Four Ways of Knowing — Part 2: Comparative and Critical Studies

This article is Part 2 of my two articles on the Four Ways of Knowing. In Part 1, I presented a quaternary epistemological map and introduced each quadrant according to examples from Western and Eastern traditions and paradigmatic Western thinkers. In Part 2, I will use the developed model to analyze specific systems and traditions and compare them with each other. Finally, I will conclude with a critique of modernity’s imbalanced understanding of knowledge as a primarily one-sided Bottom-Right discipline operating through Empiric Analysis — particularly ignoring the Top-Left quadrant of Symbolic Realization.

Quaternary epistemological map introduced in Part 1. Image by the author.

Introduction: Comparing Systems and Traditions

During my work on Part 1, I started to first recognize and then actively research for correspondences between the epistemological quadrants and distinctions of functions or disciplines within various systems and traditions. The correspondences discussed throughout this article are summarized in the following table. The breadth and depth of possible applications helps to provide further substance to my proposed epistemological framework.

Table summarizing all comparative correspondences explored throughout this article. Image by the author.

Here, I confine myself to some interesting remarks about the placing of each system and its subsystems in my epistemological quadrants. Going into a detailed analysis about how well each subsystem fits into the quadrant as well as possible discrepancies goes beyond the scope of this article. The purpose of this comparison is rather to clarify the understanding of each quadrant by examples, as well as getting an sense of the epistemological breath spanned by my model.

Jung’s Psychological Functions

The first correspondence occurred between my quadrants and Jung’s four psychological functions: thinking (Bottom-Right), sensation (Bottom-Left), feeling (Top-Left), and intuition (Top-Right). Detailed definitions for these functions can be found in the appendix to Psychological Types, where Jung outlines his foundational terminology.

While Jung might not have explicitly mapped his functions to these specific axes, the structural alignment is non the less revealing:

• Thinking as Experiential x Distance (Bottom-Right): Jung describes thinking as being “confined to the linking up of ideas by means of a concept, in other words, to an act of judgment.” While the words “ideas” and “concept” imply a Distance attitude, Jung does not explicitly label thinking as Experiential. However, in my model, Thinking represents the quantitative ordering of the empirical world — turning discrete facts into logical systems.

• Sensation as Experiential x Participation (Bottom-Left): Jung defines sensation as “the psychological function that mediates the perception of a physical stimulus,” clearly situating it in the Experiential realm. While Jung does not use the term Participation, he notes that sensation and feeling often “ally” themselves to “an almost inseparable amalgam of feeling and sensation elements,” which, in my epistemological model, can be identified as the “left-side Participation alliance” immersed in the “here and now” of reality.

• Feeling as Universal x Participation (Top-Left): Jung describes feeling as a process “that imparts to the content a definite value in the sense of acceptance or rejection (‘like’ or ‘dislike’)” and that it is “independent of external stimuli.” Thus, feeling is not Experiential; it evaluates experience based on Universal principles or “primordial images” of worth. It is a Participation function because the subject must “feel into” the value to realize its significance.

• Intuition as Universal x Distance (Top-Right): Rooted in the Latin intueri (“to look at or into”), Jung describes intuition as perception “in an unconscious way” and as content presenting itself “whole and complete, without our being able to explain or discover how this content came into existence.” This description aligns with the “seeing of” or “looking at” Universal patterns or possibilities. The visual nature of intuition suggests a certain Distance — a detached apprehension of the “idea” or “archetypal pattern” of a situation.

In Jung’s system, thinking and feeling are the two rational functions — they actively judge and organize content — while sensation and intuition are irrational (immediate perceptions beyond reason) functions. This reveals an additional diagonal symmetry: feeling (Top-Left) acts as the qualitative ordering quadrant, responsible for structuring Universal values, while thinking (Bottom-Right) acts as the quantitative ordering quadrant, responsible for structuring Experiential facts. In intuition (Top-Right) content is presented as “whole and complete,” while in sensation (Bottom-Right) content is presented as particulars — in both cases “contents have the character of being ‘given,’ in contrast to the ‘derived’ or ‘produced’ character of thinking and feeling contents.”

