Wolfgang Pauli: Physical symbolic language of my dream

Dear Professor Jung, 31 March 1953

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I. THE CARD IN THE GOBLET

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But it all depends on how one proceeds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. HOMO-USIA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

a) Physical symbolic language of my dream

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

Bronze tones are engraved on a metal plate."

Then I go off to Gottingen.

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

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

b) Theological metaphysical language.

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

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

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

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

c) Language of the psyche, or analytical psychology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I must confess that that this contradicts my rational expectations.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yours sincerely,

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

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

[Some Greek words have not been translated]

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon, 27 February 1952

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have investigated the historical origins of this tenet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parmenides was the reaction to Heraclitus.

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

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

Cusa).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then I immediately realize that there are crucial differences.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I remain with best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

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

Aniela Jaffe and Wolfgang Pauli Correspondence

To: A. Jaffe March 12, 1951

Dear Mrs. Jaffe,

Many thanks for sending me the Hoyle book review; I have quickly read it through and find that it gives a good picture of Hoyle and his book.

I know Hoyle quite well and attended his lecture in Zurich.

His mixture of fantasy and science I find in poor taste (I regard it as feminine-i.e., more precisely, I see Hoyle as a leeling type).

His "Background Matter" and his continuous creation of matter out of nothing strike me as sheer nonsense.

I see no reason to doubt the conservation of physical energy.

It is clear to me that this type of cosmogony is not physics but a projection of the unconscious.

Which takes me once again to the subject of my own essay on "background physics."!

Partly in connection with this, 1 should like to mention that recently I have thought more about "Symbols of the Nucleus" (according to C. C. Jung, symbols of the "Self" or "imagines Dei," and have had another look at A. Huxley's Perennial Philosophy.

It seems to me to have the same shortcomings as Theologia Deutsch (much admired by Huxley, actually), which I
have recently read: I do not see why the "ground" made the "fall in time" known as creation and how it can have the need to be perceived by human consciousness.

In other words, Huxley's premises are too straight-Buddhist Platonic for me and disregard Cusa's' coincidentia oppositorium and even the paradox of complementary pairs of opposites.

So far I know of only two religious philosophy systems that are logically free of contradiction:

One of them is the static-taoistic one (Lao-tse).

The other an evolutionary one, based essentially on an assumed reaction of human (or even prehuman) consciousness to the "nucleus" (you may say, to the “God-image.”)

In the latter case, I like to imagine it thus: That in this masculine-feminine symbol (cf. the essays by A. Jaffe) it is precisely the feminine part (matter, energy-see my essays on background physics) that captures the timeless-unchangeable in the “Chronos,” whereas the masculine part possibly capture the changeable.

Now I should like to ask you something about this last aspect:

Do you think that this is objectively correct, or do you look on such an idea more as characteristic of a masculine thinking type and his particular psychology?

As ever,

W PAULI ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 73-74

Aniela Jaffe to Pauli

My dear Professor, [Kusnacht] 14 March 1951

Many thanks for returning the synchronicity paper.

Prof. Jung has not worked on it recently but is planning to go back to it.

As far as 1 know, however, this has nothing to do with physics.

1 should have returned the enclosure (with letter) a while ago, along with Prof. Jung's thanks.

Please excuse the delay.

I am always behind schedule at the moment.

With best greetings and wishes for a Happy Easter,

Yours sincerely, A. J. ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 71-72

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

Dear Mr. Pauli, May 20, 1952

I read your kind letter with great interest.

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

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

(This is a piece of alchemical philosophy.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon-Zurich, 12 December 1950

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enclosed please find McConnell's work.

Please let me know when you need your manuscript back.

With kind regards,

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


Dear Professor, 23 January 1951

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely, C.G.

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

Aniela Jaffe and Wolfgang Pauli Correspondence

To: A. Jaffe March 12, 1951

Dear Mrs. Jaffe,

Many thanks for sending me the Hoyle book review; I have quickly read it through and find that it gives a good picture of Hoyle and his book.

I know Hoyle quite well and attended his lecture in Zurich.

His mixture of fantasy and science I find in poor taste (I regard it as feminine-i.e., more precisely, I see Hoyle as a leeling type).

