Wolfgang Pauli: As a result, I went back to my work on Kepler.

Dream: 25 October 1946

Through the post I receive a casket. Inside it is apparatus for the experimental investigation of cosmic rays.

Next to it is a tall, blond man.

He seems to be somewhat younger than me (maybe between 30 and 40).

He says: "You must force the water up higher than the houses in the city so that the city dwellers will believe you."

Then behind the apparatus in the little box I notice a bunch of keys, 8 in all, arranged in a circle with the key-bits hanging down.

Comment: The water and the city are allusions to earlier dreams.

In these dreams there was a dark, male figure playing a role who appeared as a "Persian" who had not been accepted as a student at the Institute of Technolngy (contrast to the prevailing scientific collective opinion).

"The Blond" and "The Persian" may be dual aspects of one and the same figure (they never appear together).

The figure has an extremely "psychopompos" character and has a similar function to Mercury with the alchemists.

He is not the same as the "wise old man" (also familiar from dreams) , although the main difference is that of age.

It was only in June of the following year that I dreamed that the water had drained off.

Dream: [Zollikon-Ziirich] 28 October 1946

The "Blond" is standing next to me.

In an ancient book I am reading about the Inquisition trials against the disciples of the teachings of Copernicus (Galileo, Giordano Bruno) as well as about Kepler's image of the Trinity.

Then the Blond says: "The men whose wives have objectified rotation are being tried."

These words upset me greatly: The Blond disappears, and to my consternation the book also becomes a dream image: I find myself in a courtroom with the other accused men.

I want to send my wife a message, and I write a note: “Come at once, I am on trial.”

It is getting dark, and for a long time I cannot find anyone to give the note to.

But finally a Negro comes along and says in a friendly way that he will deliver the note to my wife.

Soon after the Negro has left with the note, my wife turns up in fact and says to me: “You forgot to say good night to me.”

Now it starts to get lighter, and the situation is as it was at the beginning (except that my wife is now present, too): The Blond” is standing next to me once more, and I am reading the ancient book again.

Then the Blond says to me sadly (apparently referring to the book): “The judges do not know what rotation or revolution is, and that is why they cannot understand the men,”

With the insistent voice of a teacher, he goes on to say: “But you know what rotation is!”

“Of course” is my immediate reply, “The circulation of the blood and the circulation of light-all that is part of the basic rudiments.”

(This seemed to be a reference to psychology but the word is never mentioned.)

the Blond says: "Now you understand the men whose wives have objectified their their rotation for them."

Then I kiss my wife and say to her: "Good night!

It is terrible what these poor people who have been charged are going through!"

I grow very sad and start crying. But the Blond says with a smile: "Now you've got the first key in your hand."

At this point I woke up and was quite shaken.

The dream was an experience of a numinous character and has deeply influenced my conscious attitude.

As a result, I went back to my work on Kepler.

At that time, apparently (17th cent.), a projection of the mandala and rotation symbolism had occurred externally.

The "accusation" relates to the resistance of collective opinion (see above, comment to the previous dream).

From the higher point of view of acquiring consciousness, the accusation relates to the fact that the men did not know where their wives (=anima) were, nor what their role was in the process of perception.

As you know, I then came across the work of that remarkable fellow R. Fludd, whose anima did not objectify rotation for him since this was able to find its expression in the Rosicrucian mysteries.

This is where the infans solaris is born in the middle sphere, accompanied by the proportia sesquitertia of world time.

Kepler's other proportions could not possibly be of any interest to F1udd, since his anima did not respond to the archetype that modem natural science had produced.

But Fludd knew where the anima was with Kepler and the other scientists: It had moved from the material into the perceiving subject. which aroused deep distrust in F1udd since it was then outside the Rosicrucian mysteries removed from control through consciousness.

It appears that F1udd's voice, which was ignored at the time, is imbued with new meaning, since for the modems the objectifying of space had only limited validity.

The neutral language of the "Blond" in the dream (he did not employ such terms as "physical" or "psychic' but just talks of people who "know what rotation is" and those who do not know) seems to be reanimating that intermediary layer where the infans solaris used to be.

The modern unconscious speaks here of a "radioactive nucleus." ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 30-32

Carl Jung: And the psyche is not a metaphysical concept but an empirical one.

Dear Mr. Pauli, [Zurich] 4 May 1953

I found your lengthy account of your relationship with Mach most interesting.

Please accept my sincere thanks.

It goes without saying that one can never be content with the ascertainable alone, for then, as you rightly point
out, one would not understand anything at all.

What is more, the greatest challenge to our thinking comes from the nonascertainable, and the same is true of our scientific curiosity and sense of adventure.

The real life of knowledge and understanding is played out on the borderline between the ascertainable and the nonascertainable.

It is just that under these circumstances it is rather difficult to see where I should be "positivist" and consequently "eliminate thought processes."

Seeing that I describe physics as a science of ideas with a material label, the material place of origin of these ideas is no more denied than is the place of origin of "intellectual" ideas.

All that is meant by this observation is an epistemological definition, not a practical one.

There will continue to be speculation and intuition about the realm of the nonascertainable, and ascertainable elements will continue to plucked from it as before.

But it should always be borne in mind that the area between the perceived and what is not ascertainable hic et nunc is the area of the psyche.

The fact that I as a psychologist am more preoccupied with archetypes is just as natural as the physicist's preoccupation with atoms.

I do not extend the concept of the psychic to include the nonascertainable, for here I use the speculative concept of the psychoid, which represents an approach to neutral language in that it suggests the presence of a nonpsychic essence.

It is a matter of choice whether one fills up this "essence" with the term "matter."

From the point of view of logic, one can understand Plato's idea of a neutral concept, for which I use the term · psyche"; yet 1 would assign to the psyche a mediatory third position, more or less on the lines of how-in another sense-the alchemists mists viewed the anima as ligammtum corporis et spiritus.

For the psyche is the medium" (i.e., the "Third"), in which ideas of corporeal or intellectual origin occur.

The Platonic concepts of the Same and the Other have nothing to do with his psyche, which is a metaphysical concept, which is a metaphysical concept, which is also why he he had no occasion to identify the “Greek word”, with the psyche.

For us, however, [Greek words] are psychological matters.

And the psyche is not a metaphysical concept but an empirical one.

So if we want to solve this dilemma of the "Third," we have to realize that matter and spirit are two different
concepts that indicate opposites and-as ideas of different origins-are psychic.

But their intention is to depict the nonpsychic.

Insofar as the psyche introduces the two metaphysical-i.e., not immediately ascertainable---essences as concepts, it unites the two opposing essences by endowing them both with a psychical form of existence and thereby raising them to a conscious level.

In this way, one can metaphorically depict the psyche as “Greek Word" and that is what I originally meant.

But if we now take the actual Platonic concept of this thing, then it is a metaphysical matter, one dealt with by the demiurge.

In view of this situation, the psychological explanation must relate the statement of the Timaeus to a background process in which the demiurge represents the "consciousness maker" and the four characteristics to be mixed represent a distinctive quaternio necessary for the development of consciousness.

The consciousness maker can be understood vaguely as a tendency toward the development of consciousness and the quatemio as four functional aspects.

This ascertainment is of necessity vague because we are talking here about metaphysical dimensions or postulates.

In this way they are specifically neither transformed into something psychic nor robbed of their metaphysical existence.

This explanation does justice to the actual concept of the “Greek Word.”

The metaphorical conception of the Third mentioned initially corresponds to what you wish to distinguish from the general concepts as the experiencing of the individual.

The latter corresponds to the metaphysical conception of the Third.

You are perfectly correct when you say that my remark concerning the material nature of the psyche is a metaphysical judgment.

It was, of course, not meant as such and is not to be taken literally.

The remark is simply intended to point out that the nature of the psyche is involved in both hypothetical conceptions, spirit and material, and, like them, is not ascertainable.

The aim of the remark is to indicate that whenever something material exists, the psyche is also partially involved.

When it comes to the overall judgment, the following sentence needs to be added:

Wherever the spiritual exists, the psyche has its part to play.

This participation is ascertainable in that there are conceptions that are labeled partly as spiritual and partly as of material origin.

But just what form this participation actually takes cannot be ascertained because material, psyche and spirit are in themselves of an unknown nature and thus are metaphysical or postulated.

Thus I fully agree when you say “that psyche and matter are governed by common, neutral etc. ordering principles.”

(I would simply add “spirit” as well.)

Under these circumstances, I simply fail to see—with the best will in the world—how psychology can be “overburdened” with me, or what form an expansionist tendency of my concept of the psyche is supposed to take.

We can say of an object that it is psychic when it is ascertainable only as a concept.

But if it has features that indicate its nonpsychic autonomous existence, we naturally tend to accept it as nonpsychic.

This we do with all our sensory perceptions, unless they are “purely” psychic—for example, in the form of illusion.

As you point out, this applies to numbers and to the archetypes in general.

