Jung and Pauli

In his early theories of the structure of the psyche, psychic energy and psychodynamics, Jung was influenced by William James's understanding of the complementary insights of depth psychology and the discoveries of subatomic physics, and his concept of field in physics and the study of the subconscious. In his relationship with Freud, Jung initially struggled with a sexually-based drive theory. But he gradually came to conceive libido as a quantitative concept, a psychic analogue of physical energy. In their own languages, both C. G. Jung and Nobel physicist Wolfgang Pauli explored the evolution of scientific thought from the naive insights about process in alchemy through Newtonian causality, space-time theories of relativity to quantum mechanics. Jung had access to thirteen hundred of Pauli's dreams. The first four hundred were basis for his research into alchemical symbolism in a modern psyche. In a later collaboration, Pauli supported Jung's synchronicity principle as scientific, and Jung fostered Pauli's understanding of the archetypal and collective factors in the psyche. They each explored the interconnections between the energies of psyche and matter, and the possibilities of acausal order and synchronicity. Pauli's ground-breaking discoveries gave scientific demonstration of alchemical intuitions. Through him, alchemical and archetypal insights entered the discourse of physics. Through Jung, the apprehensions of microphysics entered our psychological language and thought.     

Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of Carl Gustav Jung and Wolfgang Pauli

While exploring the phenomena of synchronicity, Carl Gustav Jung became acquainted with the quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli and eventually began a collaboration with him. During that collaboration Jung's study of synchronistic phenomena underwent a considerable change; prior to the collaboration, Jung had stressed mainly the phenomenological and empirical features of synchronistic phenomena, while in association with Pauli, he focused his attention upon their ontological, archetypal character. Pauli, on the other hand, became increasingly sensitive to the philosophical aspects concerning the unconscious. Jung and Pauli's common reflections went far beyond psychology and physics, entering into the realm where the two areas meet in the philosophy of nature. In fact, as a consequence of their collaboration, synchronicity was transformed from an empirical concept into a fundamental explanatory-interpretative principle, which together with causality could possibly lead to a more complete worldview. Exploring the problematic character of the synchronicity concept has a heuristic value because it leads to the reconsideration of the philosophical issues that drove Jung and Pauli to clear up the conceptual background of their thoughts. Within the philosophical worldview arising from Jung and Pauli's discussions about synchronicity, there are many symbolic aspects that go against mainstream science and that represent a sort of criticism to some of the commonly held views of present day science.     

Psyche, Matter and Synchronicity

In 1948, and with Pauli s enthusiastic support, Jung began to write down his thoughts on synchronicity. A two-year correspondence ensued, with a focus on psyche and matter, and the importance of acausality within the frameworks of physics and psychology.
This paper traces the improbable interaction between the physicist and the psychologist, as these great scientists enrich and merge their formative views on acausality. Bolstered by his dreams, Pauli draws a correspondence between psychology and atomic physics, centring on the 'psychophysical problem', including synchronicity. Seminal thoughts are discussed, such as the need to broaden the concept of the archetype, and to recognize that the future of analytical psychology is not to be found primarily in therapy but in a 'unified holistic conception of nature and the status of man within it'. Two world pictures were constructed, identifying a non-causal (non-rational) side to reality, as experienced both in physics and the psyche. Pauli discusses his concept of a 'neutral language', the aim being to bridge the gap between psyche and matter, both of which are seen to rest on a common foundation, known to the alchemists as the unus mundus. The collaboration was highlighted with the publication of their book, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche (1952), which emphasizes the archetypal influence of archetype on consciousness.     

Synchronicity and the I Ching: Jung, Pauli, and the Chinese woman

The capacity of the human mind to discover and invent both imagistic analogies and mathematical structures to represent reality is strikingly juxtaposed in the ancient Chinese text of the I Ching. Its emphasis on containing all sorts of opposites and its plastic appeal to multi-valenced experience has kept it alive through millennia and across cultures. Jung was introduced to its Taoist wisdom by the Sinologist Richard Wilhelm. The Nobel Laureate quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli became familiar with its philosophy and mathematics through his reading of Schopenhauer and Leibniz. In their correspondence about the nature of the unconscious and synchronicity, Pauli and Jung also exchanged their musings on Pauli's dreams of a Chinese woman, her role in his psyche and his scientific theories(1).     