In summary, mapping Jung’s functions to my model sheds a new and fruitful light on Jung’s concepts — and in particular, enriches my own model; specifically, his theory of the primary, auxiliary, and inferior functions — and how they interact within an imbalanced psyche — allows my epistemological map to serve as a diagnostic tool for analyzing imbalances within both individual psyches and broader social systems.

Introversion, Extroversion, and Transcendent Function

Further extensions of my model, suggested by the comparison with Jung’s typology, include the two psychological attitudes — introversion and extroversion — and his fifth transcendent function.

Jung defines introversion as “an inward-turning of libido… a negative relation of subject to object,” and extroversion as “an outward-turning of libido… a positive movement of subjective interest towards the object.” Unlike the four functions, these two attitudes rely on the ontological categories of subject and object (inside and outside). While these categories are not strictly epistemological, they are near-universal structures found in most cosmic ontologies.

It is therefore a natural extension to add an ontological Z-axis to my model, with extroversion at the “front” and introversion at the “back.” This axis is particularly effective for distinguishing between the Western and Eastern traditions discussed in Part 1. For instance, the Eastern examples — Patañjali Yoga (Bottom-Right), Haṭha Yoga (Bottom-Left), Tantra (Top-Left), and Advaita Vedānta (Top-Right) — all possess an introverted  orientation, seeking the Universal and Experiential within the subject. Conversely, their Western counterparts — modern science (Bottom-Right), labor alchemy (Bottom-Left), philosophical alchemy (Top-Left), and canonical Western philosophy (Top-Right) — display an extroverted direction of libido. This aligns with Jung’s observation (e.g., expressed in his Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower) that Yoga psychology emerges from an introverted culture looking “outward” at a distracting world, whereas his own psychology emerges from an extroverted culture looking “inward” at a dark, mysterious psyche.

Finally, considering the transcendent function, Jung describes it as being “a complex function made up of other functions” that “facilitates a transition from one attitude to another.” The oppositional natures of the quadrants (and octants, when considering the Z-axis) create an energetic tension. The ego typically favors one specific location in this space, leaving its opposite to haunt the unconscious. The transcendent function resolves these tensions into a higher synthesis, freeing trapped energy for a new, lived reality.

Geometrically, we can conceive of the center of this “epistemological-ontological cube” as the primary, unified, and undifferentiated consciousness. The quadrants and octants create a dynamic imbalance through their opposing energies. In this view, the transcendent function acts as a spherical surface comprising all sectors — a state of “restored balance” that represents re-unified, now differentiated, consciousness.

Goethe’s Color Psychology

As already discussed in Part 1, Goethe resisted any development of his theory of colors into an abstract, mathematical explanation. However, he did develop his participatory observations into a kind of color psychology by assigning six aesthetic qualities as well as four human cognitions to his color wheel.

He associated red with beautiful, orange with noble, yellow with good, green with useful, blue with common, and violet with unnecessary. The four assigned human cognitions are: reason (Vernunft) to the beautiful and the noble (red and orange), the intellect (Verstand) to the good and the useful (yellow and green), sensuality (Sinnlichkeit) to the useful and the common (green and blue) and, imagination (Phantasie) to the unnecessary and the beautiful (purple and red).

Overlaying Goethe’s color wheel with associated qualities and cognitions with the axes of my model reveals a remarkable correspondence:

Goethe’s symmetric color wheel with associated qualities and cognitions (1809), superimposed on the axes of my model. The inner circle shows the RGB color wheel introduced in Part 1, suggesting that the top-right colors red and orange might be more accurately represented by magenta and red instead. Source: color wheel from Wikipedia, image by the author.

