Wolfgang Pauli: Unlike your own ideas those of Speiser are, I must confess, often difficult to understand.

Dear Professor Jung: February 2, 1951

Many thanks for sending me the edited version of your manuscript.

I paid particular attention to the new version of chap. IV and found that it reflects faithfully the state of affairs with the problems at the moment and, from the standpoint of modern physics, is now unassailable.

I was a little taken aback by the relatively large amount of space devoted to your discussion with A. Speiser.

Unlike your own ideas those of Speiser are, I must confess, often difficult to understand.

Some of them also seem out of date; in particular, remarks such as the “initial state, which is not determined by the law alone” and then “is carried through time completely according to the law” represent the point of view of classical physics and not modern nuclear physics.

In the latter, every observation is basically an intervention that interrupts the causal connection.

And furthermore, is it not a regression into the extreme “Nominalism” (in the sense of the medieval polemic between “Nominalism” and “Realism”) to dismiss any concept as “Nothing”.?

But this, of course, is just a small detail in your new chapter, which I would like to say, once again meets with my wholehearted approval.

I look forward to your lecture on Saturday and remain until then with best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

W PAULI ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Page 71.

Wolfgang Pauli: My resistance to the archetype and its tendencies is correspondingly weakening.

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon-Zurich, 23 June 1950

I would like to thank you most heartily for your letter.

What I found particularly interesting was your interpretation regarding the two boys in the dream, with the older one as the "ego" and the younger one as the "shadow."

I accept that as totally plausible, but it is perhaps difficult to prove such an assumption beyond any doubt.

The motif of two (youngish) men, of whom only one speaks to me, is a familiar one; it has occurred repeatedly in earlier dreams.

As to my conscious difficulties with the time concept, they related to the question of to what extent and how accurately a time coincidence is actually necessary for there to be a "meaningful coincidence: Is it not so that the "anima" has "knowledge" of meaningful wholenesses precisely because she lives outside physical time (i.e., in the unconscious)?

I have always been fascinated by the paradox that on the one hand the anima as the inferior function is most "contaminated" with the unconscious, and on the other hand, as a result of her closeness to the archetypes, seems to have superior knowledge.

I am in no doubt that the aim of the "stranger" is to convey a holistic concept of nature (not expressed in the conventional scientific point of view).

It is true that I regard the interpretation of modern physics in the narrowest sense as correct within the confines of its field of application but as basically incomplete.

My resistance to the archetype and its tendencies is correspondingly weakening.

Last autumn I had a dream in which "he" brings me a thick manuscript; I have not yet read it, for it first had to be seen by strangers in the background.

In my experience, the best thing to do in such cases is simply to wait and see.

At any rate, there is no shortage of "not yet assimilated thoughts" with me.

Best wishes for your recovery.

I am still looking forward to your lecture on synchronicity.

Yours ever gratefully,

W. PAULI ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Page 46

Wolfgang Pauli stops Dream Interpretation with Dr. Jung

Dear Dr. Jung, Zurich 7. 26. 1934

Since you conjured up the spirits of theoretical physics in "Seele url Tod" [Soul and Death], your paper concerning the interpretation of so-called
parapsychological phenomena, these spirits now seem to be gradually convening.

Jordan's essay, a copy of which is enclosed, was sent to me for appraisal by the publisher of the journal Die Naturwissenschaften.

He has certain misgivings about its publication, not because of the actual contents but because there is a risk that all sorts of incompetent people might get involved in the discussion.

However, this danger could possibly be mitigated by the addition of an appropriate editorial note to the essay.

As for the author, P. Jordan, I know him personally.

He is a highly intelligent and gifted theoretical physicist, certainly one to be taken seriously.

I do not know how he came to be involved with telepathic and related phenomena.

However, it may well be that his preoccupation with psychic phenomena and the unconscious in general is due to his personal problems.

These manifest themselves particularly in the symptom of a speech defect (stuttering), which almost made it impossible for him to pursue his career; this could have led to a certain fragmentation of his intellectual activities (he even feels that in his specialized field he has "run out of luck").

He seems to be familiar with some of Freud's writings, but probably not with yours.

I would be interested to hear your opinion on the contents of the essay, especially as Jordan's ideas seem to me to have a certain connection with your own.

In the last section 01 the essay in particular, he comes very close to your concept the collective unconscious.

Do not be put off by the word “positivistic"; it is unlikely that J's ideas have anything to do with any philosophical system, and I would suggest that he replace the word "positivist" with "phenomenological."

I do have certain misgivings about the picture (p. 12), according to which the conscious should be located as a "narrow borderline area" to the unconscious.

Might it not be preferable to advocate the view that the unconscious and the conscious are complementary (i.e., in a mutually exclusive relationship to each other), but not that one is part of the other?

Of course, I shall be happy to refer your works to the author.

Please forgive me for taking up your time by asking you for a (brief) written comment on the essay, but it may be of interest to you, even if there is nothing new
in it for you. (By the way, I do not need to have the copy returned.)

With regard to my own personal destiny, it is true that there are still one or two unresolved problems remaining.

Nevertheless, I feel a certain need to get away from dream interpretation and dream analysis, and I would like to see what life has to bring me from outside.

A development of my feeling function is, of course, very important to me, but it does seem to me that it could come about gradually through life itself, with the passage of time, and cannot emerge solely as the outcome of dream analysis.

Having given the matter much thought, I have come to the conclusion that I shall not continue with my visits to you for the time being, unless something untoward
should arise.

With my deepest thanks for all your trouble,

I remain

Yours sincerely,

W PAULI

Wolfgang Pauli's Letter to Professor Emma Jung

To Emma Jung (Zollikon-Zurich) 11 Oct. 1950

Dear Frau Professor,

In my work on Kepler, I once again came across the archetype of the lower chthonic Trinity (cf. the downward-reflected triangle with Fludd, which I projected at the time), which is familiar to me from old and recent dreams (in the form of the playing card the ace of clubs and in the form of three simple planks).

Ever since then, it has always aroused great interest whenever it crops up anywhere.

This summer I read the French reprint of the “Romans de la Table Ronde,” which Mr. Fierz showed me in Paris last spring.

My attention was immediately captured by the three wooden spindles (trois fusedux de bois) that appear in Merlin's story (i.e. p. 65).

This story (pp. 56--78) is an interesting myth in itself. The spindles, one of which is white, one red, and one green, are found on a mysterious revolving island.

The section on this island begins with the four elements, like so many alchemical treatises.

The spindles are then taken back to a tree that stems from a branch that Eve was allowed to take to Earth from the Tree of Paradise.

This earthly double of the Tree of Paradise was first white, then red, then green.

According to the myth, Solomon's wife had the spindles made from it and added them to David's sword.

The sword and the spindles travel for centuries by boat until they are finally found on this island.

To support the argument that the spindles are the archetype of the chthonic Trinity-which in this way, albeit in a special form, would be brought into relation with the Grail story-the following points can be put forward: The number 3 in the book quoted is often directly associated with the Trinity (see, e.g., p. 78), and the ship bearing the spindles and the sword is later (p. 364) claimed to be the Church.

The spindles have a chthonic origin (tree) and (as Mr. Fierz emphasized) are specifically feminine tools.

So they relate to the boat as the Trinity does to the Church.

What is new to me, however, is that this archetype is not represented here by three ordinary planks but by 3 spindles.

Spindles are not complete without spinners, but in the myth they are absent.

These absent spinners can probably be identified with the Fates (in the lexicon the Fates are mentioned under the word "fuseaux).

One has the feeling that in the myth these spinners have become the victims of a sort of Christian "censorship”;
when I say "censorship" I do not necessarily mean some external authority but a tendency on the part of the original narrator of the Grail story to suppress any heathen motif as not assimilable.

(Yet with Diana they have not gone very far in other places.)

