Wolfgang Pauli: Physical symbolic language of my dream

Dear Professor Jung, 31 March 1953

I should like to thank you very much for your lengthy and instructive letter in which you put forward your views in such detail.

Much of what was in the letter-for example the interpretation of the Assumptio Mariae--needs no further comment since this question has now been cleared up for me in a perfectly satisfactory manner.

However, I would like to make a few remarks with regard to questions of an epistemological nature, and especially to make it clear that I have no use at all for the "Being" definitions that you assign to metaphysical judgments and can much better express what I mean with your terms "ascertainable" and "nonascertainable."

That is why I should like to start off by explaining what the epistemological state of affairs looks like from this viewpoint.

This also gives me a good opportunity to say where I am coming from mentally, whereas in the second section of
this letter I shall talk more about where I should like to go.

There, working on the basis of your letter, I shall once again take up the discussion of the question that is so important to me-namely, the relationship between spirit, psyche, and matter.

This will also implicitly make clear how I as a physicist actually came to respond "to such a specifically theological problem" as the one on which your book lob is based: Between the theologians and myself as a physicist there is the ("archetypal") relationship of enemy brothers.

As you hinted on p. 6 of your letter [Letter 59, par. 18], that is why there is the well-known secret (unconscious) identity" between them.

And in fact, the unconscious has shown me images and words in a purely physical language, the interpretation of which, even from an anti-metaphysical viewpoint, will not be unlike many a theological statement.

This goblet is a baptism goblet, and on the card it says in an old-fashioned ornate script:

I. THE CARD IN THE GOBLET

The labeling of ideas' as either of spiritual origin or physical (or physiological) origin and your corresponding definition of physics as a science of ideas of the second kind has revived memories of my youth.

I shall demonstrate this in the second part of this letter by means of an example, and at the same time compare my own attitude with yours as regards the relationship spirit-psyche-matter.

Among my books, there is a somewhat dusty case containing a Jugendstil silver goblet, and in this goblet there is a card.

A gentle, benevolent, and cheerful spirit from days of yore seems to be issuing forth from this goblet.

I can see him shaking your hand in a friendly way, welcoming your definition of physics as a pleasing, albeit somewhat belated, indication of your insight and understanding; he goes on to add how suitable the labels are for his laboratory, and expresses his satisfaction at the fact that metaphysical judgments in general (as he was wont to say) “have been relegated into the realm of the shadows of a primitive of animism.”

"Dr. E. Mach, Prolenot' at the University of Vienna.”

It so happened that my father was very friendly with his family, and at the time totally under his influence mentally, and he (Mach) kindly agreed to take on the role of my godfather.

He must have had a much stronger personality than the Catholic priest with the apparent result that I was thus baptized in an antimetaphysical manner rather than in a Catholic one.

Be that as it may, the card remains in the goblet, and despite all the great mental changes I went through later on, it remains a label that I myself bear-namely: "of antimetaphysical origin."

And in fact, to put it in a somewhat simplistic way, Mach regarded metaphysics as the root of all evil in this world-in other words, in psychological terms, as the Devil himself - and that goblet with the card remained
as a symbol of the aqua permanens that keeps evil metaphysical spirits at bay.

I do not need to describe Ernst Mach more closely, for if you look at your own description of the extraverted sensation type, then you will see E. Mach.

He was a master at experimentation, and his apartment was crammed full of prisms, spectroscopes, stroboscopes, electrostatic machines, and the like.

Whenever I visited him, he always showed me some neat experiment, already completed, partly so as to eliminate unreliable thinking, with the ensuing illusions and errors, and partly to support it and correct it.

Working on the assumption that his psychology was a universal one, he recommended everyone to use that inferior auxiliary function as "economically" as possible (thought economy).

His own thought processes closely followed the impressions of his senses, tools, and apparatus.

This letter is not meant to be a history of physics, nor the classical case of type opposites: E. Mach and L. Boltzmann, the thinking type.

I last saw Mach just before the First World War, and he died in 1916 in a country house near Munich.

What is interesting in connection with your letter is Mach's attempt fall back on psychic facts and circumstances (sensory data, ideas) within the realm of physics as well and especially to eliminate as far as possible the
concept of "matter."

He regarded this "auxiliary concept" as grossly overrated by philosophers and physicists and viewed it as a source of "pseudo problems."

His definition of physics basically coincided with the one proposed by you and he never failed to stress that physics, physiology, and psychology were "only different in the lines of investigation they took, not in the actual object, the object in all cases being the constant psychic "elements” (he exaggerated their simplicity somewhat, for in reality they are always very complex).”

I was surprised that despite your sweeping criticism of what later came to be called "Positivism" (Mach used this term a great deal) there are nevertheless also fundamental similarities between you and this line of thought: In both cases there is the deliberate elimination of thought process.

And of course there is nothing at all wrong with these labels for ideas and the corresponding definition of physics, especially as it accords perfectly with the idealistic philosophy of Schopenhauer, who consciously uses "Idea" and "Object" synonymously.

But it all depends on how one proceeds.

What Mach wanted, although it could not be carried out, was the total elimination of everything from the interpretation of nature that is "not ascertainable hic et nunc."

But then one soon sees that one does not understand anything-neither the fact that one has to assign a psyche to others (only one's own being ascertainable) nor the fact that different people are all talking about the same (physical) object (the "windowless monads" in Leibniz).

Thus, in order to meet the requirements of both instinct and reason, one has to introduce some structural elements of cosmic order, which "in themselves are not ascertainable."

It seems to me that with you this role is mainly taken over by the archetypes.

It is right that what one does or does not call "metaphysics" is, to a certain extent, a matter of taste.

And yet I agree with you totally that in practical terms, great value is to be attached to the demand that metaphysical judgements be avoided.

What is meant by that is the “not in themselves ascertainable” factors (concepts) that have been introduced do not completely escape the controlling, checking mechanism of experience, and that no more of them may be introduced than is absolutely necessary: They serve the purpose of making statements about the possibility of ascertainments hic et nunc.

This was the sense in which the concept of “possibility” was meant, and it was in this sense that I called such concepts “symbolic things in themselves” and the “rational aspect of reality.”

As you rightly point out, there is absolutely no need to make statements of Being in the metaphysical sense about these “things in themselves.”

In the natural sciences, one makes the pragmatic statement of usefulness about them (in order to understand the ordering system of the ascertainable); in mathematics there is just the formal logical statement of consistency.

In psychology, those “not in themselves ascertainable” concepts include, the unconscious and the archetypes, and in atomic physics, they include the totality of the characteristics of an atomic system that are not all simultaneously “ascertainable hic et nunc.”

In my last letter, I referred to that which is actually "ascertained hic et nunc" as "concrete phenomenon" and the "irrational aspect of reality.”

It is always present in the psyche of an observer whatever the "label of origin" might be.

At this point, however, the question arises of whether the description "psychic" or the term "psyche" can go further than the "ascertainable hie et nunc."

I am inclined to reply to this question in the negative and to take the "not in themselves ascertainable" structures, which are introduced as conceptual indications of possibilities of the ascertainable, and give them the definition "neutral" and not the definition "psychic.”

To me, this view also seems to be supported by Plato's expressions maon (middle) and tritoneidos (third form), which both meet my requirements for "neutrality" (=middle position), nay, actually seem to emphasize it.

Plato certainly had the word "psyche" at his disposal, and if he opts to use a different word instead, then it must be one with a deeper meaning, one that calls for careful consideration.

For me, this deeper meaning lies in the need to make a clear distinction between the experience of the individual,
which exists in his psyche as something ascertainable hic et nunc, and the general concepts, which, "non being ascertainable in themselves: are suitable for taking up a middle position.

Your identification of psyche = tritoneidos thus seems to me a retrograde step, a loss in terms of conceptual
differentiation.

With my call for "neutral" general concepts, I find myself in agreement with your article "Der Geist der Psychologie" [The Spirit of Psychology), which struck me as fundamental, especially when you say: "The archetypes have .. . a nature which one cannot definitely describe as psychic.

Although by the application of purely psychological considerations I have come to question the solely psychic nature of the archetypes, etc.”

I feel that you should certainly take these doubts seriously and not once again make too much of the psychic factor.

When you say that "the psyche is partly of a material nature,” then for me as a physicist this takes on the form of a metaphysical statement.

I prefer to say that psyche and matter are governed by common, neutral, "not in themselves ascertainable" ordering principles.

(Unlike the psychologist, the physicist has no problem, for example, with saying "the U field" instead of "the unconscious," which would thus establish the "neutrality" of the concept.)

But I wish to make it quite clear that my hope that you might agree with this general point of view is based on the impression that some of the pressure needs to be removed from your analytical psychology.

