Anima mundi
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Soul of the World! Inspir'd by thee, --"Hail! Bright Cecilia (1692) by Henry Purcell "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 30b–d, translated by W.R.M. Lamb |
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The world soul (Greek: ψυχή κόσμου, Latin: Anima mundi) has been a component of several systems of thought. Its proponents claim that it permeates the cosmos and animates all matter, just as the soul animates the human body. The idea originated with Plato and was an important component of most Neoplatonic systems.
The Stoics believed it to be the only vital force in the universe. It also features in systems of eastern philosophy in the Brahman-Atman of Hinduism, and in the School of Yin-Yang, Taoism, and Neo-Confucianism as qi.
Similar concepts were held by hermetic philosophers like Paracelsus, and by Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz and later by Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854). It has been elaborated since the 1960s by Gaia theorists such as James Lovelock.
See also
- Gaia
- Gaia hypothesis
- Pachamama
- Panpsychism
- Plastic Principle
- Pneuma (in Hellenistic philosophy)
- Microcosm–macrocosm analogy
- Spiritual ecology
- The Over-Soul
- Unus mundus (in Jungian psychology)