What strikes me about Goethe is that the quadrants he is most rooted in himself — his color theory is a paradigmatic example of Bottom-Left and his Faust a paradigmatic example for Top-Left — he associated with the rather negative qualities of common and unnecessary, while the primary quadrants of his time (Top-Right and Bottom-Right) which he is actively resisting against, he associated with almost boringly positive qualities — noble and good. There would be many options to associate blue and purple with positive qualities as well, for example, blue with dynamic, growing, nourishing, natural, vast and purple with symbolic, deep, profound, sacred.

I see two possible reasons for Goethe’s understatement of blue and purple and the associated cognitions of sensuality and imagination: firstly, it might be a reflection of the collective devaluation of these quadrants of his times; secondly, it might be a natural inclination of the psyche to value ones own well-known qualities as common and unnecessary, while the less-known qualities of others seem more noble and good. Probably, Goethe’s specific associations are somewhat biased by a mix of both reasons.

The Four Yogas

In India, the four yogas are four epistemologically distinct but equally effective paths to the same common goal of yoga — union with divine oneness. The idea is rooted back to the Bhagavad Gita, where Lord Krishna speaks of three distinct paths suitable to different individuals according to their psychological disposition: Karma yoga (yoga through action) is for the active, pragmatic worker (Bottom-Left); Bhakti yoga (yoga through devotion) is for the emotional, feeling-oriented devotees (Bottom-Right); and Jñāna yoga (yoga through knowledge) is for the rational philosophers with a bright mind (Top-Right).

Similar to the ternary and quaternary models already discussed in the introduction of Part 1, this ternary structure of three yogas felt somehow incomplete. Accordingly, Swami Vivekananda suggested to add Raja yoga (Patañjali’s classical yoga through meditation) as a fourth path in his book of the same title, Raja Yoga. I already discussed in Part 1 why I assigned Patañjali’s classical yoga to the Bottom-Right quadrant, despite this might not be an obvious assignment. Vivekananda’s suggestion of Raja yoga as the fourth yogic path completing the former ternary system is a further indication for its placement in the otherwise empty Bottom-Right quadrant. Vivekananda also argued that a balanced spiritual life should not only focus on one single path, but rather strive at integrating all four path in ones own life.

Christianity

All world religions likely contain different epistemological movements across all four quadrants, though not always with equal awareness. Hinduism, in its long history, has experienced cycles favoring various quadrants and has proven adept at integrating these seemingly contradictory paths into a multi-colored amalgamation. For example, in India, there is no conflict in calling an ‘empirical analyst’ like Patañjali a saint, or in a rational scientist like Satyendra Nath Bose being in spiritual harmony with his culture. In the West, however, Christianity has never been able to integrate neither the scientific breakthroughs nor the unorthodox spiritual strivings of pioneers like Newton or Goethe.

In comparison with Hinduism, Christianity is a younger religion. Rooted in the life of Christ, it began with a focus on devotional practice, the Mass, and the sacrament (Top-Left). Since the early days it developed ascetic movements seeking God through simple life and labor, such as the Franciscans (Bottom-Left). Further, the integration of Greek philosophy and Neoplatonism into the Christian doctrine paved the way for scholastic reasoning, most notably in the work of Thomas Aquinas (Top-Right). However, Christianity historically lacked conscious access to the Bottom-Right quadrant of Empiric Analysis.

In this light, the protestant reformation can be seen as an attempt to fill this epistemological void of Christianity’s Bottom-Right-blindspot. By shifting the focus to sola scriptura, the reformers began treating the scriptures as an objective source of data to be analyzed directly. However, the scriptures eventually proved to be a limited knowledge base for a truly Bottom-Right methodology.

Modern science discovered a far more vast and fruitful dataset in the “book of nature.” The subsequent struggle to integrate this wealth of empirical knowledge into the Christian doctrine has since become an existential threat to the traditional Christian framework.