This fits in with the fact that in the later story the spindles have no plausible purpose.

All it says is that Galahad sleeps with the 3 spindles in his bed before he sees the secret of the Grail and dies (see p. 379f.).

But Mr. Fierz pointed out to me that the revolving island also appears in Plato, at the end of "the State," where the 3 Fates sit round the "spindle of necessity."

Through this (albeit unstated) connection with the Fates, the fateful aspect of the archetype is emphasized.

As you have worked on the Grail legend in depth, whereas I have only read this one book, I should like to ask you whether and how the three spindles appear in other versions of the Grail legend.

I would of course be most interested to hear whether my attempt to interpret the spindles as the archetype of the 'lower Three" strikes you as plausible and supported by the material.

Thanking you in advance and with best wishes to Prof. Jung,

Yours sincerely,

[W PAULI] ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 47-48

Wolfgang Pauli writes of Professor Emma Jung

Frau Professor Emma Jung:

I have studies both your works on the Grail legend and am now in a position to reply to your very instructive letter.

I should like to stress straightaway that I not only totally agree with your own interpretations of the Grail legend but that I am happy to see the general nature of a certain group of my dreams and, to a certain extent, even my fascination with the Grail legend as a confirmation of your views.

The following points are of crucial importance to me: the connection between the Grail and the quaternity
(Part I conclusion, and Part II, p. 51f., although the solution in Wolfram's version emerges as the more psychological one, whereas in the French versions the story ends tragically with the disappearance of the Grail; the reflection motif Christ-Judas or the seat of Christ-siege perilleux, representing the contrast between the upper and lower region; the interpretation of the Grail legend as an expression of the reception of Christianity
(assimilation processes) by the unconscious.

It can certainly be said that in this process the archetypes of the lower region (also the "lower Trinity") are
the ones that met with a good response initially, but later there was an attempt to eliminate this "lower" aspect by means of allegories along the lines of traditional Christianity.

I paid special attention to the fair-dark form of Merlin.

You yourself point out his "dual layer" - namely, "half Christian-human," "half devilish-pagan" (II, p. 76 [1960 edn., pp. 365-66/ 1tr., pp. 355-56])-and you go on to emphasize his need for redemption (II, p. 95 [1960 edn, p. 404/tr, p. 392].

It was also most useful to me to hear of Geofroy’s alternative depiction of Merlin as more of a natural creature.

In connection with this general interpretation of yours of the Grail legend, I would like to come back to the special question of the 3 spindles and matters directly connected with them.

You were kind enough to deal with this question in your letter, and we pursued the subject in our last brief conversation.

I think we are in full agreement that the “fusedux” do not necessarily have anything to do with spinning (and hence with the Fates), but that as prima materia processed by humans, and thanks to their connection
With the feminine (Solomon’s wife), they do belong to the lower region.

I now feel I must tell you about the earlier dream of mine, the one that actually led me to write to you about the 3 spindles in Boulanger this summer, I immediately felt myself transported back into the mood of the dream.

The river in the dream evidently corresponds to the mother’s lap, and in this an archetype has for me acquired what is so far a definitive form, namely, the fair-dark “dual-layers” one.

Incidentally, it has already appeared previously with wood, and on one occasion it brought me a circular piece of wood.

It is always the wood that has been treated by human beings that has a "magic” effect in my dreams, in contrast to the natural state of the prima materia.

This, together with the other dream experience described below, makes it seem likely that this is not just an external analogy between my dreams and the Grail myth but is a more far reaching identification of the relation of the archetype to consciousness, despite all the differences due to any problems arising from the time factor.

Just as a dream can be interpreted by being compared to a myth, a myth can equally well be understood by resorting to dreams.

The direction one chooses seems to depend on whichever of the two happens to be more familiar at the time.

It is with all this in mind that I should now like to attempt to describe to you the figure of the “stranger" (who in the dream under discussion emerged from the river but had already been there in another form); I shall do so as if it were a character from a story, although I shall be bringing in material not just from recent dreams but from dreams going back to 1946.

It is evidently the archetype of the “mana personality" or the "magician” (the only reason I do not call him the "wise old man" is that my figure is not old but is actually younger than myself).

Everything that Prof. Jung says about the "spirit Mercurius" fits him perfectly.

While reading your work, however, I saw that there is also an important analogy between this figure and Merlin (especially in Robert de Boron's version).

My dream figure is also "dual-layered"; on the one hand, he is a spiritual-light figure with superior knowledge, and on the other hand, he is a chthonic natural spirit.

But his knowledge repeatedly takes him back to nature, and his chthonic origins are also the source of his knowledge, so that ultimately both aspects turn out to be facets of the same “personality.”

He is the one who prepares the way for the quaternity, which is always pursuing him.

His actions are always effective, his words definitive, albeit oftern incomprehensible.
Women and children follow him happily, and he frequently tries to instruct them,

In fact, he regards everyone around him (especially me) as completely ignorant and uneducated compared with himself.

He does not reject the ancient writings on magic but simply regards them as a popular preliminary stage for people with not education (e.g. myself).

But now comes the really odd bit, namely, the analogy to the “Antichrist”: He is not an antichrist, but in a certain sense an “Antichrist,” “science” here meaning especially the scientific approach, particularly as it is taught in universities today.

This he sees as a sort of Zwinguri, as the place and symbol of his oppression, which (in my dreams) he occasionally sets fire to.

If he feels he is being disregarded, he does everything in his power to draw attention to himself, for example by means of synchronistic phenomena (which he calls “radioactivity”) or through moods of depression or incomprehensible affects.

Your observation (II, p. 86) "that ... the factor which brings on sickness or has any other unfavorable effect occurs when contents that are ready for consciousness and not taken over "literally hits the nail on the head.”

The "stranger's" attitude toward science is very similar to that of Ahasuerus toward Christianity: This
"stranger" is something that did not accept the scientific world picture about 300 years ago and is now running around autonomously in the collective unconscious like a loose cannon; in doing so it is becoming more and
more loaded with "mana" (especially when "up above," my branch of science, physics, has got somewhat bogged down).

The same thing can be said in a different way: When rational methods in science reach a dead end, a new lease of life is given to those contents that were pushed out of time consciousness in the 17th century and sank into the unconscious.

With the passage of time, they take possession of the ever-present original of the "mana personality" there, and this "mana personality" is ultimately so powerfully enveloped by these contents that its physiognomy is determined by that loose fragment that was rejected by the conscious back in the 17th century.

And yet, when all comes to all, the relationship of the "stranger" to science is not a destructive one, which is also true of Merlin's relationship to Christianity: He happily uses the terminology of modem science (radioactivity,
spin) and mathematics (prime numbers) but does so in an unconventional manner.

Inasmuch as he ultimately wishes to be understood but has yet to find his place in our contemporary culture, he is, like Merlin, in need of redemption.

It seems to me that for him the "bonfire" of liberation

will only bum in a form of culture that will be effectively expressed by the quaternity.

As far as I can see, it has not yet been determined in detail just when and how this will come about.

But it is probably such expectations that will for us replace that of the "Third Kingdom· by Gioacchino e Fiore [Joachim of Floris] 1 (II, p. 41 [1960 edn., pp. 325-26/tr., pp. 317-18]).

I hope that these remarks will have made clear the conformity of the situation of the archetypes to consciousness in the Grail legend, on the one hand, and in my dreams, on the other; if this is the case, my next "adventure”
with your letter will not be quite so unexpected.

I was at once both fascinated and excited by the description in your letter of the arrangement of the "fuseaux”l quoted from the texts.

There was an affective relationship and an emotional situation.

I began to consider the fact that it was really odd that the "spindles' were not rotating, even if they had nothing to do with spinning.

The whole thing struck me as a mechanism to prevent the spindles from rotating; the rotation was reserved much
more for the island than for the original form of the prima materia, which had emerged from the four elements and had remained untouched by human beings.

