The Psychological Landscape of Consciousness
© Peggy Kay, PhD
Chicago IL USA
6 December 2024
peggykay@uchicago.edu
Published in Psychosynthesis Quarterly – January 2025, Healing and Consciousness
This article is a theoretical study with diagram renderings to explain and
demonstrate how the theories work. The theories and diagrams explain the relationship
of spirituality and religion, illustrate the relationship of the soul to the entire personal
psyche, demonstrate the structure and process of the soul, and illustrate the structure
and function of consciousness as it processes the contents of the soul. Keeping in mind
that we are observing these phenomena psychologically we can use psychological
constructs to understand the dynamics of the soul, soul functioning as spirituality or
spiritual process, and see the relationship of the intrinsic nature of the personal soul to
the extrinsic structure of religion. This enables us to psychologically see the entire
landscape of spirituality and religion from the innermost being of the individual person to
the social, cultural, historical collective construct of the institution of religion
As Carl Jung pioneered in his first Tavistock Lecture in 1935 “On the Theory and
Practice of Analytical Psychology” (CW Vol. 18, par. 8), “Psychology is a science of
consciousness, in the very first place.” Jung says, “From the psychological point of view,
the phenomenon of spirit, like every autonomous complex, appears as an intention of the