The Division of Consciousness

The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one, states Nikola Tesla in his 1900 philosophical treaties on the problem of increasing human energy. A sentiment that Aldous Huxley felt the need to remind us again after World War 2 in his 1945 book on comparative mysticism The Perennial Philosophy. Does this then mean that perennial spiritual ideas are present throughout Western thought, and not just by philosophers, but by prominent inventors and scientists? A simple search online today and you can gain access quite easily to the perennial theory of the single consciousness or one of its many forms. This one energy, the universe, an all-encompassing omnipresence. Whatever the term used, the idea of a connected oneness present in the individual remains just as radical to today’s convention as it did at any time in the last centuries.

Some people may have direct experience of the phenomenon through serious spiritual practices, unexplained physical events, mind altering medicines or by simply sitting under a tree and finding a deep sense of connection at the ripe time. These different approaches appear to create the correct circumstances in which one feels Indra’s net¹ of interconnected oneness. I have been continually surprised throughout my life in discussing this concept with persons who I would never have guessed held this, or very similar concepts close to their hearts. A single consciousness divided between us all.

A few years ago, it struck me that Greek mythology, at least as I had received it, was still quietly under-sung, its significance present but rarely allowed to fully speak. I placed it, gladly and without pretence, alongside other epic riddles inherited from our near past, and gave it a place within this unfolding, episodic journey of self-understanding. There was a certain playful irony in this turn of study. At the time, I was living among the gods of the Inca world rather than the scattered stones of the Greek mainland. Yet the thread was already woven. I had stood beneath the Acropolis in Athens and walked the bright, listening ground of Delphi, the ancient world’s living centre, cradled on the slopes of Mount Parnassus.

The Greek mythological stories, particularly the Dionysian tragedies, offer dramatic parables for the society of ancient Greece, while also carrying a quieter warning about what so often unfolds through the division of consciousness. Without diminishing their depth or reverence, a simple and recurring container can be felt beneath them all. From an original unity, for reasons both mysterious and inevitable, a duality emerges. A god and a goddess, or some equivalent pairing, enter into relation. Consciousness now has two voices in the room. Mutuality arises, companionship is formed, and a shared order takes shape. It is a little like living with a single housemate. If the lights are on when you arrive home, you know the other has been there before you. If the cheese you left in the fridge has been enjoyed, it was either you or them. There is an ease to this arrangement, a graceful simplicity. And yet, in its very stability, its lack of tension or surprise, it carries the risk of predictability, a humdrum that quietly invites disruption. It is here, at this threshold, that the stories of Dionysus begin to stir.

Introduce a 3rd fraction into the mix and the dynamics begin to change. This is often depicted in the Greek myths through a third character, this can be a human or non-human companion, the arrival of a child, or a wandering stranger. Almost always what pursues is a mirror between suspicion and deception; a lack of candour within the group, a mistrust based around the cheese in the fridge dynamic.

“Cha rùn agus rùn aig triùir e – It’s not a secret if three people know it”

Gaelic proverb

Beneath this lies a subtler sleight of hand. Once consciousness divides, no part can fully access the inner activity of another. If it could, reality would remain purely conceptual, transparent, and whole. Instead, we remain tethered to a collective field even as we relinquish the omnipresent view. In stepping away from unity, we tacitly agree to forget what the other knows. And here a curious question arises: are we human by nature, or only when we inhabit the human perspective? It seems we become human precisely by surrendering the god’s-eye view.

Carl Jung’s theory of complexes articulates this condition with striking clarity. He proposed that every personality is inherently multiple, and that in cultures which recognise this multiplicity, these inner figures are given distinct names, locations, energies, functions, voices—even angelic or animal forms, or whole cosmologies of soul. Modern society, by contrast, insists on a singular self who merely “acts out of character” from time to time. Held in this narrow frame, a person may find themselves paralysed—caught in an endless stalemate of contradictory impulses. When multiplicity is welcomed instead, those tensions soften. Each inner figure can be met on its own terms, its feelings sensed, its role understood. Archetypal psychology extends this invitation fully, granting these figures ongoing residence in the imaginal world of metaphor and allegory as a living path of healing.

In deep subjective states—often accessed through psychotropic plant medicines—this mythic language returns with remarkable familiarity. Aspects of the psyche appear as vivid characters, exaggerated yet recognisable, each telling its story through symbol and parable. A tale unfolds, a lesson reveals itself, and though the imagery may seem unrelated at first, something quietly realigns. A relationship becomes clearer. A behaviour asks to be amended. Many emerge with a sincere commitment to change, not from coercion, but in response to having been addressed. This pattern is so persistent, so deeply woven into human experience, that to ignore it would be a form of forgetting in itself.