I discussed your letter-and this question in particular with C. A Meier, and he hit on the idea of looking up the role played by spindles in folklore.

What he found out was that sometimes a harmful "magic' influence is attributed to the rotating of the spindles, which is why it was forbidden on certain occasions (for example, when bringing in the harvest).

For me, this gave rise to the association "Rotating spindles-magic or sympathetic effect: A couple of nights later, I had the dream that you will find on the enclosed sheet; in it, surprisingly, the arrangement of the
"fuseaux” described on your letter is transformed into a pair of scales.

The meaning of the dream certainly has a lot to do with the problems discussed by Prof. lung in his latest treatise on synchronicity.

However, I would like to emphasize once again that it is impossible for the dream to have been influenced
by Prof. lung's new writings, which I have only just received.

The dream occurred quite a while earlier and is thus to be interpreted as a consequence of reading your letter.

Let me make it quite clear that I am not sending you the dreams because I expect you to interpret them.

Actually, [ am quite skeptical about "interpretations” of dreams of this nature.

What has worked best for me has been on the one hand "shedding as broad a light" as possible onto the context,
and reflecting on the general problems to be found in this context, and on the other hand observing the dreams over periods of several years.

This brings about a certain familiarity with the "point of view" of the unconscious and at the same time the long-lasting and gradual shifting of the point view of the unconscious.

But I actually wanted to inform you about the real reasons for my interest in the Grail legend, and as well the response you have triggered.

(I leave it to you to decide whether or not you wish to show Prof. Jung these two dreams.)

Once again, many thanks for your fine work (which I should like to hold on to for a while).

Best wishes to you and to Prof. Jung (to whom I shall write as soon as I have studied his latest work on synchronicity).

Yours, [W. Pauli] ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetypes, Pages 49-53.

Wolfgang Pauli: Summer may well be a pleasant time, but it is one-sided and incomplete.

Dear Professor Jung Zollikon-Ziirich, 4 lune 1950

Further to our talk yesterday, I am sending you the texts of two dreams that occurred last year alter I had read your manuscript on the phenomenon of synchronicity.

These dreams are still on my mind in connection with my attitude to these phenomena.

I should like to add some comments to all the dreams (which for you will be part of the "material").

1) The time concept, which is the topic of the first dream, is not that of physics but that of the "dark anima."

It is an intuitive assessment of the characteristic features of an external situation, although it can also be linked up with the seasons.

What the position of the hand on a clock is to the physicist, the "situation of the pairs of opposites" is to this intuitive concept of time, namely, which are conscious and which are unconscious.

For example, when I wrote to you at the time of the dream that the scarab incident you described had probably taken place in March or September, it was –in the language of the dream-"the dark maiden who had made a short journey so as to define the time."

This time concept can be applied to external situations as well as to dream situations.

2) Applied to the first part of the second dream (before the "stranger" appears) it would mean, "It is summer."

The absence of the dark maiden in this dream (she appeared in later dreams) or-which is the same thing—the fact that there are only three children here and not four means that there is a preponderance of light on the feminine (i.e., feeling-intuitive) side.

The light-feminine is the erotic-spiritual and often appears as the preliminary stage of the formation of a concept, whereas the dark-feminine usually tends toward the realization of a situation in the material physical world (in external nature).

The absence of the latter is a certain lack of symmetry in the initial situation of the second dream.

Summer may well be a pleasant time, but it is one-sided and incomplete.

Incidentally, there were other dreams with four children in the autumn of 1948.

3) Apparently this must be directly conneted with the conflict-seemingly unsolvable on a rational basis between my conscious attitude and the unconscious one (the anima) towar the assessment of the two boys.

Unfortunately, I do not know what the two boys are.

In judging the younger boy however, I have been struck by my consciously dismissive attitude toward horoscopes and astrology, but this fragment of the dream probably has a more general meaning than that.

4) The situation that arises now apparently "constellates the archetype that is very familiar to me and appears as "the stranger."

His character is very much that of the so-called "psychopompos" and always dominates the whole situation, including the "anima."

He used to have two types of appearance, a light one and a dark one (the latter occasionally as a "Persian" in the
dream).

But in 1948 a further transformation took place with him, which brought the two poles of the pair-opposites closer together, so that be then appeared as a blond, but in a dark robe, or vice versa, yet clearly one and the
same man.

(Incidentally, be is not an old man, nor does he have white hair, but is rather younger.)

From your essay "Der Geist Mercurius (The Spirit Mercurius"' I learned a lot that helped me to understand this figure, since he plays a role similar to that of Mercury with the achemists.

In my dream language, he would be identified with the "radioactive nucleus.”

5) In the second dream recorded here, he makes important statements about the book which the light maiden is holding (he also says that he gave her the book).

With regard to this book, when I woke up I thought of the Wilhelm translation of the 1 Ching. (The gothic lettering indicates Germany, where the book was published.)

I often turn to it when interpreting dream situations.

For me, "normal" mathematics means algebra and especially differential and integral calculus; this of course does not exist in the I Ching.

However, elementary arithmetic often crops up there (e.g., divisibility by 4), and the 64 signs also excited Leibniz's mathematical imagination.

Bearing this in mind, one can actually describe the I Ching a "popular mathematics book.”

The · stranger also has the tendency-apart from the way he relates to physical terms-to represent the contemporary sphere of appIication of mathematics as inadequate.

He makes no distinction whatsoever between "physical" and ·psychic," and he also applies mathematics to what
we call "the hermetic world of the psyche."

The objection that this is qualitative and not quantitative is not necessarily valid, for on the one hand many
aspects of mathematics (such as topology) are also qualitative and not quantitative, and on the other hand whole figures are also a crucial factor in the psyche.

What is interesting is that generally "the stranger" does not use terms that are taken directly from your field of analytical psychology.

Here he usually substitutes physical terms, which he then uses unconventionally in an extended sense.

In the dream here, he now implies that the small fair maiden should be able to do mathematics as well as I can, and he makes it a sort of long-term task that she should learn it.

By way of contrast, he represents the "popular mathematics book" as being of a provisional nature.

So much for the material.

I believe it would be a major step forward in my attitude to the phenomenon of synchronicity if I could arrive at a correct interpretation of the two boys in the dream (and the conflict concerning the younger of the two).

It seems fairly obvious that the children-there are supposed to be four actually, and sometimes there were-should be linked with your function schema.

But I do not wish to get caught up in speculations that have no real foundation.

In Princeton, I unexpectedly had the opportunity to discuss the synchronicity phenomenon on several occasions.

In doing so, I preferred to use the term "meaning-correspondence" rather than "synchronicity," so as to place more emphasis on meaning rather than on simultaneity and to link up with the old "correspondentia."

Moreover, I made a point of stressing the difference between the spontaneous appearance of the phenomenon (as in your scarab report) and the induced phenomenon (by means of a preliminary treatment or a rite), as is the case with mantic practices ( I Ching or ars geomantics).

I wonder whether the two boys have anything to do with this distinction?

I am eagerly looking forward to your talk on 24June, and I hope that it will lead to an instructive discussion (e.g., on the concept of "natural laws in physics and the term "archetype" in psychology).

In the meantime, I send my best wishes,

Yours ever gratefully,

W. PAULI ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 42-44

Dear Mr. Pauli, 22 June 1949

Quite a while ago, you encouraged me to write down my thoughts about synchronicity.

I have finally managed to get around to it and more or less collect my thoughts on the subject.'

I would be most grateful if you would be kind enough to cast a critical eye over it, covered as it is with question marks.

Nowadays, physicists are the only people who are paying serious attention to such ideas.

If you prefer to discuss it in person, maybe we could meet in the first week in July, when I shall already be in Bollingen.