His "Background Matter" and his continuous creation of matter out of nothing strike me as sheer nonsense.

I see no reason to doubt the conservation of physical energy.

It is clear to me that this type of cosmogony is not physics but a projection of the unconscious.

Which takes me once again to the subject of my own essay on "background physics."!

Partly in connection with this, 1 should like to mention that recently I have thought more about "Symbols of the Nucleus" (according to C. C. Jung, symbols of the "Self" or "imagines Dei," and have had another look at A. Huxley's Perennial Philosophy.

It seems to me to have the same shortcomings as Theologia Deutsch (much admired by Huxley, actually), which I
have recently read: I do not see why the "ground" made the "fall in time" known as creation and how it can have the need to be perceived by human consciousness.

In other words, Huxley's premises are too straight-Buddhist Platonic for me and disregard Cusa's' coincidentia oppositorium and even the paradox of complementary pairs of opposites.

So far I know of only two religious philosophy systems that are logically free of contradiction:

One of them is the static-taoistic one (Lao-tse).

The other an evolutionary one, based essentially on an assumed reaction of human (or even prehuman) consciousness to the "nucleus" (you may say, to the “God-image.”)

In the latter case, I like to imagine it thus: That in this masculine-feminine symbol (cf. the essays by A. Jaffe) it is precisely the feminine part (matter, energy-see my essays on background physics) that captures the timeless-unchangeable in the “Chronos,” whereas the masculine part possibly capture the changeable.

Now I should like to ask you something about this last aspect:

Do you think that this is objectively correct, or do you look on such an idea more as characteristic of a masculine thinking type and his particular psychology?

As ever,

W PAULI ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 73-74

Aniela Jaffe to Pauli

My dear Professor, [Kusnacht] 14 March 1951

Many thanks for returning the synchronicity paper.

Prof. Jung has not worked on it recently but is planning to go back to it.

As far as 1 know, however, this has nothing to do with physics.

1 should have returned the enclosure (with letter) a while ago, along with Prof. Jung's thanks.

Please excuse the delay.

I am always behind schedule at the moment.

With best greetings and wishes for a Happy Easter,

Yours sincerely, A. J. ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 71-72

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

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon-Zurich, 12 December 1950

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enclosed please find McConnell's work.

Please let me know when you need your manuscript back.

With kind regards,

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


Dear Professor, 23 January 1951

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely, C.G.

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

Wolfgang Pauli's critique of Dr. Jung's "Synchronicity."

Dear Professor Jung, [Zollikon Zurich) 24 November 1950

It was with great interest that I read the latest version of your work on "synchronicity."

We had basically agreed in the past on the possibility and usefulness and also, in view of the Rhine experiments, on the necessity of a further principle of interpretation of nature other than the causal principle.

After the turn taken in your Ch. II, "The Astrological Argument: it seems that our points of view have come one step closer.

1. In several discussions last autumn and winter (which also gave me the opportunity to observe a great interest in your concept of synchronicity in
places where I would not have expected it), ( repeatedly expressed my hope that such a turn would come about.

For example, ( I said to M. Fierz and C. A. Meier at the time, "It is really paradoxical that physicists are now obliged to tell psychologists that they must not eliminate the unconscious in their statistical investigations!"

And now the unconscious has returned in the form of the "lively interest of the test persons or the psychic state of the astrologer"; here your statement about "the pernicious influence of the statistical method on the determination of synchronicity in terms of figures" (p. 35) seems to be the most important result of your investigations.

This "pernicious influence” consists in the elimination of actual influence of the psychic state of the of the participants by means of the statistical formation of mean values, in that these values are measured without this
psychic state being taken into consideration.

It actually seems to me a general and essential attribute of synchronistic phenomena, one that I would even like to incorporate into the definition of the term "synchronicity"; in other words, whenever an application of statistical methods, without consideration of the psychic state of the people involved in the experiment, does not show such a "pernicious influence," then there is something very different from synchronicity going on.

I shall come back to this aspect later in connection with the discontinuities in microphysics.

