The Decolonization of Psychology or the Science of the Soul

Abstract

Since the inception of psychology as a distinct field of study in the modern West, it has been widely regarded as the only valid form of this discipline, supplanting all other accounts of the mind and human behavior. The modern West is unique in having produced the only psychology that consciously severed itself from metaphysics and spiritual principles. The momentous intellectual revolutions inaugurated by the Renaissance and the European Enlightenment further entrenched the prejudices of its purely secular and reductionist approach. Yet, across the diverse cultures of the world, we find spiritual traditions that embrace a fully integrated psychology, unsullied by the limitations of the modern scientific method. It is only by grounding psychology on a foundation of sacred and universal truths – found in all traditional civilizations – that we can begin to restore a true “science of the soul” that addresses the entire gamut of human needs and possibilities

Keywords

• postcolonial psychology
• perennial psychology
• perennial philosophy
• modernity
• scientism