The Seal of Solomon and psyche's complementary incarnation (part 2)

Remo F. Roth

Dr. oec. publ., Ph.D.

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

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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

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back to Chapter 5, part 1

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

(part 2)

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 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

In the letter to Marie-Louise von Franz of November 11th, 1953 Pauli - again in the context of his vision/audition of the (Chinese) Seal of Solomon and the square - writes:

“Es ist mir klar, was mich an China fasziniert: es ist die exakt symmetrische Einstellung zum Gegensatzpaar Yin (weiblich, chtonisch, dunkel = Mond) und Yang (männlich, geistig, licht = Sonne). Auf dieser basiert eine Jahrtausende alte Kultur und Zivilisation, die gleichmässig und stetig aufgebaut ist. Es ist das ‚Reich der Mitte’ – und es hat ein Ehrfurcht gebietendes Alter...“

English translation:

“I am clear in my mind what fascinates me about China: it is precisely the symmetrical attitude in connection to the pair of opposites Yin (feminine, chthonic, dark = moon) and Yang (masculine, spiritual, bright = sun). On this is based a culture and civilization of some thousand years that is created homogenous and continuous. It is the ‘realm of the middle’ – and it has an awesome age…” [translation mine]

Then he continues:

“Dieselbe symmetrische Einstellung oder Haltung fasziniert mich auch, wenn ich sie im Abendlang treffe. Man findet sie hier allerdings relativ selten. Im alten Hellas scheint mir eine relativ kurze Epoche ‚symmetrisch’ zu Apollo und Dionysos gewesen zu sein, besonders die Pythagoräer; dann fand ich eine ‚archaische’ Symmetrie bei Fludd (auch in der Kabbala) und – last not least – eine in die Zukunft weisende sowohl bei Bohr wie bei Prof. Jung.“

English translation:

"The same symmetrical attitude and engagement fascinates me, too, when I meet it in the occident. Indeed, one finds it relatively seldom. It seems to me that a relatively short epoch in the old Hellenic culture was ‘symmetrical’ in relation to Apollo and Dionysus, especially the Pythagoreans; further, I have found an ‘archaic’ symmetry with Fludd (also in the Cabbala) and – last but not least – the anticipatory one of Bohr and Professor Jung.” [translation mine]

Towards the end of the year 1953, Wolfgang Pauli is now convinced that spirit and matter must be dealt with as symmetrical principles. We have seen in section 4.3.2 that this conclusion is derived by applying the quantum physical complementary principle between particle and wave on the relation between spirit and matter.

However, in the quotation above, Pauli applies complementarity also to the energetic principles of yin and yang. Thus, he extends quantum physical complementarity unconsciously onto the energy principle, without realizing that this assumption contradicts his conscious prejudice of physical energy’s unipolarity.

It is of course the unconscious influence of the Chinese anima of his vision/audition, which told him that the Seal of Solomon is missing a dynamic aspect, which led to this half conscious change in the Nobel laureate. We will see later, that it is exactly this deep conflict between his conscious belief of physical energy’s unipolarity and the idea of psychophysical energy’s bipolarity of his Chinese anima, the Nobel laureate was not able to solve anymore during his earthly life.

The above quoted sentences show, too, that Pauli is very fascinated by such an all-embracing complementarity that he looks for further examples of it. He finds Western examples of such “symmetrical cultures”, especially the opus of his favorite alchemist Robert Fludd, but also the Jewish Cabbala, of course Niels Bohr’s complementarity concept and – Carl Jung’s depth psychology.

5.2.1.2 Psyche as potential being

For the reader it may be very astonishing that Pauli – after his severe criticism of Jung’s asymmetric quaternity – talks now, in November 1953, of a “anticipatory symmetry” in the latter’s psychology. We must therefore ask ourselves, why the Nobel laureate has changed his mind.

A month after his reproach of the “quaternities, projected into heaven” in the letter “To be or not to be” of February 27th, 1953, Pauli begins to clarify the term “psyche” with Carl Jung. In his next letter of March 31st, 1953 he quotes first Jung’s article Der Geist der Psychologie of the year 1946,

“… 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.’”