I am more relaxed there, and we shall have more time to ourselves.

I would, however, appreciate it if you could briefly let me know beforehand what your general impression is.

I hope I am not encroaching too much on your valuable time.

Your opinion in this matter is so important to me that I have cast aside any misgivings I might have in that respect.

Thanking you in advance,

Yours sincerely,

[C. G. JUNG] ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Page 36

Wolfgang Pauli and the "Pauli Effect"

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon-Zurich, 16 June 1948

When that amusing "Pauli effect" of the overturned vase occurred, on the occasion of the founding of the Jung Institute, I had the immediate and
vivid impression that I should "pour out water inside" ("innen Wasser ausgiessen" -to use the symbolic language that I have acquired from you).

Then when the connection between psychology and physics took up a relatively large part of your talk, it became even more clear to me what I was to
do.

The outcome of all this is the enclosed essay.

It is not intended for publication or for a lecture, especially as for me it is just the beginning of an examination of these problems; it could, however, serve as a basis for further discussion. (I would be very happy if it would be possible for you to spend a quiet evening in the second half of July discussing these problems with Dr. C. A. Meier and myself.)

But perhaps you prefer to communicate by letter by letter.

If the same set of problems is looked at from such different angles as those of psychology and physics, there are bound to be differences of opinion over certain details.

The main one for me still remains that I relate the fact of the representation of psychic circumstances to characteristics of the material, which was first proved by you in the case of alchemy.

Furthermore, I attempt to show that in this it is very easy for the unconscious to replace the alchemistic oven with a modem spectrograph.

This should come as less of a surprise to the psychologist than to the physicist: Whereas the latter soon jumps to the false conclusion that such symbolism is now invalid u a consequence of the strides made in our knowledge of matter, the former knows only too well how little the structure and tendency of the unconscious have been affected by the technological progress of the past 300 years.

Hoping to see you again at the Psychological Club on Saturday, I send my best wishes and remain,

Yours sincerely, W PAULI ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 33-34

Wolfgang Pauli: Space and time were virtually turned by Newton into God's right hand ...

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon-Zurich, 23 December 1947

In reply to your letter of 9 Dec., I should once again like to confirm in writing that I truly welcome your wish to found an institute with the objective of cultivating and promoting the field of research that you have inaugurated; and I give my consent to my name being on the list of sponsors.

The way your research and alchemy coincide is to me serious evidence that what is developing is indicative of a close fusion of psychology with the scientific experience of the processes in the material physical world.

It is probably a long journey, one we are only just setting out on, and it will especially entail, as a modifying factor, constant criticism of the space-time concept.

Space and time were virtually turned by Newton into God's right hand (oddly enough, the position made vacant when he expelled the Son of God from there), and it needed an extraordinary mental effort to bring time and space back down from these Olympian heights.

Going hand in hand with this, apparently, is the criticism of the basic idea of classical natural science, according to which it describes objective facts to such an extent that there is absolutely no link between them and the researcher (objectifiability of the phenomena independently of the way in which they are observed).

Modem micro physics turns the observer once again into a little lord of creation in his microcosm, with the ability (at least partially) of freedom of choice and fundamentally uncontrollable effects on that which is observed.

But if these phenomena are dependent on how (with what experimental system) they are observed, then is it not possible that there are also phenomena (extra corpus) that depend on who observes them (i.e., on the nature of the psyche of the observer)?

And if natural science, in pursuit of the ideal of determinism since Newton, has finally arrived at the stage of the fundamental "perhaps” of the statistical character of natural laws (what enantiodromia!), then should there not be enough room for all those oddities that ultimately

Rob the distinction between “physics” and “psyche” of all its meaning (as with the distinction between “physics” and “chemistry”)?

I hope that the continuation of the research you have inaugurated in this field will bring solutions to these problems, and thus I also hope for closer contact between this field of research and the natural sciences than has hitherto been the case.

It was a great pleasure to talk to you again, especially as at the moment my attention is focused strongly on the influence of the archetypal concepts (or, as you once said, the “instinct of imagination”) on scientific definitions.

For me, the best way to make something clear to myself has always been to announce a lecture or a speech on the subjects in questions; and with this in mind, I hope that one or two lectures on Kepler (as an example( in the Psychologcal Club will get me off to a good start.

I shall look further into the sources your were kind enough to give me. I hope that I can bring alive for the public the collision between the magic-alchemistic and the )new in the 17th century) scientific way of thinking (a collision that I believe recurs on a higher level in the unconscious of modern man).

Once again, many thanks and kind regards.

Yours truly,

sincerely, W. PAULI ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 32-33

Wolfgang Pauli: I shall try to allow the "anima" to have a greater say on the concept of time.

Dear Mr. Jung, 30 Oct. 1938

Many thanks for your letter.

The comment it contains on the dream is a confirmation of my own attitude to these problems, which basically tallies with your interpretation.

I shall try to allow the "anima" to have a greater say on the concept of time.

The first attempt of the "anima" to express her concept of time is to be seen in the fact that she produces these odd oscillation symbols.

The light and dark stripes must also probably be seen as falling into the same category of periodic symbols, as must the pendulum and the "little man" from the earlier material.

Perhaps you can substantiate them with some sort of historical material; but in the alchemical literature quoted in your essays I have not been able to find such material.

As you can see, I would like to "saddle" you with this problem as well.

As regards your request to be kept more or less up-to-date about my dreams, I'll come back to that later at some point.

I have a basically coherent series of dreams from the first half of 1937, which seems to have the character of initiation rites.

But it is always a good thing to allow some time to elapse before I work through the material, for I am then better able to distinguish between what is important and what is not.

I may take the liberty of sending you further material next spring.

Of the alchemical literature, it was especially the 17th century that aroused a certain interest, particularly Fludd, because of the symbols he
employs.

By the way, do you know Meyrink's novel Der Engel vom westlichen Fenster, which deals with the alchemy of this period (17th century)?

(I simply mention it because you made a point of quoting Meyrink in your 1935 essay ["Traumsymbole des Individuationsprozesses," in Eranos Jahrbuch 1935])·

Many thanks for your essay on the "Zosimos visions."

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

W. PAULI. ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atoms and Archetypes, Page 20


Dear Provessor 3 November 1938

As regards the “little man, “ we have evidence of that as far back as the earliest alchemical literature, particularly with Zosimos, where the anthroparia are to be found.

In connection with “pendulum,” one automatically thinks of medieval timepieces, where segments of time are represented by little men.

The personification of time can be found on a large scale in the identity of Christ with the church year, or in the identification of Christ with the serpent of the zodiac.

Moreover, you will find many representations of the planet or metal gods as little men, or children, in picture material, e.g.:

I. Symbolical Scrowle of Sir George Ripley. Ms. British Museum. Additional 10302.
2. Berthelot: Alchemistes Grecs.. Pat. I., p. 23.
3. Daniel Stolz v. Stolzenberg: Viridarium Chymicum, 1624. Fig. 50
4. Lacinius: Pretiosa Margarita, .1546. (in Colloquium nuncupatorius)
5. Museum Herm .1678. Liber Alze. P. 326("Quatuor corpora mas et masculus nominantur.")

With regard to the symbolism of periodicity in alchemy, nothing springs to mind at the moment, apart from the frequent reference to the importance of figures, weight, proportion, and duration of time.

The only regularity in the alchemical process that I know is the one going back to Creek times with its division into four. corresponding to the four elements. (Quatuor operationes, quatuor gradus caloris.)

I certainly know Meyrink's novel.

The John Dee [1527-1608] he deals with is a terrible speculator.

I have read a treatise by him on the Mona Hieroglyphica that is simply unbearable.

Incidentally, there is an English biography of him: Charlotte Fell-Smith, John Dee.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely.

[C. G. Jung] ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Page 23.