The result you give of your investigation, according to which the continually renewed interest of your test persons is decisive, even makes astrology seem a secondary factor in this result and sets up favorable results for traditional astrology, in analogy to the "hits" in the Rhine experiment.

ust a quick question here: In the Rhine experiment, would it be possible to imagine test persons who produce a "negative" effect-i.e., who always come up with fewer hits than statistics would lead one to expect?

In your statistical experiment on the comparison between the horoscopes of married and single people, are there also test persons who, for example, find the sun-moon conjunctions predominantly with single people instead of married ones, precisely because their psychic state indicates a particular resistance to astrology?

When I say "predominantly," I mean more frequently than the chance statistics would lead one to expect?

I am reasonably certain that the astrological case and Rhine's ESP experiment will also behave analogously in this respect; but it might also be that the bringing in of the archetypes in both cases hinders the possibility of "negative" test persons.)

I have not examined the statistics in Tables I to V in detail, as this would take a lot of time and trouble, and anyway, unless I am mistaken, this whole material has been checked by Mr. M. Fierz, who has more experience in such matters. (Should I be wrong in assuming this, then I would strongly recommend you to call on him again.

His present address, probably until about the end of April 1951', is: The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J.)

At any rate, your result corresponds perfectly to my expectations.

A positive result, independent of the state of the astrologers, would contradict the well-known causality of the processes involved.

In truth, nature is so fashioned that-analogous to Bohr’s “Complementarity” in physics-any contradiction between causality and synchronicity can never be ascertained.

2. This now leads me to the question, the discussion of which forms the main part of this letter.

How do the facts that make up modern quantum physics relate to those other phenomena explained by you with the aid of the new principle of synchronicity?

First of all, what is certain is that both types of phenomenon go beyond the framework of “classical” determinism.

But this in itself does not answer the question, which is touched on in several places in Ch. I and IV of your work.

Naturally, this question is of particular interest to me as a physicist; I have been discussing it and thinking
about it at great length for a year.

What appears to me of fundamental importance is the requirement made of a law of nature in any experimental science--namely, that in principle at least it should relate to reproducible processes (also indicated by you
on p. 2).

In nuclear physics, it has turned out that the statistical character of these laws of nature is the price that has to be paid for fulfilling this requirement of reproducibility.

Now in physics, the essential aspect of uniqueness (for which there has never been a place in the physical laws of
nature) has manifested itself in an unexpected place.

This place is the observation itself, which is unique (or is an act of creation, if you will) because it is impossible to eliminate the influence of the observer by means of determinable corrections.

The type of statistical law that thus comes into being (one that is not reproducible by statements on individual cases), which acts as a mediator between the discontinuum of individual cases and the continuum that can only be realized (approximately) in a large-scale statistical framework, may be described as statistical correspondence."'

(The law of half-life periods in radioactive decay is a special case of this kind.)

At least the statistical regularities of the natural laws of microphysics are reproducible (independent of the psychic state of the observer), a case in point being the above-mentioned half-life periods.

There also seems to me here (cf. in this respect the criterion formulated above on the pernicious influence" of
statistical methods on synchronicity) such a fundamental difference between the acausal physical phenomena (such as radioactivity or any other discontinuity that comes under the "correspondence" of physics) and the
· synchronistic" phenomena in the narrowest sense of the term (such as ESP experiments of mantic methods) that I would like to propose that they be construed as phenomena or effects on different levels.

On these different levels there is a difference similar to that between a unique pair continuing series (although in the latter at least the statistical characteristics tics are reproducible).

Although in the second case, too, it is something that cannot be covered by the old deterministic form of natural law, I nevertheless, as a physicist, have the impression that the 'statistical correspondence" of quantum physics, seen from the point of view of synchronicity, is a very weak generalization of the old causality.

This also manifests itself in the fact that although microphysics allows for an acausal form of observation, it actually has no use for the concept of "meaning."

So I have grave misgivings about placing physical discontinuities and synchronicity on the same level, which is what you do on p. 58.

If you do not share my misgivings, I shall be most interested to hear what your arguments are.

To emphasize the difference between the case of microphysics and any cases involving the psyche, I proposed a quaternary schema in an unpublished essay on "background physics" written in 1941.