They are not just psychic, otherwise, they would be fabrications.

But in actual fact they are “in themselves being” (or psychoid) existences whose autonomous existence corresponds to that of the material object.

All these statements concerning the material or spiritual aspect of the psyche or the autonomous existence of the objects are of great heuristic significance, which I by no means underestimate.

The psyche is certainly our only instrument of cognition and is thus indispensable for any statement or perception.

But the objects of its perception are only very slightly psychic.

It is true that all objects are conceived in and through the medium of the psyche, but they are not integrated into its substance, thus forfeiting their existence.

So far, I believe, we are basically in agreement.

When you bring up the subject of overburdened psychology and take as your starting point the non psychological tendency of your dreams, then it must be pointed out that this is a subjective situation that can be explained in many different ways.

I . Your dreams are physical because this is your natural language, on the principle canis panem somniat, piscator pisces, but in fact the dream means something different.

2. The unconscious has the tendency to confine you to physics or keep you away from psychology, because psychology, for whatever reason, is not appropriate.

I never have dreams related to physics; they are usually related to mythology; in other words they are also un-psychological.

Just as your dreams contain symbolic physics, mine contain symbolic mythology, i.e. Jungian individual
mythology.

What this means, on closer observation, is archetypal theology or metaphysics.

But this only becomes clear when I make the effort to find out what the archetypal symbols are referring to.

In this case, what I do is to translate the dream figure into the language of consciousness, thus reducing the dream meaning to my subjective situation.

But as a meta-physician I could also examine the dream statement for its objective meaning-in other words, not psychologically-which would tab me into the sphere of what one might call the spirit or the mind, and from there it might be possible for me to have a sense of archetypal physics.

It is true that the unconscious produces psychology, but the more it does so, the more it is against it, which is the case with both you and myself.

Psychological tendencies in the unconscious are found only where psychological insights are urgently necessary.

The process of developing consciousness is a very demanding one and is by no means a popular matter in nature.

This is why physics or metaphysics is usually preferred, although in both cases the fascinosum consists of the constellated archetypes.

These archetypes more or less free us from psychology in the sense that psychology is "relieved of its burden."

However important and interesting it may be to deal with the nonpsychic--especially with its archetypal stage-there is nevertheless the risk that one may lose oneself in the notion itself.

But then the creative tension disappears, for it comes into being only when the acknowledgement of the
non-psychic is brought into relation with the observer.

What I mean by that is, for example, that the product is studied critically, not just from the point of view of its objective associations but also its subjective ones.

In physics this means the determination of the role played by the observer or the psychological prerequisites of a theory.

What does it mean if Einstein establishes a world formula but does not know which reality it corresponds to?

Hence, it would have been better if C.A. Meier had asked what the psychological significance was of the myth and cult of Asclepios-i.e., what psychic reality do they correspond to?

With the perception of the archetypal prerequisites in Kepler's astronomy and the comparison with Fludd's philosophy, you have taken two steps, and now you seem to be at the third one-namely, the question of what Pauli say about it.

If the formulation of the question is a partial one, as is the case with Asclepios, then the self-reflection of the doctor is an adequate reply.

But if the formulation of the question concerns the principles of the physical explanation of nature and hence is a cosmic and universal one (as is the case with Einstein) then this is a challenge to the microcosm in the person answering the question, i.e., the natural wholeness of the individual.

This is why the problem of the dark anima within you presents itself to you on the other side of the Zurichberg, and it is also why "master" figures appear in your dreams.

As a consequence of my professional work with psychology, I am more frequently confronted with the mythological aspect of nature, i.e., with what one might call the “spirit” (or the mind).

Consequently, I have the impressive dreams about animals (elephants, bulls, camels, etc.) that do not wish to be observed, and when I intervene they lead me to having a tachycardia attack.

(The connection between my heart disturbance and synchronicity is an indirect one.

It is a nonspecific form of exhaustion.

That is why there are lots of other causes—of attacks—e.g., the interchange of continental air masses with maritime ones, digitalis medicaments, mental effort, etc.)

I am actually supposed to make the animals conscious and integrate them, which, of course, is impossible, animals being unconscious and not capable of consciousness.

According to my dreams, these animals seem to be building a road through the primeval forest and do not wish to be disturbed.

So I have to dispense with psychology and wait to see whether the unconscious itself produces something.

Your Sommefeld dream (p. 7ff. of your letter) is also a good illustration of what I mean.

What the dream ascertains in the physical sense (a) is short and to the point.

The “theological-metaphysical” conception (b) is somewhat more thorough, and the psychological one (c) sums everything up in general terms.

"And yet,' as you write, you are ·of the opinion that this is not yet the ultimate truth.'

Certainly not, for it contains only that which can be conceived of and represented in psychic terms.

When compared with the whole truth, the psychic picture is also as incomplete as is the ego compared with the Self, but it is the conception of truth that we have.

As I have said, it is clear that there are potential realities that lie beyond our conception, for experience has shown that our world-picture seems to be capable of unlimited expansion, and natural science consists, so to speak, of an abundance of evidence that our conception corresponds commensurately to the thing-in-itself.

But nowhere can we arrive at a more complete truth than that very picture which is conceived.

That is why I say that we are virtually sealed off in the psyche, even though it is within our power to extend our prison to the big, wide world outside.

It was this thought that gave Leibniz the idea of the windowless monads.

I must say that I do not agree with the idea of "windowlessness' but believe that the psyche does have windows and that from these windows we can perceive ever broader realistic backdrops.

For these reasons, I am of the view that the psychic aspect of reality is to all intents and purposes the most important one.

Once again we are obviously dealing with a classical quaternia:

Transcendental
Reality = Material I spiritual
psychic
i.e., as usual 3 + 1, with the fourth one determining the unity and the whole.

Your explanation of the consciousness quaternio is interesting and I would say. correct.

This is also where the "origin" and "primordial home” of the number is probably to be found.

At any rate. this is where it begins to make its presence felt.

The world of discrete things begin with the four [Greek word] elements.

Inasmuch as the number is an archetype, it can be safely assumed that it: (1) bas substance. (2) has an individual form, (3) has meaning. and (4) has relationship connections to other archetypes.

About a year ago. I actually started examining the characteristics of the cardinal numbers in various ways. but my work ground to a halt. (Is there actually no systematic compilation of the mathematical properties of the numbers 1-9)

The mythological formulations are interesting but unfortunately call for a great deal of work in comparative-symbolism research. and I cannot afford to get involved in that.

Appropriately enough. you recall Lessing's play “Nathan den Wei.," [Nathan the Wise].

But it seems to me that you did not have three but only two rings in your hand: physics and psychology (see p. 10 of your letter [Letter 60. pars. '5-.6]).

The third ring is the spirit that is responsible for theological-metaphysical explanations.

In the spirit of Lessing. you see in the fourth ring the human connection that. being the fourth. establishes the
unity with the Three.

On the psychological level. this is certainly correct as the solution to all problems through the agape or caritas christiana (albeit free from the insidious influences of the Christian denominations!).

But the synthesis of the Many through carita. is basically a reflection of transcendental unity. a harmonious praestabilita, the materialization of which in our sublunary world is a challenge to all Christian virtues and hence is slightly beyond the scope of moral powers.

What it calls for above all is individuation and thus the acknowledgment of the shadow, the releasing of the anima from the projection, the coming to terms with this and so on.

This is a task that we cannot take on without psychological strain and stress, for the stream always flows from psychology into the opposites, but this provides relief only for the first moment.

In this way. psychology will be "relieved of its burden" in a completely natural manner.

Nor would it detract from it in any way if it were taken up in the framework of physics and biology.

The world-picture is always and everywhere a conception-i.e., psychic.

What is often a great stumbling block when it comes to the notion of thinking is that the opposition is not physis versus psyche. but physis versus pneuma, with psyche the medium between the two.

In recent history, the spirit has been brought into the psyche and been identified with the function of the intellect.

In this way. the spirit has virtually disappeared from our field of vision and been replaced by the psyche; we find it difficult to attribute to the spirit an autonomy and reality that we ascribe to matter without a moment’s hesitation.

I do not know whether my inclination to symmetrical points of view is pure prejudice, but it seems to me essential to think in a complementary way: to matter belongs nonmatter, to above below, to continuity discontinuity, and so on.

The one is a condition of the other.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 111-117

Carl Jung: And the psyche is not a metaphysical concept but an empirical one.

Dear Mr. Pauli, [Zurich] 4 May 1953

I found your lengthy account of your relationship with Mach most interesting.

Please accept my sincere thanks.

It goes without saying that one can never be content with the ascertainable alone, for then, as you rightly point
out, one would not understand anything at all.

What is more, the greatest challenge to our thinking comes from the nonascertainable, and the same is true of our scientific curiosity and sense of adventure.

The real life of knowledge and understanding is played out on the borderline between the ascertainable and the nonascertainable.