The impression I have is of a vehicle whose engine is running with overloaded valves (expansion tendency of the concept ·psyche"); that is why I should like to relieve some of the pressure and let off steam. (I shall come back to this later on p. 10 below [par. 24]).

I would also hope that a clarification of the scope of the concept of the psyche might include your de iure recognition of the fact that the heart is not just a psychological symbol but also a conception labeled "of physical
origin."

Economy with the inferior function on the lines of E. Mach often serves to fulfill a function, even if it is not actually that of thinking!

2. HOMO-USIA

I believe in fact-not as a dogma but as a working hypothesis-in the essential identity (home-usia) of the mundus archetypus and physis as you formulate it on p. 6 of your letter [Letter 59, par. 18].

If this hypothesis is valid-and the possibility of physical and psychological parallel statements supports this-then it must be expressed conceptually.

In my view, this can happen only by means of concepts that are neutral in relation to the opposition psyche-physis.

Now in fact such concepts do exist-namely. mathematical ones: The existence of mathematical ideas that can also be applied in physics seems to me possible only as a consequence of that homo-usia of the mundus archetypus.

At this point, the archetype of number always comes into operation, and this is how I account for the extremely Neopythagorean mentality of my unconscious (especially the figure of the "stranger").

No one is likely to say that the object of mathematic is psychic, for a distinction has to be made between the mathematical concepts and the experiences of the mathematicians (which certainly occur in their psyches.)

On the other hand, it seems to me important that the archetypal background of the number concept should not be neglected.

(Among mathematicians themselves there was for quite a while an odd tendency to degrade mathematical statements into mere tautologies.

This endeavor seems to have failed, since it was not possible to understand the consistency of mathematics in this way.)

It is this number archetype that ultimately makes possible the application of mathematics in physics.

On the other hand, the same archetype has a connection to the psyche (cf. trinity, quaternity, mantic, etc.), so that here I feel lies a crucial key for a conceptual expression of the home-usia of physis, psyche, and also of the spirit (ideas, etc.)

This is how I explain to myself the emphasis on number and mathematics in general in my dreams.

The correct conceptual language for expressing this is, I think, not yet known.

Taking a dream from the year 1948 as an example, I would nevertheless like to compare different, albeit not equally complete, ways of expressing similar or closely related facts and circumstances.

a) Physical symbolic language of my dream

My first physics teacher (A. Sommerfeld) appears to me and change in the splitting of the ground state of the H atom is fundamental.

Bronze tones are engraved on a metal plate."

Then I go off to Gottingen.

(The splitting, as the following dream showed, consisted of a sort of mirror image.

In other dreams it was called "isotope separation" instead of "splitting," and "absence" of "the heavier isotope" instead of "mirror image.")

b) Theological metaphysical language.

In the beginning was a God who is a complexio oppositorum (Heraclitus, Nicholas of Cusa).

This God shines down once again in the dark world, which is a likeness of the God (Hennes Trismegistus), even a second God (Plato).

This likeness of God can be "perceived in a minor in a mirror image of man” (Fludd).

The fundamental change is God becoming man, the consequence of which is that the complexio oppositorum is found again in man, as form (idea)-mattter, and always produces the infans solaris in the middle sphere.

c) Language of the psyche, or analytical psychology

What is going on in the dream is a psychic reality-the individuation process-that can happen to everyone.

The process is very similar to the one in Plato's Timaeus.

The initial stage is a dyadic archetype whose proton corresponds to the "same one" and whose electron corresponds to the other one."

Through "reflection" of the unconscious," a quaternity is produced.

The metal plate, as a symbol of the feminine-indestructible and the physis, corresponds to the physically "divisible"' of the Timaeus, the tones, as fleeting-spiritual, correspond to the male principle and the "indivisible."

The "Self" that appears here in the form of the physics teacher states that the physis carries permanently with it the image (eidolon) of the tones (eides), so that there is a consubstantial unity (homo-usia) of both.

The journey to Gottingen- the city of mathematics-at the end of the dream, signifies that the tones are immediately followed in Pythagorean manner by numbers and mathematical formulas (symbols), which is confirmed in the next dream.

The reflection or development of consciousness doubles the original archetype in a (timeless) aspect, which is not assimilable to consciousness, and a further aspect, which, as a reflection of the new consciousness content,
is located in close proximity to the ego (and time).

This is why the splitting, as well as the "isotope separation" (with its absence of the heavier element), is a symbol of the incarnation of the archetype, which also accounts for the numinous character of this symbol.

This is a brief outline of the three languages: the metaphysical one, the psychological one, and the physical dream language.

I do not doubt that in the psychological language there is significant truthfulness to be found; nor do I doubt that you yourself could handle this language much better than I could.

Yet I am of the opinion that this is not the ultimate truth, either.

It does not express everything that dream symbols express-for example, not the fact that the atoms of individual element isotopes have masses (atomic weights) characterized by numbers.

Now in dreams, gravity often signifies the energetic gradient of the unconscious content toward consciousness (e.g., gentle oscillations = end of the gradient and corresponding feeling of being released of consciousness.

Thus the unconscious has the tendency to characterize this energetic gradient of the archetype quantitatively by means of a number, so that the (momentary) mass value would measure the attraction or affinity between archetype and consciousness (i.e., also to space and time!) according to their degree.

But numbers in dreams are not scalars (i.e. as opposed to vectors), as in physics, but are also individual entities, consisting of individual figures which in tum form a sum total.

In short, such numbers are loaded with further unconscious contents.

This is where Neopythagorean elements of the unconscious are involved, which might be a subject for further research.

But the decisive factor for me is the fact that the dreams carry on using physically symbolic language and not psychological language.

I must confess that that this contradicts my rational expectations.

Being a physicist by day I would have expected that nocturnal dreams would behave in a compensatory manner and speak to me in psychological terms.

If they did so, I would accept it without hesitation, but they do not.

They have rather the tendency to extend physics into the indefinite and to leave psychology aside.

So ultimately there is the tendency for my unconscious to take something away from psychology, to relieve its
burden.

Since this is what my dreams have looked like for several years, as if there was a reflux or flowing back of physics from analytical psychology (direction of the gradient: divergence from psychology), I would venture to make the following diagnostic and prognostic conjecture: The "steam" mentioned on p. 6 [above, par 11] turns out to be unconscious physics, which has accumulated over a period of time in your analytical psychology without you having intended it.

Under the influence of the flow of unconscious contents directed away from psychology, future development must entail such an extension of physics, possibly together with biology, so that the psychology of the unconscious can become part of this development.

But it is not capable of development on its own and when left to its own devices.

(I would suspect that your work always brings on your heart condition whenever you unwittingly swim against this current).

In line with this approach, and urged on by the unconscious, I have already begun to take the two languages-the physical dream language of the unconscious and the psychological one of consciousness--and relate them
to each other in the opposite direction as well.

If one has a lexicon for communicating between two languages, then one can translate in both directions.

In order to communicate with you, I shall (as far as my abilities allow) attempt to translate the language of my dreams into that of your psychology.

On my own, I actually often do it the other way round.

I can then see better where there seems to be a gap in the concepts of your psychology (never used in my dreams).

These seem to me to be long-term problems for the future.

The situation with the three languages reminds me vividly of the famous story of the three identical rings – a story that has been handed down in folklore and used and extended by Boccaccio (and later by [Gotthold] Lessing [1729 -1781]); the genuine ring, however, "the one as the fourth” used to be there but has got lost and has not yet been found.

It was originally invented to symbolize the relationship between 3 denominations, and I have the impression that we are experiencing it again with spirit-psyche-matter (physis) and their languages, but on a higher plane.

There is an interesting possibility as to the whereabouts of this genuine fourth ring-namely, in human relationships (and not at all on the intellectual conceptual level), an argument that you presented so cogently in your letter (bottom of p. 3, top of p. 4 [Letter 59]).

Where the feminine is active, it always involves Eros and relationships; the "incarnation" of an archetype
(isotope separation) is thus always a relationship problem.

Such problems are certainly present with me in various ways and play a part in the utterances of my unconscious.

As I hinted in my last letter, there is, for example, a relationship problem with my wife, who, since our trip to India, has had various physical ailments, from which she is making only a slow recovery.

But there is also a problem of relating to your psychology that which cannot be separated from you as a person.

I shall conclude with the assurance that in this respect, too, I shall continue to allow myself to be guided
by the unconscious (be it "psychic" or "neutral").

It seemed to me right and proper to be frank in all I had to say on the subject of your last letter.

Bearing in mind your state of health, I would, however, request you not to reply immediately to this letter, for it is intended as part of a long-term exchange of ideas.

Perhaps there will be an opportunity to continue this discussion at a later date.