In the schema, the different pairs of opposites are intended to correspond to these two cases.

The pair of opposites for physics is:

Of course, I cannot claim that the whole quaternity that I proposed at that time is a genuinely suitable expression for "synchronicity."

But a further characteristic of this schema, which seems important to me, is that space and time are not placed opposite each other, which a modem physicist would find particularly unacceptable.

I admit that this placing of three-dimensional space opposite one-dimensional time seems more natural in the physics of Newton (which can be said to have begun with Kepler) than in modem relativity and quantum physics, and I am also aware that time and space are psychologically different in that the existence of a memory (recollection) distinguishes the past from the future, for which there is no analogy in space.

Yet the positioning of space and time opposite each other in your schema on p. 59 does not really seem acceptable to me.

For a start, they do not form a true pair of opposites (since space and time can easily be applies simultaneously to the phenomena), and second the reasons you yourself give on p. 17a for the basic identity of space and time are very sound ones.

That is why I would now like to make the following compromise proposal for a quaternary schema as a basis for discussion; it avoids the opposing of time and space and perhaps combines the advantages of yur schema and the one I drew up in 1948.

On p. 61, where you talk about the “triadic world picture,” perhaps one could replace “by means of space, time, and causality” (8th line from the bottom) by “and the notion of causality.”

That would also fit in better with the term “three-principles doctrine,” since continuity (natura non facit saltus) can certainly be viewed as a characteristic principle for the (classical) scientific age.

3. When you use physical terms in order to explain psychological terms or findings, I often have the impression that with you they are dreamlike images of the imagination; this impression is usually accompanied by the feeling that the sentences you write here stop at the very point where they should begin.

For example, on p. 9 it says: "The physical analogy for this (for a coincidence in time) "is radioactivity or the electro-magnetic field: And on p. 10 it says of the archetypes that: "They represent a field of force that can be compared with radioactivity: Such sentences cannot be understood by any physicist, since he would never compare a field of force (neither electromagnetic nor any other) with radioactivity.

The concept of the physical field of force is based originally on the illustrative idea of a state of tension of the "ether" penetrating space.

This state was used as the medium of "ponderomotoric” effects between bodies (e.g., electrical and magnetic ones).

Field theory has made itself independent (since Faraday) in that a real existence was attributed to the state of tension even when it is not made visible with specimen bodies.

Later, the concrete-mechanistic image of the state of tension and the medium of ether was abandoned in favor of the abstract view that the relevant physical described in mathematical terms simply by appropriate continuous _
functions of the space and time coordinates, dispensing with descriptive images.

It was then the task of "field physics' to establish the laws that fulfilled these functions, together with the specifications as to how these said functions, with the aid of test bodies, can-in theory at least-be measured. (I myself have a few ideas about the analogies of this physical field theory with the psychological notion of the unconscious and about the parallels in the temporal course of the development of these two concepts, but I do not want to prejudice your judgment.)

The essential thing about radioactivity is the transmutation of a chemical element that is connected with the emission of rays transporting energy (possibly of different sorts).

These rays are "active," i.e., they produce chemical and physical action when they encounter matter.

Such analogies as
{
Synchronistic coincidence or of archetypes Field of force or Radioactivity can be of great interest, but only on condition that the tertium comparatiionis is given (and possibly what the differences are).

My personal wish is not that you delete the sentences mentioned but rather that you extend and elucidate them.

4. As you yourself say, your work stands and falls with the Rhine experiments.

I, too, am of the view that the empirical results of these experiments are very well founded.

Given the importance of the ESP experiments for your synchronicity principle, I would appreciate it if you would make a point of explaining how, in your view, the so-called PK ("Psychokinesis) experiments
that you mentioned on p. 8 are to be interpreted.

Does the person expressing the wish concerning the results of the dicing have a prefigured image of the way the dice will go?

You mention in this connection a psychic "relativity of mass," but you do not go on to say what you mean by this nor how such an assumption can explain the PK experiments.

Here, too, I suspect that these are “dreamlike images of the imagination” of yours, and once again I would welcome further clarification.