It is just that under these circumstances it is rather difficult to see where I should be "positivist" and consequently "eliminate thought processes."

Seeing that I describe physics as a science of ideas with a material label, the material place of origin of these ideas is no more denied than is the place of origin of "intellectual" ideas.

All that is meant by this observation is an epistemological definition, not a practical one.

There will continue to be speculation and intuition about the realm of the nonascertainable, and ascertainable elements will continue to plucked from it as before.

But it should always be borne in mind that the area between the perceived and what is not ascertainable hic et nunc is the area of the psyche.

The fact that I as a psychologist am more preoccupied with archetypes is just as natural as the physicist's preoccupation with atoms.

I do not extend the concept of the psychic to include the nonascertainable, for here I use the speculative concept of the psychoid, which represents an approach to neutral language in that it suggests the presence of a nonpsychic essence.

It is a matter of choice whether one fills up this "essence" with the term "matter."

From the point of view of logic, one can understand Plato's idea of a neutral concept, for which I use the term · psyche"; yet 1 would assign to the psyche a mediatory third position, more or less on the lines of how-in another sense-the alchemists mists viewed the anima as ligammtum corporis et spiritus.

For the psyche is the medium" (i.e., the "Third"), in which ideas of corporeal or intellectual origin occur.

The Platonic concepts of the Same and the Other have nothing to do with his psyche, which is a metaphysical concept, which is a metaphysical concept, which is also why he he had no occasion to identify the “Greek word”, with the psyche.

For us, however, [Greek words] are psychological matters.

And the psyche is not a metaphysical concept but an empirical one.

So if we want to solve this dilemma of the "Third," we have to realize that matter and spirit are two different
concepts that indicate opposites and-as ideas of different origins-are psychic.

But their intention is to depict the nonpsychic.

Insofar as the psyche introduces the two metaphysical-i.e., not immediately ascertainable---essences as concepts, it unites the two opposing essences by endowing them both with a psychical form of existence and thereby raising them to a conscious level.

In this way, one can metaphorically depict the psyche as “Greek Word" and that is what I originally meant.

But if we now take the actual Platonic concept of this thing, then it is a metaphysical matter, one dealt with by the demiurge.

In view of this situation, the psychological explanation must relate the statement of the Timaeus to a background process in which the demiurge represents the "consciousness maker" and the four characteristics to be mixed represent a distinctive quaternio necessary for the development of consciousness.

The consciousness maker can be understood vaguely as a tendency toward the development of consciousness and the quatemio as four functional aspects.

This ascertainment is of necessity vague because we are talking here about metaphysical dimensions or postulates.

In this way they are specifically neither transformed into something psychic nor robbed of their metaphysical existence.

This explanation does justice to the actual concept of the “Greek Word.”

The metaphorical conception of the Third mentioned initially corresponds to what you wish to distinguish from the general concepts as the experiencing of the individual.

The latter corresponds to the metaphysical conception of the Third.

You are perfectly correct when you say that my remark concerning the material nature of the psyche is a metaphysical judgment.

It was, of course, not meant as such and is not to be taken literally.

The remark is simply intended to point out that the nature of the psyche is involved in both hypothetical conceptions, spirit and material, and, like them, is not ascertainable.

The aim of the remark is to indicate that whenever something material exists, the psyche is also partially involved.

When it comes to the overall judgment, the following sentence needs to be added:

Wherever the spiritual exists, the psyche has its part to play.

This participation is ascertainable in that there are conceptions that are labeled partly as spiritual and partly as of material origin.

But just what form this participation actually takes cannot be ascertained because material, psyche and spirit are in themselves of an unknown nature and thus are metaphysical or postulated.

Thus I fully agree when you say “that psyche and matter are governed by common, neutral etc. ordering principles.”

(I would simply add “spirit” as well.)

Under these circumstances, I simply fail to see—with the best will in the world—how psychology can be “overburdened” with me, or what form an expansionist tendency of my concept of the psyche is supposed to take.

We can say of an object that it is psychic when it is ascertainable only as a concept.

But if it has features that indicate its nonpsychic autonomous existence, we naturally tend to accept it as nonpsychic.

This we do with all our sensory perceptions, unless they are “purely” psychic—for example, in the form of illusion.

As you point out, this applies to numbers and to the archetypes in general.

They are not just psychic, otherwise, they would be fabrications.

But in actual fact they are “in themselves being” (or psychoid) existences whose autonomous existence corresponds to that of the material object.

All these statements concerning the material or spiritual aspect of the psyche or the autonomous existence of the objects are of great heuristic significance, which I by no means underestimate.

The psyche is certainly our only instrument of cognition and is thus indispensable for any statement or perception.

But the objects of its perception are only very slightly psychic.

It is true that all objects are conceived in and through the medium of the psyche, but they are not integrated into its substance, thus forfeiting their existence.

So far, I believe, we are basically in agreement.

When you bring up the subject of overburdened psychology and take as your starting point the non psychological tendency of your dreams, then it must be pointed out that this is a subjective situation that can be explained in many different ways.

I . Your dreams are physical because this is your natural language, on the principle canis panem somniat, piscator pisces, but in fact the dream means something different.

2. The unconscious has the tendency to confine you to physics or keep you away from psychology, because psychology, for whatever reason, is not appropriate.

I never have dreams related to physics; they are usually related to mythology; in other words they are also un-psychological.

Just as your dreams contain symbolic physics, mine contain symbolic mythology, i.e. Jungian individual
mythology.

What this means, on closer observation, is archetypal theology or metaphysics.

But this only becomes clear when I make the effort to find out what the archetypal symbols are referring to.

In this case, what I do is to translate the dream figure into the language of consciousness, thus reducing the dream meaning to my subjective situation.

But as a meta-physician I could also examine the dream statement for its objective meaning-in other words, not psychologically-which would tab me into the sphere of what one might call the spirit or the mind, and from there it might be possible for me to have a sense of archetypal physics.

It is true that the unconscious produces psychology, but the more it does so, the more it is against it, which is the case with both you and myself.

Psychological tendencies in the unconscious are found only where psychological insights are urgently necessary.

The process of developing consciousness is a very demanding one and is by no means a popular matter in nature.

This is why physics or metaphysics is usually preferred, although in both cases the fascinosum consists of the constellated archetypes.

These archetypes more or less free us from psychology in the sense that psychology is "relieved of its burden."

However important and interesting it may be to deal with the nonpsychic--especially with its archetypal stage-there is nevertheless the risk that one may lose oneself in the notion itself.

But then the creative tension disappears, for it comes into being only when the acknowledgement of the
non-psychic is brought into relation with the observer.

What I mean by that is, for example, that the product is studied critically, not just from the point of view of its objective associations but also its subjective ones.

In physics this means the determination of the role played by the observer or the psychological prerequisites of a theory.

What does it mean if Einstein establishes a world formula but does not know which reality it corresponds to?

Hence, it would have been better if C.A. Meier had asked what the psychological significance was of the myth and cult of Asclepios-i.e., what psychic reality do they correspond to?

With the perception of the archetypal prerequisites in Kepler's astronomy and the comparison with Fludd's philosophy, you have taken two steps, and now you seem to be at the third one-namely, the question of what Pauli say about it.

If the formulation of the question is a partial one, as is the case with Asclepios, then the self-reflection of the doctor is an adequate reply.

But if the formulation of the question concerns the principles of the physical explanation of nature and hence is a cosmic and universal one (as is the case with Einstein) then this is a challenge to the microcosm in the person answering the question, i.e., the natural wholeness of the individual.

This is why the problem of the dark anima within you presents itself to you on the other side of the Zurichberg, and it is also why "master" figures appear in your dreams.

As a consequence of my professional work with psychology, I am more frequently confronted with the mythological aspect of nature, i.e., with what one might call the “spirit” (or the mind).

Consequently, I have the impressive dreams about animals (elephants, bulls, camels, etc.) that do not wish to be observed, and when I intervene they lead me to having a tachycardia attack.

(The connection between my heart disturbance and synchronicity is an indirect one.

It is a nonspecific form of exhaustion.

That is why there are lots of other causes—of attacks—e.g., the interchange of continental air masses with maritime ones, digitalis medicaments, mental effort, etc.)

I am actually supposed to make the animals conscious and integrate them, which, of course, is impossible, animals being unconscious and not capable of consciousness.

According to my dreams, these animals seem to be building a road through the primeval forest and do not wish to be disturbed.

So I have to dispense with psychology and wait to see whether the unconscious itself produces something.

Your Sommefeld dream (p. 7ff. of your letter) is also a good illustration of what I mean.

What the dream ascertains in the physical sense (a) is short and to the point.

The “theological-metaphysical” conception (b) is somewhat more thorough, and the psychological one (c) sums everything up in general terms.

"And yet,' as you write, you are ·of the opinion that this is not yet the ultimate truth.'