From Copenhagen to the consulting room: Pauli and Jung in Copenhagen

In this paper the city of Copenhagen is used as a starting point to highlight some critical historical events, both concerning the exchange of ideas between the physicist Wolfgang Pauli and C.G. Jung and the history of psychotherapy in Scandinavia. Pauli's years in Copenhagen under the influence of Niels Bohr and his philosophy prepared him mentally to receiveC.G. Jung's ideas. The paper also recounts the one occasion that Jung was in Scandinavia, attending the 9th conference of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy in Copenhagen, just before going to New York in 1937 to give his final seminars on Pauli's dreams. The reason for focusing on these particular events is that they also constitute part of the history of the reception of psychodynamic psychology in Sweden and Scandinavia.     

A visit paid to Jung by Alwine von Keller

In the winter of 1943-1944, Jung had suffered a coronary thrombosis which almost cost him his life. During his illness, Jung experienced a series of visions, described in his Memories, Dreams, Reflections, which were also to influence significantly the development of his theoretical thinking. On 27(th) September 1944, Alwine von Keller (1878-1965) paid a visit to Jung, while he was still convalescing, in Zurich and documented her meeting with him in a series of notes, recently discovered, which testify to the fact that, at the time of their meeting, Jung was engaged in writing the 'Salt' chapter of Mysterium coniunctionis and investigating the alchemistic symbolism of the 'sea'. This theme seems to testify to a continuity of interests on Jung's part with the seminar he held at Eranos the previous year on the cartographic art of Opicinus de Canistris (1296-c.1352). With its addition of many unpublished details, Alwine von Keller's notes supplement the report which Jung made of his visions experienced during his sickness in MDR. In particular, these attest to the fact that Jung had attributed the terrible experience which he had endured to the problem of the conjunctio, which was confronting him from the theoretical point of view in his writing of Mysterium coniunctionis.     

Dreams: Fifty Years and Counting

I have been following my dreams since I was a child. Jung says that a single dream may give the dreamer a lot of information; however, a series of dreams over time will show where the dreamer needs to do additional work, where and how the dreamer's life may be headed, and how the dreamer is dealing with this knowledge that comes from a realm of wisdom that is both numinous and mysterious. In my life, spirit has become a profound partner by pointing me in directions that were not conscious to me. I have had a wonderful opportunity to work with a fellow dream worker for the past ten years. We use active imagination and amplification until the meaning of the dream becomes clearer. Often our dreams produce parallel images, feelings, and actions, which to my eye confirms the deeper psychic connection we all have with one another. I have used images to capture the impact of the dreams on my psyche, and poetry to confirm and augment the deeper level of wisdom that unfolds in our dreams. Dream interpretation can only encourage dreamers to allow themselves to become comfortable with working with their dream material, but does not necessarily show them the final answers.     

The Akashic Field and Archetypal Occupations: Transforming Human Potential Through Doing and Being

The global crisis is heralding change within collective consciousness and humanity will be challenged to transform behaviors to co-create a sustainable future. Ervin Laszlo's Akashic Field could inspire such an archetypal shift, as exemplified in C.G. Jung's individuation process. Jung's encounters with the archetypes from the collective unconscious led him to connect deeply with Akashic experiences, which resulted in him expressing his human potential through renewed ways of doing and being. Humanity has an opportunity to develop and integrate transpersonal consciousness through engaging archetypal and Akashic experiences, which could inspire collective action for the co-creation of an improved future.     

Who is my Jung? Memories,Reflections, Prospects

The author describes his personal and professional journey in relation to the subject of the AJA 40^th anniversary conference, ‘Who is my Jung?’ The first part of the paper covers his early life and his attempt to bring together two opposing parts within him: valuation of a scientific approach, and an interest in the inner world, dreams and the paranormal. Discussion of his professional life follows, including his relationship with Gerhard Adler, past problems and splits within the Jungian community and the author's attempts to heal these. The value of both remembering and forgetting is questioned. This leads onto ideas that bring value and meaning to his work and life, and which bridge the inner divisions he felt in his early life: notably Jung's focus on applying scientific theory to the mystery of the psyche, his relational attitude (exemplified by the dialectical process and his interest in countertransference) and his theory of synchronicity. Recent discussion in Jungian writing has questioned the nature of synchronistic experiences and explored how they may emerge naturally from complex systems. The paper ends the author's continuing journey with two personal vignettes describing how meaning may emerge from the unconscious.     

