The Seal of Solomon and psyche's complementary incarnation (part 8)

Remo F. Roth

Dr. oec. publ., Ph.D.

dipl. analyt. Psychologe (M.-L. v. Franz)

© 2002-2004 by Pro Litteris, Zurich, Switzerland and Remo F. Roth, Horgen-Zurich. All Rights Reserved. dr.remo.roth@psychovision.ch. Republication and redissemination of the contents of this screen or any part of this website are expressly prohibited without prior psychovision.ch written consent.

With many thanks to Gregory Sova, Ph.D. (LA, CA) for translation assistance

Book Project:

THE RETURN OF THE WORLD SOUL

Wolfgang Pauli, Carl Jung and the Challenge of the Unified Psychophysical Reality

This book is intended for private use only, and is copyrighted under existing Internet copyright laws and regulations.

back to Chapter 5, part 8

5. The Seal of Solomon and the unsolved problem of psyche's complementary incarnation

(part 9)

Contents:

Part 1:

5.1 Wolfgang Pauli’s “mirror image of the Assumptio Mariae to below“ and the Seal of Solomon

Part 2:

5.2 Wolfgang Pauli’s and Carl Jung’s dispute about the terms psyche, matter and spirit

5.2.1 Philosophical cognition as a creation act

5.2.1.1 The symmetry and complementarity of spirit and matter and of the energy principle

5.2.1.2 Psyche as potential being

5.2.1.3 The separation of psyche and spirit and the superiority of psyche over matter and spirit

5.2.1.4 Carl Jung’s crux with the Seal of Solomon

5.2.1.5 Carl Jung’s approach: Philosophical cognition as a creation act

5.2.1.6 Carl Jung’s antagonistic definitions of the term “psyche”

5.2.1.7 Further clarification and summary

Part 3:

5.2.2 Quantum physical observation as a creation act

5.2.2.1 The quantum physical collapse of the wave function or quantum leap

5.2.2.2 The ending of the Neoplatonic infertility in the collapse of the wave function

5.2.2.3 Carl Jung’s conflict between a causal and an acausal theory of the psyche

5.2.2.4 Wolfgang Pauli’s approach: Quantum physical observation as a creation act

5.2.2.5 The Nobel laureate’s isolation since 1935 because of his dreams about Eros and radioactivity

5.2.2.6 Summary and prospects

Part 4a:

5.3 Synchronicity, the wave function’s collapse and the future incarnatio

5.3.1 The collective psyche as being and as potential being

5.3.2 The difference between synchronicity and the collapse of the wave function

Part 4b:

5.3.3 Jung’s and Pauli’s discussion about the future incarnatio

Part 5:

5.4 Wolfgang Pauli’s incarnatio synchronicity, the alchemical multiplicatio and psychophysical radioactivity

5.4.1 Pauli’s nocturnal experience with the bursting meteorite after the discussion with Jung

5.4.2 The creatio continua out of the unus mundus as the transformation of potential being into actual being

5.4.3 The coniunctio as the background of the creatio continua

5.4.4 The inclusion of the creatio continua and incarnatio into the description of the cosmic evolutionary processes

Part 6:

5.4.5 The bursting meteorite, the alchemical process of the multiplicatio and the red tincture

5.4.6 The multiplicatio of the red tincture and radioactivity

Part 7:

5.4.7 Complementary versus psychophysical interpretation of the term “physical-symbolic radioactivity”

5.4.8 Wolfgang Pauli’s regression into the complementary interpretation of the Taoist Yang/Yin

Part 8:

5.4.9 Carl Jung’s and Wolfgang Pauli’s concept of the complementary relationship between radioactivity and synchronicty

5.4.10 Wolfgang Pauli’s reduction of the multiplicatio to an attribute of synchronicity

Part 9:

5.4.11 Pauli’s and Jung’s dispute about the depth psychological difference between the terms “field” and “radioactivity”

5.4.12 Wolfgang Pauli’s depth psychological interpretation of the radioactive transmutation as a transition of the Self into a more conscious state

Part 10:

5.4.13 Carl Jung’s and Wolfgang Pauli’s lack of understanding of the acausal transformation out of the unus mundus

5.4.14 Radioactivity as a psychophysical transmutation process in the unus mundus

Part 11 (not yet published):

5.4.15 Summary

5.4.16 Conclusions

5. The Seal of Solomon and the unsolved problem of psyche's complementary incarnation

(part 9)

5.4 Wolfgang Pauli’s incarnatio synchronicity, the alchemical multiplicatio and psychophysical radioactivity

5.4.11 Pauli’s and Jung’s dispute about the depth psychological difference between the terms “field” and “radioactivity”

As we have seen, Jung and Pauli began their discussion about the phenomenon of synchronicity postulated by the depth psychologist, in June 1949. In November 1950, one and a half years after the complementary treatment of radioactivity and synchronicity with the help of the alchemical term multiplicatio, Pauli begins now with a criticism of Jung’s understanding of his term Self.