Certainly not, for it contains only that which can be conceived of and represented in psychic terms.

When compared with the whole truth, the psychic picture is also as incomplete as is the ego compared with the Self, but it is the conception of truth that we have.

As I have said, it is clear that there are potential realities that lie beyond our conception, for experience has shown that our world-picture seems to be capable of unlimited expansion, and natural science consists, so to speak, of an abundance of evidence that our conception corresponds commensurately to the thing-in-itself.

But nowhere can we arrive at a more complete truth than that very picture which is conceived.

That is why I say that we are virtually sealed off in the psyche, even though it is within our power to extend our prison to the big, wide world outside.

It was this thought that gave Leibniz the idea of the windowless monads.

I must say that I do not agree with the idea of "windowlessness' but believe that the psyche does have windows and that from these windows we can perceive ever broader realistic backdrops.

For these reasons, I am of the view that the psychic aspect of reality is to all intents and purposes the most important one.

Once again we are obviously dealing with a classical quaternia:

Transcendental
Reality = Material I spiritual
psychic
i.e., as usual 3 + 1, with the fourth one determining the unity and the whole.

Your explanation of the consciousness quaternio is interesting and I would say. correct.

This is also where the "origin" and "primordial home” of the number is probably to be found.

At any rate. this is where it begins to make its presence felt.

The world of discrete things begin with the four [Greek word] elements.

Inasmuch as the number is an archetype, it can be safely assumed that it: (1) bas substance. (2) has an individual form, (3) has meaning. and (4) has relationship connections to other archetypes.

About a year ago. I actually started examining the characteristics of the cardinal numbers in various ways. but my work ground to a halt. (Is there actually no systematic compilation of the mathematical properties of the numbers 1-9)

The mythological formulations are interesting but unfortunately call for a great deal of work in comparative-symbolism research. and I cannot afford to get involved in that.

Appropriately enough. you recall Lessing's play “Nathan den Wei.," [Nathan the Wise].

But it seems to me that you did not have three but only two rings in your hand: physics and psychology (see p. 10 of your letter [Letter 60. pars. '5-.6]).

The third ring is the spirit that is responsible for theological-metaphysical explanations.

In the spirit of Lessing. you see in the fourth ring the human connection that. being the fourth. establishes the
unity with the Three.

On the psychological level. this is certainly correct as the solution to all problems through the agape or caritas christiana (albeit free from the insidious influences of the Christian denominations!).

But the synthesis of the Many through carita. is basically a reflection of transcendental unity. a harmonious praestabilita, the materialization of which in our sublunary world is a challenge to all Christian virtues and hence is slightly beyond the scope of moral powers.

What it calls for above all is individuation and thus the acknowledgment of the shadow, the releasing of the anima from the projection, the coming to terms with this and so on.

This is a task that we cannot take on without psychological strain and stress, for the stream always flows from psychology into the opposites, but this provides relief only for the first moment.

In this way. psychology will be "relieved of its burden" in a completely natural manner.

Nor would it detract from it in any way if it were taken up in the framework of physics and biology.

The world-picture is always and everywhere a conception-i.e., psychic.

What is often a great stumbling block when it comes to the notion of thinking is that the opposition is not physis versus psyche. but physis versus pneuma, with psyche the medium between the two.

In recent history, the spirit has been brought into the psyche and been identified with the function of the intellect.

In this way. the spirit has virtually disappeared from our field of vision and been replaced by the psyche; we find it difficult to attribute to the spirit an autonomy and reality that we ascribe to matter without a moment’s hesitation.

I do not know whether my inclination to symmetrical points of view is pure prejudice, but it seems to me essential to think in a complementary way: to matter belongs nonmatter, to above below, to continuity discontinuity, and so on.

The one is a condition of the other.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 111-117

Wolfgang Pauli: Is it possible to define your point of view as incarnation continua?

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon, 17. V. 1952

I should like to thank you once again for the pleasant evening I spent with you.

I shall give a lot of thought to many of the things you said, so that I can digest them properly.

What made the deepest impression upon me was the central role played in your thinking by the concept of "incarnation" as a scientific working hypothesis.

This concept is of particular interest to me, first of all because it is interdenominational ("Avatara" in India) and also because it expresses a psycho-physical unity.

More and more I see the psycho-physical problem as the key to the spiritual situation of our age, and the gradual discovery of a new ("neutral") psycho-physical standard language, whose function is symbolically to an describe in invisible, potential form of reality that is only indirectly inferable through its effects, also seems to me an indispensable prerequisite for the emergence of the new, predicted by you.

I have also clearly seen how you have linked the concept of incarnation with ethics, which, moreover, just like Schopenhauer (in his work on the basis of morality), you have based on the identification of the Self with one's fellow men on deeper psychic levels ("what one does to others, one also does to oneself" etc.).

Is it possible to define your point of view as incarnation continua?

There are two essentially different opinions with respect to psychic evolution (as distinct from the biological one): that of recurrence, as is the case in India, for example [the periodically recurring 4 aeons (Yugas)], but also with Heraclitus, according to whom the world is continually resurrected from "fire" and then swallowed up by it again.

The other view is the Christian western one, with the one and only genesis of the world, which ends in a permanent state of rest.

At the moment I see no possibility of objectively deciding between the two.

I actually also mentioned the fire of Heraclitus in my last letter because in those days, in the ancient world, it combined the physical and the psychic by being both a physical energy symbol and a psychic libido symbol (according to Heraclitus, fire was supposed to be "endowed with reason").

The problem of psycho-physical unity now seems to be returning "on a higher plane."

I shall be making further inquiries about "Fling saucers."

In June I have to attend a physicists' congress in Copenhagen and will discuss the matter with people from America.

There are two contradictory opinions on the subject; according to one of them, which still finds support among experimental physicists in particular, it is a hallucination (like the "sea serpent" and similar sea monsters"); according to the other, more common in military circles, the phenomenon is a real one, and they have been invented by Americans for military purposes and are either special planes or balloons (hence "sacks").

As I was walking up the hill from Zollikon station after leaving your house, I did not actually see any "Flying saucers," but I did see a particularly beautiful large meteor.

It was moving relatively slowly (this can usually be explained by factors of perspective) from east to west and finally exploded, producing an impressively fine firework display.

I took it as a spiritual “omen” that our general attitude toward the spiritual problems of our age is in the sense of, in other words is more a “meaningful” one.

Once again many thanks,

Yours sincerely,

W. Pauli

~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 81-83

Wolfgang Pauli: Is it possible to define your point of view as incarnation continua?

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon, 17. V. 1952

I should like to thank you once again for the pleasant evening I spent with you.

I shall give a lot of thought to many of the things you said, so that I can digest them properly.

What made the deepest impression upon me was the central role played in your thinking by the concept of "incarnation" as a scientific working hypothesis.

This concept is of particular interest to me, first of all because it is interdenominational ("Avatara" in India) and also because it expresses a psycho-physical unity.

More and more I see the psycho-physical problem as the key to the spiritual situation of our age, and the gradual discovery of a new ("neutral") psycho-physical standard language, whose function is symbolically to an describe in invisible, potential form of reality that is only indirectly inferable through its effects, also seems to me an indispensable prerequisite for the emergence of the new, predicted by you.

I have also clearly seen how you have linked the concept of incarnation with ethics, which, moreover, just like Schopenhauer (in his work on the basis of morality), you have based on the identification of the Self with one's fellow men on deeper psychic levels ("what one does to others, one also does to oneself" etc.).

Is it possible to define your point of view as incarnation continua?

There are two essentially different opinions with respect to psychic evolution (as distinct from the biological one): that of recurrence, as is the case in India, for example [the periodically recurring 4 aeons (Yugas)], but also with Heraclitus, according to whom the world is continually resurrected from "fire" and then swallowed up by it again.

The other view is the Christian western one, with the one and only genesis of the world, which ends in a permanent state of rest.

At the moment I see no possibility of objectively deciding between the two.

I actually also mentioned the fire of Heraclitus in my last letter because in those days, in the ancient world, it combined the physical and the psychic by being both a physical energy symbol and a psychic libido symbol (according to Heraclitus, fire was supposed to be "endowed with reason").

The problem of psycho-physical unity now seems to be returning "on a higher plane."

I shall be making further inquiries about "Fling saucers."

In June I have to attend a physicists' congress in Copenhagen and will discuss the matter with people from America.

There are two contradictory opinions on the subject; according to one of them, which still finds support among experimental physicists in particular, it is a hallucination (like the "sea serpent" and similar sea monsters"); according to the other, more common in military circles, the phenomenon is a real one, and they have been invented by Americans for military purposes and are either special planes or balloons (hence "sacks").

As I was walking up the hill from Zollikon station after leaving your house, I did not actually see any "Flying saucers," but I did see a particularly beautiful large meteor.

It was moving relatively slowly (this can usually be explained by factors of perspective) from east to west and finally exploded, producing an impressively fine firework display.