When I returned to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I was struck by the psychological phenomenon it carries so lightly. Children displaced from their homes, unable to name or comprehend the real-world source of the fear gripping their culture—in this case, the bombing of London in 1940—enter instead into an archetypal realm that offers another way of knowing. Through Narnia, the unspeakable pressure of the external world finds symbolic form, and with it, a path toward integration.

We see this pattern again in Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro, set in Francoist Spain in 1944. Ten-year-old Ofelia arrives at a remote farmhouse where her stepfather has been tasked with hunting down local rebels amid escalating violence and bloodshed. Faced with an external reality too vast and brutal to metabolise directly, she enters a subjective wonderland populated by archaic figures. These beings do not soften the horror; they give it shape, depth, and meaning, allowing the external energy to be held rather than merely endured.

This motif recurs across modern fantasy. In Lord of the Flies—originally titled Strangers from Within—the story opens in the charged atmosphere of a world at war. A group of boys, evacuated and then marooned on a deserted island, carry with them a barely articulated terror that saturates their unfolding social collapse. More recently, Piranesi, though still awaiting the full recognition it deserves, offers a profound interior portrait of how delusional architectures can arise—not as mere pathology, but as attempts to restore coherence and meaning within a compromised external landscape.

This capacity to recreate outer threat as inner myth—to translate fear into fantastical worlds of symbol and motif, where fairy tale stands as a paradox between unmeaning and meaning—is woven into the fabric of human psychology. It is one of the mind’s oldest technologies. To understand its function, we must first grant it legitimacy. In doing so, we uncover a repertoire of deeply psychological tools for conflict resolution, meaning-making, and the integration of trauma.

These inner worlds arise as symbolic structures through which the psyche organises experience when direct comprehension is still forming. They function as psychological realities—fields of meaning that carry feeling, orient perception, and bring coherence to experiences that might otherwise remain diffuse or overwhelming. Their potency lies in their capacity to shape understanding and restore continuity within the inner landscape.

I encountered this mechanism firsthand, though my own inner world was far less overtly fantastical. Subjectively, I lived in a colonial house near the Tanzanian–Kenyan border, in a quiet village where signposts pointed toward Lake Victoria, the Rift Valley, and Kilimanjaro National Park. I was held within a warm and loving atmosphere that quietly met needs I carried as a developing child. There were carers and companions, adventures and episodes, all unfolding within an environment that felt both vast and intimate. Even now, I struggle to understand how such a rich and exotic inner landscape could have been formed without any prior reference. I had never travelled as a child, never encountered cultures or places that might have consciously seeded such imagery. And yet, the world was there—fully formed—waiting to receive what could not yet be spoken.

These narrative patterns echo what emerges repeatedly in lived therapeutic practice. When direct integration of external threat is not yet available, the psyche naturally turns toward imaginal organisation. Symbolic worlds arise as adaptive responses—intelligent formations that allow experience to be held, explored, and gradually integrated within a human scale of meaning.

The first meeting with the inner child does not always arrive clothed in abandonment, though it often does. For many participants, this encounter marks their first conscious experience of fragmentation—an awakening to the fact that awareness itself can appear in distinct and recognisable forms. And yet, I have never known a participant to find themselves at a loss in this meeting, whether through an absence of inner imagery or a failure of the child to appear. With time and attention, the inner child grows more vividly coloured—more responsive, more animated, and increasingly eager to engage. Gradually, this child becomes a companion: a familiar presence who guides us into further encounters with other fragments of consciousness. It is a relationship that feels both tender and consequential, one in which trust can be placed and patiently restored.

Most practitioners come to recognise that as the relationship with the inner child strengthens, corresponding shifts unfold in lived experience. What changes inwardly begins to echo outwardly, revealing that care offered within the psyche quietly reorganises the world we move through.

[1] – In the Hua-yen school of Chinese Buddhism, which sees itself as a cosmic ecology and views all existence as an organic unity, the image of “Indra’s net” is used to describe the interconnectedness of the universe, a realm-embracing-realm ad infinitum.

Archetypal Psychology – James Hillman
Healing Fiction: On Freud, Jung, Adler – James Hillman
A Review of the Complex Theory – Carl G. Jung

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