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

The Connection between Radioactivity and Synchronicity in the Pauli/Jung Letters

A Work in Progress

by Remo F. Roth, PhD, CH-8810 Horgen-Zurich, Switzerland

Contents:

1. The archetypal background of physical theory

2. Synchronicity, radioactivity and the unified psychophysical reality

3. Can David Bohm's implicate order be transformed into the explicate order with the help of consciousness?

4. The oscillation symbolism in Wolfgang Pauli's dreams and the relativity of the psychic time

5. The psychic relativity of space

6. The unus mundus (the unified world) and the UFO phenomenon

The Connection between Radioactivity and Synchronicity in the Pauli/Jung Letters

by Remo F. Roth, PhD, CH-8810 Horgen-Zurich, Switzerland

enhanced version of April 26 and December 28, 2003

1. The archetypal background of physical theory

Wolfgang Pauli (1900 - 1958) the well-known physicist and Nobel Prize laureate taught at the Federal Institute of Technology (Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule, ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland where C.G. Jung also was a Professor of Psychology. In 1931 - shortly after his "invention" of the so called antineutrino - Wolfgang Pauli began to have severe mental problems. He himself wrote that the extreme affects and the emotional ups and downs he underwent caused him to have a great deal of trouble with women. He therefore turned to the already well-known psychiatrist and depth psychologist (psychoanalyst) C.G. Jung, who sent him to his student, Erna Rosenbaum, ostensibly because he didn’t want Pauli’s genuine unconscious process to be disturbed by his knowledge and related advice.

After about four years of psychoanalysis (1931 to 1934) which, for the most part dealt with his emotional problems, he apparently resolved these problems and married a second time to Franca Bertram. Later he admitted that in his interpersonal relationships he could be compared to a "cold devil". Despite this, the letters show that Pauli was able to go to great lengths to put his emotional world in order.

Although the patient had been released as cured from analysis, his unconscious continued to produce deep archetypal dreams. These dreams had less to do with Pauli’s set of personal problems than with the archetypal basis of the theoretical assumptions of physics and natural science. Some of these dreams have been published in 1992 in the book Wolfgang Pauli und C.G. Jung - Ein Briefwechsel 1932-1958 [Meier, 1992] which is now also published in the U.S. as Atom and Archetype, The Pauli/Jung Letters 1932-1958 [Meier, 2001]. In the years 1993, 1996 and 1999 many more of Pauli’s important letters were published (Letters from 1940 to 1954) [Pauli, 1993], [Pauli, 1996], [Pauli, 1999], that were enhanced in 2001 (Letters from 1955 to 1956) [Pauli, 2001].

When one considers the dreams published in these letters on the basis of C.G. Jung's psychology, one comes to the conclusion that it is very likely that they reacted to Pauli’s „invention" of the antineutrino particle. Towards the end of 1930 Pauli postulated this hypothesis in his famous letter to the "Liebe radioaktive Damen und Herren" („Dear radioactive ladies and gentlemen") for the recovery of one of the most fundamental hypotheses of physics: The law of conservation of energy. For physicists of those days it was a big shock to accept that this dogma of modern science was violated by so-called radioactive beta decay, the process of the transformation of the neutron into a proton and an electron. With the „invention" of a particle that should carry the missing energy this defect was supposed to be eliminated. Pauli formulated later on that: "Physical energy is, without exception, indestructible; it does not change into hidden, nonphysical forms of energy (such as 'psychic energy', for example)." 

2. Synchronicity, radioactivity and the unified psychophysical reality

We find a considerable amount of dreams in Pauli’s correspondence that described how he was urged to tie the so-called Beta radioactivity - in which the antineutrino plays an important role - together with the depthpsychological phenomenon of synchronicity postulated by C.G. Jung. So Pauli in 1949 used the example of Jung’s famous Scarab Synchronicity (see also Synchronicity principle) to show that his dreams since 1934 insisted on the following scenario: Through the observation of this and similar synchronicities the famous psychoanalyst „succeeded in producing a radioactive substance".

In synchronicity the outer and inner, the physical and psychic, worlds unite for a short time. This is why these dreams indicate that the antineutrino cannot simply be categorized as another physical elementary particle but rather that it could transcend the world of physics and enter the world of psychic energy. If so, a transformation from physical to psychic energy (and vice versa) could be possible - a fact that both Pauli and Jung rejected.