I took it as a spiritual “omen” that our general attitude toward the spiritual problems of our age is in the sense of, in other words is more a “meaningful” one.

Once again many thanks,

Yours sincerely,

W. Pauli

~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 81-83

Wolfgang Pauli critique of Dr. Jung's "Answer to Job"

Motto: "To be," or "not to be,” this is the question

Dear Professor Jung, 27 February 1953

A year has elapsed since I last wrote to you, and now I feel the time is right to carry out what has long been my intention; namely, to write to you again.

The topic I have chosen this time could be called: “Reflection of an Unbeliever on Psychology, Religion, and your Answer to Job.”

I do not doubt that you have received very many letters about your book Antwort auf Hiob [Answer to Job] (especially from theologians who, consciously or unconsciously, are beset with grave doubts and for whom your psychology will surely be welcomed as a means of helping them to deal with these doubts).

Nevertheless, despite the wealth of your experience, this letter will probably strike you as rather unusual.

My topic will deal with neither the complete historical development of the Judeo-Christian God-image nor all too general ideological questions.

Instead, I should like to single out in particular the last four chapters of your book, where the problem of the anima and hence-by definition-the opposition Catholicism-Protestantism and the individuation process playa crucial role in your religious-psychological reflections.

For in this way there is a connection between this chapter of your new book and your earlier book, Psychology and Religion” which I have deliberately alluded to in the heading above.

It goes without saying that if I react at all to such a personal book, it can only be in this personal way.

Hence it is impossible for this letter to remain on a purely scientific level, and in order to enable the emotional side and the unconscious to have their say, too, I shall make use of dreams.

In doing so, I have selected some that are very typical in that their motifs recur-with variations-at intervals extending over many years.

Even if my reaction and my point of view regarding these problems is a personal one, it is nevertheless clear to me that we are all-as children of the 20th century-affected unconsciously by the same archetypal occurrences,
however different our conscious attitudes toward them may be; this is true of the psychologist who, at the end of a book and in the eventide of a long working life, sees a new hieros gamos approaching, the physicist who has to compensate for the one-sidedness that ensued after the pioneering scientific achievements of the 17th century, and the pope, who, by way of sanctioning an ancient popular belief, declares a new dogma.

Thus I write and report the following in the hope that in spite of any differences in the nuances of our opinions, there is still a sufficiently broad basis of understanding between us in these problems, which are as thorny as they are crucial.

I.

To read your book Antwort auf Hiob [Answer to Job], I had chosen the period of the equinox last autumn—after overcoming certain reservations, by the way.

On the evening of 19 September I had read the first 12 chapters (up to and including the Apocalypse).

My attitude was not at all critical; on the contrary, the effect that these chapters had on me, with their touches of
Sarcasm, was as if I had enjoyed some light reading, and I was in a cheerful, albeit somewhat superficial mood.

However, in the night immediately after reading your book I had the following dream:

"At first I am riding in a train with Mr. Bohr.

Then I get out and find myself in a stretch of countryside clotted with little villages.

Now I start looking for a station so that I can ride off to the left.

I soon find it.

The new train comes from the right and seems to be a small local train.

As Iget in, I immediately see "the dark girl" in the compartment, surrounded by strangers.

I ask where we are, and the people say, '"The next station is Esslingen, and we are nearly there."

I wake up very annoyed because we have come to such an uninteresting and boring place."

Thus was the pleasure of the evening turned into the annoyance of the morning.

Apparently "the dark one" was being sought out in the dream.

The place she lives seems to be somewhere in the Zurich Oberland.

Esslingen actually-i.e., extremely provincial, only loosely connected with the city of Zurich, which is where I pursue my main activity, theoretical physics (represented by Bohr).

The reason for my irritation seems to be the fact that I have to go off to such a remote, provincial setting to find the dark one.

Now what does this have to do with your book?

Well, it has a lot to do with it, and I immediately saw a connection.

The dark one for me has always been the counterpole to Protestantism, the "men's religion that has no metaphysical representation of woman."

The pair of opposites Catholicism-Protestantism has long tormented me in my dreams.

It is the conflict between an attitude that does not accept, or only partially accepts, the "ratio," and another attitude that does not accept the anima.

This pair of opposites has appeared repeatedly in many different forms, e.g. as

Fludd- Kepler
Psychology-Physics
intuitive feeling-scientific thinking
Holland-Italy
Mysticism-Science

It is a pair of opposites that seems to call for resolution by means of coniunctio.

Now I knew beforehand that the new Catholic dogma about the Assumption into Heaven of the body of the Virgin Mary is discussed toward the end of the book Antwer au Hiob.

The declaration of this dogma had made even me sit up and take note, in one definite connection and in one definite light; that was the case from the very start and is still so today.

My source was mainly my (Protestant) colleague Gonseth, who had had discussions about this with Catholic intellectuals (especially Thomists) in Rome (in connection with the line of philosophy taken by him).

He reported that these intellectuals were somewhat embarrassed because of the concretism of the pope and regarded the new dogma as a concession to the people and also as a "metaphysical maneuver" against Communism.

Now inasmuch as politics have always been a prerogative of the princeps huius mundi, and inasmuch as anyone involved in politics (and that applies to the greater part of the Catholic clergy) is, in psychological terms, in intimate "contact with the Devil,” then the initiative for the new dogma (expressed in the terminology of your book Antw.au Hiob) would actually have come from the Devil; it is a countermeasure against the Devil.

Of course, in the 2oth century I cannot really understand what the pope means when he says "Heaven" (and I am not the least bit interested in what he means).

It does acquire some meaning for me if I identify "Heaven" here with the "place beyond Heaven” the nonphysical space in which, in accordance with Platonic philosophy, "Ideas" are to be found.

This is probably not all that arbitrary inasmuch as historically, Christianity has taken over many words and expressions from Plato and the Platonists.

The "maneuver" would then consist in the fact that a concession to matter was to be made, which, since the days of Neoplatonism, has counted only as the privatio of ideas and as evil, or as the Devil in Christian terms.

One may harbor doubts as to whether this concession is enough, since in the new dogma it is actually strongly "disinfected" matter.

To me, however, it seems to be a meaningful and acceptable approach in which a decline into materialism (politically: into Communism) will be avoided because the matter will be taken into the world of ideas, not in its inorganic form but only in connection with the soul, the "metaphysical" representation of woman.

In this form, the “maneuver” seems to be quite logical.

In terms of social practice, doing away with soulless mental institutions would be a most beneficial consequence.

But as a symbol of the monistic union of matter and soul, this assumptio has an even deepter meaning for me.

Any deeper form of reality—i.e., every “thing as such”—is symbolic for me anyway, and only the “manifestations” is concrete (see p. 16).

It is true that in the empirical world of phenomena there must always be the difference between “physical” and “psychic,” and it was the mistake of the alchemists to apply a monist (neutral) language to concrete chemical processes.

But now that matter has also become and abstract invisible reality for the modern physicist, the prospects for a psycho-pyusical monism have become much more favorable.

Inasmuch as I now believe in the possibility of a simultaneous religious and scientific function of the appearance of archetypal symbols, the fact of the declaration of the new dogmas was and is for me a clear sign that the psychophysical problem is also now constellated anew in the scientific sphere.

The hieros gamos, whose dawn you see even from a distance. must also help with the solution to this problem.

I shall talk briefly about the fact that the parallels you draw between the new dogma and a definite stage of the individuation process also seem to me to provide strong support for this view.

But first I should like to report on my further emotional reactions as I read your book to the end.

I did, of course, await with bated breath what you would have to say on the subject of matter and on the psychophysical problem when you came to the new dogma.

To my disappointment, however, I found that there was no mention of the latter, and matter itself was alluded to only briefly in the expressions "creaturely man" and "incarnation of God," otherwise being basically ignored.

I thought to myself, "I don't know what the pope means with 'Heaven” but it is certainly not in this book, for matter has not been broached here."

I attributed the failure to mention the connection with the psychophysical problem to your endeavor to get a discussion going with the theologians, which struck me as doomed to failure from the outset.

It seems to me now that there are other factors involved as well (see under note 28).

II.

Having given vent to my wrath, I immediately realized that it was the same feeling as when [ woke up after the dream [ recounted earlier.

On the one hand, the dream was an anticipation of my reaction after I had read your book, and on the other hand it now led me back to the subject level.

At that moment, I saw that there also "happened" to be a work by McConnell lying on my desk, and I immediately recalled that you had intentionally arranged for your two works Antw. Auf Hiob and the one on synchronicity to be published at more or less the same time.

The ESP phenomena now also one side of the psychophysical problem (where does the psyche actually
stop when it comes to matter?), and if one took both books together, there was a much less "provincial" atmosphere.