With thanks for all the trouble you have taken, and with all best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

W. Pauli ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 102-111

Wolfgang Pauli: Wilhelm’s translation: “Nature’s love is not like human love…”

[Some Greek words have not been translated]

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon, 27 February 1952

It has been a long time since I spoke to you at any length, and in the meantime all sorts of material has accumulated that I would like to tell you about and make available to you.

Now that classes are over for the semester, I can set about putting this long cherished plan into action.

I'm talking about the different considerations and amplifications that your book Aion has triggered.

Apart from astrology, where our views certainly differ, there is still much that has caught my interest-namely, the subject dealt with in chap. V, and also that of chap. XIII and XIV.

It may be of interest to you to see the problems dealt with there from a different angle than the conventional one.

As you well know, when it comes to religion and philosophy, my background is Lao-tse and Schopenhauer (although 1 could expand the time conditioned determinism of the latter with the idea of the complementary pairs of opposites and the acausal factor).

Given this background, your analytical psychology and, 1 believe, your personal mental attitude in general
has always seemed readily accessible to me, but I must confess that specifically Christian religiousness-especially its concept of God- has always left me emotionally and intellectually out on a limb. (I have no emotional resistance to the idea of an unpredictable tyrant such as Jahweh, but the excessive arbitrariness in the cosmos in this idea strikes me as an untenable anthropomorphism from the point of view of natural philopophy.)

In the Lao-tse world-picutre, the problem of evil does not exist, as can be seen particularly in Taoteking no. 5 (“Nict Liebe nach Menschenart hat die Natur… [Wilhelm’s translation: “Nature’s love is not like human love…”)

But Lao-tes’s whole concept is better suited to the intuitive world-picutre of the Chinese, whereas Western science and its perceptions are alien to it.

This does not mean that I would go so far as to claim that Lao-tse’s point of view, however satisfying it seems to me, is the last word on these matters as far as the Western world is concerned.

On the other hand, Schopenhauer’s philosophy-also because it mediates between the West and East Asia-enables me to have much easier access to your book Aion.

For I was always of the opinion that it was precisely the privatio boni that was the bone of contention that led Schopenhauer to reject the ,” as he called it.

From a critical point of view, I should like to say myself that what is being rejected here is only the idea of a humanlike consciousness in God.

I actually tend to identify Schopenhauer’s so-called will (the way he uses the word has not gained currency at all) with the of the Gnostics, which is mentions on pp. 278-82 of Aion [CW 9ii, pars. 299-304].

Such an “unknowing God,” remains innocent and cannot be held morally responsible, emotionally and intellectually the difficulty no longer arises of reconciling him with the existence of sin and evil.

I can happily agree with your view that the emotional and intellectual discussion of the "problem of evil" has once again become an urgent necessity for modern man.

This is particularly true for a physicist now that the possibility of using the results of physics for the purposes of mass destruction is just around the corner.

Even when there is no direct involvement in such a use of physics, it is possible that unless this discussion takes place, it can lead to a certain stagnation in the physics (because in the unconscious the libido will flow away and hence also the interest in physics in the narrower sense of the term).

Given the central role plays by the doctrine of privatio boni here (I believe that a lot of people today-like you or me-will tend to reject it).

I have investigated the historical origins of this tenet.

My work on Kepler had also led me to look more closely at Neoplatonism (since Kepler was strongly influenced by Proclus, Fludd, and Iamblichus-though as an alchemist he followed Aristotle much more than Plato or the Neoplatonists).

And I saw not only how Scotus Eriugena (who I felt to be a very weak sort of Christian) was a prominent promulgator of the privatio boni but also that Plotinus (whom I read in translation last summer) supported it as a basically full-fledged doctrine.

At the same time, he gives the impression that there is powerful opposition to this tenet on the part of the
Gnostics.

I was also struck by the fact that according to Plotinus, matter is supposed to be a pure privatio and "absolutely evil" to boot; furthermore, evil, evidently as understood by Parmenides, is depicted as "nonbeing."

Recently I met Prof. Howald at a social gathering and asked him about Neoplatonism; he kindly pointed out that Dr. H. R. Schwyzer had just written a lengthy paper on Plotinus.

This led to an exchange of letters between Dr. Schwyzer and myself, as a result of which I was able to substantially increase my knowledge of the story of the privatio boni: Whereas Plato never uses the word nor the word Aristotle' polemicizes (together with Parmenides and his school) against the equating of v).'7 with arip'Iatr;.

So even in those days there must have been people of note who supported the idea that the v).'7 no quale was simply a adp'7a'r; of the "Ideas." (Actually one can, if one chooses, interpret Plato in this way: but that seems to me to be doing Plato a grave injustice.)

In this equation of v).'7 with arip'Iatr; I am inclined to see the older model of natural philosophy (which for me as a physicist is interesting in itself), which was the basis for the later privatio boni.

Later the v).'7 was designated ro Kal,6v by the Neo-pythagoreans.

It seems—in accordance with the idea of your book Aion—that at the time all pairs of opposites were related to the one pair of opposites that was growing in importance==namely, “good-evil.”
Parallel to this is the identification of the “One” with the “Good,” which actually begins back with the early commentators on Plato.

This is what I regard as the model for the theological formula that you mentions, deus Summum bonum.

With Plotinus this has all been elaborated into a doctrine, enhanced by the distinction between the xxx and the xx (This last distinction gives rise to the Plotinistic “Trinity” to XX, XXXX, XXX, whose members are arranged in hierarchical order, unlike in Christian Trinity, where they are of equal importance.)

Whereas everone agrees that Plotinus, who never mentions Christians, never knew the Bible and was not influenced by Christians, there is, conversely, clear evidence of the influence of Plotinus on Christian theology, especially on Augustine (and also on Basilius, whom you quote).

One has the impression that the intellectual formulas of Neoplatonism fell into the laps of the early Christian theologians like ripe fruit.

All they had to do was a little editing in order to harmonize them with the Bible and their conception of God.

At this point I should like to raise for discussion the question of what this whole development in ancient philosophy since Parmenides means psychologically, and your views on the subject would be of great interest to me.

I myself have the impression that especially the story of the Plato commentaries actually corresponds to the dissociation of an early uniform archetype into a light (Noplatonists) and a dark one (Gnositcs).

This division is probably the same as that which appears later as “Christ” and “Antichrist.”

I also suspect that the “being” and “nobeing” things with Parmenides correspond psychologically to the “should be being” (desired) and “should not be being” (undesired) ones.

Parmenides was the reaction to Heraclitus.

For the latter, there is only the “process of becoming,” represented as a permanent living fire; the pairs of opposites are treated symmetrically and God is a coincidentia oppositorum (as later in Christian form with Nicholas of Cusa).

With Parmenides, there is not becoming (there can be no thinking

Cusa).

With Parmenides, there is no becoming (there can be no thinking about "nonbeing" nor hence about "becoming." since it is devoid of characteristics), the pairs of opposites are treated unsymmetrically favor of the "being,” which is presented as a stationary sphere.

Psychologically speaking, this is yearing for peace and quiet (lack of conflict) as against the dispute (war) of “Heraclitus,” who could “never step twice into the same river.”

The ensuing extremely strong devaluation of matter is for me a sort of rationalized withdrawal from the world.

It strikes me as psychologically significant that it was precisely "those who denied the notion of becoming" who, with their static "ideal world," gradually came to interpret matter, and then evil, as simply a "lack."

I can well understand that on a feeling level these philosophical ideas can be intensified into a form of "provocation" and on a thinking level into a logical contradiction if they are connected with the Biblical idea of a "Creator tor God" who is also supposed to be "almighty," "only good," and "omniscient" in the bargain."

As you can see, your chap. V has taken me quite a way back to antiquity (and to the classical philologists).

After this excursion into history, let us now return to the point where I ascertained that Schopenhauer's "will" and the "unknowing Cod" of the Gnostics were the same.

Is it possible for this "agnosis” of Cod, which allows this God to retain his innocence, to be of help to modern man philosophically and on a feeling level?

This is a crucial and difficult question on which I cannot take any direct stance, not being a metaphysician.

But if I attempt to look at the question from a psychological point of view, then I have to put the other question instead, namely, whether my own feeling connection to the unconscious (and especially to its superior masculine figures, such as the “stranger”) is similar to that of Schopenhauer to his “will.”

Then I immediately realize that there are crucial differences.

Schopenhauer’s feeling attitude to the “will” is negative and pessimistic.

But my own feeling attitude to the “stranger” is that I want to help him, for I see him as in need of redemption.

What he is striving for is his own transformation, and in this ego consciousness must cooperate in such a way that at the same time it broadens and grows.