Wolfgang Pauli: Our talk yesterday on the "synchronicity"

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon-Zurich, 7 Nov, 1948

Our talk yesterday on the "synchronicity of dreams and external circumstances (Do you also use this term "synchronous” when there is a gap of 2-3 months between dream and external event?) was of great help to me, and I should like to thank you once again.

As you told me you were very preoccupied at the moment with the rotation symbolism of mandalas, I am taking the liberty of sending you the exact text of one of my dream that occurred about 2 years ago-in which rotation, and hence the concept of space, was the central feature.

It may be useful to you in dealing with these questions that are on your mind at the moment.

Of course, it is about the relativity of the concept of space in relation to the psyche, and if the problem were not important here and now, this dream would not have had such an overwhelming effect on me at the time.

The Kepler lecture, the idea of the neutral language, and the further pursuit of the archetypal background of physical terms were all triggered off in me at the time.

The objectivity of the archetypal background makes it seem very likely to me that the problem of the mandalas, which you mentioned briefly yesterday, and the one that is behind this dream will be one and the same.

As to the phenomenon described by you as synchronistic, I am for the time being using a sort of symbolic aid or working hypothesis which-as the simplest elementary case of the Riemann surface-looks as follows: This is supposed to represent the cross-section of two leaves (to be thought of as continuing perpendicular to the plane surface)

that are generally separated but that connect at the central point marked out (penetrating each other-mathematicians are very generous in this respect)

The number of leaves is arbitrary two simply being the easiest number.

The essential thing is by circling round the central point (perpendicular to the plane surface) one gets from the lower leaf to the upper one (and vice versa).

The "radioactive nucleus" is a symbolic cause, determined by the unconscious, of the "synchronistically" connected phenomena one of which, for example, (lower leaf) consists in the fact that I have a certain dream, the other (upper leaf) in the fact that Mr. or Mrs. X falls ill or dies.

The activity that comes from the central point in the intermediate stratum deals initially with the distinction between "physis” and "psyche" and represents an order that operates outside space and partly outside time as well.

But the presence of this activity described as "radioactivity" by the neutral language that springs up spontaneously from my unconscious-is essentially linked to the condition that archetypal contents (from a deeper, completely timeless stratum) draw near to the conscious (doubling phenomenon), so that the problem of their integration into the conscious has become an immediate one.

Is it not a fact that when one looks more closely at the drawing, the mandala circle is split into two leaves lying on top of each other, which, in accordance with a set pattern, overlap in the center (Self)?

With many thanks,

Yours sincerely,

W Pauli ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages, 34-35

Wolfgang Pauli: In the first half of my life I was a cold and cynical devil...

Dear Dr. Jung, May 24, 1934

I have just received your letter, and it would be very convenient for me to meet you on Monday at the earlier time of 11 o’clock.

May I take this opportunity of adding a few remarks?

In the meantime, I have to a very large extent become clear about the danger specific to my life, which had been projected onto the wasps.

The alternating light and dark stripes must be diametrically opposed psychic attitudes, or dispositions to forms and behavior.

Moreover, they are very closely related to ethics, religion, and relationships toward other people, as well as to sensual feelings, eroticism, and sexuality.

The specific limit to my life has been the fact that in the second half of life I swing from one extreme to another (the enantiodromia).

In the first half of my life I was a cold and cynical devil to other people and a fanatical atheist and intellectual "enlightener."

The opposite to that was on the one hand, a tendency toward being a criminal, a thug (which could have degenerated into me becoming a murderer), and, and, the other hand, becoming detached from the world-a totally unintellectual hermit with outbursts of ecstasy and visions.

So the purpose of my neurosis was to keep me from this danger of changing abruptly into the opposite.

In marriage there can only be the balance of the happy medium, the Tao.

My wife has a similar problem of opposites, but the reverse of mine.

Up to now, all that she has lived out externally has been social relationships and human kindness, and she makes unrealistic ethical demands, such as Everybody should be good.

Consequently, as I have been able to observe by looking closely, the demand of the evil side for recognition
has accumulated in her unconscious, and her animus has an extremely robust, nay even violent character.

A nd that is wby sbe fell in love with my shadow side, because it secretly made a deep impression on her.

But in my view this creates the prerequisites for balance in marriage.

But there is more to it than that: This abrupt swing into the opposite is a danger not just for me but for our whole civilization.

This is what the dream with the 3 giant horses is saying; in this moment everything can turn into primitive barbarianism, unless Tao and individuation step in.

This is why my personal problem is also a collective one, and, conversely, the danger that I personally was faced with was greatly heightened by a disposition that was forced upon me by the collective unconscious.

I spent Whitsuntide in Melchtal and I visited the Bruder Kalus chapel at great length, studying the pictures hanging there, which represent his visions.

I was thoroughly fascinated by them and felt a strong and immediate rapport with them.

His life was really turned upside down when be left his family and went into the wilderness.

And he had that peculiar vision of the Trinity, which gave him such a terrible fright.

As far as I mow, no attempt has yet been made to explain this fright.

I believe that it must have been a similar fright, albeit much greater and stronger, to the one I had in the dream with the 3 giant horses.

Now Bruder Klaus knew nothing about individuation or any alternative to Christianity.

He must have had a vision or something like the end of the world.

And the relationship to the Trinity is perfectly understandable to me, for I once had a dream in which the Trinity
turned into the 3 rhythms (the "world clock").

And the interplay of the latter is said to involve danger at a certain point in time.

Do you find this point of view outlandish?

Perhaps it is.

But we must not lose sight of the fact that these are objective, psychic facts, which all come from the same collective unconscious.

So I am really looking forward to seeing you again next Monday at U o'clock, and remain,

with best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

W PAULI ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 27-28

Dear Professor Jung 3.VI. 40

Owing to circumstances beyond my control, I am sending you the enclosed dream material from the years '937-1939, so that it does not get lost.

In the middle of May I suddenly and quite out of the blue received an invitation to be a guest professor at Princeton, where I have already been once before.

I may be leaving this week; it all depends which of the two will win the race: the passport and visa bureaucracy or the war looming up in the Mediterranean.

I mention this here in order to justify the fact that I am sending you the material without any additional remarks, which I would have liked to have worked out beforehand.

With the concept of time (in particular the dream from 12.-111-1939). I have since made some progress by studying the writings of Wilhelm, especially his commentary to the IChing (comments on “Kreislauf des Geschelhens” pp 155 ff in Der Mensch und das Sein; p. 176f on transmigration of souls/reincarnations).

And I have also read the part in the text of the goldenen Blute pp. 142-143 of the 1st edn. [Baynes translation, 1931, p. 55.] about the possibility of multiplication in a moment when the pairs of opposites counterbalance each other (relationship of the “tree series” to my periodic dream symbols).

The motif of the projection of various periodic processes onto each other, as a sort of associative connections, seems to play an important role here, especially as, psychologically speaking, the concept of time is based on memory, powers of recall, and association.

This projection of cycles onto each other was later actually represented by me in dreams by abstract, mathematical symbols.

I believe I agree with you totally when you say that a “metaphysical” assumption of reincarnation is not necessary.

In the meantime, now that I have worked through the 1934 material again, another aspect of the rhythms has become clear to me, especially the “great vision" with the world clock published by you in your 1935 lectures.

This link has already been hinted at with the word "pulse" and concerns the relationship of the rhythm to the heartbeat and to circulation.

Unfortunately, I no longer have time to compile the relevant material, but I do feel that this relationship is a crucial one.

The dreams seem to express the idea that an archetypal image of the four-beat stands for a permanent, automatic,
steady rhythm, with self-regulation as the aim of both a physical-biological process as well as a purely psychic one (cf. here the "Eternal City"), and that this image of the objective psyche also causes, as it were, the circulation of the blood. (The four chambers of the heart seem to have a link with the quaternity of the mandala.)