In one of the first drafts of his synchronicity article, the depth psychologist had compared the physical terms “field” and “radioactivity” with the background of synchronicity. In a letter Pauli criticizes his use of physical terms as “dreamlike images”, in which he does not distinguish them enough. He writes that Jung compares physical terms one cannot at all equate:

“For example, on p. 9 it says: ‘The physical analogy for this’ (for a conicidence 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’.”

And he continues:

“Such sentences cannot be understood by any physicist, since he would never compare a field of force (neither electromagnetic nor any other) with radioactivity.”

Then he tries to explain the difference between the two. The field term in modern physics is

“described in mathematical terms simply by appropriate continuous functions of the space and time coordinates.” [emphasis mine]

He continues then with radioactivity:

“The essential thing about radioactivity is the transmutation of a chemical element that is connected with the emission of rays transporting energy … These rays are ‘active’, i.e., they produce chemical and physical action when they encounter matter.” [emphasis mine]

The very interesting aspect in relation with our research is the fact that Pauli does not stress here another main difference between the field and the radioactivity term: Any physical field is describable in causal, deterministic mathematical language, the radioactive decay, however, is acausal or indeterministic.

In his answer of November 1950 Carl Jung writes that he will probably

“have to delete the sentence … on radioactivity and field, because he cannot explain it properly. I would really need to have a good knowledge of physics, which is unfortunaltely not the case.”

Then he continues:

“I can only suggest that although [radioactive] ray energy and field voltage seem to be incommensurable in physical terms, they have, in psychological terms, an equivalence to the ‘breaking of barriers’ by means of contingence with the archetypes, or they form their physical equivalence. Perhaps I don't know enough about psychology either to be able to develop these ideas further.” [emphasis mine]

In December 1950 Pauli answers as follows:

“In the case of field and radioactivity … you seem to have particular problems, owing to the fact that a difference in the physical concepts stand in contrast to a similarity in their psychological correspondance. 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.” [emphasis mine]

Then he tries again to explain the differing aspect of “radioactivity” in comparision with the term “field”: It is the “process of chemical transmutation of the radioactive nucleus”, with its most important effect that “the radioactive rays … produce new radioactive centers where they encounter matter.”

Then Pauli compares such a radioactive nucleus with the psychological terminology:

“The ‘active nucleus’ [radioactive 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’.”

Then he writes the decisive sentences:

“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 … is accompanied by the ‘multiplicatio’ – i.e., by the multiple outward manifestation of an archetype …, which again is the same as the ‘breaking through of barriers through contingency’ or ‘transgressivity’ of the archetype that you talk about in your letter.” [emphasis mine]

Subsequently Pauli concludes:

“The transformation process is the missing item in your letter when you talk of the psychological correspondence to radioactivity.”

Afte this crucial sentence Pauli ends his remarks about the difference between the terms “field” and “radioactivity” on a depth psychological level with the following comparision with alchemy:

“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.” [emphasis mine]

Astonishingly, only here, at the end of his remarks and almost secondary, the Nobel laureate introduces the most important difference between the field and radioactivity: acausality.

I consider these statements of Wolfgang Pauli’s as the most important ones of the whole correspondence with Carl Jung. Therefore, we have to discuss their content a bit more.

5.4.12 Wolfgang Pauli’s depth psychological interpretation of the radioactive transmutation as a transition of the Self into a more conscious state

Pauli first explains the difference between the physical terms “field” and “radioactivity.” For him the most important one is the fact of transmutation, which belongs to the radioactive decay, but not at all to the term “field.”

Then he tries to show to Jung that also in his psychology there exists such a difference, he is however not able to see. It is the fact that also the Self – as an effect of synchronicty – transforms. This transformation is observable in the multiplicatio, the “physical-symbolic radiation,” the synchronstic spreading out of similar ideas at the same time in mankind’s history.