I must leave open the question of what the ultimate aims and laws of this transformations are, but his problem is closely related to the laws of this transformation are, but this problem is closely related to the questions dealt with in chap. XIV of Aion.

In the spring of 1951, I had a dream in which the word “automorphism” cropped up (it is a word taken from mathematics).

It is the word for the ascribing to others one’s own characteristics, and isomorphism of an algebraic system with itself, in other words, for a process in which inner symmetry, the wealth of associations (relations) of a system reveals itself.

In abstract algebra there is also “the automorphism-producing elements” (which I cannot specify here), and in the analogy they probably correspond to the “archetypes” as ordering factors, as you yourself defined and interpreted them in 1946.

My interpretation of the dream at the time (it was a proper examination, with the “stranger” as examiner, in which the word “automorphism” had the effect of a "mantra") was that a generic term was being sought that was to cover both your concept of the archetypes as well as the physical laws of nature.

This is why I read with great interest your formula on p. 370 of Aion [CW 9ii, par. 410] when the book came out.

For a mathematician, it would be an obvious thing to do to apply the term "automorphism" to the relationship of the small square to the large one.

What also occurred to me was that the quaternio on p. 99 of your article on synchronicity [CW 8, par. 961] (on which we had agreed) can also be written thus:

3-dimensional space belongs to one-dimensional time and correspondingly the (also indestructible) momentum (3 components corresponding to the 3 space dimensions) belongs to the (one-component) energy.

The small squares then correspond to the four-dimensionality of the space-time continuum and the 4 figures for energy and momentum.

Thus it seems to me that in the generic term "automorphism" is where the possibility lies for further progress, especially as it belongs to a neutral language (in relation to Physis and psyche) and as it also indicates a complementarity of oneness and plurality (or singularity and generality), cf. Aion, P·99 [CW 9ii, pars. 15-16].

Now insofar as these images of the "Self" (or the Son of God) are subject to laws or destiny or the necessity of those transformations, they appear as in need of redemption, and there arises a psychological (also feeling-toned) connection between them and man (or his consciousness of self).

We do not know whether these transformations all return to their original form or whether they represent an evolution toward unknown objectives.

(You hinted at the latter in connection with your formula on p. 370 [CW 9ii, par. 410] by mentioning a "higher level,” which is attained by the process of transformation or integration.)

I would enjoy talking to you about what this actually means in terms of everyday living with regard to the attitude toward ethical or moral problems.

The conclusion to this letter leads me back to the excursion into history.

It was those who denied the process of becoming (the "static ones) who came up with the idea of the “privatio."

Thus it comes as no surprise to me that those modern thinkers who—like yourself—are now once again pleading he case for a symmetrical treatment of the pairs of opposites are also closer to the concept of becoming (the stationary sphere of Parmenides).

By way of apology for this lengthy letter, all I can say is that it has taken me about a year to now be able to write it.

I remain with best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

W. Pauli ~W. Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 74-81

Carl Jung: A similar idea is to be found in Ch’uang-tze.

Dear Mr. Pauli, May 20, 1952

I read your kind letter with great interest.

I chose the expression incarnation more or less at random, albeit obviously under the influence of religious symbolism.

As incarnation continua, it is synonymous with creation continua and actually means the materialization of a potentially available reality, an actualization of the mundus potentialis of the first day of creation, or the Unus Mundus, in which there are as yet no distinctions or differences.

(This is a piece of alchemical philosophy.)

A similar idea is to be found in Ch’uang-tze.

In actual fact, I do not see any real possibility of deciding on the question of whether the “rotation"-i.e., the course of events-runs cyclically in itself or spirally.

All we have is the experience in the psychic sphere that the initial stage is unconscious, the final stage conscious.

In the field of biology we have the fact that alongside the further continuation of lower organisms, highly complex living creatures also came into being, as did, ultimately, the unique fact of reflected consciousness (i.e., I know that I am conscious").

These facts suggest at least the possibility of an “analogia entis.," i.e., the fact that these partial aspects of being probably correspond to a general characteristic of the state of being.

To me, the psychological problem really seems to lie at the very heart of modem-day living.

Unless we tackle this stumbling block, it will not be possible to give any uniform description or interpretation of nature.

As regards "flying saucers," I had hitherto been of the opinion that it was a “mass hallucination" (whatever that may be).

But now it seems that the problem is being taken seriously by the relevant military authorities in America- hence my curiosity.

The meteor was good, and was indeed a (All good things lie in the -----)

With best greetings and many thanks for your ever wonderfully stimulating conversation.
Yours sincerely,

[C. C. Jung] ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Page 83

Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli on "Synchronicity" and "Radioactivity"

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon-Zurich, 12 December 1950

I was very pleased to receive your long letter, not just because it made a lot of things clear but also because it provided me with more food for thought.

Re 2. In my last letter, I suggested that synchronicity should be defined in a narrower sense so as to comprise effects that only appear when there is a
small number of individual cases but disappear when there is a larger number; you, however, have now done the opposite by means of a definition of
synchronicity which, in a broader sense, comprises every acausal and-I should like to add-holistic system.

You do this so that the non-psychic among these systems-namely, the compiled facts of "statistical correspondence" in quantum physics-also come under the same general category.

What has so far prevented me from adopting the broader term is the fear that with the more generally defined term too much might get lost that is specific to psychic and half-psychic synchronicity.

In quantum physics, there are not just effects that appear with large numbers instead of with small ones, and not only is the term "meaning" not the right one here (which you have written about at great length) but also the concept of the (psychic or psychoid) archetype cannot be used so lightly in the acausalities of microphysics.

So if one wishes to use the more extensive definition of synchronicity, then one must deal with the question of which is the more general case that includes as a special case that of the archetype as ordering factor.

In quantum physics, the observer makes a conscious choice (which always implies a sacrifice) between mutually exclusive experimental setups.

Nature replies to this man-made setup in such a way that the result in the individual case cannot be predicted and cannot be influenced by observer; but when this type of experiment is conducted on several occasions there is a reproducible static regularity, which is in itself a holistic orderedness of nature.

The experimental setup forms a whole that cannot be divided up into parts without fundamentally changing and affecting the results so that in nuclear physics the definition of the term “phenomenon” which must also include the particulars of the whole experimental setup in which it occurs.

Thus, the more general question seems to me the one about the different types of holistic, acausal forms of orderedness in nature and the conditions surrounding their occurrence.

This can either be spontaneous or "induced" -i.e., the result of an experiment devised and conducted by human beings.

The latter is also what happens with mantic methods, but the result of the experiment cannot be predicted here (e.g., the throwing of a coin when consulting the oracle); it is just assumed that there is a "connection through equivalence" (meaning) between the result of the physical process and the psychic state of the person conducting the experiment.

In cases of non-psychic acausality, on the other hand, the statistical result as such is reproducible, which is why one can speak here of a "law of probability" instead of an "ordering lactor" (archetype).

Just as the mantic methods point to the archetypal element in the concept of number, the archetypal element in quantum physics is to be found in the (mathematical) concept of probability-i.e., in the actual correspondence between the expected result, worked out with the aid of this concept, and the empirically measured frequencies.

In connection with this, it should be noted that the specialized field "Fundamentals of Mathematics" is in a state of great confusion at the moment as a result of a large-scale undertaking to deal with these question, an endeavor that failed because it was one-sided and divorced from nature.

In this field of research into the fundamentals of mathematics, the "basis of mathematical probability calculus" marks a particular low point.

After reading an article on this subject in a journal, I was dismayed at the difference, of opinion, and later I heard that, whenever possible, experts avoid discussing this subject on the grounds that they now they will not be able to agree!

A psychological approach would be both appropriate and very useful here.

It seems to me absolutely essential that when you talk about physical discontinuities in chap. IV, you should indicate clearly the distinctions of terminology between the non-psychic acausal ordering systems on the one
hand and the half-psychic and psychic synchronicities on the other.

In your letter, you actually promised that you would do this.

Bearing this in mind, I have once again carefully weighed up the pros and cons of the narrower and broader definitions of ‘synchronicity.”

Pure logic gives us a free hand to choose either definition.

In such a cae, the deciding factor is intuition, pointing the way to the future as it does, but his is psychology and the branch of psychology that I am particularly interested in-namely the scientific formation of concepts.

With me, the intuitive function has such a strong tendency toward the apprehension of holistic structures that despite all arguments to the contrary, I find myself leaning toward your broader definition: Given the impossibility of a direct application of the term “archetype” in microphysics, I am more inclined to believe that the present term “archetype” is inadequate rather than that your broader definition is in itself inappropriate.

For since your essay in Eranos Jahrbuch for 1946 [see Letter 37, n.1.], it seems to me that the term "archetype" is going through a phase of great change at the moment, and my intuition leads me to suspect that more changes are in the offing.