Collective Intelligence

Collective intelligence, in its secular form, can be understood as the historical progression of human coordination across the four quadrants. The earlier forms of collective action were rooted in Participation: the practical wisdom and “knowing-how” of crafts and professions (Bottom-Left) was passed through communal practice; while myths and religions (Top-Left) provided the basis for a common understanding of the shared world and enabled large-scale cooperation. The origin of the symbolisms underlying myths and religion transcend or precede their collective application, however, once their true meaning is forgotten, they always bear the risk of becoming an object of unconscious identification, for example, in the form of nationalism or religious fanaticism. Later, through integrating these traditions with the Top-Right quadrant of philosophical worldviews, new metaphysical frameworks for human rights and reason emerged, providing a transcendental Distance from which to organize society.

The defining shift of the modern era has been the explosive growth of the Bottom-Right quadrant. Secular collective intelligence has increasingly found its primary expression in institutions, law, and science, treating human interaction as a set of objective, empirical systems to be organized and optimized. While this has filled the void of disorganized coordination with high-functioning Empiric Analysis, it has also created a new tension: the vast, data-driven wealth of our Bottom-Right institutions often struggles to integrate the participatory depth of Bottom-Left crafts or the vitalizing power of Top-Left myths. This disconnect now poses an existential challenge to the modern system, as it risks becoming a vast knowledge base of “facts” that lacks the Symbolic Realization or communal participation necessary to sustain human meaning.

Non-human Intelligence

For the large part of history, the only forms of non-human intelligence was to be found in the left Participation half. The intelligence of plants and animals is an embodied knowledge taking the forms of genetic reflexes, instinct, and — for mammals — emotional communication (Bottom-Right). Only rudimentary, animals show early signs of cognitive Distance and thinking (e.g., crows) or symbolic knowledge (e.g., elephants). An ecosystem, in its most holistic understanding as a form of intelligence, is a self-organizing, self-regulating organism — as suggested by the Gaia hypothesis; or a web of Universal signs and meanings that requires an organism to be “in-dwelled” in Participation to be understood (Top-Left) — as suggested by Ecosemiotics; or a “mind within a mind within a mind” as suggested by system theory pioneers such as Gregory Bateson. In this last view, our body can be viewed as an ecosystem of cells and bacteria similar as the biosphere is an ecosystem of animals, plants, water and earth.

Modernity, for the first time has born this idea of artificial intelligence (AI), a form of intelligence based on technology. Only since the twentieth century and the invention of computers, such an intelligence has become an actually realistic possibility. Today, in 2026, we are witnessing the manifestation of artificial intelligence in the form of Generative AI — bringing with it the expansion of the industrial revolution from hitherto physical and energetic labor to now cognitive labor.

The technocrats today are even musing about a vague idea of artificial general intelligence (AGI). In terms of my framework, this could be described as a form of artificial intelligence that is inhabiting all four epistemological quadrants. However, today’s design of AI relying intrinsically on hard data points and abstract mathematical operations is inherently constrained to the Experiential x Distance of the Bottom-Right quadrant.

Interestingly, there seems to be no non-human form of intelligence in Top-Right, that is, a reflective form of consciousness that contemplates on Universal forms from a Distance. AGI technocrats might be arguing that this is where the AI development is heading towards. However, it is hard to conceive how today’s design of AI systems wants to free itself from particular Experiential data points towards an intuitive apprehension of Universal forms and concepts.

Politics

Political parties are quite interesting to map into the four epistemological quadrants, because every single party seems to be hard to locate into one single quadrant. However, with Jung’s theory of unconscious compensation in mind a surprising pattern emerges: each party seems to be rooted in one base quadrant, however their most emotional and dramatic position — their unconscious undifferentiated identity in Jungian terms — seem to concern exactly the opposite quadrant.

The socialists are rooted in labor and crafts (Bottom-Left), however their most emotional “identity” politics is about an ideal communist “brotherhood of man” that sounds as if it could have come from Platon’s realm of pure ideas (Top-Right). The ecologists (often called “the Greens”) are rooted in ecological and symbolic understanding (Top-Left) — however they get most emotional and “identified” when talking about scientific evidence for climate change or industrial environmental destruction (Bottom-Right). The liberals are rooted in reason and enlightenment (Top-Right) — however their most dramatic story-lines are about saving jobs and a “tickle-down economy” (Bottom-Left), often mixed with a pinch of a mystical “invisible hand” (Top-Left) that transforms individual greed into collective good. If you have no real differentiated connection to your own “hand” and labor you have to imagine an “invisible hand” instead.