With me, this then gave rise to the question of whether, in the comparative anatomy of the animal order or in the embryonic development of lower animals with single blood vessels up to the actual formation of the heart, there do not emerge parallels to the individuation process (with its formation in the middle").

I have often talked about this with Dr. C. A. Meier,' and he has informed me of an interesting vision from his material that seems to be related to this question.

But this whole problem is far beyond my personal competence as well as my education and training.

Do you perhaps still have a copy of the German edition of Psychology and Religion for me? (I never got a copy of the English edition.)

With my best wishes to you in this difficult time,

Yours sincerely,

W. Pauli ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 29-30

Wolfgang Pauli on "Periodic Symbols."

Dear Mr. Jung, 28, IV, 1934

In the meantime 1 have thought more about the problems that were broached in your letters of Oct. and Nov. 1938 and I would like to take the liberty of raising once again the question of the periodic symbols one of which occurred in the dream of 23-1-1938 and which you were kind enough to comment on in your letter.

I think I can take the matter a little farther by referring back to an even earlier dream which is to be found in the material 1 sent to you on an earlier occasion.

Specifically, it is the dream of 13-III- 1936.

This dream affords a certain insight into how a periodic symbol actually comes about for in it a dark man appears (associated by me with the
"shadow" archetype). who is cutting pieces out of a zone of light at regular intervals.

Although the two dreams refer to external situations that are very different and thus probably have different meanings. it seems to me nevertheless
very instructive to compare the two symbols (see the drawing at that point).

In the 1938 dream. the "oscillation" was horizontal, whereas it is vertical in the 1939 one (but I also know rare cases where it is slanting).

My own idea about this (arrived at purely intuitively) is that these symbols have a connection with the attitude to death. in that one oscillation signifies one human life. but one which is to be interpreted only as part of a larger whole.

For this whole. the usual concept of time applies, except that here there comes into play what you in your letter called the "time concept of the anima."

Whether this idea is definitive or not this periodic symbolism expresses for me a crucial life problem.

Despite your statement to the contrary in your letter of 3.XI.38, I suspect that this symbolism can be historically supported by documentary evidence after all, possibly the mystery cults of late antiquity.

Should anything else occur to you on the vasis of the earlier dream, I would be grateful if you would let me know.

I am also taking the liberty of sending you the promised work on the dream series from the first half of 1937, to complete your collection I recall that I became tired in the spring of 1937 and did not pursue the matter further.

But these problems crop up repeatedly with me from time to time, in one form or another.

With my best wishes for the new year,

Yours sincerely,

W. Pauli ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 24-25

Dear Dr. Jung,

Now that the holidays are over, I should like to ask you whether we may resume our Monday meetings in May; the first Monday in May is the 7th; could you receive me at 12 o'clock on that day?

Unfortunately I find myself having to count on the offer you kindly made with regard to the financial side, and I am most grateful to you for this.

It was with great interest that I read your essay on "Seele und Tod" [Soul and Death] in the April edition of the Europ Revue, especially your remarks on "Telepathy" and the "non-spatial, non-temporal form of being of the
psyche," where you even specifically mention my special subject-Theoretical Physics.

It is something that is very important to me, on the one hand, and yet is still largely unclear.

Of course, it all depends on what position one adopts in the relationships of the hypothetical, nonspatial, nontemporal form of being of the psyche to observable occurrences. (For apart from these relationships, one can, from the scientific point of view, adopt any arbitrary approach to the nonspatial, nontemporal form of being of the psyche.)

The general approach of the modem physicist to life phenomena is always the following: It is certainly impossible, through any observation of living beings, to ascertain any direct contradiction to the laws of physics as we know them.

However, in the experiments with living beings-be they of a biological or a psychological nature-the condition of keeping them alive or of preventing them from destroying themselves by scientific experimentation in a way that would annihilate the phenomenon would render impossible the testing of the laws of physics in the narrow sense of the term, particularly with those manifestations that are characteristic of living beings (e.g., adaptation. propagation. heredity). so much so that there is no room left for any new type of law of nature with life phenomena.

Of course. these remarks are intended as a general framework.

As far as the "parapsychological" phenomena in particular are concerned, I certainly do not know of any factual material (and even if I did. God knows whether I would believe any of it).

But in my dreaming and waking fantasies those abstract figures are appearing in ever greater numbers; you know them already (circles or stylized "little men" like hieroglyphics or acoustic rhythms, or alternating light and dark stripes) and it will become a matter of life and death for me to understand more about the objective (communicable) meaning of these symbols than I do at the moment.

I have certain grounds for assuming that only then will it be possible for me to "subjugate" my anima complex (transform it into a "function" in your psychology).

And my phobia about wasps is also very much connected with that.

In the meantime. my relationship to those creatures. which are of such exaggerated importance to me has changed insofar as the object of the fear is starting to become separated from the wasps (or partially at least).

I recognized that behind it lurked the fear of a sort of ecstatic state in which the contents of the unconscious (autonomous part systems) might burst forth contents which because of their strangeness would not be capable of being assimilated by the conscious and might thus have a shattering effect on it.

On the other hand, if an assimilation of the contents did come about as a result of the conscious gradually becoming accustomed to such experiences as those that are concealed behind the word "parapsychology" and symbols like the ones mentioned. then the danger would be averted (and ecstatic outbursts would hardly be likely to occur).

I would very like to discuss this and related series of fantasies with you in person.

Incidentally. you were perfectly correct when you predicted that for me marriage would constellate the "dark side of the collective" and corresponding "representations collectives.”

With best wishes.

Yours sincerely.

W PAULI ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 25-26

Carl Jung: ...if you look long enough into a dark hole, then you perceive what is looking in.

Dear Professor: 29 October 1934

Please accept my sincere thanks for kindly sending me Jordan's essay.

I believe that this essay should be published, as it deals with the actual shift of the physical approach to the psychological sphere.

This essay was inevitable.

It was inevitable that the systematic investigation of the unknown center of the atom, which has led to the conclusion that the observed system
is also a disturbance caused by the observance would show that essence of the observing process will be perceptible in the disturbance caused by the actual observation.

To put it simply, if you look long enough into a dark hole, then you perceive what is looking in.

Hence, this is the principle of perception in Yoga, which derives all perception from the absolute emptiness of consciousness.

This method of cognition is thus a special case of the introspective exploration of the psychic in general.

With regard to Jordan's reference to parapsychic manifestations, spatial clairvoyance is of course one of the most obvious phenomena to represent the relative nonexistence of our empirical image of space.

Taking this argument further, he would also necessarily have to bring in temporal clairvoyance, which would represent the relativity of the image of time.

Naturally, Jordan looks at these phenomena from the physical point of view, whereas I do so from the psychic point of view-specifically from the fact of the collective unconscious, as you have correctly noted, which presents a layer of the psychic in which individual distinctions of consciousness are more or less extinguished.

However, if individual consciousnesses in the unconscious were extinguished, then all perception in the unconscious would occur as in one person.

Jordan states that a sender and a receiver in the same conscious "space" observe the same object at the same time.

One could Just as easily tum this statement around and say that in unconscious "space: sender and receiver are one and the same perceiving object.

As you can see, my point of view as a psychologist would be that of the perceiving subject, whereas the physicist expresses himself from the standpoint of the common space in which two or more observers find themselves.

Carried to its ultimate conclusion, Jordan's approach would lead to the supposition of an absolute unconscious space in which an infinite number of observers are looking at the same object.

The psychological version would be: In the unconscious there is just one observer, who looks at an infinite number of objects.