What is of consequence here is that several other important changes can be applied in both psychology and physics without that having been specifically so intended: similarity. acausality. ordering. Correspondence, pairs of opposites, and wholeness.

If the decision is now made to adopt the broader interpretation of the counter-principle to causality, then I have no doubt that your new formula of the "world picture quaternio" (p, 4 of your letter [46, par, 5]), which
corresponds to my earlier wishes anyway, is exactly the proper expression.

If you extended chap, IV along these lines, it would be very different and in some respects more than simply a "resume"; it would be a glimpse into the future of natural philosophy.

Re 3. I was a little surprised at the note of resignation in your letter in the way you commented on your sentences referring to radioactivity and field, for there seems to be no objective reason for such resignation.

But in my explanation of my own point of view, I myself must also become psychological, otherwise I shall fail to deal with all the essentials; I am happy to swap roles and expose myself to the full brunt of your criticism.

As regards the "dreamlikeness" of your physical concepts, or your ideas in general, it seems to me that they are only accurate to a certain degree, when you say in your letter that they are based on the absence of abstract-mathematical character and on their "concreteness.”

I know a lot of people (such as chemists and radiologists) who approach physics from the experimental angle, and they all assure me that they have to imagine the physical conceptions "graphically," since the mathematical-formula apparatus is not accessible to them.

With none of them would I speak of the "dreamlikeness” of their concepts but would rather call their images "concretist.”

The "graphicness" of your physical concepts is much more along the lines of an introverted view, which, as part of the picture, involves psychic ground" processes in the subject, which are to be found alongside the conscious use of physical concepts.

It is this, in my opinion, that defines the dreamlike nature of your concepts, which brings out analogies and
differences.

These "background" processes are not usually perceived, but I believe that they are always present in the unconscious.

I myself know them very well from physical" dreams, and that is why I feel that your “physical” concepts are not only interesting but also accessible to meaningful and rational interpretation if they are simply treated as dream symbols.

This is where I want to bring in my idea of a neutral language (which you were kind enough to quote), this language being interpretable both psychologically and physically, so as thus to obtain the "psychological correspondence" of the physical concepts.

In the case of field and radioactivity, which [as I remarked in my last letter] are not compared with each other by physicists in general, you seem to have particular problems, owing to the fact that a difference in the physical
concepts stands in contrast to a similarity in their psychological correspondence.

But I believe this problem is not a serious one and is based on the fact that a crucial element is missing in your statements in the letter on the subject of the psychological correspondence to radioactivity.

In actual fact, the psychological correspondences to field and radioactivity also seem to differ from each other.

Expressed in the neutral language, what the two have in common is the idea of a conveyance of connections between spatial [and maybe temporal], distantly visible manifestations by means of an invisible reality.

Here both visible and invisible are to be understood in the sense of everyday life.

Both electromagnetic fields and the rays emitted by radioactive substances are invisible; it is only their mechanical or chemical effects on material bodies that are visible.

In finding the psychological interpretation of the neutrally formulated idea, one must take into account the fact that illustrative concepts are always based on causal interpretation, even when acausal connections are meant.

Invisible reality can thus be the collective unconscious, visible manifestations can also be conscious concepts [they are "visible" to the subject conceiving], and the causal connection "conveyed" can be a synchronistic one.

As we now move on to the concept of radioactivity, we are struck forcibly by the process of chemical transmutation of the radioactive nucleus as the feature that distinguishes radioactivity from the {static} field theory.

The nucleus is the center of the atom; the radioactive rays generally produce new radioactive centers where they encounter matter.

So let us test the following expression for "radioactivity" in the neutral language: A process of transmutation of an active center, ultimately leading to a stable state, is accompanied by self-duplicating {"multiplying"} and expanding phenomena, associated with further transmutations that are brought about through an invisible reality.

And now one does not have to look far for the psychological interpretation of this neutral expression.

The ‘active nucleus,” familiar to me as a dream symbol, has a close relationship to the lapis of the alchemists, and thus in your terminology is a symbol of the “Self.”

The transformation process as a psychic process is still the same today as that represented in the alchemical opus and consists of the transition of the “Self” into a more conscious state.

This process (at certain stages at least) is accompanied by the “multiplication” – i.e., by multiple outward manifestation of an archetype (this being the “invisible reality”), which again is the same as the “breaking of barriers through contingency” or “transgressivity” of the archetype type that you talk about in your letter.
The transformation process is the missing item in your letter when you talk of the psychological correspondence to radioactivity.

The psychic process is the same as with the alchemists, but in the physical process of radioactivity not only has the transmutation of the chemical element become reality, but acausality has now appeared on the scene in our conscious scientific ideas.

This symbolism, in contrast to that of the alchemists, seems to be more differentiated and more highly developed.

Whether or not you delete or elucidate the sentences on pages 9 and 10 of your work is a purely technical
question; an explanation might become too long-winded.·

Re 4. What you say about the "relativity of mass' and the PK experiments still seems to me very obscure, but perhaps that is all we can say about it at the moment, given the current level of our knowledge.

With the prefigured image of the test person, I actually did not mean a conscious conception but an unconscious prefigured image, operating from the unconscious.

As to your "quick" question about the positive result of the Rhine experiments when large numbers of dice are involved, I cannot come up with an answer.

I am very happy about this correspondence, for I now have the feeling that there is a real exchange of views on both sides about all these borderline problems.

Enclosed please find McConnell's work.

Please let me know when you need your manuscript back.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely, W P. ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 63-67


Dear Professor, 23 January 1951

I am particularly indebted to you for having given me new heart.

When I enter the sphere of physical or mathematical thinking sensu strictiori, I lose all understanding of what the term synchronicity means; I feel as though I am groping my way through dense fog.

This feeling is obviously due to the fact that I do not understand the mathematical or physical implications of the word, which you certainly do.

I could imagine that, for similar reasons, the psychological aspect seems unclear to you.

As regards the narrower and broader meaning of the term synchronicity, which you have explained so clearly, it seems to me as “synchronicity” in the narrower sense is characterized not just by the aspect of the archetypal situation but also by acausality.

The archetype certainly characterizes the psychic and half-psychic: “Synchronicity” cases, but I wonder whether the "anomaly" of the so-called causal law-namely, acausality-is not a more general characteristic and "super ordinated" condition than the archetypal basis that can be traced in psychic and half-psychic “Synchronicity” cases.

The latter can only be ascertained as present through introspection but remains hidden to the outsider as long as I do not inform him of my observation.

If I keep my observations to myself, the former can only ascertain an acausal "so-ness” ["So-sein"]. especially in those cases where the archetypal tertium comparationis is not obvious (as in the case of the scarab, for example).

Like the time when I was working on the psychology of "Das Wandlungssymbol in der Messe [Transformation Symbol in the Mass) ," approaching it from the angle of alchemy, it happened that a serpent tried to swallow a fish that was too large for it and consequently choked.

Fish is the other Eucharistic food, and in this case it is seized not by the person but by the chthonic spirit, the mercurial serpent.

(Fish = Christ. Serpent = Christ and the feminine darkness principle.)

At the time, I was the observer on the outside whho could only see the coincidence but not the common archytypal basis; i.e., I did not understand how the serpent corresponded to the Mass.

But I did feel very strongly that the case was one of meaningful coincidence-i.e., not just an irrelevant “so-ness” situation.

In this case, the only distinguishing feature is the presence of acausality, and in such situations and similar ones it is precisely this that has given me the idea of acausality is the more general definition, whereas the archetype is a characteristic that can be perceived occasionally where, almost by chance, an insight is possible.

Now if there are “nontransparent” cases of synchronicity even in the psychic sphere, then they are even likelier in the half-psychic or physical sphere.

In other words, what should emerge is that the general case is the acausal “so-ness” one, whereas “Synchronicity” is the causus particularis of a transparent “so-ness” situation.

But I can tum the argument around and say: Introspection teaches me that the archetype is characteristic of “Synchronicity” i.e., I is that special case of acausality in which the archetype can be perceived as the (transcendental) basis.

This perception is possible because the acausal case occurs (by chance) in the psychic sphere, where something can be perceived from inside through introspection; in the half-psychic, this is less possible and not at all in the
physical one.

With the merely psychoid (transcendental) nature of the archetype, its purely physical occurrence is by no means precluded.

It can thus be both the basis of the purely psychic and half-psychic synchronicity as well as physical acausality in general.

The old precept of the croatio continua and the correspondentia was applied to nature as a whole and Dot just
the psyche.

I fully agree with you that the synchronicity of the psychic sphere must be conceptually separated from the discontinuities of microphysics.