On the subject level, a special form of the "dark one" has long been appearing in dreams and fantasies as the tertium, above and beyond the Catholic-Protestant pair of opposites (or the analogous opposites on the list
given)-namely, the Chinese woman (or the Exotic One) with the typical slanted eyes.

These indicate a particularly holistic view, but one that is still insufficiently connected with my rational ego.

As a feminine (anima) figure, however she is linked with emotional interest, which is accompanied by a
stimulation or animation of the pairs of opposites.

She sees connections other than those of conventional time, yet there always appears to me a "figure" that has the tendency to reproduce itself (automorphism) and to be at the basis of the perceptions of the "Chinese woman."

This "figure" (one can also, in a certain sense, call it "archetype," see under p. Il) is psychic and physical, which is why the Chinese woman first appeared as the bearer of "psychophysical secrets," ranging from sexuality to subtle ESP phenomena.

I believe that an animation of pairs of opposites also lies at the basis of ESP phenomena (and with the mantic of the 1 Ching).

Now my attention was drawn to the strangers by whom the dark one was surrounded in the dream.

They seemed to be pointing out inadequately understood ideas to me-i.e., preconscious ones-which are connected with that "Chinese" (holistic) aspect of the dark one.

This was confirmed by the following dream:

Dream, 28 September 1952

"The Chinese woman walks on ahead and beckons me to follow.

She opens a trapdoor and walks down some steps, leaving the door open.

Her movements are oddly dancelike she does not speak but only expresses herself in mime, almost as in ballet.

I follow her and see that the steps lead into an auditorium, in which "the strangers" are waiting for me.

The Chinese woman indicates that I should get up onto the rostrum and address the people, apparently to deliver a lecture.

As I am waiting, she “dances” rhythmically back up the steps, through the open door into the open air, and then back down again.

As she does so, she keeps the index finger of her left hand and her left arm pointing upward, her right arm and the index finger of her right hand pointing downward.

The repetition of this rhythmic movement now has a powerful effect, in that gradually it becomes a rotation movement (circulation of the light).

The difference between the two floors seems to diminish “magically.”

As I am actually mounting the rostrum of the auditorium, I wake up.”

This dream, which made a deep impression on me, marked a certain progress.

First of all, there is the motif of the auditorium with strangers, in front of whom I am to hold lectures.

This has cropped up in previous dreams and is closely linked to dreams that I had been offered a new professorship but had not yet accepted.


For example, when I was traveling to India and heading south off the coast of Spain and Portugal, I had a dream that 1was traveling to Holland to take up an appointment as a professor.

The "stranger" was awaiting me there.

See the table above for Holland as the counter position to science.

The Indian way of thinking more or less c0rresponds to this counter position.

The motif of the not-yet-accepted professorship seems to me very important, for it shows the resistance of the
conscious to the "professorship."

The unconscious is rebuking me for having kept something specific from the public, something akin to a confession that I had not accepted my appointment out of conventional forms of resistance.

These forms of resistance are sometimes virtually condensed into a
shadow figure.

In my case, this shadow was projected onto my father,' but I later learned to distinguish it from my real father, with the dream figure becoming visibly younger.

This shadow is always intellectual and lacking in feeling and mentally rigidly conventional.

It must be borne in mind that mathematical science for me, and anyone else who pursues it, involves an extremely close link with tradition-a typically Western tradition, by the way; it is a source of strength and at the same time a chain!

Conversions such as that of R. Wilhelm to Taoism or A. Huxley to Indian mysticism are, I think, not likely to happen to a scientist.

In the spirit of this tradition and my conscious attitude, everything that is part of the counterposition of the sciences was a private matter, being connected with feeling.

By way of contrast, the people in the lecture hall are expecting a professor who will teach the sciences and also their feeling-intuitive counterposition, perhaps even including ethical problems.

The people in the auditorium, despite my resistance, hold the view that this extended subject matter of the lecture, although personal, is nevertheless also of interest to the public.

Then the dram contains the motifs of the dance.

On the basis of experiencing extending over a lengthy period of time, I came to the conclusion that the rhythmic sensation being expressed here is based on an inner perception of "archetypal sequences."

As the ordering principle of the pairs of 0pposites is not primarily a temporal one, the tempo is arbitrary, with both last and slow rhythms."

Alter having seen the God figures on the island of Elephanta near Bombay, I am more or less convinced that the rhythmic movements of the transmigration of souls and the world age [Weltzitalter) in India, especially Siva's dance, are based on similar experiences.

To the Westerner however, after he has gone through the scientific age, it seems naive and erroneous to project the experience in concretist terms into rhythmic processes in the physis.

It is true that the "Chinese woman" is above and beyond the Catholicism-Protestantism, mysticism-science pairs of opposites, etc.; she is herself that holistic union of psyche and physis that still appears to the human mind as a problem; she is "seeing" in a special way.

But, being free of any rationalization processes, this also means she is not capable of the rational skills of my consciousness, such as logical thinking, mathematics, etc.

This is why she seeks the logos (or me) as a bridegroom and does not yet represent the final stage of development.

Thus, in a later stage of development, a new light-dark masculine figure appears as a superordinate authority: the
"stranger."

This later development is expressed in the following dream, for example:

Dream: 20 December 1952, in Bombay

"A major war is going on.

There is a Chinese couple on my side.

In the course of the fighting, I drive the opposition back.

When I am finally alone with the Chinese again, I catch sight of the stranger.

I demand a formal employment contract for the Chinese couple.

To their delight he agrees."

It seems that a further stage has thus been achieved in the ongoing confrontation with the unconscious.

But I am still a long way from being able to assimilate into consciousness the contents of the unconscious, which
appear here as "strangers" and "a Chinese couple; and this is probably what the task of the new ‘professorship” would be.

All I could do at this stage was feel my way tentatively into the context associated with these contents.

III.

I am still constantly surprised at this insistence of the unconscious on the new professorship with its lectures in auditoriums and on my appointment, and I wonder what such a professor might say who does not “hold the tail but grasps it in his hand” (namely, theoretical physics) but who also “grasps the head mentally” and not “just in dreams.”

I cannot anticipate the new coniunctio, the new hieros gamos called for by this situation, but I will nevertheless try to explain more clearly what I meant with meant with the final part of my Kepler essay: the firm grip on the “tail--that is, physics-provides me with unhoped aids which can be utilized with more important undertakings as “to grasp the head mentally.”

It actually seems to me that in the complementarity of physics, with its resolution of the wave-particle opposites, there is another sort of role model or example of that other, more comprehensive coniunctio.

For the smaller coniunctio in the context of physics, completely unintentionally on the part of its discoverers, has certain characteristics that can also probably be used to resolve the other pairs of opposites listed on p. 3.

The analogy is on the .. lines:

Quantum physics

mutually exclusive complementary experimental setups, to measure position as well as momentum.

Impossibility of subdividing the experimental setup without basically changing the phenomenon.

Unpredictable intervention with every observation.

The result of the observation is an irrational actuality of the unique occurrence.

The new theory is the objective, rational and hence symbolic grasping of the possibilities of the natural occurrences, a sufficiently broad framework to accommodate the irrational actuality of the unique occurrence.

One of the means used to back up the theory is an abstract mathematical sign, and also complex figures (functions) as a function of space (or of even more variability) and of time.

The laws of nature to be applied are statistical laws of probability. An essential component of the concept of probability is the motif of "the One and the Many."

The atom, consisting of nucleus and shell.

Psychology of the individuation process and the unconscious in general.

scientific thinking-intuitive feeling.

Wholeness of man consisting of consciousness and unconsciousness.

Change in the conscious and the unconscious when consciousness is acquired, especially in the process of the
coniunctio.

The result of the coniunctio is the infans solaris, individuation.

The objective, rational, and hence symbolic gasping of the psychology of the individuation process, broad enough to accommodate the irrational actuality of the unique individual.

The aid and means of backing up the theory is the concept of the unconscious.

It must not be forgotten that the "unconscious" is our symbolic sign for the potential occurrences in the conscious.

There is a generalization of the law of nature through the idea of a self-reproducing "figure" in the psychic or psychophysical occurrences, also called "archetype."

The structure of the occurrences that thus come into being can be described as "automorphism."

Psychologically speaking, it is "behind" the time concept.

The human personality, consisting of "nucleus" (or Self) and "Ego."

I should like to add just a few epistemological remarks to this provisional schema.

By allowing for occurrences and the utilization of possibilities that cannot be apprehended as predetermined and existing independent of the observer the type of interpretation of Nature characteristic of quantum physics clashes with the old ontology that could simply say "Physics is the description of reality" as opposed to "description of what one simply imagines."

"Being" and "nonbeing" are not unequivocal characterizations of features that can be checked only by statistical series of experiments with various experimental setups, which in certain circumstances are mutually exclusive.

In this way, the confrontation between "being" and "nonbeing" that was begun in ancient philosophy sees its continuation.

In antiquity, "nonbeing" did not simply mean not being present but in fact always points to a thinking
problem.