II you wish to draw Jordan's attention to my writings, may I perhaps recommend that, in addition to the essays you have already quoted, you also mention the one in the same volume on "Das Grundproblem der Gegenwartigen Psychologie" [The Basic Problem of Contemporary Psychology]

With regard to the collective unconscious there is in the earlier volume, Seeleprobleme de Gegenwart [Soul Problems of the Present], an essay in which I go into this subject in some depth, namely "Die Struktur der Seele· [The Structure of the Soul] (Page 144)

I would be obliged if I could hold on to Jordan's essay for a while.

By the way, it has just occurred to me that on the subject of time relativity there is a book by a student of Eddington, Dunne, An Experiment with Time, in which he deals with temporal clairvoyance in a similar way to how Jordan deals with spatial clairvoyance.

He postulates an infinite number of time dimensions that more or less correspond to Jordan's "intermediary stages.

I would be very interested to hear how you respond to these arguments of Dunne's.

I also thank you for the news of your well-being and hope you continue to make progress.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

[C. C. JUNG]

Wolfgang Pauli and Alchemy

Dear Professor Jung, July 26, 1937

I would just like to say a brief word of thanks for sending me your book on alchemy.

It was bound to be of great interest to me, both as a scientist and also in the light of my personal dream experiences.

These have shown me that even the most modem physics also lends itself to the symbolic representation of psychic processes, even down to the last detail.

Of course, nothing is further from the thoughts of modem man than the idea of penetrating the secrets of matter in this way, for he would actually rather use these symbols to penetrate the secrets of the soul, since it seems to him that, relatively speaking less research has been done on the soul and it is less familiar than matter.

But perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from alchemy's mistake attributing to the lapis the ability to help in the manufacture of genuine gold.

For it seems to me important for us, too, not to attach any particular expectations of external, material success to the formation of the central symbol.

This appears to be very closely connected with the "epilogue" of your treatise, where you touch on the questions of imputing psychic contents to the ego and the risk of the inflation of consciousness.

Maybe the alchemists' idea that they could really make gold by using the lapis cao be seen can expression of such an inflation of consciousness.

By way of contrast the expectations of external, material success are given up expectations that are initially connected with the appearance of the central symbol-then other fantasies emerge in the course of time, and they are concerned with the death of the individual and the meaning of death.

And it might possibly be that the rejuvenation of Faust, which only came about in a postmortem state, would be right, sub specie aeternitatis, for the individuated individual, if not for the history of civilization in general; this would be the case insofar as the death of the individual is always, in a certain sense, a historically conditioned necessity for this individual is also constantly subjected to such psychic influences, which in in his lifetime could not be fully assimilated into consciousness.

If the reverse were the case there would be something incomplete about the individual life.

As far as individually mentioned symbols in your treatise are concerned, what particularly struck me, in addition to the Christ-lapis parallel, is the evaluation of the Sacrifice of the Mass by the alchemists.

The former is quite analogous to my experience that the central symbol can be represented both as an acting person and an abstract one (as a "radioactive nucleus").

As for the transformation and communion symbols, they are also very familiar to me as representing certain stages in the spiritual transformation in the individuation process.

I look forward with great interest to your further investigations into this process and am somewhat hopeful that they also might lead to the discovery of dynamic laws about the chronological sequence of the various phases.

Once again, my thanks and best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

W, PAULI ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 18-19

Wolfgang Pauli: 1 do hope that my questions won't put you to too much trouble.

Dear Professor Jung, 28 November 1936

I recently received your letter and most interesting essay.

I am pleased that you have been able to make so much use of my material.

I couldn't help smiling a little when you praised it so much, thinking to myself that it was the first time I had ever heard you address me in such a way.

I was personally amazed to learn how many parallels to the later development are already to be found in these early dreams.

And yet I read it as if it were a report from far-off days.

By way of my contribution to the parallels mentioned, I would like to mention just one point where I had the feeling that your dream interpretation was not entirely accurate. (As you can see, I still won't be "fobbed off" with just anything.)

I am referring to the interpretation of the seven and the ace of club in lines 13 and 16.

These two dreams have both a retrospective and a futural meaning.

In my seventh year my sister was born.

So the 7 is an indication of the birth of the anima.

(This appeared again in later dreams.)

I can also offer further evidence of the connection for me between the anima and number 7.

In a much later dream, the card with the 7 of diamonds came up, and it looked like this:

X X
X X X
X X

And then the "wise man" in the dream explained to me that this also meant M and referred to Mother and Mary,

And he said that the step from the personified Mary to the 7 of diamonds went much further than Catholicism (which fits in beautifully with your interpretation of "expelling" as excommunication) .

N,B. The diamond card is also a reference to the color of the sun, As for the ace of clubs, I am sure you are correct in relating it to the shape of the cross, but for me there does not seem to be such a direct connection to the Christian concept of God as there is for you.

In my view, this ace of clubs, which comes before the seven, is thus the "Origin of the birth of the anima," an indication of a Keplerian archetype of power, which appears much later as "Diocletian,· "Danton,· or "the duke who chases the maid.” (By the way: this interpretation also fits in with the retrospective meaning of the dream-and with the dark color of the club.)

What also struck me was Dream II, with the croquet ball that an smashes the mirror into pieces.

The mirror is, I feel, not just the intellect but consciousness in general.

The croquet ball reminds me of the wasp flying by and the smashing of the minor makes me think of the wasp's sting (the wasp's venom is always meant as inflationary, causing blindness).

One could say a lot about the cosmic aspect of the "Self" and the space-time problem that is bound up with it, but I don't want this letter to get too long.

Instead, I am going to write out a dream that I had immediately after reading your essay, so that you can see how my unconscious reacted to it (see enclosure).

It is also connected with the problems mentioned in my last dream

Thank you also for your last letter (of 14-X-35).'

I would like to hear sometime what you think about the collection of dreams (in the material 1 sent to you earlier), in which the dark anima asserts with a certain persistence that there is a "magical" connection between sexuality and eroticism on the one hand, and political or historical events on the other.

This is the aspect of the anima frequently represented in dreams as "Chinese."

I believe that there is also a connection with the workings of the Self that appears in the enclosed dream and which is represented as "diffraction of the molecular rays in the polar field" (see my last letter).

1 do hope that my questions won't put you to too much trouble.

Actually, 1 have spent very little time recently on dreams and the unconscious, and only rarely do I write my dreams down.

I am generally in good health, and things seem to be fairly stable in that respect.

Breaking away from you and from analysis made things rather difficult for me for a while, but that seems to be allover now.

Once again, many thanks for your essay and the trouble you have taken.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely, W. PAULI ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 15-16

Carl Jung: Such dreams fade away quickly if they are not written down, and this is no great loss.

Dear Professor [Pauli] 6 March 1937

Your letter gave me much pleasure, and I thank you most sincerely for your willingness to make more of your dream material available to me.

As you know, I have always taken a lively interest in your unconscious processes, and I really would he most grateful if you at least continued to send me those dreams that are of a significant nature-you are fully aware of
what I mean by that.

Most dreams, as you rightly say, are insignificant; that is, when the external situation changes, they soon lose their value, which only lasts for a certain period of time.

Such dreams fade away quickly if they are not written down, and this is no great loss.

The significant dreams, the other hand, and especially yours, are of great value when it comes to scientific research into motifs.

I have not been able to spend any time on your dreams recently, as I bad to “excavate" the ancient and medieval lines that have led to our dream psychology.

But sooner or later I shall tackle these dreams and extend the examination to the additional dreams, and not just the 400 dreams that have come in so far.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

[C. G. JUNG)

Dear Professor Jung. 7, 3. V. 1937

I refer to your kind letter in March of this year and so am sending you further dream material, to which I have added a short chronological table.

There is also a drawing that goes with the material, which I shall send to you in the next few days.

All the dreams are from the year 1936, but the accompanying notes were written onIy recently (April 1937).

These notes are in no way meant to preclude a psychological interpretation by the expert; their sole aim is to establish the context, especially the link with the earlier material.