But this leaves open the question of whether one should subsume the facts of psychic “Synchronicity” i.e., the archetypal characteristic-to a general causality or subsume the latter to the universal validity of the archetype.

In the latter case, this would give rise to a Platonic world-picture with a mundus archetypus as its model: In the former, the I would appear with its archetypal characteristic as a psychic "anomaly" of general causality, just as acausality would need to be its physical anomaly.

Your idea that the probability concept in mathematics corresponds to the archetype was most illuminating.

In fact, the archetype represents nothing else but the probability of psychic events.

To a certain extent, it is the symbolically anticipated result of a psychic statistic.

This can probably be best seen in the tendency of the archetype to keep producing and confirming itself (cf. the reinstatement of a Goddess in Christian Olympus).

I am, of course, very pleased that you have indicated your inclination to consider seriously the extension of the “Synchronicity” theory.

Under these circumstances, you are fully justified in demanding a new interpretation of the term archetype.

It seems to me that the way to achieve this is via the analogy archetype-probability.

In physical terms, probability corresponds to the so-called law of nature; psychically, it corresponds to the archetype.

Law and archetype are both modi and abstract ideal cases that occur only in modified form in empirical reality.

My definition of the archetype as “pattern of behavior” accords with this interpretation.

But whereas in the sciences the law appears exclusively as abstraction derived from experience, in psychology
we encounter an a priori existing image, already complete as far as can be judged; this image occurs spontaneously, in dreams, for example, and possesses an autonomous numinosity, as if Someone had stated in advance with great authority: "What is coming now is of great significance."

This strikes me as being in sharp contrast to the a posteriori character of the law of nature.

If that were not so, one would have to assume that the image-for example, of radioactivity-had always been present and that the real discovery of radioactivity (in this case) would simply be this particular image becoming
conscious.

The way you deal with the image of the lapis raises the question for me of whether ultimately the symbols accompanying the lapis, such as the multiplicatio, do not indicate a transcendental basis common to both the physical and the psychic.

So although everything seems to indicate that radioactivity and its laws are something perceived a posteriori, it is nevertheless fundamentally impossible to prove that the law of nature is actually based on something toto coelo different from what we in psychology call archetype.

For in the end the law of nature, irrespective of its obviously empirical derivation, is always a psychic form as well, and nolens volens also has its origins in psychic premises.

Under these conditions, the analogy between the archetype and the constellation effects it radiates on the one hand, and the way the active nucleus affects its surroundings on the other, mean rather more than a simple metaphor, and the psychic transformation process would be, as you point out, the actual correspondence to radioactivity.

I shall now set about extending my manuscript along the lines of what we have agreed on and hope that I succeed in expressing myself clearly.

I shall close by once again expressing my thanks for the friendly and helpful interest you have shown,

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely, C.G.

~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 68-70

Wolfgang Pauli: I suggested that synchronicity should be defined in a narrower sense

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon-Zurich, 12 December 1950

I was very pleased to receive your long letter, not just because it made a lot of things clear but also because it provided me with more food for thought.

Re 2. In my last letter, I suggested that synchronicity should be defined in a narrower sense so as to comprise effects that only appear when there is a small number of individual cases but disappear when there is a larger number; you, however, have now done the opposite by means of a definition of synchronicity which, in a broader sense, comprises every acausal and-I should like to add-holistic system.

You do this so that the non-psychic among these systems-namely, the compiled facts of "statistical correspondence" in quantum physics-also come under the same general category.

What has so far prevented me from adopting the broader term is the fear that with the more generally defined term too much might get lost that is specific to psychic and half-psychic synchronicity.

In quantum physics, there are not just effects that appear with large numbers instead of with small ones, and not only is the term "meaning" not the right one here (which you have written about at great length) but also the concept of the (psychic or psychoid) archetype cannot be used so lightly in the acausalities of microphysics.

So if one wishes to use the more extensive definition of synchronicity, then one must deal with the question of which is the more general case that includes as a special case that of the archetype as ordering factor.

In quantum physics, the observer makes a conscious choice (which always implies a sacrifice) between mutually exclusive experimental setups.

Nature replies to this man-made setup in such a way that the result in the individual case cannot be predicted and cannot be influenced by observer; but when this type of experiment is conducted on several occasions there is a reproducible static regularity, which is in itself a holistic orderedness of nature.

The experimental setup forms a whole that cannot be divided up into parts without fundamentally changing and affecting the results so that in nuclear physics the definition of the term “phenomenon” which must also include the particulars of the whole experimental setup in which it occurs.

Thus, the more general question seems to me the one about the different types of holistic, acausal forms of orderedness in nature and the conditions surrounding their occurrence.

This can either be spontaneous or "induced" -i.e., the result of an experiment devised and conducted by human beings.

The latter is also what happens with mantic methods, but the result of the experiment cannot be predicted here (e.g., the throwing of a coin when consulting the oracle); it is just assumed that there is a "connection through equivalence" (meaning) between the result of the physical process and the psychic state of the person conducting the experiment.

In cases of non-psychic acausality, on the other hand, the statistical result as such is reproducible, which is why one can speak here of a "law of probability" instead of an "ordering factor" (archetype).

Just as the mantic methods point to the archetypal element in the concept of number, the archetypal element in quantum physics is to be found in the (mathematical) concept of probability-i.e., in the actual correspondence between the expected result, worked out with the aid of this concept, and the empirically measured frequencies.

In connection with this, it should be noted that the specialized field "Fundamentals of Mathematics" is in a state of great confusion at the moment as a result of a large-scale undertaking to deal with these question, an endeavor that failed because it was one-sided and divorced from nature.

In this field of research into the fundamentals of mathematics, the "basis of mathematical probability calculus" marks a particular low point.

After reading an article on this subject in a journal, I was dismayed at the difference, of opinion, and later I heard that, whenever possible, experts avoid discussing this subject on the grounds that they now they will not be able to agree!

A psychological approach would be both appropriate and very useful here.

It seems to me absolutely essential that when you talk about physical discontinuities in chap. IV, you should indicate clearly the distinctions of terminology between the non-psychic acausal ordering systems on the one hand and the half-psychic and psychic synchronicities on the other.

In your letter, you actually promised that you would do this.

Bearing this in mind, I have once again carefully weighed up the pros and cons of the narrower and broader definitions of ‘synchronicity.”

Pure logic gives us a free hand to choose either definition.

In such a cae, the deciding factor is intuition, pointing the way to the future as it does, but his is psychology and the branch of psychology that I am particularly interested in-namely the scientific formation of concepts.

With me, the intuitive function has such a strong tendency toward the apprehension of holistic structures that despite all arguments to the contrary, I find myself leaning toward your broader definition: Given the impossibility of a direct application of the term “archetype” in microphysics, I am more inclined to believe that the present term “archetype” is inadequate rather than that your broader definition is in itself inappropriate.

For since your essay in Eranos Jahrbuch for 1946 [see Letter 37, n.1.], it seems to me that the term "archetype" is going through a phase of great change at the moment, and my intuition leads me to suspect that more changes are in the offing.

What is of consequence here is that several other important changes can be applied in both psychology and physics without that having been specifically so intended: similarity. acausality. ordering. Correspondence, pairs of opposites, and wholeness.

If the decision is now made to adopt the broader interpretation of the counter-principle to causality, then I have no doubt that your new formula of the "world picture quaternio" (p, 4 of your letter [46, par, 5]), which corresponds to my earlier wishes anyway, is exactly the proper expression.

If you extended chap, IV along these lines, it would be very different and in some respects more than simply a "resume"; it would be a glimpse into the future of natural philosophy.

Re 3. I was a little surprised at the note of resignation in your letter in the way you commented on your sentences referring to radioactivity and field, for there seems to be no objective reason for such resignation.

But in my explanation of my own point of view, I myself must also become psychological, otherwise I shall fail to deal with all the essentials; I am happy to swap roles and expose myself to the full brunt of your criticism.

As regards the "dreamlikeness" of your physical concepts, or your ideas in general, it seems to me that they are only accurate to a certain degree, when you say in your letter that they are based on the absence of abstract-mathematical character and on their "concreteness.”

I know a lot of people (such as chemists and radiologists) who approach physics from the experimental angle, and they all assure me that they have to imagine the physical conceptions "graphically," since the mathematical-formula apparatus is not accessible to them.

With none of them would I speak of the "dreamlikeness” of their concepts but would rather call their images "concretist.”

The "graphicness" of your physical concepts is much more along the lines of an introverted view, which, as part of the picture, involves psychic ground" processes in the subject, which are to be found alongside the conscious use of physical concepts.

It is this, in my opinion, that defines the dreamlike nature of your concepts, which brings out analogies and
differences.

These "background" processes are not usually perceived, but I believe that they are always present in the unconscious.