In this article, published seven years before, Jung revised his term “archetype”, initially thought of as a purely inner-psychic aspect of human experience. The phenomenon he later called synchronicity – the meaningful coincidence of relatively synchronous inner and outer events - had shown him that we must also accept a “behavior” of the archetypes in the outer world as well.

On the basis of this new theoretical background Jung concluded in his letter of March 7th, 1953, that “the psyche is partly of a material nature”. In his answer, Pauli criticizes Jung’s standpoint as a metaphysical statement.

This statement is metaphysical, because matter as well as psyche are – in Jung’s words (see below) – not ascertainable. Therefore, we cannot talk of psyche as a part of matter.

Thus, Pauli brings his definition, which should avoid metaphysical implications:

“Ich ziehe es vor zu sagen, dass Psyche und Stoff durch gemeinsame, neutrale ‘an sich nicht feststellbare’ Ordnungsprinzipien beherrscht werden.”

English translation:

“I prefer to say that psyche and matter are governed by common, neutral, ‘per se not ascertainable’ ordering principles.” [emphasis and translation mine, differing from Roscoe’s]

We can interpret this sentence as follows: Seen from an epistemological point of view we cannot say anything about matter and psyche. It is however a matter of fact, that we can – at least for the per se not ascertainable matter in physics – find mathematical laws that describe the ordering principle for it, and like this we are able to prove these ordering principles in an empirical way. Therefore Newtonian physics is not metaphysical scholasticism anymore, but empirical science. If this is also true for depth psychology, as Pauli states here, is however an open question.

On May 4th, 1953 Jung replies that his is of course a metaphysical statement, and he corrects it by the very important new one

“… that the nature of the psyche is involved in both hypothetical conceptions, spirit and material, and, like them, is not ascertainable.”

As we have seen in Chapter 3, Pauli proposes that the archetype, and therefore also its “container”, the psyche, should be dealt with as potential being, which means, as a transcendental and therefore not ascertainable concept (as long as it is not observed). One would think that with his formulation that the psyche is involved in spirit and in matter both not ascertainable as well, Jung adopts Pauli’s definition of the term “psyche” and therefore of the collective unconscious as potential being, but we will see that this is not the case.

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

In his letter Jung goes on and concludes:

“Thus I fully agree when you say ‘that psyche and matter are governed by common, neutral etc. ordering principles.’ (I would simply add ‘spirit’ as well.)”

He finishes the letter with a conclusion that is very important for our following arguments:

“What is often a great stumbling block when it comes to the notion of thinking is that the opposition is not physis versus psyche, but physis versus pneuma [spirit; RFR], with psyche the medium between the two. In recent history, the spirit has been brought into the psyche and been identified with the function of the intellect.” [emphasis mine]

In his letter of October 24th, 1953 – three weeks before Pauli’s above mentioned letter to Marie-Louise von Franz about the projection of quaternities into heaven and his proposal of the “mirror image of the Assumptio Mariae to below” – Jung underlines once again that

“… the spirit (pneuma) has, since time immemorial, stood in opposition to the body. It is turbulent air, in contrast to the earth (matter or hyle). The ‘soul’ [psyche] however, is regarded as ligamentum corporis et spiritus [the ligament between matter and spirit].” [emphasis mine]

We have seen above (section 5.2.2) that Pauli, in letter [60P], speaks of a sought-after common basis for matter and psyche. Jung, however, now defines the term “psyche” as a superior principle to matter and spirit. Therefore, for him psyche and spirit are not identical anymore, which is the way modern science generally sees it and as the Nobel laureate saw it as well.

Therefore, after Jung’s letter of October 24, 1953, Pauli is – as a result of their dispute - also convinced, that psyche is not identical with spirit. This is exactly the reason why he can write in the above mentioned letter to Marie-Louise von Franz three weeks later (November 11, 1943; see section 5.2.1.1), that he agrees with Jung’s statement of psyche’s superiority over matter and spirit and of the symmetry between the latter ones.

