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 7

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

(part 8)

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 (not yet published):

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 8)

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

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

We will see later that the Nobel laureate was very close to such a back door. Before we can deal with his briefly mentioned related dreams, beginning in 1954, about a secret labor, in which radioactive nuclei were isolated without his knowledge (see also sections 5.1 and 5.2.2.5), we should answer the question: “How did Carl Jung interpret the ‘physical-symbolic radioactivity’ in Pauli’s dreams?”

After having discussed these dreams in 1954 with Marie-Louise von Franz (see section 5.2.2.5), Pauli also submitted them later to Carl Jung. In letter [71J] of December 1956, an answer to a letter of Pauli’s in which he described to him such a dream, the depth psychologist showed his standpoint about the symbolic use of the term “radioactive nucleus.” He writes:

“The isolated radioactive isotope probably relates to an essential element of the contents of the unconscious, which is almost certainly the Self. The fact that the Self is depicted as an isotope shows that it is still a variant of a familiar element – i.e., has not yet attained an absolutely central and dominant position. …

For me, the term ‘radioactive’ is the equivalent to ‘numinosum’, which in a secondary form can also be ‘synchronistic.’ Radioactivity as a temporary characteristic would correspond to a ‘constellated archetype.’ This, so it would seem, produces synchronistic effects, which latent archetypes do not.” [Meier, 2001, p. 154]

The use of the terms “relation” and “equivalence” shows us that Jung also treated the physical term “radioactivity” and the depth psychological “Self” as complementary. Already three years before, in 1953, he stated this general complementarity between physics and depth psychology in very clear words:

“In consequence of the indispensability of the psychic processes, there cannot be just one way of access to the secret of Being, there must be at least two – namely, the material occurrence on the one hand and the psychic reflection of it on the other (although it will be hard to determine what is reflecting what!)” [Meier, 2001, p. 127]

We see further that Jung was also convinced that some sort of “depth-psychological radioactivity” – however regarded as complementary to the physical radioactivity - is the reason for the “constellation” of an archetype – whatever this enigmatic expression could mean.

Thus, we can conclude that the two scientists argued on the background of complementarity in the meaning of Niels Bohr’s Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics (see section 3.3.6). They conclude that Carl Jung’s Self manifests on the physical level as radioactivity, on the depth psychologically observable, “physical-symbolic” level as synchronicity. Complementarity means further that the two descriptions are – in contrast to the Yang/Yin bipolarity - mutually exclusive (as is the particle and the wave picture in quantum physics), but that both are necessary for a complete understanding of the phenomena, in our case of the totality of the inner and the outer world.

As we have seen, the physical radioactive nucleus is characterized by a transmutation and radiation. Therefore, Pauli was also convinced that synchronicity, the “depth-psychological radioactivity,” should represent a transformation or even a transmutation of the Self, and that it should be combined with some sort of a radiation.

In the next section we will see that Pauli is therefore convinced that we must interpret the “effects” of synchronicities as some sort of a multiplicatio, interpreted as a “synchronistic radiation.” Further we will see in the succeding sections that he tries to show the depth psychologist that the process of the transformation of the Self must be integrated into his theoretical concept.

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

As we have seen, one of the most important attributes of the red tincture as well as of radioactivity is the multiplicatio. Because the stranger insists on a relationship of radioactivity with synchronicity, Pauli now tries to compare the multiplicatio with Jung’s term synchronicity. In letter [37P] of June 1949, after the quote in section 5.4.7, he writes:

“Just as in physics, a radioactive substance (through ‘active precipitation’ from developing gaslike substances) radioactively ‘contaminates’ a whole laboratory, so the synchronistic phenomenon seems to have the tendency to spread into the consciousness of several people.” [Meier, 2001, p. 41]

Thus, he compares the multiplicatio with a spiritual or mental spreading out of ideas. Like this he approaches Carl Jung, who stressed already more than 20 years before the publication of his synchronicity article, in 1929, that such a spiritual or mental multiplicatio, i.e., the spreading out of similar central ideas in different and independent cultures at more or less the same time, have happened in fact relatively often as historical synchronicities. [Letters, vol. 1, p. 58]

It is his complementary thinking that forces the Nobel laureate to relate the physical-symbolic aspect of radioactivity to synchronicity. Like this he reduces the psychophysical alchemical multiplicatio to a merely spiritual-psychic event, to an attribute of synchronicity. He ignores the fact that the multiplicatio belongs to the coniunctio archetype, i.e., to the creation of the lapis in the intermediary realm between matter and spirit-psyche. Therefore, Pauli’s interpretation of the alchemical multiplicatio as the merely spiritual-psychic synchronicity has nothing to do with a transmutation of matter anymore, in contrast to the radioactive decay.

[Part 8 proofread by GJS, 7.2004]

Chapter 5, part 9

See also further articles about Wolfgang Pauli in

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

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September 15, 2004