I myself know them very well from physical" dreams, and that is why I feel that your “physical” concepts are not only interesting but also accessible to meaningful and rational interpretation if they are simply treated as dream symbols.

This is where I want to bring in my idea of a neutral language (which you were kind enough to quote), this language being interpretable both psychologically and physically, so as thus to obtain the "psychological correspondence" of the physical concepts.

In the case of field and radioactivity, which [as I remarked in my last letter] are not compared with each other by physicists in general, you seem to have particular problems, owing to the fact that a difference in the physical concepts stands in contrast to a similarity in their psychological correspondence.

But I believe this problem is not a serious one and is based on the fact that a crucial element is missing in your statements in the letter on the subject of the psychological correspondence to radioactivity.

In actual fact, the psychological correspondences to field and radioactivity also seem to differ from each other.

Expressed in the neutral language, what the two have in common is the idea of a conveyance of connections between spatial [and maybe temporal], distantly visible manifestations by means of an invisible reality.

Here both visible and invisible are to be understood in the sense of everyday life.

Both electromagnetic fields and the rays emitted by radioactive substances are invisible; it is only their mechanical or chemical effects on material bodies that are visible.

In finding the psychological interpretation of the neutrally formulated idea, one must take into account the fact that illustrative concepts are always based on causal interpretation, even when acausal connections are meant.

Invisible reality can thus be the collective unconscious, visible manifestations can also be conscious concepts [they are "visible" to the subject conceiving], and the causal connection "conveyed" can be a synchronistic one.

As we now move on to the concept of radioactivity, we are struck forcibly by the process of chemical transmutation of the radioactive nucleus as the feature that distinguishes radioactivity from the {static} field theory.

The nucleus is the center of the atom; the radioactive rays generally produce new radioactive centers where they encounter matter.

So let us test the following expression for "radioactivity" in the neutral language: A process of transmutation of an active center, ultimately leading to a stable state, is accompanied by self-duplicating {"multiplying"} and expanding phenomena, associated with further transmutations that are brought about through an invisible reality.

And now one does not have to look far for the psychological interpretation of this neutral expression.

The ‘active nucleus,” familiar to me as a dream symbol, has a close relationship to the lapis of the alchemists, and thus in your terminology is a symbol of the “Self.”

The transformation process as a psychic process is still the same today as that represented in the alchemical opus and consists of the transition of the “Self” into a more conscious state.

This process (at certain stages at least) is accompanied by the “multiplication” – i.e., by multiple outward manifestation of an archetype (this being the “invisible reality”), which again is the same as the “breaking of barriers through contingency” or “transgressivity” of the archetype type that you talk about in your letter.
The transformation process is the missing item in your letter when you talk of the psychological correspondence to radioactivity.

The psychic process is the same as with the alchemists, but in the physical process of radioactivity not only has the transmutation of the chemical element become reality, but acausality has now appeared on the scene in our conscious scientific ideas.

This symbolism, in contrast to that of the alchemists, seems to be more differentiated and more highly developed.

Whether or not you delete or elucidate the sentences on pages 9 and 10 of your work is a purely technical question; an explanation might become too long-winded.·

Re 4. What you say about the "relativity of mass' and the PK experiments still seems to me very obscure, but perhaps that is all we can say about it at the moment, given the current level of our knowledge.

With the prefigured image of the test person, I actually did not mean a conscious conception but an unconscious prefigured image, operating from the unconscious.

As to your "quick" question about the positive result of the Rhine experiments when large numbers of dice are involved, I cannot come up with an answer.

I am very happy about this correspondence, for I now have the feeling that there is a real exchange of views on both sides about all these borderline problems.

Enclosed please find McConnell's work.

Please let me know when you need your manuscript back.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely, W P. ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 63-67


Dear Professor, 23 January 1951

I am particularly indebted to you for having given me new heart.

When I enter the sphere of physical or mathematical thinking sensu strictiori, I lose all understanding of what the term synchronicity means; I feel as though I am groping my way through dense fog.

This feeling is obviously due to the fact that I do not understand the mathematical or physical implications of the word, which you certainly do.

I could imagine that, for similar reasons, the psychological aspect seems unclear to you.

As regards the narrower and broader meaning of the term synchronicity, which you have explained so clearly, it seems to me as “synchronicity” in the narrower sense is characterized not just by the aspect of the archetypal situation but also by acausality.

The archetype certainly characterizes the psychic and half-psychic: “Synchronicity” cases, but I wonder whether the "anomaly" of the so-called causal law-namely, acausality-is not a more general characteristic and "super ordinated" condition than the archetypal basis that can be traced in psychic and half-psychic “Synchronicity” cases.

The latter can only be ascertained as present through introspection but remains hidden to the outsider as long as I do not inform him of my observation.

If I keep my observations to myself, the former can only ascertain an acausal "so-ness” ["So-sein"]. especially in those cases where the archetypal tertium comparationis is not obvious (as in the case of the scarab, for example).

Like the time when I was working on the psychology of "Das Wandlungssymbol in der Messe [Transformation Symbol in the Mass) ," approaching it from the angle of alchemy, it happened that a serpent tried to swallow a fish that was too large for it and consequently choked.

Fish is the other Eucharistic food, and in this case it is seized not by the person but by the chthonic spirit, the mercurial serpent.

(Fish = Christ. Serpent = Christ and the feminine darkness principle.)

At the time, I was the observer on the outside whho could only see the coincidence but not the common archytypal basis; i.e., I did not understand how the serpent corresponded to the Mass.

But I did feel very strongly that the case was one of meaningful coincidence-i.e., not just an irrelevant “so-ness” situation.

In this case, the only distinguishing feature is the presence of acausality, and in such situations and similar ones it is precisely this that has given me the idea of acausality is the more general definition, whereas the archetype is a characteristic that can be perceived occasionally where, almost by chance, an insight is possible.

Now if there are “nontransparent” cases of synchronicity even in the psychic sphere, then they are even likelier in the half-psychic or physical sphere.

In other words, what should emerge is that the general case is the acausal “so-ness” one, whereas “Synchronicity” is the causus particularis of a transparent “so-ness” situation.

But I can tum the argument around and say: Introspection teaches me that the archetype is characteristic of “Synchronicity” i.e., I is that special case of acausality in which the archetype can be perceived as the (transcendental) basis.

This perception is possible because the acausal case occurs (by chance) in the psychic sphere, where something can be perceived from inside through introspection; in the half-psychic, this is less possible and not at all in the
physical one.

With the merely psychoid (transcendental) nature of the archetype, its purely physical occurrence is by no means precluded.

It can thus be both the basis of the purely psychic and half-psychic synchronicity as well as physical acausality in general.

The old precept of the croatio continua and the correspondentia was applied to nature as a whole and Dot just
the psyche.

I fully agree with you that the synchronicity of the psychic sphere must be conceptually separated from the discontinuities of microphysics.

But this leaves open the question of whether one should subsume the facts of psychic “Synchronicity” i.e., the archetypal characteristic-to a general causality or subsume the latter to the universal validity of the archetype.

In the latter case, this would give rise to a Platonic world-picture with a mundus archetypus as its model: In the former, the I would appear with its archetypal characteristic as a psychic "anomaly" of general causality, just as acausality would need to be its physical anomaly.

Your idea that the probability concept in mathematics corresponds to the archetype was most illuminating.

In fact, the archetype represents nothing else but the probability of psychic events.

To a certain extent, it is the symbolically anticipated result of a psychic statistic.

This can probably be best seen in the tendency of the archetype to keep producing and confirming itself (cf. the reinstatement of a Goddess in Christian Olympus).

I am, of course, very pleased that you have indicated your inclination to consider seriously the extension of the “Synchronicity” theory.

Under these circumstances, you are fully justified in demanding a new interpretation of the term archetype.

It seems to me that the way to achieve this is via the analogy archetype-probability.

In physical terms, probability corresponds to the so-called law of nature; psychically, it corresponds to the archetype.

Law and archetype are both modi and abstract ideal cases that occur only in modified form in empirical reality.

My definition of the archetype as “pattern of behavior” accords with this interpretation.

But whereas in the sciences the law appears exclusively as abstraction derived from experience, in psychology
we encounter an a priori existing image, already complete as far as can be judged; this image occurs spontaneously, in dreams, for example, and possesses an autonomous numinosity, as if Someone had stated in advance with great authority: "What is coming now is of great significance."

This strikes me as being in sharp contrast to the a posteriori character of the law of nature.

If that were not so, one would have to assume that the image-for example, of radioactivity-had always been present and that the real discovery of radioactivity (in this case) would simply be this particular image becoming
conscious.