As we have seen in section 5.4.9, Pauli as well as Jung eventually accepted a complementary interpretation of the relationship between depth psychology and physics. This is the reason why Pauli can compare the multiplicatio of physics, the radioactive decay, with the multiplicatio of depth psychology, the synchronistic spreading out of new ideas.

In this light we can now have a look at the enigmatic statement of “the transition of the ‘Self’ into a more conscious state.” We have seen in Chapter 3 that Pauli treats the Self as potential being which is per se nonascertainable. It is not nonbeing (or an unprovable metaphysical hypothesis) as most natural scientists would say, because it becomes ascertainable in the case where it “produces” an observable effect. This observational event is the multiplicatio, the synchronistic spreading out of a novel idea in the collective consciousness, the historical synchronicity (see section 5.4.10).

We will therefore interpret the enigmatic expression “the transition of the ‘Self’ into a more conscious state” in the way that the collective consciousness becomes more conscious about a special attribute of the God-image. In the course of time such a “transition” becomes an ascertainable fact, i.e., actual being. A nonascertainable aspect of the God-image has – by the synchronistic spreading out of a new idea, by a shift in the collective consciousness – become ascertainable, a paradigma shift has taken place.

We can also interpret the observation and interpretation of an individual synchronicity as such a process of the transformation of potential into actual being, especially in the case of the creative cognition process: We are dealing with a scientific problem with the help of causal thinking, but do not see any solution. If we are open for the synchronistic nexus and let us therefore fall into some sort of a “dimmed consciousness”, we experience synchronicities. The observation of such acausal events interrupts the causal process of linear thinking. With the help of the interpretation of such a synchronicity, a novel idea comes up into our mind, and then we can go on with causal thinking, but on a different, not at all predictable level. We could call such a process a more developed creation by cognition, as I have demonstrated it in section 5.2.1.

The only trouble is that such a meaning is only subjective. Only a later multiplicatio, a spreading out of such a new idea, in which it becomes the background of a new worldview, can decide if “the transition of the ‘Self’ into a more conscious state” in the collective consciousness has happened.

Already when we discussed the creation by cognition (see section 5.2.1), I remarked that we do not know if such a transition happens in a causal or acausal way. With the help of the above insights, we can however conclude that realized synchronicities happen after the acausal nexus, whilst the logical derivation of new results in a conscious process is more or less causal (meaning that it happens after the nexus of cause and effect). It becomes therefore likely that the creative process per se can be described by the following nexus: The old “causal,” i.e., deterministic worldview of science collapses in an individually experienced synchronicity, and then the new worldview must be derived by conscious logical thinking, i.e., by a new “causal” nexus. [See also the example in Some Thoughts about the Relationship of Carl Jung's Depth Psychology To Quantum Physics and to Archetypal Psychosomatics, Part 3:

Let us briefly recapitulate the insights: Wolfgang Pauli, as a quantum physicist, treats Carl Jung’s Self neither as being nor as nonbeing (as science does), but as potential being. Potential being can be transformed into actual being, i.e., it can incarnate into our space- and time-bound world with the help of an observation of a human consciousness. The process of interpreting and understanding the meaning of individually observed synchronicities in the right way, i.e., the conscious realization of a new collective truth, leads to a multiplicatio, a spreading out of this novel idea into the whole world and like this to a transformation of the zeitgeist, i.e., of the collective consciousness. Because of this process of the multiplicatio, we can indirectly conclude that also the per se nonascertainable Self has transformed.

Of course we can also apply this idea for the developing of a very revolutionary paradigma shift in our religious/psychological attitude: One of the most important insights of Carl Jung was the result that the introvertedly experienced Self replaces the conventional God-image. Further, we postulate like Pauli that synchronicities are the empirically observable transformations of the Self. Like this, the God-image becomes potential being, which replaces the being of the believers and the nonbeing of the nonbelievers. When synchronicities happen, the potential being is transformed into actual being. Like this a specific aspect of the God-image has become empirically observable, and by this it changes from a metaphysical statement into an empirical fact. The belief in a hypothetical God, in a metaphysical or transcendental Being, has been replaced by an observation and cognition of the transformation of the God-image; potential being has become actual being.

[Part 9 proofread by GJS, 7.2004]

Chapter 5, part 10

See also further articles about Wolfgang Pauli in

http://www.psychovision.ch/rfr/roth_e.htm

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October 15, 2004