Psyche/Substance

When something happens, we are apt to separate ourselves from it and say that happened. But a better understanding of the psyche will inform us that nothing that we perceive happens "outside" of us. In order for us to perceive, it must happen "inside" us as well, for as soon as it has occurred in the material universe, it has occurred in the psychic universe as well.

We can imagine a computer. We are convinced that the computer is that which we are perceiving. But somewhere in between the computer being there and us perceiving it, there is a layer of experience which most often goes unnoticed. The fact is that, somehow, by the miracle of human consciousness, the computer becomes psyche, thereby making it possible for us to experience it. Moreover, the psychic computer takes the same shape as the material computer, so that the two are almost indistinguishable save for the fabric of their composition. We cannot know exactly the true nature of the "stuff," or substance, that comprises psyche, but we can infer some general rules about its behavior indirectly - rules which I will attempt to outline at a later date.

The idea that the psyche is a substance is not a new one. During the Middle Ages, and throughout the Greco-Roman era, this belief was commonly, if not universally, held. Though more often called "soul," it was regarded as the source of life, or animating life-force from which the body arose. (If the psyche was properly understood, its similarity to - or perhaps indistinguishability from - the soul would be apparent.) In any case, nowadays the standpoint that psyche is an autonomous force is quite unpopular, as it runs counter to our prevailing "scientific" attitude which contends, antithetically, that psyche is a mere epiphenomenal byproduct of physical/biological/material processes.

The fact is that not only does the psyche have substance, this substance is fluid and malleable and conforms to the shapes of the physical world depending on what is being perceived. The important point, then, is that the only world that we directly perceive is the psychic world. We cannot escape the psychic world. It informs all that we know. One might even say that it is more real, from the human standpoint, than the material world.