Some reflections on the influence of Chinese thought on Jung and his psychological theory

Jung claimed that Richard Wilhelm, whose masterful translations of Chinese wisdom literature into a European language (German) and thence into Western consciousness have brought Chinese modes of thinking to so many, was one of the most important influences on his own life and work. The contacts between the two men, which took place from the early 1920's until Wilhelm's death in 1930, were few but intense and for Jung decisive in several ways. Wilhelm's translations of the I Ching and The Secret of the Golden Flower opened new avenues for Jung that had far-reaching consequences on his research and writing after 1930. The latter opened the door to the study of alchemy as a key to the archetypal process of individuation as rooted in the collective unconscious. 'Synchronicity' is a term that grew out of his contact with Chinese thought, in particular with the I Ching. From his contact with Chinese thought, additionally, he received confirmation of the view, independently arrived at, that adult psychological development is not linear but rather circular and spiral-like. The letters between Jung and Wilhelm illuminate the great importance Jung ascribed to Wilhelm's contribution toward bridging East and West and the potential value of Chinese philosophy for psychotherapy.     

The pea cea ble kingdom

While working as a training analyst in Zürich in the early 1970s, Arnold Mindell began to develop an offshoot of Jungian psychology that he called dreambodywork, which links experiences of bodily feelings and symptoms with our dreams. For the past twenty-five years, he has expanded his approach, now known as process work or process-oriented psychology, to include work with psychiatric and comatose patients as well as large groups in conflict.

Using the language of Taoism, Mindell distinguishes between the dreaming process which, like the Tao, cannot be spoken, and dream content, which can be spoken. He likens the former to the invisible archetypal realm and the latter to the archetypal images, which can be seen. Mindell suggests that clinicians who focus on the latter tend to use analysis and interpretation to understand dream figures, standing aloof and separating subject from object, such as analyst and analyst and or dream ego and shadow. Instead, he advocates using a more shamanic approach that follows the mysterious process of the living unconscious as it unfolds in bodily feelings, smells, tastes, movements, visualizations, relationships, and unpredictable events, as well as dreams. In this way, Mindell has taken the dream out of the sleep state into waking consciousness and out of the psyche into the world. While standing on the shoulders of his teachers, C.G. Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, he has continued to reach for his own star.     

Archetypes and architecture: The coniunctio of Canary Wharf

In The Psychology of the Unconscious Jung foretold his hypothesis of the collective unconscious and the way it is represented in the stories and symbolism of myths and legends. Later, he uncovered this in the texts of the alchemists, especially the Rosarium Philosophorum , which he believed allegorized the archetype of relationship and new birth that they called the mysterium coniunctionis . He recognized the same symbolic meaning in the building of his home, ‘the tower’, at Bollingen, which represented his own individuation and new birth. Similarly, group process might evoke or be influenced by archetypes, which are then manifested in socio-cultural phenomena, one expression of which is architectural design.

This article argues that such archetypal expression can be discerned in the design and landscaping of Canary Wharf in London. It explores how the socio-economic aims of the development, coupled with the geographic characteristics of the area, might have evoked in the group of individuals concerned the archetype of the mysterium coniunctionis . Thus the design characteristics of Canary Wharf's architecture appear curiously similar to those of the woodcuts in the Rosarium Philosophorum , and some examples are presented. Both seem creative manifestations of the same archetype. In concluding, the author reflects on the meaning of his work, and, as Jung wrote, ‘the unexpected and the incredible belong to this world. Only then is life whole’.     

Learning from the patient: The East,synchronicity and transference in the history of an unknown case of C.G. Jung

This article presents the history of one until now unknown case of C.G. Jung: Maggy Reichstein. Born in Indonesia in 1894 in a very aristocratic family, she brought her sister to Zurich to be treated by Jung in 1919, and later she herself was in analysis with him. Jung used her case as example in his lecture in 1937 on the realities of practical psychotherapy, relating it to the process of transference and countertransference. Jung deepened his studies in Eastern psychology after a series of dreams she had, which culminated in the Yoga Kundalini Seminars. She was also the case presented in his article of 1951 on the concept of synchronicity. Jung wrote that her case, concerning synchronicity, remained unique in his experience. Jung also published some of her mandalas. He considered her able to understand his ideas in depth. Reichstein was for Jung an important case, which challenged and triggered his interests in different subjects.     

“Opening the Heart”: An Interview with Steve Parker

In this interview, Dr. Parker talks about how important Jungian psychology has been to him, especially following his heart attack, and how he has worked with his dreams and symbolism to guide his recovery. His work has led him to build a stone labyrinth at his wilderness home outside Fairbanks, Alaska. Artwork and photographic images illustrates his healing adventure. A brief video can be viewed at: http://jungcurrents.com/stone-sanctuary.     