[Remark of December 2005: In English the term "psychic" means psychological as well as parapsychological. In German we distinguish much more and talk of "psychische Phänomene" and "parapsychologische Phänomene". In the German original Pauli uses the term "psychisch", which means Carl Jung's term objectiv psychic energy. 

My research of this year has shown me that Pauli is right if we limit his statement on the German term "psychisch". However, if we talk of parapsychological phenomena, it seems that such a transformation of physical into parapsychological energy et vice versa is possible. As the reader can see in my essay The Archetype of the Holy Wedding... , the archetype behind this exchange is the Hermetic coniunctio or unio corporalis. In my opinion this archetype is deeply constellated at the beginning of the 21st century.]

As a confirmation, in the same year, 1934, another dream urged Wolfgang Pauli, to take into consideration that behind quantum physics there could be yet another hidden dimension of reality. In this dream a man who looked like Einstein said to him that quantum physics was but a one-dimensional part of a deeper reality. It was Einstein in fact who always emphasized that quantum physics was not the last word and that beneath it laid yet another dimension (that he, however, deducted was purely physical and not psychic).

In 1948, stimulated by an impressive paranormal Pauli-Effect at the foundation ceremony of the C.G. Jung-Institute (see Wolfgang Pauli's Fludd/flood Synchronicity and the Future Development of Psychophysical Research) Wolfgang Pauli wrote an essay entitled Moderne Beispiele zur "Hintergrundsphysik" (Modern Examples of „Background Physics").

[My most recent research results (Aug 2006) about this subject see in Background Physics and the Psychophysical Reality]

In this article, as a basis for a discussion and not for publication, he desired to find a "neutral language" for some physical expressions that would have permitted him to explain the phenomena not only in physical terms but also according to their symbolic, depth psychological essence. He cited radioactivity at the beginning of the article as an example of these „symbolically interpreted physical expressions". The manner in which he wanted to define radioactivity in a "neutral language" he described in a letter dated December 12, 1950 to Jung:

„A process of transmutation of an active center, ultimately leading to a stable state, is accompanied by self-duplication (‘multiplying’) and expanding phenomena, associated with further transmutation that are brought about through an invisible reality". 

This shows that Wolfgang Pauli made quite an effort to understand radioactivity, so central an event in the every day life of today, at a deeper level, which he would later - according to Jung’s view - call psychophysical or psychoid.

3. Can David Bohm's implicate order be transformed into the explicate order with the help of consciousness?

The idea of another dimension behind quantum physics was eventually developed further by David Bohm [Wholeness and Implicate Order, 1980] as the concept of the implicate order, out of which the visible world, the explicate order, materializes. But on one hand, Bohm’s hypothesis is not verifiable empirically, and, on the other hand, individual consciousness and the collective unconscious play no role in his theory. This is reasonable since he saw his vision as an expansion of physics. 

Bohm’s idea of an implicate order behind quantum physics appears to be similar to what Wolfgang Pauli and C. G. Jung sought in their later years, the unified psychophysical or unified psychoid reality, the unus mundus of the Medieval alchemist Gerardus Dorneus (see Wolfgang Paulis psychophysischer Monismus), except for one major difference. Pauli and Jung felt that individual consciousness is able to come into relation with this implicate order. Or, as the possible scenario expressed in David Bohm’s terminology, the question arises: Does a possibility exist that the implicate order could unfold with the help of an act of consciousness related to the unified psychophysical reality beyond the split into quantum physics and depth psychology?

We do not know the answer yet, but one thing seems certain: For the solution of this problem, which will really be a unique „act of creation in time" [Jung, 1971, § 955] in the sense of a creatio continua, radioactivity (seen from a psychophysical level) along with synchronicity must be included.

As we have seen, the relevant messages in Pauli’s dreams are: "Beta radioactivity (antineutrino) and synchronicity are connected in a manner yet not understood" and "Behind the world of quantum physics another dimension is hidden". Summarizing both statements one must come to the following conclusions:

a) This deeper reality behind quantum physics must have something to do with the observation of the phenomenon of synchronicity (or an extension thereof).

b) Where, on the one hand, with the principle of synchronicity the physical and the psychic worlds unite, and on the other hand Pauli’s dreams want to convince us that the observation of synchronicities implies the production of the "radioactive substance", the postulated antineutrino and through it Beta radioactivity reaches into a world, that transcends the world of physics and includes both matter as well as psyche. Therefore, it would seem that the above-guessed violation of the physical law of the conservation of energy is no longer out of the realm of possibility in processes which obey the principle of synchronicity (or an extension thereof).

