Everything is full of gods

Pansychism and the World Soul

“Soul is mingled with everything in the whole universe”

— Aristotle

“We in our human way, share in the subhuman emotional life of cells; they in their subhuman way share in our emotional life.”

— Charles Hartshorne

Illustration of the World Soul as a woman, Robert Fludd

Panpsychism is the idea that everything is conscious. It’s a concept you’ll hear in some scientific circles today, and also in spiritual contexts. You can follow a line of philosophical thought that stretches back to Plato and Anima mundi, and you can follow a spiritual-religious line much further back than that, in the form of Animism.

Anima mundi means “world spirit” and refers to a life force running through the cosmos, through all things. Here’s Plato:

“Thus, then, in accordance with the likely account, we must declare that this Cosmos has verily come into existence as a Living Creature endowed with soul and reason [...] a Living Creature, one and visible, containing within itself all the living creatures which are by nature akin to itself.”

— Plato, Timaeus

And then there’s Animism. Animism is in some sense perhaps the oldest universal religion. It’s the very ancient tendency to believe that this life force, or world soul, endows everything, living or otherwise, with actual sentience, consciousness, or life force.

A variant of these is the philosophical concept of Hylozoism.

Hermetic

In the esoteric sense, Anima Mundi has a strong Hermetic thread, too. You’ll see it in alchemy, in the Kybalion, in the Kabbalah.

“Geomancy was a natural art, drawing on the inborn powers of the human soul to glean information from the larger soul of the world.”

Robert Fludd, in The Art and Practice of Geomancy

Madame Blavatsky (The Secret Doctrine) wrote of the World Soul in that ‘every human soul was born by detaching itself from the Anima Mundi,’ according to Theosophy Wiki.

Hinduism

Of course, the World Soul found its way into Esotericism partly via the East, too.

Take Hinduism, for example:

“At the center of time and space is the World Soul. All things that exists are reflections of the Brahman’s perfection.

Hinduism, in Barron's AP World History, quoted by John McCannon, p. 82

This must be balanced, however, with differing interpretations of Hindu cosmology about the nature of matter and consciousness.

Modern science

“Based on the observed behavior of the entities that surround us, from electrons to atoms to molecules, to bacteria to mice, bats, rats, and on, we suggest that all things may be viewed as at least a little conscious. This sounds strange at first blush, but ‘panpsychism’ – the view that all matter has some associated consciousness – is an increasingly accepted position with respect to the nature of consciousness.”

Tam Hunt, UC Santa Barbara's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Panpsychism is having a bit of a renaissance now. Philosophers are once again pondering the concept as the mysteries of mind continue to challenge us.

And in neuroscience, some theories are bumping up against panpsychism. The integrated information theory and the resonance theory are two examples.

“There is in all matter an animate or vibrant quality, even if we can discern no obvious message in the vibrations.”

Benjamin Winterhalter, JSTOR

Or as Thales said, “Everything is full of gods.”

Your pansychism reading list:

Could consciousness all come down to the way things vibrate?

The Conversation

Let Panpsychism Expand Your Mind

JSTOR Daily

The Hippies Were Right: It's All about Vibrations, Man!

Scientific American

The Case For Panpsychism

Philosophy Now

Panpsychism is crazy, but it’s also most probably true

Aeon (INCLUDES AUDIO)

Panpsychism: The Trippy Theory That Everything From Bananas to Bicycles Are Conscious

Discover Magazine