For a natural scientist this is a very great step forward: He now accepts first that psyche is a principle independent of spirit, second that spirit and matter are symmetrical and third that psyche is the superior principle to them.

5.2.1.4 Carl Jung’s crux with the Seal of Solomon

But how about Jung? When writing the letter to Jung’s collaborator Marie-Louise von Franz, Pauli is convinced that the depth psychologist has, towards the end of the year 1953, as an effect of his postulation of symmetry between spirit and matter, found a way out of his unsymmetrical heavenly quaternity, composed of a Trinitarian spirit principle and an unitary matter principle.

Of course, the acceptance of symmetry between spirit and matter would also have meant that Jung would have replaced his quaternity by the Seal of Solomon, in which matter is also threefold. Only with the help of the definition of such a “mirror image to below”, by the unfolding of matter into a “lower trinity”, does symmetry of the two principles, of the dark matter and the bright spirit, become possible.

However, Pauli’s hope that Jung accepts symmetry between spirit and matter is not realized. The depth psychologist goes on bearing his crux with the Seal of Solomon.

As I have already briefly remarked on in the third chapter (section 3.2), Jung even continued in his UFO essay five years later (1958) to reduce the six-fold or double-triadic mandala, the Seal of Solomon, in a very peculiar way to a quaternity [CW 10, § 771]. He writes:

“The hexad is a totality symbol: 4 as the natural division of the circle, 2 as the vertical axis (zenith and nadir) – a spatial conception of totality.”

It is obvious that the depth psychologist has in mind some sort of squaring of the circle. Therefore he tries to transform the sixfold structure (the circle) into a quaternity. In his mind this is only possible by “cutting off” two of the six angles, a very strange “transformation” of the two-dimensional Seal of Solomon into a “spatial conception of totality”. Like this the sixfold structure and with it the circle are “transformed” into a square.

The resulting square we can either see as a 2+2 or as a 4x1 structure paralleling the 3+1 structure of the Assumption and of Jung’s typology. Therefore, as we already concluded above (in section 3.2) this ambivalence shows a certain unconsciousness of Jung in relation to the problem of the fourth. We can now further realize that the reason for this ambivalence was the fact that he was not able anymore to solve the conflict between the quaternity and the Seal of Solomon, because he rejects the latter.

The natural division of the circle is not number 4, as Jung states, but number 6, insofar as the circle’s radius, when strung around onto its periphery, leads to a six angle division. This procedure is possible with only the means of the compasses, which, in sacred geometry, is thought of as the male means. After this first procedure we need the straight edge, the female means, for the construction of the six angle figure. However, neither the circle nor the six angle figure contains the means for the construction of the square. Therefore the construction of the Seal of Solomon is necessary, because it is exactly this geometrical figure that contains the right angle and with it implicitly the square. Thus, the necessary condition for the union of the circle and the square is the intermediate step of the construction of the Seal of Solomon (see figure 5.3).

Figure 5.3

As Carl Jung states (CW 12, §. 165; see also fig. 5.4, below), the squaring of the circle, “that greatly exercised medieval minds”, was a symbolic expression of the alchemical opus’ goal of the coniunctio. Therefore, without the acceptance of the importance of the inclusion of the symmetrical Seal of Solomon as an intermediate step between the third and the fourth, this immemorial problem remains unsolved. We will see, however, that a modern interpretation of the Axiom of Maria Prophetissa can solve this problem.

Figure 5.4

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

For the continuation of our analysis of Pauli’s and Jung’s dispute about the psyche we must now briefly return to section 3.3.7. There we have seen, that Pauli proposes the idea that Jung’s collective unconscious, the objective psyche as the latter calls it as well, should be understood as potential being.

The question now arises; “How did the depth psychologist react to this proposal?” As we see in his answer, Jung is not willing or not able to follow the natural scientist’s argumentation and therefore does not distinguish between potential being and nonbeing. He writes:

“Ich rede ... nie von ‘Sein’ [und 'Nichtsein’], sondern von feststellbar und nichtfeststellbar und zwar hic et nunc.“ ...

