Emerson's Over-soul, Jung's Collective Unconscious and Varro's Soul of the World
Part 2 in a Series on the Over-soul
Carl Jung and the Collective Unconscious
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) is the one who made popular the belief in an unconscious mind. Before that, it was thought that all decisions were made consciously. Thanks to Freud, now many believe that the unconscious mind makes decisions and the conscious merely justifies them with rationality. (As you probably know, Freud also believed that the basic impulse that determines our decisions is sexual.)
Freud hand-picked Carl Jung (1875–1961) to be his successor to promote his radical ideas. Jung was Sigmond Freud’s protégé for several years until he broke away to pursue his own ideas. Jung expanded upon Freud’s ideas about the unconscious mind, but he dropped the sexual part.
Jung believed that our unconscious mind’s deepest motivation is to integrate all the parts of ourselves, to become a whole person. As individuals, we need to establish an understanding of our suppressed dark sides in order to become whole. Jung realized that dreams allow the unconscious to speak plainly, exposing both our unconscious tendencies and the desires we keep buried. For example, when we repeatedly sabotage ourselves, dreams can show us why. He practiced psychoanalysis on patients and on himself for decades, using dreams and other methods to bring integration. He wrote many books, most of which are in German professorial style, which means they are difficult to understand.
Like Emerson, Jung also wrote of the Over-Soul, but he used different words:
The true history of the mind [the collective unconsciousness] is not preserved in learned volumes, but in the living psychic organism of every individual. . .Aren’t we the carriers of the entire history of mankind?[1]
The history of humanity is stored inside all of us.
His most significant theory was that of the collective unconscious, which he described as the “deepest layer of the psyche, containing the experiences, fears, memories and all cognitive perceptions shared by all human beings on earth.”[2] Sometimes Jung talked as if the collective unconscious should be considered God. [3] This sounds exactly like the Over-Soul and many scholars have since likened Emerson’s Over-Soul to Jung’s collective unconscious. For example, social psychologist William McGuire called Emerson’s essay “History” “a regular parade of’ Jungian ideas and instances.” [4] Citing Emerson’s descriptions of “the one mind common to all men” and “this universal mind,” Edward F. Edinger (1922-1998), an influential Jungian analyst, declared that the essay “describes clearly what Jung has termed the collective unconscious. [5] Except that Emerson died before Jung started writing.
It is odd that Jung’s thought was so like that of Emerson, when he did not know anything about him. Which leads one to think that perhaps they both picked up the concepts elsewhere. And, in fact, they did.
Varro’s Soul of the World
Jung and the Emerson are relatively modern. Nobody knows precisely how Emerson came up with the Over-Soul. But his ideas have been around for centuries. It is believed that the concept comes from a mashup of a variety of sources such as Swedenborg, the Hindu Vedas and others. But as far as I know, none of the Transcendentalists mentions Varro. But, they were well read in the classics, and I am convinced that the Transcendentalists read Saint Augustine’s City of God, in which Augustine discusses Varro’s ideas.
Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) was a contemporary of Caesar and Pompey. He commanded one of Pompey’s armies against Caesar in the Roman Civil War. He was also a very prolific writer. Many of his writings are mentioned by others in their books and letters, but most of his works have been lost to history. One of his major works, Antiquities of Human and Divine Things, described the culture and institutions of Rome and the Roman religion. Unfortunately, it is one of the books that was lost. We learn about Varro’s ideas from Saint Augustine, who in his City of God spends quite a number of pages refuting Varro’s ideas on religion—ideas that were in the now lost Antiquities of Human and Divine Things.
As we don’t have Varro’s original text (I am sure the Christians burnt every copy they could find), we have to trust that Saint Augustine was somewhat fair in stating Varro’s view of the spiritual world. It appears that much of Varro’s discussion of religion describes the various gods and goddesses, but then he drops some radical deism. Augustine wrote:
The same Varro, then. . .says that he thinks that God is the soul of the world. . .and that this world itself is God. . .Here he seems, in some fashion at least, to acknowledge one God.[6]
According to Augustine, Varro wrote that there are three grades of soul in universal nature. The first grade is that which nourishes living things with the power of life. The second grade of soul is our ability to sense things.
The third grade of soul is the highest, and is called mind, where intelligence has its throne. This grade of soul no mortal creatures except man are possessed of. Now this part of the soul of the world, Varro says, is called God, and in us is called Genius. [7]
I want to interpret this last bit, for my own sake. I get tripped up on words often when I read writers from the past, so I need to simplify it:
The third grade of the soul, the greatest, is the universal mind, which is God. People can access this universal mind, and when we can, it is called Genius.
Is this not the Over-Soul or Collective Unconscious we were just previously discussing? I think it is.[8]
Augustine wrangled hard, as he was wont to do, with Varro’s Soul of the World claim.
And when. . .he says that Genius is the rational soul of every one, and therefore exists separately in each individual, but that the corresponding soul of the world is God, he just comes back to this same thing—namely, that the soul of the world itself is to be held to be. . .the universal genius. . .For if every genius is a god, and the soul of every man a genius, it follows that the soul of every man is a god.[9]
Arguing for Varro, my response would be, no, the soul of every man is a unique manifestation of God and together all souls comprise the collective consciousness, which is one facet of God.
Conclusion
The concept of Over-soul or Collective Unconscious are actually very old. They date as far back as Caesar’s time, and I am sure much farther back. What is important is that they keep recurring. The fact that the concept will not die, but keeps arising from time to time, and is voiced by the brilliant ones in history, should make you wonder, is this for real?
So far, we have covered three manifestations of this idea. In a future essay, I will write about another two.
[1] Neil B. Yetwin, “Thoreau, Jung, and the Collective Unconscious,” Thoreau Society Bulletin, no. 265, Winter 2009.
[2] Jung in Yetwin, 9:42.
[3] Leon James, “A Comparison of Keywords in the Dynamic Psychology of Jung, Swedenborg and Freud,” Journal of Psychology and Clinical Psychiatry, vol. 3, issue 3, August 8, 2015, medcraveonline.com/JPCPY/a-comparison-of-keywords-in-the-dynamic-psychology-of-jung-swedenborg-and-freud.html.
[4] Jung, in Yetwin, 9:42.
[5] Jung, in Yetwin, 9:42.
[6] Saint Augustine, City of God, Book 7, Part 6, newadvent.org/fathers/120107.htm, accessed January 1, 2025.
[7] Saint Augustine, City of God, Book 7, ch. 23.
[8] Back to Emerson for a second: If you have read Emerson, you know that he has sentences of gold within a multitude of throwaway paragraphs. I don’t think Emerson was capable of writing concise bullet points like business and military leaders do today. Emerson was not that clear on exactly what the soul is and what the soul is not and what the relationship between God and the Over-Soul is. Varro, on the other hand, was very clear about the Soul of the World, or at least Augustine’s interpretation of Varro was clear.
[9] Saint Augustine, City of God, Book 7, ch. 13.