Abstract

The role of non-literal expressions such as myth, ritual, dream, art, and theory in knowing an inclusive reality of self, other, and world are investigated from a depth psychological perspective. The concept of polycentric psyche poses multiple identity for individuals---a presence of otherness in self. Validating status of pluralistic being is difficult from within a positivistic mentality based on ultimate distinctions of real versus unreal, posing the problem: How can a singular sense-of-self know and validate a plurality of psychic identity? How is the manyness of oneness experienced as real? ;Several academic disciplines are associated in considering issues of polycentric identity and pluralistic reality: anthropology, art history, literary theory, epistemology, philosophy, physics, depth psychology, mythology, and ritual studies. Pluralistic identity is found to require a dialectical logic and mythical dynamism that assert an ordinarily unreal reality---a status of the 'un-real real.' That logic requires non-literalistic expressions to manifest its non-linear dynamics and counter habitually singular sense of self, other, and world. Validating its inclusive knowing involves psychosomatic experience and sense of participation in variable states of self/other/world---or metamorphic experience of concurrent, metaphorically inter-active states in altered time-space. Archaic initiatory ritual and some modernist artistic expressions provide examples. Western mechanistic mentality represses and devalues the reality of such multidimensional logic and presence-despite supportive implications in scientific research. ;Thus how philosophical, scientific, and psychological notions both deny and affirm concurrent realities or status of identity are considered. Examining how identities are composed in oppositional versus inclusive associations and how exclusive categories of real and unreal are mediated by an 'un-real real' status reveals the metamorphic dynamics of inclusive knowing. That investigation indicates a contemporary convergence of philosophic and psychological concerns. Notions in depth psychology are found to best articulate the radical shifts from modernist to a genuinely post-modern mentality demanding development of a multiple-identity capable of accommodating the manyness of oneness in polycentric psyche. Perspectives and practices deconstructing literalism and so facilitating initiation of individual identity into pluralistic knowing and being, once concerns of myth and religion, now are found to be the responsibilities of psychological culture