"Sein und Nichtsein sind m.E. unzulässige metaphysische Urteile ... während 'feststellbar’ und 'nichtfeststellbar' hic et nunc das Bezogensein des Aktuellen und Nichtaktuellen auf den unabdingbaren Beobachter mit in Rechnung stellen.“

English translation:

“I never talk of ‘being’ [and ‘nonbeing’] but of the hic et nunc [here and now] ascertainable and the hic et nunc nonascertainable.” ... [translation mine]

“In my view, ‘being’ and ‘nonbeing’ are inadmissible metaphysical judgements … , whereas hic et nunc ‘ascertainable’ and hic et nunc ‘nonascertainable’ take into account the relatedness of the actual and the nonactual to the indispensable observer.” [translation mine]

Then Jung makes reference to Niels Bohr’s postulate of the complementarity principle which shows, after Pauli, that matter, as long as it is not observed, is potential being of particle and wave, and he continues:

“Ohne die Originalität Bohrs irgendwie antasten zu wollen, möchte ich doch bemerken, dass bereits Kant die notwendige Antinomie aller metaphysischen Aussagen dargetan hat. Selbstverständlich gilt dies auch für Aussagen betr. das Unbewusste, indem letzteres ein An-sich-Nichtfeststellbares ist. Insofern es ein solches ist, kann es sowohl 'ein der Möglichkeit nach Seiendes’ oder 'Nichtseiendes’ sein. Ich würde aber diese beiden letzteren Begriffe noch der Kategorie der metaphysischen Urteile einreihen, in die nun einmal alle Seinsbegriffe gehören.“ [emphasis mine]

English translation:

“Without wishing to cast aspersions on Bohr’s originality, I should nevertheless like to point out that Kant had already demonstrated the necessary antinomy of all metaphysical statements. Of course, this [the antinomy; RFR] also applies to statements concerning the unconscious, in that the latter is in itself nonascertainable. As such, it can either be ‘potential being’ or ‘nonbeing’. I would, however, place these last two concepts in the category of metaphysical judgments, where in fact all concepts of ‘being’ belong.” [emphasis mine]

The most important aspect of this quote is the fact that for the depth psychologist both nonbeing and potential being as well are metaphysical postulates. This statement shows, therefore, that Jung has not understood Pauli’s argument about potential being and its decisive importance in quantum physics.

The depth psychologist fails to comprehend that the postulation of nonbeing is in fact a metaphysical statement, that the existence of potential being however can indirectly be proved by the spontaneous creation of actual being in the quantum physical observation act. Therefore nonbeing and potential being cannot be the same metaphysical judgments, as Jung states.

Therefore, as a result of his philosophical attitude, Carl Jung is not able to see, that the transformation of potential being into actual being that happens as an effect of the quantum physical measurement act is an empirically observable and therefore not at all a metaphysical event. It is exactly this acausal or indeterministic transformation of metaphysical potential being into empirical actual being, activated by an action of human consciousness, which distinguishes potential being from nonbeing. The latter remains a metaphysical statement, the former, however, becomes indirectly observable and transforms therefore from a metaphysical to an empirical statement. Further, because out of the metaphysical realm something is incarnated in our empirical world, every quantum physical observation becomes a creation and incarnation act.

Another and crucial consequence of this misunderstanding is the issue that Jung cannot see that this creation out of the potential being happens acausally or indeterministically, and that it cannot be forced by the conscious will. Such an event, the spontaneous quantum leap, in which the potential being of the continuous and causal wave function is interrupted acausally, discontinuously, i.e., in an unforeseeable way, is therefore incomprehensible for the depth psychologist’s philosophical mind.