Finally, the epistemological base of the conservatives seems to be in Bottom-Right, which, I have to admit, is somewhat surprising to me that they are the party mostly rooted in empirical science and law by their nature. However, if you describe today’s conservatives rather according to their fundamental principles as technocratic-realists, their Bottom-Right rooting becomes more evident. Less surprisingly, their emotional identity politics happens in Top-Left in the form of nationalism and mythological folklore.

At this point it is revealing to remember Jung’s definition of identity given in Psychological Types:

“I use the term identity to denote a psychological conformity. It is always an unconscious phenomenon since a conscious conformity would necessarily involve a consciousness of two dissimilar things, and, consequently, a separation of subject and object, in which case the identity would already have been abolished. Psychological identity presupposes that it is unconscious. It is a characteristic of the primitive mentality and the real foundation of participation mystique, which is nothing but a relic of the original non-differentiation of subject and object, and hence of the primordial unconscious state. It is also a characteristic of the mental state of early infancy, and, finally, of the unconscious of the civilized adult, which, in so far as it has not become a content of consciousness, remains in a permanent state of identity with objects.” – C. G. Jung, CW 6.741

In Jungian terms, one could describe identity politics hence as unconscious, undifferentiated shadow politics.

This seems to get even more poignant, when one compares the parties colors with Goethe’s color wheel above. As an example, I show the colors by seat allocation in the Swiss parliament below. When you visually close the “half-circle” of the parliament into a full circle, you get the following “political identity” color wheel: Bottom-Left the the socialist SP in red — according to Goethe they should be blue; Top-Left the Greens (Grüne) in green and the “Middle” fraction (Die Mitte is the former catholic Christian party, EVP is the protestant Christian party) in orange-yellow — according to Goethe they should all be purple; Top-Right the liberals (FDP) in blue and green-liberals (GLP) in light green — according to Goethe they should be red; finally, in Bottom-Right the conservative, technocratic-realist party (SVP) in — again — green, which is the only party that seems to align more or less with Goethe’s yellow-green assignment.

Seat allocation in the two chambers of the Swiss parliament (2023 elections) with each party’s color, where the “half-wheel” of the parliament’s seat ordering has been closed to a full wheel. The thin outer wheel shows the distribution of the Council of States (elected with majority vote), the inner wheel the distribution of the larger National Council (elected with proportional vote). This seems to show a “political identity” color wheel almost complementary to Goethe’s “natural” color wheel (the innermost wheel). The only exceptions are the technocratic-realist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) — which is green instead of purple — as well as the green and middle fractions who might consider swapping either seats or colors :-). Image by the author. Data source: Koest.

The “political identity” color wheel is almost complementary to Goethe’s “natural” color wheel. This seems to strongly suggest that the political “show” is running exactly in everyone’s opposite, most unconscious and undifferentiated, epistemological territory. The prominent exception is the technocratic-realist party (SVP) whose green color is in alignment with Goethe’s color wheel and is not the complementary color purple. One possible explanation is that the Bottom-Right corner is the primary quadrant of our Western society today, hence, Top-Left with its natural color purple is the collective shadow quadrant today. No bigger party wants to be purple or pink in Switzerland!