America's loss of innocence: Bicentennial reflections

This article explores some of the values and meanings of dreams through the life cycle, especially in later life when problems of physical decline require another return towards the unconscious to deal with aspects of vulnerability and issues in the mother complex still impeding relations between the ego and Self as the dreamer cycles towards a death of the physical body.     

Freud and Jung: an incomplete encounter

The author discusses the bases of the close, personal and professional relationship between Freud and Jung, and conjectures that the eventual schism between them was the result of the different profound psychological needs that each had for the other. Because of his identification with the psychoanalytic enquiry, particularly as it was based in large measure on his own self analysis, Freud looked to Jung as a collaborator who would not deviate from the principles at the basis of psychoanalysis, seeking psychoanalysis' acceptance within the established scientific community. From Jung's point of view, Freud fulfilled the role of a respected father figure who, Jung hoped, would grant him the autonomy and freedom to pursue his own scientific enquiry, based on Freud's ideas, but which he would revise according to his own researches. These led Jung to certain revisions and additions, such as the nature and function of the libido, the broadening of the idea of the complex (as in the Oedipus complex) to include a number of universal, archetypal themes, and the elaboration of the concept of the self. During the years of their relationship, they shared a mutual psychological support which was deeply important to each, based on reciprocal love and respect but also on a fantasy that each would be able to supply to the other a key capacity that the other lacked. Jung was able to offer important scientific verifications of a number of psychoanalytic notions via the Word Association Test, such as the concept of repression, of the complex, including the Oedipus complex, and the proof of the existence of the unconscious. However, neither could supply to the other what each looked for in the other at the psychological level. The final breakdown and rupture in their relationship was caused by their theoretical differences and by the fact that they became bitter competitors in a race to publish treatises on the nature and origins of spirituality and religion. It has left in its wake the implicit traces of discord and misapprehension which have characterized much of subsequent professional relationships between the two traditions.     

From Freud’s dream-work to Bion’s work of dreaming: The changing conception of dreaming in psychoanalytic theory

Bion moved psychoanalytic theory from Freud's theory of dream-work to a concept of dreaming in which dreaming is the central aspect of all emotional functioning. In this paper, I first review historical, theoretical, and clinical aspects of dreaming as seen by Freud and Bion. I then propose two interconnected ideas that I believe reflect Bion’s split from Freud regarding the understanding of dreaming. Bion believed that all dreams are psychological works in progress and at one point suggested that all dreams contain elements that are akin to visual hallucinations. I explore and elaborate Bion’s ideas that all dreams contain aspects of emotional experience that are too disturbing to be dreamt, and that, in analysis, the patient brings a dream with the hope of receiving the analyst’s help in completing the unconscious work that was entirely or partially too disturbing for the patient to dream on his own. Freud views dreams as mental phenomena with which to understand how the mind functions, but believes that dreams are solely the ‘guardians of sleep,’ and not, in themselves, vehicles for unconscious psychological work and growth until they are interpreted by the analyst. Bion extends Freud's ideas, but also departs from Freud and re-conceives of dreaming as synonymous with unconscious emotional thinking – a process that continues both while we are awake and while we are asleep. From another somewhat puzzling perspective, he views dreams solely as manifestations of what the dreamer is unable to think.     

Honoring the Mantis Between Our Toes

Sir Laurens van der Post, friend to Jung and fierce advocate for the Bushmen of the Kalahari, expressed his protean gifts and passionate spirit as a novelist, journalist, statesman, and conservationist. His oeuvre of more than twenty-five published books includes A Mantis Carol, his memoir of a synchronistic series of events that led him to travel from his home in London to visit a New York analyst who had been tantalized for many years by near-nightly dreams of a praying mantis. That visit led him to befriend a young woman who related her childhood relationship with circus performer and family friend Hans Taaibosch, who’d become a magical and precious soul friend to her despite remaining in some ways a profound mystery. Together, she and van der Post pieced together Taaibosch's likely origins as a Kalahari Bushman, whose capacity to experience and give joy van der Post saw as an outgrowth of the deeply earthed spirituality of a people whose god, Mantis, is guided by his dreams. One hallmark of Bushman culture is their ritual dancing, their most important dances being “The Dance of the Little Hunger” for food and “The Dance of the Big Hunger” for meaning. The author describes her own synchronistic encounters with mantises and what they and van der Post taught her about the instinctually healing properties of our embodied relationship with one another, our fellow creatures, our dreams, our bodies, and the earth from which all possibilities are born.