There are other interesting details in your work that I would like to give more thought to (e.g., the connection between mantic methhods and the psychology of the number concept), but at the moment I have nothing new to report.

It’s about time I brought this long letter to a close.

I am hopeul that the questions that are still open to any differences still remaining in our points of view will be cleared up, given the basic agreement pointed out at the beginning of this letter.

With best wishes,

Yours,

W. Pauli ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 53-59

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon-Ziirich, 28 June 1949

Many thanks for your interesting manuscript and your friendly letter.

I should first of all like to point out that the Rhine series of experiments seem to me to be a totally different type of phenomenon from the other phenomena listed by you as "synchronistic."

For with the former I cannot see any archetypal basis (or am I wrong there?).

This for me, however, is crucial to an understanding of the phenomena in question, as is your earlier observation (Eranos Jahrbuch 1947 [1946]) that their appearance is complementary to the archetypal contents becoming conscious.

I regret very much that this aspect is not mentioned at all in your latest work.

Perhaps you could make further additions here, for it would make it all easier to understand.

In this way, the appearance of the synchronistic phenomenon actually seems to be connected to a definite state of consciousness (this term is deliberately rather vague).

Your proposed statistical experiment on the horoscopes of married and single people should be carried out on a broader scale and under very strict conditions.

Whatever the outcome I do not discount a negative ne(, it will add further to our knowledge.

Speaking for myself, I can relate much better to those situations where an external event conincides with a dream than to what emerges from a series of statistics.

Whereas I have some personal experience with the former, my intuition lets me down when it comes to the latter.

I have now given much thought to yoru report about the coninciding of the scarab in the dream with the real insect and have attempted to feel myself into the situation.

I shall return to this below, where it is more relevant.

At this point I shall deal with the questions broached at the end of your letter about the relationship between psychology and physics.

This gives me an opportunity to extend last year's essay on “background physics” by discussing the symbol "radioactivity; which at the time was no more than a key word.

This is also the best answer I can give to your question at the moment.

The idea of meaningful coincidence-i.e., simultaneous events not causally connected-was expressed very clearly by Schopenhauer [1785-1860j in his essay, "[Transzendente Spekulation] tiber die anscheinende Absicbtlichleit
im Schicksale des Einzelnen [On the Apparent Design in the Fate of the Individual]."

There he postulates an "ultimate union of necessity and chance: which appears to us as a "force: "which links together all things, even those that are causally unconnected, and does it in such a way that they come together just at the right moment."

He compares causal chains with the meridians, simultaneousness with parallel circles corresponding exactly
to your "equivalent cross-connections."

He sees, “albeit imperfectly from a distance” the compatibility of the opposition "between the apparent
chance element in all occurrences in the life of the individual and their moral necessity in the shaping of that life in accordance with a transcendental practicality for the individual-or, in popular language, between the
course of nature and providence.”

Perhaps some reference in your work to this essay of Schopenhauer's would be a good idea, all the more so as he, too, was influenced by the ideas of Eastern Asia that you quote so frequently.

Although Sch.'s essay is probably known to only a relatively small number of physicist, it is always pleasing in a fundamental issue to be able to make connections with what is already in existence.

This essay of Schopenhauer's had a lasting and fascinating effect on me and seemed to be pointing the way to a new trend in natural science.

But whereas Sch. wanted at all costs to cling to rigid determinism along the lines of the classical physics of his day, we have now acknowledged that in the nuclear world, physical events cannot be followed in causal chains through time and space.

Thus, the readiness to adopt the idea on which your work is based, that of the "meaning as an ordering factor” is probably considerably greater among physicists that it was in Schopenhauer's day.

Accordingly, I myself have no serious misgivings about such an idea.

It does seem to me, however, that in your interpretation the term "acausal" needs to be made more precise, and the special use of the concept of time needs further elaboration.

For the physicist, the words "causal" and "causality" have a much less specific meaning than the word "determinism."

And what is more, the word "acausal" means different things to different writers.

According to your interpretation of the "synchronistic" phenomenon (I refer particularly to pp. 20 and 21 of your essay), it occurs through duplication or multiplication of an abstract ordering factor, the external manifestation of which is in fact doubled or multiple.