(Edit: I just learned that there is a purple party now: it is called Volt, “a social-liberal [Bottom-Left-Top-Right] pro-European, eurofederalist political party,” whose five members joined the Greens group (Top-Left) in the European Parliament. They do not seem to be completely clear about their base quadrant yet, but based on their color choice they appear to be a good (unconscious) fit for a new technocratic-realist (Bottom-Right) party building on a Europe-centered identity politics. Let’s see what happens when their vision of a unified Europe meets the political reality…)

The Top-Left quadrant is only half-heartedly represented by the Greens and the Middle fraction. The Middle fraction tries to get rid of their symbolic Christian “image,” hence the former Christian party has renamed itself to Die Mitte (the Middle) and is arguably the party with the least amount of identity politics but also mostly lacking a differentiated profile. The Greens have only a mostly undifferentiated affinity to the Top-Left quadrant through ecology and the natural intelligence of ecosystems. Often, they try to flee south towards socialist positions or right towards liberal positions — as happened with the Green-Liberal Party which emerged from a splinter group of the Green Party. In Jungian perspective, they live in a large internal tension. Their soul is Top-Left (a participatory love for the Earth and the universe), but their conscious language is mostly Bottom-Right (rationalist fear). When they get “emotional,” it is the Top-Left shadow breaking through the Bottom-Right mask, leading to the “apocalyptic” tone often found in climate activism.

Apart from the mentioned issues of the technocratic-realists, the “ex”-Christians, and the Greens, Switzerland seems still to have a somewhat balanced political landscape.

Applying this quaternary model for example to the US political landscape, where the whole left Participation part is missing representation, reveals an even larger shadow: The Democrats are the party of “The Idea” of America, abstract rights, globalist liberalism, and meritocratic reason (Top-Right) — but they are haunted by the shadow of true labor socialism (Bernie Sanders, Occupy Wall Street, Bottom-Left) as well as a “woke” shadow (Top-Left-style symbolized identity politics). The Republicans are the party of constitutional originalism, strict law and order, and the “hard” empirical reality of individual business and military strength (Bottom-Right) — but are haunted by the “populist” shadow (a Bottom-Left/Top-Left-style rebellion against the elites). So, the participatory Bottom-Right and Top-Right regions are only addressed by shadow projection movements such as Occupy Wall Street or MAGA, but not by any deep-rooted political representation.

Critique of Modernity’s Imbalanced Knowledge

The main insight emerging from the development of this epistemological framework and its application to different systems and traditions is that modern Western culture shows a strong bias toward the Bottom-Right-front octant, that is, toward Empiric Analysis combined with an extroverted attitude.

We have encountered this pattern repeatedly. In Jung’s work, for instance, he had to explain his Top-Left feeling function at length, clarifying that it is not merely “being emotional,” but a rational function concerned with values. Even a participatory genius like Goethe describes modernity’s shadow quadrant as “unnecessary.” In my own process of developing this model, I initially arrived at a ternary structure in which the Top-Left quadrant of Symbolic Realization was missing altogether (see Part 1). Our political analysis showed a similar tendency: the technocratic-realist Bottom-Right party is the only one whose color aligns with Goethe’s “natural” color scheme. At the same time, its shadow expression in the form of national identity politics represents one of modernity’s greatest dangers, since there are few conscious or even semi-conscious alternatives available.

Individually, these observations may appear too vague to support a strong conclusion. Yet taken together they begin to outline a larger pattern. It is notoriously difficult to perceive a blind spot — and the Top-Left quadrant (or, more precisely, the Top-Left-back octant) appears to be precisely such a blind spot in modern Western society. The first step is therefore simply to become aware of this imbalance and to recognize what, exactly, is missing. Only then can we begin to think about possible alternatives.

Some initial attempts at alternatives can be found in scientific approaches that try to articulate a form of transcendence inherent in ecosystems — for example the Gaia hypothesis, Ecosemiotics, or the system theories of Gregory Bateson. However, these approaches aim at integrating a symbolic Top-Left flair into the Bottom-Right language of modern science still largely maintain its intellectual Distance from nature. True Top-Left knowledge, by contrast, involves rediscovering a true mode of Participation in the Universal dimension of existence in our current times.

