such a paradoxical ghd outlet being borders on the divine. If it occupies no space, it has no body. Bodies die, but can something invisible and incorporeal disappear? What is more, life and psyche existed for me before I could say I, and when this I disappears, as in sleep or unconsciousness, life and psyche still go on, as our observation of other people and our own dreams inform us. Why should the simple mind deny, in the face of such experiences, that the soul lives in a realm beyond the body? I must admit that I can see as little nonsense in this socalled superstition as in the findings of research regarding heredity or the basic instincts.

We can easily understand why higher and even divine knowledge was formerly ascribed to the psyche if we remember that in ancient cultures, beginning with primitive times, man always resorted to dreams and visions as a source of information. It is a fact that the unconscious contains subliminal perceptions whose scope is nothing less than astounding. In recognition of this fact, primitive societies used dreams and visions as important ghd kiss sources of information. Great and enduring civilisations like those of the Hindus and Chinese built upon this foundation and developed from it a discipline of selfknowledge which they brought to a high pitch of refinement both in philosophy and in practice. A high regard for the unconscious psyche as a source of knowledge is by no means such a delusion as our Western rationalism likes to suppose.

We are inclined to assume that, in the last resort, all knowledge comes from without. Yet today we know for certain that the unconscious contains contents which would mean an immeasurable increase of knowledge if they could only be made conscious. Modern investigation of animal instinct, as for example in insects, has brought together a rich fund of empirical findings which show that if man acted as certain insects do he would possess a higher intelligence than at present. It cannot, of course, be proved that insects possess conscious knowledge, but commonsense cannot doubt that their unconscious actionpatterns are psychic functions. Mans unconscious likewise contains all the patterns of life and behaviour inherited from ghd precious his ancestors, so that every human child, prior to consciousness, is possessed of a potential system of adapted psychic functioning. In the conscious life of the adult, as well, this unconscious, instinctive functioning is always present and active. In this activity all the functions of the conscious psyche are prepared for.