Nonbeing is that which cannot be thought about, which cannot be grasped by thinking reason, which cannot be reduced to notions and concepts and cannot be defined.

It was along these lines, as I see it, that the ancient philosophers discussed the question of being or nonbeing.

And it was especially along these lines that the process of becoming and the changeable, hence also matter, appeared in a certain form of psychology as nonbeing—a mere privitio of “Ideas.”

By way of contrast, Aristotle, evading the issue, created the important concept of potential being and applied it to hyle.

Although hyle was actually “nonbeing” and simply a privatio of “form” (which is what he said instead of “Ideas,” it was potentially “being” and not simply a privatio.

This is where an important differentiation in scientific thinking came in.

Aristotle’s further statements on matter (he clung firmly to the Platonic notion of matter as something passive, receiving) cannot really be applied in physics, and it seems to me that much of the confusion in Aristotle stems from the fact that being by far the less able thinker, he was completely overwhelmed by Plato.

He was not able to fully carry out his intention to grasp the potential, and his endeavors became bogged down in the early stages.

It is on Aristotle that the peripatetic tradition and, to a large extent, alchemy is based (vide Fludd).

Science today had now, I believe now, I believe, arrived at a stage where it can proceed (albeit in a way as yet
not at all clear) along the path laid down by Aristotle.

The complementary characteristics of the electron (and the atom) (wave and particle) are in fact "potential being," but one of them is always "actual nonbeing."

That is why one can say that science, being no longer classical, is for the first time a genuine theory of becoming and no longer Platonic.

This accords well with the fact that the man who is for me the most prominent representative of modern physics, Mr. Bohr, is, in my opinion, the only truly non-Platonic thinker: even in the early (before the establishment of present day way mechanics) he demonstrated to me the pair of opposites “Clarity-Truth” and taught me that every true philosophy must actually start off with a paradox.

He was and is (unlike Plato) a dekrainos kst exochen, a master of antinomic thinking.

As a physicist familiar with this course of development and this way of thinking, the concepts of the gentlemen with the stationary spheres are just as suspect to me as the concepts of “being” metaphysical spaces or “heavens” )be they Christian or Platonic), and “the Supreme” or “Absolute.”

With these entities, there is an essential paradox of human cognition (subject-object relation), which is not expressed, but sooner or later, when the authors least expect it, it will come to light!

For these reasons I should like to suggest also applying the Aristotelean way out of the conflict between “being” and “nonbeing” to the concept of the unconscious.

Many people still say that the unconscious is “nonbeing,” that it is merely a privatio of consciousness.

(This is probably includes all those who reproach you with “psychologism.”)

This counterposition is that of placing the unconscious and the archetypes, like ideas in general, in supracelestial places and in metaphysical spaces.

This view strikes me as equally dubious and contradictory to the law of the Kairos.

This is why I have opted for the third road in my analogy schema in interpreting the unconscious (as well as the characteristics of the electron and the atom) as “potential being.”

It is a legitimate description by man for potential occurrences in the conscious and as such belongs to the genuine symbolic reality of the “think in itself.”

Like all ideas, the unconscious I in both man and nature, ideas have no fixed abode, not even a heavenly one.

To a certain extent, one can say of all ideas “cuiuslibet rei centrum, cuius circumferential est nullibi” (the center of all things-a center whose periphery is nowhere), which, according to ancient alchemistic texts, is what Fludd said of God, see my Kepler article, p. 174 (tr. P. 219).

As long as quaternities are kept “up in heaven” at a distance from people (however pleasing and interesting such endeavors, seen as omens, may be), no fish will be caught, the hieros gamos is absent, and the psychophysical problem remains unsolved.

The psychophysical problem is the conceptual understanding of the possibilities of the irrational actuality of the unique (individual) living creature.

WE can only come close to dealing with this problem when we can synthetically resolve the pair of opposites “materialism-psychism” in natural philosophy.

When I say “psychism,” I do not mean “psychologism” nor something peculiar to psychology but simply the opposite of materialism.

I could also have said “idealism, but that would have restricted it to time to the famous currents of philosophy prevailing in the 19th century after Kant.

These currents (including Schopenhauer), as well as the whole of Indian philosophy, fall into this category of “psychism.”

But as the alchemists correctly surmised, matter goes just as deep as the spirit, and I doubt whether the goal of any development can be absolute spiritualization.

Sciences made by man-whether or not we wish or intend it even if it is natural sciences-will always contain statement about man.

An that is also precisely what I was trying to express with the analogy schema in this section.

Thus the aim of science and of life will ultimately remain man, which is actually the note on which your book Antwort auf Hiob [Answer to Job] closes.

In him is the ethical problem of Good and Evil, in him is spirit and matter, and his wholeness is depicted with the symbol of the quaternity.

It is today the archetype of wholeness of man from which natural science, now in the process of becoming quaternary, derives its emotional dynamics.

In keeping with this, the modern scientist=unlike those in Plato’s day-sees the rational as both good and evil.

For physics has tapped completely new sources of energy of hitherto unsuspected proportions, which can be exploited for both good and evil.

This has lead initially to an intensification of moral conflicts and of all forms of opposition, both in nations and in individuals.

This wholeness of man seems to be placed in tow aspects of reality: the symbolic “things in themselves,” which correspond to “potential being,” and concrete manifestations, which correspond to the actuality of “being.”

The first aspect is the rational one, the second the irrational one, (I use these adjectives analogously, as you did in the typology theory for the characterization of the various functions.)

The interplay of the two aspects creates the process of becoming.)

Is it in keeping with the Kairos and the quaternity to call these fragments of a philosophy “critical humanism”?

This lengthy letter is a sort of treatise, but it is a personal one and is dedicated to you personally in the form of a letter so that it can be submitted to you for criticism from the viewpoint of analytical psychology.

In section II especially I have provided quite a bit of relevant material.

I certainly do not believe that this paper contains everything that those “strangers’ wanted to hear from me; it is rather a preparatory clarification of my point of view, to enable me to dal with it at greater length.

Should you be able to reply to this letter at some point, it would give me great pleasure, but here is no hurry at all.

Its length is partly due to the influence of India.

Although the country had a very bad effect on my wife’s health, for me, as it was itself a place of extreme contrasts, it was most exciting in the way it brought to the surface all the opposites within myself.

This is the second paper I have written since I returned from India, as befits the demands of the “tail” and the “head.”

With best wishes for your well-being,

Yours sincerely,

W. Pauli ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 84-96

Carl Jung to Wolfgang Paul's critique of "Answer to Job"

Dear Mt Pauli, Kusnacht, 7 March 1953

I was very pleased to hear from you once again.

It surprised me greatly that you should be looking at Hiob, and I am indebted to you for taking the trouble to report on it so thoroughly.

It is indeed very unusual for a physicist to make observations on such a specifically theological problem.

You can imagine the excitement with which I read your letter.

That is why I am hastening to reply with the same attention to detail.

As your letter raises so many questions, I had perhaps better take them point by point.

I very much welcome the fact that you generally give credit to the archetype of the feminine for influencing psychology and physics and----last but not least-the Pope himself.

Apparently your initial reaction to Hiob, as the dream indicates, did not contain or make conscious everything that might have risen to consciousness through the reading.

Consequently, in the dream you unintentionally end up in an insignificant (inappropriate) place (Esslingen), but that is where you find what was missing in your reaction namely, the dark anima and the strangers.

As you will see below, it goes even further than that and includes the physical backside of the Assumptia.

Esslingen is indeed incommensurable with the theoretical physics that you pursue in Zurich and hence seems to be unconnected, haphazard, meaningless, and negligible.

his is how the place of the dark anima looks when seen from the standpoint of consciousness.

Had you known before that the dark anima lives or is to be encountered in Esslingen, the Forch railway would probably appear to you in a different light.

But what good can come out of Nazareth (Esslingen)?

Physics, on the other hand, resides up on the Zurich-berg, on Gloriastrasse.

It is clear that the scales are weighted on the side of consciousness and that the dark anima is to be found at the foot of and on the other side of the Pfannenstiel Hill ... animula vagula blandula . .. !

This state of affairs sheds light on your relationship to the dark anima and everything it stands for; I refer to your list, to which I should like to add the pair of opposites psychology-philosophy.

The dark anima has a direct connection with the dogma of the Assumption in that the Madonna is a one-sided light goddess, whose body [womb] seems to have miraculously spiritualized.

The strong emphasis placed on such a figure brings about a constellation of the dark Opposite in the unconscious.

The new dogma had an upsetting effect on many people and made even made even practicing Catholics (let alone Protestantsl) believe it was some political maneuver.

Behind this thought is the Devil, as you rightly point out.

He is the father of this depreciatory interpretation.

The one-sidedness of the light figure was what tempted him to insinuate this interpretation.

Were the new dogma in fact nothing more than a political maneuver, then one would have to point to the Devil as the instigator.