In this sense, the ordering factor could also be described as the cause of the synchronistic phenomenon.

This cause, however, could not be conceived of in time and space.

Conversely, if only objects in lime and space can be described as causal, then synchronistic phenomena do in fact appear to be "acausal."

Just as in microphysics, the characteristic feature of the situation is the impossibility of simultaneously
applying the principle of causality and the classification of the phenomena in time and space.

What is much more difficult for me than the question of the definition of "acausal" is the entrance of the concept of time into the word "synchronistic."

Initially it refers expressly to phenomena that are supposed to be simultaneous in definitions in the usual physical sense.

Later, however (top 01 p. 21), you try to include phenomena such as predicting the future, which do not occur at the same time.

The word "synchron" thus seems to me somewhat illogical, unless you wish to relate it to a chronos that is essentially different from normal time.

This seems to me to be a difficulty that is not just one of formal logic but also a factual one.

For it is by no means easy to see why events that "express the presence of one and the same image or meaning” have to be simultaneous: The them time presents me with greater difficulties than the term meaning.

So what is the connection, the, between meaning and time?

By way of experiment, I shall construe your interpretation as follows: First of all, events in meaning can be perceived more easily when they are simultaneous.

But second, simultaneity is also the characteristic that determined the unity of conscious contents.

So inasmuch as “synchronistic” events form what you have termed a “psychoid” initial stage of consciousness, it is understandable if (not always, but in many cases) they also share this standard of characteristic of simultaneity.

This also suggests that the meaning-connection, a primary agent, produces times as the secondary one.

(I hope these vague formulations will become dearer in the course of our conversations.)

What seems satisfactory to me is that the ordering factor, "consisting of meaning." which contains time (the chronos) as a special case, as the masculine principle, stands in contrast to the feminine-indestructible one (causality in the narrowest sense, energy, collective psyche), as also seems to be the case in microphysics.

I now come to your questions concerning the possibility of linking together some of the physical facts mentioned by you with the synchronicity hypothesis.

The question is a very difficult one, as it seems to be connected with some of my personal experiences in "background physics” which mainly manifest themselves in dreams.

The energy quantum and the half-life radium decay seem to me much better suited to illustrate these connections
than the two other phenomena quoted by you, since they have an elemental and fundamental character.

Perhaps we can discuss this energy quantum again when we meet; at this point I would like to pick up on the physical phenomenon of radioactivity.

To make my views and my attitude to this question clearer, permit me to conduct a fictive thought experiment with you.

Please imagine that on the evening after the incident with the scarab that you have described, a stranger visits you and says something on the lines of: “Congratulations, doctor, on having finally succeeded in producing a radioactive substance. It will be most beneficial to the health of your patient."

Your assertion that there are no radioactive substances in your house and that the atmosphere is also free of radioactivity falls on deaf ears.

In fact, the stranger proceeds to explain in detail the half-life of the substance and the residual activity.

I have been playing this type of game for about 5 years now; it is played according to strictly defined rules and is so methodical that it cannot simply be dismissed as madness.

My initial attempts to throw the stranger out were soon abandoned, for although he is friendly by nature, the visitor can soon turn very unpleasant.

Judging from your question about radioactivity, I automatically assume that you are conspiring with the stranger.
expect me to agree with this conclusion.

As to what the stranger means, I can only deduce this indirectly from his reactions to my intellectual hypotheses; I am never completely sure about them.

Nor did he come to me on such easily perceived occasions as those I have created for my thought experiment with his remarks on radioactivity.

And before I could get down to finding out anything about "radioactivity" as he understood it, I had to have a rationally acceptable idea about who the stranger was.

The hypotheses that at the moment I just use for myself are the following:

1. "The stranger" is the archetypal background constellated by the system of scientific concepts of our time.

2. The expressions that emerge spontaneously from this background, such as "a radioactive substance has been produced" or "there is radioactivity; can be translated into the language of reason as follows: "a state of consciousness has been produced, or is simply present, which is accompanied by the multiple manifestation of the ordering factor in meaningfully related (usually simultaneous) events."

The language of the background is in the first instance a language of parable.