A vast source of inspiration lies definitely in Indian culture. It is no coincidence that the participatory-introverted practices of India — such as Haṭha, Kriya, Tantra, and Bhakti — are gaining increasing numbers of followers in the West. These traditions preserve forms of knowledge rooted in Participation and introspection that have largely vanished from Western culture. In my own experience, with my tendency toward introversion and sensitivity for the repressed feeling functions in our society, practicing yoga for two months in India and reading Swami Vivekananda’s works on the four yogas was a true revelation. It opened a glimpse into a different possibility of how society might be structured, accompanied by a subtle feeling of “coming home.”

Yet simply importing Indian practices into the West is not a solution. There is a real danger that such traditions are absorbed into the Western logic of “import and reselling”, becoming yet another product within an economy that succeeds mostly at making a marketable good our of anything.

Jung repeatedly warned against merely imitating Eastern practices, insisting instead that Western culture must rediscover its own path back to the Top-Left quadrant (or Top-Left-back octant). Through his life and work, he himself pointed toward such a path and remains one of the most important inspirations for envisioning a flourishing future of this dimension.

Jung’s hope lay particularly in a renewed engagement with the medieval myth of alchemy, which he believed contained the symbolic soil for a reconnection with the participatory dimension of meaning. As Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung’s close collaborator, expressed in a 1977 interview, civilizations require a living myth in order to survive:

“We know that if missionaries destroy the myth of a primitive people, they destroy them also physically. They begin to drink, they degenerate, they are lost. And no civilization can live only from welfare. It needs a myth to live. All great civilizations, when they were flourishing, had a living myth. I think that the Christian myth on which we have lived has degenerated and has become one-sided and insufficient. I think that alchemy is the complete myth. And therefore, if our western civilization has a possibility of survival, it would be by accepting the alchemical myth, which is a completion and continuation, a richer completion of the Christian myth. That’s a myth we could live again with, in contrast to the Christian myth which doesn’t satisfy a great amount of people anymore. The Christian myth is deficient in not including enough the feminine — or in Catholicism they have the Virgin Mary, but it’s only the purified feminine, not the dark feminine — and in excluding matter and treating matter as dead and the realm of the devil, and in not facing the problem of the opposite of evil. Alchemy faces the problem of the opposites, faces the problem of matter, and faces the problem of the feminine — the three things which are lacking in Christianity — and therefore it complements Christ, the Christian myth, and could revive it that way.” – Marie-Louise von Franz, Interview: Remembering Jung #23–1 (1977)

Rather than one single collective myth, I see it actually more likely that the future lies in a plethora of living myths at different levels of collective groups and even for single individuals — an ecosystem of myths if you will. Here again, India is a source of inspiration, as for example its yoga has never been one single tradition or system, but always a vast ecosystem of traditions and methods. As Vivekananda expressed it: the West has a free market of economy, but India has always had a free market of religion.

These myths must be capable of expressing a universal truth that resonates with the evolutionary stage of a society, a group, or an individual. Where such myths are absent, the psychological need for meaning does not disappear — it is instead projected outward onto Bottom-Right-external-constructed “artificial” entities such as nations, ethnic groups, or ideological creeds. Such projections are the inevitable consequence of an epistemologically imbalanced culture. Instead of true Symbolic Realization, they result in a “pseudo-symbolized delusion” — pseudo-symbolism is as much a thing as pseudo-science and its dangers are nowhere less severe.

In this perspective, the task for modern Western culture is not to abandon its extraordinary achievements in empirical science and technological rationality, but to rediscover and re-integrate the other dimensions of knowing and thereby becoming more holistic. The four epistemological quadrants outlined in these two articles do not describe competing doctrines, but complementary functions of human consciousness. Truly mature and holistic civilizations, and likewise its individuals, require the capacity to cultivate all four quadrants: the clarity and pragmatism of Empirical Analysis, the skill and energy of Embodied Transformation, the depth and connection of Symbolic Realization, and the vision and brightness of Metaphysical Contemplation. How such a balance can emerge again in a culture so strongly shaped by the success of one quadrant remains an open question — but becoming conscious of the imbalance is the first step toward restoring it.