The way you deal with the image of the lapis raises the question for me of whether ultimately the symbols accompanying the lapis, such as the multiplicatio, do not indicate a transcendental basis common to both the physical and the psychic.

So although everything seems to indicate that radioactivity and its laws are something perceived a posteriori, it is nevertheless fundamentally impossible to prove that the law of nature is actually based on something toto coelo different from what we in psychology call archetype.

For in the end the law of nature, irrespective of its obviously empirical derivation, is always a psychic form as well, and nolens volens also has its origins in psychic premises.

Under these conditions, the analogy between the archetype and the constellation effects it radiates on the one hand, and the way the active nucleus affects its surroundings on the other, mean rather more than a simple metaphor, and the psychic transformation process would be, as you point out, the actual correspondence to radioactivity.

I shall now set about extending my manuscript along the lines of what we have agreed on and hope that I succeed in expressing myself clearly.

I shall close by once again expressing my thanks for the friendly and helpful interest you have shown,

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely, C.G.

~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 68-70

Carl Jung on "Synchronicity" and the Half-Life of Radium

Dear Professor, Bollingen 30 Nov 1950

Many thanks for your kind letter and for the time and trouble you have taken with my manuscript.

Your opinions are very important to me, not just in the material itself but also in the light of our different points of view.

Re 1. In reply to your question about any possible "negative" synchronistic effect, I can state that RHINE gives a series of examples in which the initially
positive number of hits is strikingly reversed.

I can well imagine that similar things happen in astrological-experiment setups.

But given the complexity of the situation, they are much more difficult to ascertain, for I am the test person whose interest would need to tum into resistance.

For this purpose, I would need to collect and work on a few hundred horoscopes i.e., until I was absolutely fed up with the whole thing.

Only then could one expect negative results.

Re 2 . What you so fittingly describe as “statistical correspondence" characterizes radioactivity, for example, but not, as you correctly say, synchronicity;
in the former case, the regularity of the half-life period can be ascertained only when there is a large number of individual cases, whereas in the latter the synchronistic effect is there only with a small number and disappears when there is a larger number.

There is in fact no connection between the phenomenon of the half-life period and synchronicity.

If I do bring the two together, then it is on the basis of another analogy which seems to me crucial: Synchronicity could be understood as an ordering system by means of which "similar" things coincide, without there being any apparent "cause."

I now wonder whether it is not so that every state of being that has no conceivable cause (and thus no potentially ascertainable one) falls into the category of synchronicity.

In other words, I see no reason why synchronicity should always just be a coincidence of two psychic states or a psychic state and a non-psychic event.

There may also possibly be coincidences of this kind between non psychic events.

One such case might be the phenomenon of the half-life period.

For the connection of psychic states to each other or to non-psychic events, I use the term "meaning" as a psychically appropriate paraphrasing of the term "similarity." In the coincidences of non-psychic events, one would naturally use the latter term.

[A quick question: could a possible factor here be the odd result in Rhine's dice experiment: which showed that with a small number of dice the results are
bad, whereas with a larger number [20-40] they are positive?

A purely synchronistic effect would be just as conceivable with a small number of dice as with a larger one.

But doesn't the positive result with a larger number indicate an additional synchronistic factor between the dice themselves?

Might there not be a similar harmony with a large number of radium atoms that would not be there with a smaller number?]

Insofar as for me synchronicity represents first and foremost a simple state of being, I am inclined to subsume any instance of causally non-conceivable
states of being into the category of synchronicity.

The psychic and half-psychic cases of synchronicity would be the one subcategory, the non psychic ones the other.

Insofar as physical discontinuities prove to be causally no further irreducible, they represent a "so-ness" ["So-sein"] or a unique ordering factor or a "creative act," just as well as any case of synchronicity.

I fully agree with you that these "effects" are on various levels, and conceptual distinctions should be made between them.

I just wanted to outline the general picture of synchronicity.

As for the world-picture quaternio, our differences of opinion seem to stem from the different nature of our approaches (which I referred to at the beginning).

The "dreamlike nature" of my physical concepts is based essentially on the fact that they are purely illustrative, whereas in your case they have an abstract-mathematical character.

Modem physics, having advanced into another world beyond conceivability, cannot dispense with the concept of a space-time continuum.

Insofar as psychology penetrates into the unconscious, it probably has no alternative but to acknowledge the "indistinctness” or the impossibility of distinguishing between time and space, as well as their psychic relativity.

The world of classical physics has not ceased to exist, and by the same token, the world of consciousness has not lost its validity against the unconscious.

Spatial and temporal definitions of measurement are different, even thugh they can both be applied to phenomena.

Meter and liter are, and will continue to be, incommensurable terms, and no schoolboy would ever say that a lesson lasts for 10 km.

And so space and time are also visual notions that are eternally separate and antithetical in a visual image of the world in spite of its background identity.

Equally, causality is a credible hypothesis because it can be constantly verified.

Nevertheless, the world abounds in “coincidences,” but this proves that it would virtually take laboratories to demonstrate effectively the necessary connection between cause and effect.

“Causality” is a psychologem (and originally a magic virtua) that formulates the connection between events and illustrates them as cause and effect.

Another (incommensurable) approach that does the same thing in a different way is synchronicity.

Both are identical in the higher sense of the term "connection" or "attachment."

But on an empirical and practical level (i.e., in the real world), they are incommensurable and antithetical, like space and time.

Your compromise proposal is most welcome, for it makes the bold attempt to transcend descriptivism and to extend the concrete world-picture by the one beneath the surface; in other words, it is not just on the surface
like my schema.

Your proposal really set my mind working, and I regard it as perfectly suitable for a more complete world-picture.

You have replaced the space-time connection by energy conservation and space-time continuum, and I would now like to propose that instead of "causality" we have "(relatively) constant connection through effect: and instead of synchronicity we have (relatively) constant connection through contingency, equivalence, or "meaning"-i.e., the following quaternio:

Whereas my original schema seems to formulate the world of consciousness quite adequately, this second one satisfies the- requirements of modem physics on the one hand and those of the psychology of the unconscious
on the other hand.

The mundus archetypus of the latter is characterized essentially through the contingence of the archetypes, which causes their indistinctness and also their inability to be localized.

(The archetypes are always “breaking barriers,” meaning that they disturb the sphere of influence of a definite causal agent by-thanks to the autonomy of their (noncausal) connections-assigning contingent factors to a specific causal process.)

Re 3-1 shall probably have to delete the sentence on p. 9 (and p. 10) on radioactivity and field, because I cannot explain it properly.

I would really need to have a good knowledge of physics, which is unfortunately not the case. I can only suggest that although ray energy and field voltage seem to be incommensurable in physical terms, they have, in psychological term an equivalence to the "breaking of barriers" by means of contingence with the archetypes, or they form their physical equivalence.

Perhaps I don't know enough about psychology either to be able to develop these ideas further.

Re 4. The psychic "relativity of mass" is actually a logical outcome of the psychic relativity of time and space, insofar as mass cannot be defined without a concept of space and, when it is moved, not without a concept of time.

If these two concepts are elastic, then mass is undefinable-that is, psychically relative; one could just as well say that mass behaves arbitrarily-that it is contingent with the psychic state.

Nothing is known about any prefigured notions on the part of the test person.

My experience has shown that there aren't any.

If there were, they would only disturb the experiment in my View.

The concept of the relativity of mass does not actually explain anything and neither does the relativity of time and space.

It is simply a formulation.

There is no way of seeing how the term "relativity of mass” can be explained more precisely.

Within the randomness of the throwing of the dice, a "psychic” orderedness comes into being.

Is this modification based on whether the dice are heavier or lighter, or whether their speed is accelerated
or slowed down?

The boundaries of probability are overstepped by mass (i.e., the dice) in exactly the same way as the "knowledge" of the test person acquires improbability.

I seek the explanation for this in the singular nature of the archetype, which sometimes cancels out the constancy of the causal principle and assimilates a physical and a psychic process through contingency.

This synchronistic event can be described as a characteristic of the psyche or mass.

In the former case, the psyche would cast a spell on mass, and in the latter mass would bewitch the psyche.

It is thus more probable that both have the same characteristic, that both are basically contingent and, heedless of their own causal definitions, actually overlap.

A further possibility is that neither mass nor the psyche possesses such a characteristic but that a third factor is present to which it must be attributed, a factor that can be observed in the sphere of the psyche and can be observed from there-namely, the (psychoid) archetype which, thanks to its habitual indistinctness and “transgressivity,” assimilates into each other two incommensurable causal processes (in a so-called numinous moment), creates a joint field of tension (?) or makes them both “radioactive” (?).

I hope I have managed to make myself clear.

Once again, many thanks for your stimulating criticism.

Yours sincerely,

CGJ ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 59-63