That Jung does not understand the deepest meaning of the wave function’s collapse, in which the potential being becomes actual being (or in Jung’s words hic et nunc ascertainable), shows in the following quotation of his answer letter [61J]:

“Es ist selbstverständlich, dass man sich nie mit dem Feststellbaren allein begnügen kann ... Unser Denken [wird] vor Allem vom Nichtfeststellbaren herausgefordert ... Das eigentliche Leben der Erkenntnis spielt sich auf der Grenzlinie des Feststellbaren und des Nichtfeststellbaren ab. ... Man wird nach wie vor über das Reich des Nichtfeststellbaren spekulieren und intuieren und man wird daraus Feststellbares herausziehen wie bisher. Man soll dabei nur nie vergessen, dass zwischen dem Erkannten und dem hic et nunc nicht Feststellbaren das Gebiet der Psyche liegt.“ [emphasis mine]

English translation:

“It goes without saying that one can never be content with the ascertainable alone ... What is more, the greatest challenge to our thinking comes from the nonascertainable … The real life of cognition is played out on the borderline between the ascertainable and the nonascertainable … There will continue to be speculation and intuition about the realm of the nonascertainable, and ascertainable elements will continue to be plucked from it as before. But it should always be borne in mind that the area between the perceived and what is not ascertainable hic et nunc is the area of the psyche.” [emphasis mine]

The quoted statements show very clearly that the depth psychologist sees the transformation process, in which the nonascertainable (the nonbeing as well as the potential being) becomes ascertainable (actual being), not as an observation act (as in quantum physics) but as an act of philosophical reflection and cognition, by which, in his own words, ascertainable elements will be plucked from the nonascertainable and metaphysical realm.

Therefore, the depth psychologist sees such a possibility of a transformation from the metaphysical to the empirically observable as an act of creation by cognition.

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

In the above quote Jung goes on and states in the last sentence that for him it is the psyche, which is the means for the “transformation” of the nonascertainable into the ascertainable. In his letter [64J], however, the psyche is the “ligamentum corporis et spiritus”, the ligament between matter and spirit. Like this he creates an antagonism between two different aspects of his term psyche.

We know that the depth psychologist defined the so-called Anima as the mediator between the ego and the collective unconscious with its center, the Self. Therefore the first definition of the psyche belongs into the following context:

Ego (conscious psyche) – Anima (unconscious psyche) – Self (objective psyche)

In the second case, however, the psyche is connected to matter and spirit. It is some sort of a mediator between the two, as follows:

Spirit
|
Psyche
|
Matter

Further, in Jung’s terminology, the center of the collective unconscious, the Self, is defined as some sort of a “spirit-psyche”. Therefore, the discrepancy in his definition shows as follows:

Ego - Anima (Psyche) - Self (spirit-psyche) -   Spirit
                                                                                        |
                                                                                   Psyche
                                                                                        |
                                                                                   Matter

We need therefore to distinguish the process Carl Jung talks of when he speaks about the “plucking of the ascertainable from the unascertainable” with the help of the psyche (Anima), i.e. the process I call the creation by cognition, from a process in which the psyche is – in an as yet not known manner - connected to spirit and matter.

With this distinction the question arises if these processes follow a causal or an acausal nexus. If the latter is true, there should – in analogy to quantum physics – also exist observable quantum leaps out of the collective unconscious, or rather out of the unus mundus.

Before we can deal with this problem, we have to find out how the quantum physicist Pauli defines the process of creation Jung saw as the depth psychological-philosophical act of cognition. This we will do in section 5.2.2.

5.2.1.7 Further clarification and summary

After his decisive vision/audition in November, 1953 of the Seal of Solomon and the square that a Chinese woman presents to Wolfgang Pauli, he is convinced that one has to see the relationship between matter and spirit – as the one between particle and wave in the quantum physical complementarity - as symmetrical. By including in this symmetry the complementarity of the Taoist yin/yang, he, however, defines unconsciously a bipolar energy term. Such a definition contradicts his dogmatical defense of the energy conservation law in his Background Physics of 1948, in which he states that physical energy can never change into psychical or any other form of energy. It seems that the Nobel laureate was never able to solve this contradiction in his soul.