In my view, however it is not a political trick but a genuine phenomenon, i.e., the manifestation of that archetype that much earlier on had occasioned the assumption of Semele by her son Dionysus.

But the dogma of the Assumption is implicitly a concession to the Devil, first because it exalts the feminine, which is related to the Devil (as binarius), and second because the assumption of the body signifies the assumption of Matter.

It is true that the feminine is virginal, and the material is spiritualized, which you justifiably criticize, but the eternally renewed virginity, on the one hand, is an attribute of the goddess, of love, whereas the material is endowed with a living soul.

I did not explicitly present these far-reaching consequences in Job but simply alluded to them through symbols, the reason being that within the framework of Job, the problem of Matter could not really be dealt with.

But I did indicate it with the apocalyptic stone symbolism and with the parallelism of the Savior as the sun and moon son, i.e., as the filius Philosophorum and Lapis.

In my view, the discussion of Matter must have a scientific basis.

That is why I pressed for Hiob and Synchronizitilt [Synchronicity]to be published at the same time, for in the latter I attempted to open up a new path to the "state of spiritualization" [Beseeltheit] of Matter by making the assumption that "being is endowed with meaning" (i.e., extension of the archetype in the object).

When I wrote Hiob I expected absolutely nothing from the theologians, and in fact, as anticipated, I have had only very little reaction; I was thinking much more of all those who have been put off by the meaninglessness and thoughtlessness of the Church's "Annunciation," of the so-called kerygmatics.

It was from these people that I had the strongest reaction.

In your Part II [Letter 58] you yourself reach all these conclusions.

The 'Chinese woman" represents a "holistic" anima, for classical Chinese philosophy is based on the notion of an interplay of psychophysical opposites.

ESP certainly belongs in this context, for if anything at all can be perceived in this field, it is based on the psychoid archetype, which, as experience has shown, can be express itself both psychically and physically.

In the dream, the Chinese woman seems to be uniting opposed positions, which gives rise to “circulation” – i.e., rotation.

Connected with the latter is a change of space in the sense of a contraction.

This also leads to a change in time and causality, in other words, and ESP or synchronistic phenomenon brought about by the archetype.

That is a tangible part of the teaching that you as a professor would have to advocate.

Applied to the objects of physics, that would lead to the definition of physics as a science of the ideas labeled as material (or physical). (See below!).

Inofar as the Chinese woman as the anima represents an autonomous figure and the idea of union, the middle ground where the coniunctio opposition takes place is not yet identical with you but is situated externally—in the anima, which means that it is not yet integrated.

Theprinciple that endows the anima with its special significance and intensity is Eros, attractions and relatedness.

(As an ancient Sabean says, “Attraxit me Natura e attractus sum.”)

Where the intellect dominates, then what you have is primarily a feeling centeredness or the acceptance (assumption) of feelings of connectedness.

That is also the essential meaning of the Assumption B. V. Mariae, in contrast to the separating effect of the masculine logos.

The union of opposites is not just an intellectual matter.

That is why the alchemist said: "Ars totum requirit hominem”)

For only from his wholeness can man create a model of the whole.

It is certainly an indisputable fact that the unconscious has a “periodic" character; there are waves and swells that often produce such symptoms as seasickness, cyclical recurrences of nervous attacks or dreams.

Over a period of 3 years, from mid-December to mid-January, I have observed in myself similar dreams that have made a very deep impression on me.

Your compilation of physical and psychological statements is most interesting and illuminating. I should just like to add:

The smallest mass particle consists of corpuscle and wave.

The archetype (as structure element of the unconscious) consists of static form on the one hand and dynamics on the other.

As regards "being" and "nonbeing," it is clear that virtually all those who operate with the concept of "nonbeing" simply have a different understanding of "being," such as the concept of Nirvana, for example.

That is why I never talk of "being" but of the ascertainable and the nonascertainable, and very much “hic et nunc”.

As there is something sinister about the nonascertainable e, the people of the ancient world (and the primitives) feared it, and because, when it materializes, it is always different from what one expects, it is even evil.

Plato made this experience with the two tyrants Dionysius [Elder and Younger] of Syracuse (see Symbolik des Geistes p.341.

The incommensurable mixture of "Good" and "Being" and of "Evil" and “nonbeing” seems to me essentially a relic of primitive indiscrimination.

By way of contrast, the potential "being" of Matter in Aristotle marks a major step forward. In my view, "being" and "nonbeing" are inadmissible metaphysical judgments that just lead to confusion, whereas “ascertainable”
and "nonascertainable" take into account hic et nunc the relatedness of the actual and the nonactual to the indispensable observer.

Without wishing to cast aspersions on Bohr', originality, I should nevertheless like to point out that Kant had already demonstrated the necessary the necessary antimony of all metaphysical statements.

Of course, this also applies to statements concerning the unconscious, in that the latter is in itself nonascertainable.

As such, it can either be "a potential being" or "nonbeing."

I would, however, place these last two concepts in the category of metaphysical judgments, where in fact all concepts of "being" belong.

Aristotle was not able to create sufficient distance from the influence of Plato to see the merely postulated character of his concepts of "being."

In that "spiritualism" and "materialism" are statements on Being, they represent metaphysical judgments.

They are only admissible as necessary elements in the process of apperception; namely, as the labeling of categories of ideas, such as "that is of mental (or spiritual) origin" or "that is of physical (or material) origin."

Metaphysical judgment, however, always places an element of the psychic in an external location, thus preventing a union of Idea and Matter.

Only in a third medium (of Plato) Plato, see Symbolik des Geistes [Symbolism of the Spirit). p. 339ff.
pars. 182-S3]) can the union of the two spheres take place, where both Idea and Matter are removed from their "in and for itself being" and adapted to this third medium-namely, the psyche of the observer.

Nowhere else but in the. psyche of the individual can the union be completed and the essential identity of Idea and Matter be experienced and perceived.

I view metaphysical judgments-forgive this heresy-as a relic of the primitive participation mystique, which forms the main stumbling block to the attainment of an individual consciousness.

What is more, metaphysical judgments lead to one-sidedness such as spiritualization or materialization, for they take a more or less large or significant part of the psyche and situate it either in Heaven or in earthly things, and then it can drag the whole person along with it, thus depriving him of his middle position.

If, in epistemological self-limitation, we characterize Spirit and Matter "in and for itself" as non-ascertainable, this does not detract in any way from their metaphysical Being, for it is absolutely impossible for us even to approach it.

But we have prevented the projection of the psychic into an external location, thus promoting the integration of the wholeness of man.

The psyche as a medium participates in both Spirit and Matter.

I am convinced that it (the psyche) is partly of a material nature.

The archetypes, for example, are Ideas (in the Platonic sense) on the one hand, and yet are directly connected with physiological processes on the other, and in cases of synchronicity they are arrangers of physical circumstances, so that they can also be regarded as a characteristic of Matter (as the feature that imbues it with meaning).

It is part of this non-ascertainability of their being that they cannot be situated in place.

This is particularly the case with the archetype of wholeness-that is, of the Self.

It is the One and the Many.

As you rightly say, the wholeness of man holds the middle position, namely between the mundus archetypus, which is real, because it acts, and the physis, which is just as real, because it acts.

The principle of both, however, is unknown and therefore not ascertainable.

Moreover, there are grounds for supposing that both are just different aspects of one and the same principle; hence the possibility of setting up identical or parallel physical and psychological propositions on the one hand and on the other the psychological interpretability of religious revelations.

(Theologians have the same resistance to psychologists as physicists, except that the former believe in Spirit and the latter in Matter.)

The fact that on the whole our views coincide is very pleasing to me, and I am very grateful to you for presenting your opinions in such detail.

It seems to me that you have done a great deal of thinking and have covered a lot of ground, which would give you quite a lot to tell the strangers about.

If one moves too far forward, it is often impossible to remember the thoughts one had before, and then the public finds one incomprehensible.

If I have presented my views rather briefly here, much of what I say may sound apodictic, but that is not my intention at all. It is much rather that I am aware of how improvised and makeshift my definitions are and how much I am dependent on your goodwill and understanding.

I am not yet in the best of health.

I still suffer from occasional bouts of tachycardia and arrhythmia and have to be especially careful not to overexert myself mentally.

This letter was already too much of an effort and one that I must avoid repeating for a while.

The problem of the coniunctio must be kept for the future; it is more than I can cope with, and my heart reacts if I exert myself too much along these lines.

My essay on the "Der Geist der Psychologie" [The Spirit of Psychology) of 1946 resulted in a serious attack of tachycardia, and synchronicity brought on the rest.

I would be very interested to hear about you "impressions of India sometime.

I must just wait until my health is a little more stable.

At the moment I can only receive visitors in the mornings, as I have to rest in the afternoon.

I must practice patience and thus force others to acquire the same virtue.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely, [C. C. JUNG) ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 97-101