It seems to demand that reason, by dint of dedicated work, should translate it into a neutral language that adequately fulfills its requirements with regard to the distinction between "physical" and "psychic."

This neutral language does not yet exist, but one can attempt to make progress in the direction of its construction by means of careful analysis of analogies, such as the differences in what is indicated by the same words in the parable language.

With regard to the example in question-that of "radioactivity" –what strikes me first from the psychological angle is that a far-reaching parallel exists with what the alchemists referred to as the "production of the red
tincture."

Experience has shown me that what you call a "conjunction process” is generally conducive to the appearance of the "synchronistic" phenomenon(referred to as "radioactivity" by the "stranger").

And it is more likely to make its appearance when the pairs of opposites keep in balance a much as possible.

In the I Ching this moment is depicted by the sign "Chen" (shock, thunder) (Wilhelm Baynes, hexagram 51).

In the case of your scarab, I am fairly sure that it was one of those moments, since you say that it was preceded by a long, drawn-out course of treatment.

From all the material you have at your disposal, it must be easy to establish the conjunction process
and its situation when the synchronistic event occurred.

In this respect, I would be very interested to know in which month of the year it happened.

The equinoctial days are particularly suitable.

I would be prepared to bet 4:1 that it was in September or March and perhaps 1:1 that it was in the second
Half of the month.

(Perhaps those who believe in horoscopes will hit on the idea of setting up horoscopes for the moment when such events occur.

For according to your report, a spiritual birth has taken place, and there can be no essential difference between that and a physical birth.)

I regard it as evidence of progress in our knowledge when, in this connection, the alchemistic concept of the “red tincture” is replaced by the “radioactive substance.”

Between the phenomena compared there are the following illuminating analogies:

1. Just as in physics, a radioactive substance (through "active precipitation" from developing gas-like substances) radioactivity” contaminates" a whole laboratory, si the synchronistic phenomenon seems to have the tendency
to spread into the consciousness of several people.
3. The physical phenomenon of radioactivity consists in the transition of the atomic nucleus of the active substance from an unstable early state to its stable final state (in one or several steps), in the course of which the radioactivity finally stops, Similarly, the synchronistic phenomenon, on an archetypal foundation, accompanies the transition from an unstable state of consciousness into a new stable position, in balance with the unconscious, a position in which the synchronistic borderline phenomenon has vanished again.

3. Once again, the difficult thing here for me is the time concept. In physical terms, it is known that the actual amount of a radioactive substance (which can be measured by weighing it) can be used as a clock, or rather its
logarithm can: In a definite time interval (selected as sufficiently small), it is always the same fraction of the existing atoms that disintegrates, and two time intervals can conversely be defined as the same when the same fraction of the initially existing atoms disintegrate in them. But this is where the statistical character of the laws of nature comes into play:

There are always irregular fluctuations about this average result, and they are only relatively small when the selection of the existing active atoms is sufficiently large; the radioactive clock is a typical collective phenomenon.

A quantity of radioactive substance consisting of just a few atoms let's say 10) cannot be used as a clock,

The moments in time when the individual atoms disintegrate are in no way determined by the law. of nature, and in the modem view they actually do not exist independently of their being observed in appropriate experiments,

The observation (in this case: the energy level) of the individual atom releases it from the situation· (i.e., meaning.) connection with the other atom and links it instead (in meaning) with the observer and his time.

This leads to the following analogy with the synchronistic phenomenon on an archetypal basis: The case where it has not been determined whether the individual atom of a radioactive clock is in the initial or final stage of radioactive decay corresponds to the connection of the individual with the collective unconscious through an archetypal content of which he is unconscious.

The ascertaining of the state of consciousness of the individual, which emerges from this collective unconscious and which causes synchronistic phenomenon to vanish, corresponds to the determination of the energy level of the individual atom by means of a special experiment.

This is as far as I have got.

I very much look forward to talking over these questions with you, as well as other examples, and not just radioactivity.

I have spoken to C. A. Meier, and we have agreed that Thursday, 14luly, would be a good day for us both to visit you in Bollingen.

He will be in touch with you to see whether this day is convenient for you.

Please excuse my lack of brevity.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely, W PAULI ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 36-42