In this year 1953 Pauli begins, however, to clarify the term “psyche” with Carl Jung. Seven years before (1946) the depth psychologist had revised his term “archetype”, insofar as it should now embrace the psyche and matter as well. In their discussion the physicist and the depth psychologist eventually find the solution that “psyche” is superior to “matter” and “spirit”, and further that the former is the ligament between the latter, i.e. the ligamentum corporis et spiritus.

For the physicist this is of course a great step forward, because like this he removes the identity of the terms “spirit” and “psyche”, usually found in the language of natural scientific circles. Such a distinction paves the way for an at least hypothetical definition of an energetic bipolarity, i.e., the terms “spirit-psyche” as well as “matter-psyche”. We will see that such a definition of a bipolar incarnation of the psyche into our split world of spirit and matter is of decisive importance.

After this clarification that Jung helped a lot to establish with his statement about the symmetry of matter and spirit and of the superiority of their ligament, the psyche, Pauli is convinced that the depth psychologist also accepts the necessary condition for such a symmetry: The definition of the matter principle as triadic, as a mirror image of the Trinitarian spirit.

The depth psychologist, however, goes on in insisting upon his asymmetric quaternity, containing a Trinitarian masculine principle and the unitarian feminine. Therefore he creates what I call “Carl Jung’s crux with the Seal of Solomon”.

I show then further that the archetypal background of this antagonism is the problem of the squaring of the circle, and vice versa, the circularization of the square. Insofar as the circle is a masculine symbol and the square a feminine, the archetype behind this symbolism is the same as one of the most important ones of Hermetic alchemy: the coniunctio with its exchange of attributes (see section 5.1). One can further state that – geometrically seen – the Seal of Solomon is the necessary means for the construction of the right angle, which is itself the necessary condition for the construction of the square. It seems therefore that the Seal of Solomon is the sought-after symbol for the psyche, i.e., the mediator or the ligament between the archetypal feminine and the archetypal masculine, between matter and spirit.

In the third chapter we have seen that Pauli tries to convince Jung from the necessity of the definition of the term “psyche” as so-called potential being. He does however not succeed. Namely, the depth psychologist stresses that the two terms “nonbeing” and “potential being” are contained in one metaphysical principle he calls the nonascertainable. Further, this nonascertainable is opposed by the empirically ascertainable.

In physics, the distinction between nonbeing and potential being is however of decisive importance, insofar as nonbeing will for ever remain an unprovable metaphysical hypothesis, potential being, however, can indirectly been proven as existing. Like this the metaphysical hypothesis becomes an empirical fact. Such a proof happens in the so-called act of measurement or act of observation, in which the causal but metaphysical wave function – the potential being – collapses during the acausal quantum leap. By this act, one of the different potentialities, described by the wave function, becomes real and observable, i.e., is incarnated in our space- and time-bound world. This means further that the causal state before the observation is interrupted by an acausal act after which the system goes on to behave after a causal law, but on an indefinitely unpredictable level.

By identifying nonbeing and potential being and replacing it by his nonascertainable, Jung neglects the acausal measurement or observation act of quantum physics as a means of cognition. Instead he defines a philosophical-depth psychological act of cognition, in which the nonascertainable is transformed into the ascertainable. Like this he defines a creation by cognition.

If such an act is causal or acausal is not apparent and stays open. We will however see that it can happen causally as well as acausally.

During this discussion about the term psyche Carl Jung creates further an antagonism between two different terms. He states that the psyche is necessary for the creation by cognition, insofar as one needs the psyche as a mediator between the nonascertainable and the ascertainable. Using Jung’s terms this means that such a psyche plays the role of the Anima, the mediator between the ego and the collective unconscious (with its center, the Self).

On the other hand, the depth psychologist uses the term psyche as a ligament between spirit and matter, and he even defines it as a superior principle relative to them. Therefore these two principles, both called psyche, cannot mean the same content: In the first case this psyche is the Anima, in the second, however, it is the mediator between matter and psyche. This more general psyche we guessed however to be symbolized by the Seal of Solomon, the mediator between the masculine and the feminine principle.

proofread by GJS, April 2004

Chapter 5, part 3

See also further articles about Wolfgang Pauli in

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

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5.5.2004