The term 'Center of the World' occupies a privileged position within the depth-psychology corpus as simultaneously a cosmological, psychological, and existential category. Its most systematic theorist is Mircea Eliade, for whom the Center is not a geometrical abstraction but the ontological axis through which the sacred irrupts into profane space — the point of 'break in plane' connecting the three cosmic zones of heaven, earth, and underworld. Every sacred mountain, temple, city, and domestic hearth aspires to replicate this primordial Center, producing the characteristic phenomenon Eliade calls a 'multiplication of centers.' Joseph Campbell and his interpreters extend this cosmological datum inward, mobilizing Black Elk's declaration that 'anywhere is the center of the world' and Cusanus's circle whose center is everywhere to argue that the Center is ultimately a psychological locus — the individual heart as 'mythogenetic zone.' Otto Rank traces the Center's humanizing function through the Omphalos symbol, showing how sacred geography mediates the passage from cosmic to human scale. Vernant situates the Center within Greek political thought, where Hestia's hearth becomes the spatial model for civic equality. Moore's Ficino complicates the picture by distinguishing between the psychological center as ego-midpoint and the Saturnian center as the deep interior of 'each thing to be investigated.' The central tension in the corpus runs between topographic literalism — the holy city as actual navel of the earth — and the psychological interiorization that renders every conscious subject potentially the world's center.
the true world is always in the middle, at the Center, for it is here that there is a break in plane and hence communication among the three cosmic zones.
Eliade identifies the Center of the World as the ontological site of cosmic communication, replicated in every sacred territory, city, and sanctuary as an imago mundi.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957thesis
man desires to have his abode in a space opening upward, that is, communicating with the divine world. To live near to a Center of the World is, in short, equivalent to living as close as possible to the gods.
Eliade argues that the desire to inhabit the Center of the World is the structural expression of religious man's aspiration toward divine proximity and sacred time.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957thesis
The Sacred Mountain—where heaven and earth meet—is situated at the center of the world. Every temple or palace—and, by extension, every sacred city or royal residence—is a Sacred Mountain, thus becoming a Center.
Eliade codifies the architectonic symbolism of the Center, demonstrating how every consecrated structure replicates the cosmic mountain's axial function.
, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History, 1954thesis
whatever is founded has its foundation at the center of the world (since, as we know, the Creation itself took place from a center).
Eliade establishes that every cosmogonic act of foundation — architectural, civic, or ritual — is understood as a repetition of the primordial creation-at-the-center.
, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History, 1954thesis
the mountain occurs among the images that express the connection between heaven and earth; hence it is believed to be at the center of the world.
Eliade traces the cosmic mountain — Meru, Haraberezaiti, Gerizim — as the universal mythic image encoding the Center through its vertical mediation of the cosmic zones.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957thesis
because of its situation at the center of the cosmos, the temple or the sacred city is always the meeting point of the three cosmic regions: heaven, earth, and hell.
Eliade provides textual documentation — Babylonian, Hebrew, Islamic — of the tripartite axis at the Center, showing how sacred cities are conceived as bonds between cosmic levels.
, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History, 1954supporting
the symbolism of the 'Center' (Mountain, Pillar, Tree, Giant) is an organic part of the most ancient Indian spirituality. Mount Tabor, in Palestine, might signify tabbir, that is, 'navel,' omphalos.
Eliade demonstrates the cross-cultural diffusion of Center symbolism through the omphalos complex, linking sacred mountains, cosmic pillars, and world-navels across Mesopotamian, Indian, and Palestinian traditions.
, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951supporting
Black Elk to add an alternative declaration: 'But anywhere is the center of the world.' ... 'the mythogenetic zone is the individual heart... each the creative center of authority for himself, in Cusanus's circle without circumference, whose center is everywhere.'
Campbell interiorizes the Center of the World, relocating it from sacred geography to the individual psyche, mediated by Cusanus's infinite sphere as mythological model.
, The Power of Myth, 1988thesis
'But anywhere is the center of the world.' ... 'the mythogenetic zone is the individual heart... each the creative center of authority for himself, in Cusanus's circle without circumference, whose center is everywhere.'
Noel's account of Campbell confirms the psychologization of the Center, tracing the movement from Black Elk's experiential declaration to Campbell's doctrine of the individual as universal axis.
, Paths to the Power of Myth: Joseph Campbell and the Study of Religion, 1990supporting
the ancient conception of an earth-centre, the figuration of which as the earth's 'navel' expresses a humanization of the cosmos such as was necessary if practical-technical development was likewise to find its ideology.
Rank argues that the Omphalos as Center performs a humanizing function, grounding cosmic symbolism in practical geography, urban planning, and the ideologies of state and nation.
, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, 1932supporting
earth becomes humanized by the aid of the Omphalos idea; that is to say, this heavenly geography was followed by a human geography, and it was through the latter that our earthly geography for the first time became possible.
Rank traces the historical sequence by which the cosmic Center descends from celestial archetype to terrestrial geography, enabling practical cartography through sacred precedent.
, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, 1932supporting
a transformation of the city into an ordered cosmos, a sacred place bound by its center to the other world. And this transformation accorded with the vital feelings and needs of religious man.
Jung links the mandala ground plan of sacred cities to the psyche's archetypal need to organize space around a center that binds the human community to the transcendent order.
, Man and His Symbols, 1964supporting
hestia's function is no longer to differentiate between the different houses or to establish contact between different cosmic levels. Now it is the expression of symmetry in the relationships that unite equal citizens within the city.
Vernant traces the political transformation of the Center concept: Hestia's hearth migrates from cosmic axis to civic symbol of equality, mediating between mythical and rational conceptions of center.
, Myth and Thought Among the Greeks, 1983supporting
the limitless, which envelops, governs, and dominates all things, has, through its mediating function, the role of a meson.
Vernant shows that Anaximander's apeiron occupies the structural position of the Center in early Greek cosmological thought, functioning as the impartial common rule at the middle of the cosmos.
, Myth and Thought Among the Greeks, 1983supporting
center of the world, it draws to the center of each thing to be investigated... the center here is not the midpoint of the psyche but rather the center of 'each thing to be investigated.'
Moore's Ficino distinguishes a Saturnian mode of centering — depth of contemplative penetration into the object — from the egological center-as-midpoint, complicating univocal spatial readings.
, The Planets Within: The Astrological Psychology of Marsilio Ficino, 1982supporting
center of the world, it draws to the center of each thing to be investigated... the center here is not the midpoint of the psyche but rather the center of 'each thing to be investigated.'
Moore's Ficino distinguishes a Saturnian mode of centering — depth of contemplative penetration into the object — from the egological center-as-midpoint, complicating univocal spatial readings.
, The Planets Within: The Astrological Psychology of Marsilio Ficino, 1990supporting
The proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures.
Campbell documents the Galileo condemnation to show how the theological investment in a geocentric Center of the World resisted the Copernican cosmological revolution.
, Creative Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume IV, 1968supporting
the pillar that originally served as the offering place for the celestial god Num becomes, among the Yurak-Samoyed, a sacred object to which blood sacrifices are offered.
Eliade demonstrates how the cosmic pillar — axial symbol of the Center — undergoes ritual degradation yet retains its structural function as point of contact between human and celestial worlds.
, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951supporting
Mt. Meru (Tib. Ri-rab) the central mountain of Hindu and Buddhist cosmography, round which our cosmos is disposed in seven concentric circles of oceans... is the universal hub, the support of all the worlds.
Evans-Wentz presents the Tibetan cosmographic Center through Mt. Meru, the universal hub organizing the Buddhist cosmos in concentric circles — a structural homologue to Eliade's axis mundi.
, The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Evans-Wentz Edition), 1927supporting
The sacred pole of the Achilpa supports their world and ensures communication with the sky. Here we have the prototype of a cosmological image that has been very widely disseminated—the cosmic pillars that support heaven.
Eliade shows how the Achilpa sacred pole functions as portable Center of the World, illustrating the existential dependence of a community on its axis mundi.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957supporting
no fewer than three of the most important world-religions — the Jewish, the Christian, and the Islamic — Jerusalem has ever been a holy place.
Rank affirms Jerusalem's persistent status as omphalos across three monotheistic traditions, confirming the Center's role in sustaining religious and political identity through sacred geography.
, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, 1932supporting
City originally refers to community, a fellowship of persons in places... center too is a geometrical notion... kentron, the Greek for that prick point made by a compass in tracing a circle.
Hillman deconstructs the modern use of 'center' as urban stimulus-point, tracing its etymological origin in the compass-point to contrast geometric abstraction with genuine geographic place.
, A Blue Fire: The Essential James Hillman, 1989aside
perfectly straight roads shall lead to it, converging towards the very center, and as from a star which is itself round, there will be straight rays leading off in every direction.
Vernant cites Meton's geometric city plan to illustrate the Greek rationalization of the Center concept from mythic navel to mathematical focal point of urban space.
, Myth and Thought Among the Greeks, 1983aside
it is not the infinite variety of the religious experience of space that concerns us but, on the contrary, their elements of unity.
Eliade signals his comparative method: the Center of the World is studied not in its cultural variants but as a structural invariant of sacred spatial experience across traditions.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957aside