Any detailed scientific interpretation would certainly have to make comparisons with other material (possibly with historical material), which is quite beyond my competence and my abilities.

I leave it entirely up to you as to whether you wish to make further use of the material, and remain,

with best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

W. Pauli

[Atom and Archetype, Pages 17-18]

Carl Jung: The pole is the center of a rotating system, which actually represents the mandala.

Dear Professor [Pauli] 14 October 1935

Please accept my grateful thanks for your friendly cooperation.

As I have already stated. you can rest assured that your anonymity will be guaranteed in every respect.

I have selected only the dreams that contain symbols of the "Self: and these I have largely condensed.

The interpretation is not of a personal nature and refers solely to the configuration of ideas. to which moreover.

I have given historical parallels are simply facts, which can only be disputed insofar as it would be possible to challenge the historical authenticity of the evidence.

The personal associations of the dream are much closer to the dreamer than the purely abstract associations of ideas.

I shall take the liberty of sending you a copy, and I think you will find that wherever possible I have omitted any personal references

Thus. there is hardly likely to be anything in my essay with which you might disagree for the historical parallels are simply facts ,which can only be disputed insofar as it would be possible to challenge the historical authenticity of the evidence.

The personal associations of the dream are much closer to the dreamer than the purely abstract associations of ideas.

I shall take the liberty of sending you a copy, and I think you will find that wherever possible I have omitted any personal references.

In your case, the idea of the polar-force image is probably connected with your earliest dreams of the pole of Heaven.

The pole is the center of a rotating system, which actually represents the mandala.

The basic primeval idea behind this seems to be that people are classified in this field of force.

The “pole” is also represented, as seems to be the case with you, as an emanating nucleus.

I have just discovered such a medieval representation in London,

The nucleus is often depicted as a lapis, as a mediator, as a vinculum and ligamentum elementarum, the connection of the elements.

The idea seems to be linked to the medieval concept of the microcosm and macrocosm, according to which all men are contained in the macrocosm with every individual representing the whole as a microcosm.

The dipoles probably indicate first and foremost the complementary relationship in a self-regulating system.

Thus in psychological terms: conscious = unconscious, projected: man and woman, which, next to the family. represent the simplest case of participation.

The rotation of one pole is indisputably the beginning of individuation, hence the numerous rotation symbols in your dreams (historically designated as circulation spiritum, and in Chinese as the circulation of light).

It is probably basically a spiral rotation with a perpetual movement toward the nucleus.

The representation by isotopes and spectral lines is along the same lines.

They are fixed units or fixed groupings of units symbolizing the individual case (= individual + related individual or series of individuals).

Generally speaking, the unconscious is thought of as psychic matter in an individual.

However, the self-representation drawn up by the unconscious of its central structure does not accord with this view, for everything points to the fact that the central structure of the collective unconscious cannot be fixed locally but is an ubiquitous existence identical to itself; it must not be seen in spatial terms and consequently, when projected onto space, is to be found everywhere in that space.

I even have the feeling that this peculiarity applies to time as well as space.

The representation of the collective unconscious usually consists of the so-called quatemium-which is the medieval term-meaning the fourfold emanation or radiation that has been designated by a medieval philosopher as the exterior of the nucleus.

A biological analogy would be the functional structure of a termite colony, possessing only unconscious performing organs, whereas the center, to which all the functions of the parts are related, is invisible and not empirically demonstrable.

The radioactive nucleus is an excellent symbol for the source of energy of the collective unconscious, the ultimate external stratum of which appears as individual consciousness.

As a symbol, it indicates that consciousness does not grow out of any activity that is inherent to it; rather, it is constantly being produced by an energy that comes from the depths of the unconscious and has thus been depicted in the form of rays since time immemorial.

The center is thus represented by the Greek Gnostics as Spinther (the spark) or as Phos archetypon (the archetypal light) .

Alongside this representation of the psychic structure, there is another one, actually the reverse; namely, the soul as a shell enveloping the spherically shaped cosmos, in the innermost part of which lies the earth as the heaviest and most dead part.

In this case, the rays are directed onto the earth from outside through the medium of the stars.

So one could speak here in terms of an introverted and an extraverted attitude.

However, I believe that they are essentially one and the same thing, in that these opposites only come into being through the projection onto space of what is in itself a non-spatial (i.e., transcendental) existence.

In my essay, I have actually attempted to show these things to a certain extent but have deliberately refrained from going into the parallels with physics, since, for obvious reasons, I did not wish to draw attention to this particular aspect.

The center, or the nucleus, has always been for me a symbol of the totality of the psychic, as the conscious plus the unconscious, the center of which does not coincide with the ego as the center of consciousness, and consequently has always been perceived as being external.

That is also why it was always projected onto the conception of the Deity, the One, the Monad, and so on.

I hope you are enjoying America.

With best wishes, I remain,

Yours sincerely,

[C. G. JUNG] ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 12-14

Carl Jung: ...if you look long enough into a dark hole, then you perceive what is looking in.

Dear Professor: 29 October 1934

Please accept my sincere thanks for kindly sending me Jordan's essay.

I believe that this essay should be published, as it deals with the actual shift of the physical approach to the psychological sphere.

This essay was inevitable.

It was inevitable that the systematic investigation of the unknown center of the atom, which has led to the conclusion that the observed system
is also a disturbance caused by the observance would show that essence of the observing process will be perceptible in the disturbance caused by the actual observation.

To put it simply, if you look long enough into a dark hole, then you perceive what is looking in.

Hence, this is the principle of perception in Yoga, which derives all perception from the absolute emptiness of consciousness.

This method of cognition is thus a special case of the introspective exploration of the psychic in general.

With regard to Jordan's reference to parapsychic manifestations, spatial clairvoyance is of course one of the most obvious phenomena to represent the relative nonexistence of our empirical image of space.

Taking this argument further, he would also necessarily have to bring in temporal clairvoyance, which would represent the relativity of the image of time.

Naturally, Jordan looks at these phenomena from the physical point of view, whereas I do so from the psychic point of view-specifically from the fact of the collective unconscious, as you have correctly noted, which presents a layer of the psychic in which individual distinctions of consciousness are more or less extinguished.

However, if individual consciousnesses in the unconscious were extinguished, then all perception in the unconscious would occur as in one person.

Jordan states that a sender and a receiver in the same conscious "space" observe the same object at the same time.

One could Just as easily tum this statement around and say that in unconscious "space: sender and receiver are one and the same perceiving object.

As you can see, my point of view as a psychologist would be that of the perceiving subject, whereas the physicist expresses himself from the standpoint of the common space in which two or more observers find themselves.

Carried to its ultimate conclusion, Jordan's approach would lead to the supposition of an absolute unconscious space in which an infinite number of observers are looking at the same object.

The psychological version would be: In the unconscious there is just one observer, who looks at an infinite number of objects.

II you wish to draw Jordan's attention to my writings, may I perhaps recommend that, in addition to the essays you have already quoted, you also mention the one in the same volume on "Das Grundproblem der Gegenwartigen Psychologie" [The Basic Problem of Contemporary Psychology]

With regard to the collective unconscious there is in the earlier volume, Seeleprobleme de Gegenwart [Soul Problems of the Present], an essay in which I go into this subject in some depth, namely "Die Struktur der Seele· [The Structure of the Soul] (Page 144)

I would be obliged if I could hold on to Jordan's essay for a while.

By the way, it has just occurred to me that on the subject of time relativity there is a book by a student of Eddington, Dunne, An Experiment with Time, in which he deals with temporal clairvoyance in a similar way to how Jordan deals with spatial clairvoyance.

He postulates an infinite number of time dimensions that more or less correspond to Jordan's "intermediary stages.

I would be very interested to hear how you respond to these arguments of Dunne's.

I also thank you for the news of your well-being and hope you continue to make progress.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

[C. C. JUNG]