An Always Within a Never: The Individual's Position in the World

The book analyses myths, rituals, alchemy, folklore, religion and art vis-a-vis contemporary neuroscience and psychology to establish an understanding of the subject’s identity formation. It focuses on the interplay between the subject’s identity and the environment in which it acts. It hypothesises that identity functions as “narrated body” that the subject experiences as its individuality. The orderly continuity this identity presupposes is challenged by the presence of an environment. The book analyses the ways in which humans have confronted and overcome this issue on the level of myth, folklore, religion and the associated rituals and arts. 
 
The analysis focuses on the perspective these sources offer our understanding of subjectivity and individuality, i.e. the individuals’ position between the “Chaos” of the environment and the assumed “Order” of its identity. Here, it draws from sources of contemporary research in the natural sciences to postulate the functions and effects of the presented sources. 
 
Moving fluently between mythological and scientific perspectives, it takes a standpoint in which the individual is positioned as a mediator between the ‘three layers of the world’ (Heaven, Earth, Hell). “Earth” and the associated narrated body of the subject thus function as a liminal space which emerges in the process of migrating between heaven and the underworld (yin and yang). It concludes with a discussion of how identity unfolds in the constant process of death and rebirth in confrontation with the environment.
 
Keywords: Perception, Memory, Language and Mind, Narrative Psychology, Mythology, Ritual Studies, Mysticism, Alchemy, Cave-Art, Psychoanalysis