Seba.Health
Figures
The philosophers, alchemists, physicians, and psychologists whose work shaped the tradition — from Homer to Hillman.
Ancient
Abba Anthony
Desert Father, founder of Christian monasticism · 251–356 CE
Anthony the Great is the founding figure of Christian monasticism. Around 270 CE, he withdrew into the Egyptian desert and discovered that solitude do…
AncientAristotle
Classical philosopher and natural scientist · 384–322 BCE
Aristotle was the Greek philosopher and natural scientist whose treatise De Anima constitutes the first systematic investigation of the soul in Wester…
AncientEmpedocles
Pre-Socratic philosopher and healer · c. 494–434 BCE
Empedocles was a Pre-Socratic philosopher, healer, and poet from Akragas in Sicily who taught that love and strife govern the cosmic cycle of creation…
AncientEpictetus
Stoic philosopher · c. 50–135 CE
Epictetus was a Stoic philosopher born into slavery whose teachings on the distinction between what is "up to us" and what is not became foundational …
AncientEvagrius Ponticus
Desert Father, theologian, clinical psychologist of the interior · 345–399 CE
Evagrius Ponticus was a brilliantly educated theologian who abandoned a promising ecclesiastical career in Constantinople to live as a monk in the Egy…
AncientHermes Trismegistus
Legendary sage of the Hermetic tradition · c. 1st–3rd century CE (texts)
Hermes Trismegistus was the legendary Greco-Egyptian sage credited with the Hermetic writings, a body of texts that fused Egyptian mystery religion, G…
AncientJohn Cassian
Desert Father, monastic founder · c. 360–435 CE
John Cassian was the bridge between the Desert Fathers of Egypt and the monastic tradition of the Latin West. He spent years studying under the Egypti…
AncientJohn the Evangelist
Evangelist, apostle · 1st c. CE
The author of the Fourth Gospel records the single most significant word in the convergence between Homeric and Christian psychology: tetelestai ("It …
AncientMarcus Aurelius
Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher · 121–180 CE
Marcus Aurelius was the Roman emperor whose private journal, the Meditations, constitutes the most sustained exercise in philosophical self-examinatio…
AncientParmenides
Pre-Socratic philosopher · c. 515–450 BCE
Parmenides was a Pre-Socratic philosopher from Elea in southern Italy whose poem *On Nature* describes a visionary descent to a goddess who reveals th…
AncientPaul of Tarsus
Apostle, theologian · c. 5–64 CE
Paul is the most consequential theologian in the history of Christianity and, from the perspective of convergence psychology, the writer who comes clo…
AncientSaint Augustine
Theologian and philosopher · 354–430 CE
Augustine of Hippo was the Church Father whose Confessions inaugurated the Western tradition of psychological self-examination. His injunction to retu…
AncientSeneca
Stoic philosopher, dramatist, and statesman · c. 4 BCE–65 CE
Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, and statesman whose letters and essays constitute the most psychologically acute body of practical ph…
AncientSocrates
Classical philosopher · 469–399 BCE
Socrates was the Athenian philosopher who wrote nothing himself and is known entirely through Plato's dialogues. His singular daimonion — an inner voi…
AncientValentinus
Gnostic theologian and mystic · c. 100–160 CE
Valentinus was the most philosophically sophisticated of the Gnostic teachers, whose mythology of Sophia's fall from the divine fullness into matter b…
AncientZosimos of Panopolis
Alchemist and Gnostic mystic · c. 300 CE
Zosimos of Panopolis was a Greco-Egyptian alchemist whose visionary writings represent the earliest surviving alchemical texts of substance. His Visio…
Medieval
Dante Alighieri
Poet and visionary · 1265–1321
Dante Alighieri was the Florentine poet whose Divine Comedy — comprising Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso — constitutes the supreme literary katabasi…
MedievalMeister Eckhart
Mystic and theologian · c. 1260–1328
Meister Eckhart was the German Dominican mystic whose radical theology of detachment and inner transformation profoundly influenced Jung's analytical …
Early Modern
David Hume
Philosopher, historian · 1711–1776
Hume pushed empiricism to its logical conclusion and dissolved the self altogether. In A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), he reported that when he loo…
Early ModernImmanuel Kant
Philosopher · 1724–1804
Kant rescued reason from Hume's skepticism but at a profound cost to the interior life. His Critique of Pure Reason (1781) drew an impassable line bet…
Early ModernJohann Wolfgang von Goethe
Poet, dramatist, and natural philosopher · 1749–1832
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was the German poet, dramatist, and natural philosopher whose Faust is the supreme alchemical drama in Western literature. …
Early ModernJohn Keats
Romantic poet · 1795–1821
John Keats was the English Romantic poet whose brief life produced some of the most psychologically penetrating verse in the language. His concept of …
Early ModernJohn Locke
Philosopher, political theorist · 1632–1704
Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) declared the mind a tabula rasa — a blank slate with no innate ideas, no inherited structure, no a…
Early ModernParacelsus
Physician, alchemist, and natural philosopher · 1493–1541
Paracelsus was the Renaissance physician-alchemist who insisted that healing requires treating the whole person — body, soul, and spirit. Born Theophr…
Early ModernRené Descartes
Philosopher, mathematician · 1596–1650
Descartes formalized the mind-body split that would define Western modernity. His Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) located the self entirely in …
Early ModernWilliam Blake
Poet, painter, and visionary · 1757–1827
William Blake was the English poet, painter, and visionary whose work insists that imagination is not fantasy but the primary organ of perception. His…
Modern
A.D. (Bud) Craig
Neuroanatomist, Barrow Neurological Institute · b. 1943
A.D. Craig is an American neuroanatomist who mapped the neural pathway of interoception — the body's sense of its own internal state. His identificati…
ModernAllan Schore
Neuropsychologist, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine · b. 1943
Allan Schore is an American neuropsychologist whose work on affect regulation and the developing brain demonstrated that the infant's emotional archit…
ModernAntonio Damasio
Neuroscientist, University Professor at USC · b. 1944
Antonio Damasio is a Portuguese-American neuroscientist whose work on emotion, feeling, and decision-making dismantled the Cartesian separation of min…
ModernFriedrich Nietzsche
Philosopher and cultural critic · 1844–1900
Friedrich Nietzsche was the German philosopher and cultural critic who diagnosed the death of God, the crisis of modern values, and the need for a tra…
ModernJaak Panksepp
Neuroscientist, founder of affective neuroscience · 1943–2017
Jaak Panksepp was an Estonian-American neuroscientist who founded the field of affective neuroscience — the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion.…
ModernLisa Feldman Barrett
Psychologist and neuroscientist, Northeastern University · b. 1963
Lisa Feldman Barrett is a Canadian-American psychologist and neuroscientist whose theory of constructed emotion overturned the classical view that emo…
ModernSigmund Freud
Neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis · 1856–1939
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis — the first systematic method of exploring the unconscious mind. His discovery of…
ModernStephen Porges
Neuroscientist, Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University · b. 1945
Stephen Porges is an American neuroscientist who developed polyvagal theory — the framework describing how the autonomic nervous system hierarchically…
ModernWolfgang Pauli
Theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate · 1900–1958
Wolfgang Pauli was the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist who became Jung's analysand and most consequential intellectual collaborator. Their d…