As mentioned, Wolfgang Pauli leaned with dogmatic vehemence toward the possibility of a transformation of energy in the above-mentioned sense. Nevertheless, he sought a union of physics with depth psychology, that he later - after a heavy battle with Marie-Louise von Franz - changed with the demand for a fusion of physics and parapsychology (see Wolfgang Pauli and Parapsychology). He sought empirical examples for that which he termed „background physics". He did not succeed in the breakthrough to this, hence my opinion, because he dogmatically supported the physical law of the conservation of energy at the same time.

4. The oscillation symbolism in Wolfgang Pauli's dreams and the relativity of the psychic time

Much earlier, in the year 1918, Emmy Noether showed that the law of conservation of energy is equivalent to the hypothesis of the isotropy of time. The violation of the former in the case of Beta radioactivity, which also means the replacement of the antineutrino through a psychophysical equivalent, would, as a consequence, disprove the honored physical law of "uniform passing" (isotropy) of time.

We know that Wolfgang Pauli’s dreams point in this direction. In a letter written in the year 1938 he wrote that his Anima - in Jungian psychology the bridge to yet unknown creative ideas in the collective unconscious - manifests her conception of time with the assistance of „odd oscillation symbols", that belong to the same category of periodic symbols as „the light and dark stripes" and the „pendulum and the ‘little men’ from the earlier material". As the preceding letter shows, the latter relates to his so-called world-clock vision of 1932, which Jung had interpreted and published in 1936 [Jung, CW 12, §§ 307] - but in the year 1950 Pauli discerned that Jung's interpretation was unsatisfactory. This world-clock vision generated in Pauli a sensation of "sublime harmony", which shows that its content - understood on a psychophysical level - would have been the solution of the oscillation problem of Pauli’s Anima.

[Remark of December 2005: As a consequence of my research results of this year I propose that what Wolfgang Pauli calls here the Anima is in fact the anima mundi, the world soul, more exactly the potential state of the world soul, in which she is in an "excited state" and ready to give birth to a "child", i.e., ready for an incarnation out of the unus mundus into our space and time bound world. Such a process is observable as what I call a singular quantum leap or a singular radioactive decay on the psychophysical level, i.e., observable as spontaneous events in the outside or in the inside. Since such singular events happen spontaneously in space and time, they are however not observable with the help of the physical experiment planned by will in space and time. More see in The Archetype of the Holy Wedding (coniunctio) in Alchemy and in the Unconscious of Modern Man ]

Wolfgang Pauli was not able to find this solution. This is why the symbolism of oscillations, frequencies, rhythms, spectrums, light and dark stripes, along with his phobia of wasps [yellow (i.e. bright) and black stripes!] pursued him even until the end of his life. Therefore we find countless references to this sort of dream in his correspondence.

On the basis of the above, the hypothesis that this oscillative conception of time of Wolfgang Pauli’s Anima [Dec 2005: of the anima mundi]  has to be brought into conjunction with the negation of the isotropy of time, cannot be denied. Such a change, however, is not possible within the boundaries of physics, for this leads to qualitative and therewith depth psychological (or even psychophysical) statements about the phenomenon of time.

In our daily lives, we do not experience this phenomenon in the sense of an isotropy. Intense times alternate with times of "Lange-weile" (= "long-times", i.e. boredom), where the flow of time manifests as a much slower experience, as in the first instance. When one is in agony or mortal fear it seems that time takes on an unbelievable velocity, as cited in reports by survivors of life-threatening situations, as, for example, in falls from mountain precipices, wherein the victims see their entire lives pass before their inner eyes within seconds.

5. The psychic relativity of space

In addition to the problem of the psychic relativity of time, the psychic relativity of space also played a large role in Wolfgang Pauli’s dreams. He had already mentioned a „constant criticism of the space-time-concept" in relation with a „close fusion of psychology with the scientific experience of the processes in the material physical world" in a letter to Jung dated December 23, 1947. This formulation came out of a dream he had on October 28, 1946 about „objectified rotation". It is likely that this dream referred to the so called spin of the electron he postulated in 1927. The „preconscious knowledge" (C.G. Jung) of the collective unconscious wanted to make it clear to him, that this objectification of the rotation, that is, the mathematical formulation of the spin, could be wrong on the level of the psychophysical reality. Pauli sensed that, contrary to the physicist’s point of view, the dream postulated that this rotation has something to do with "radioactivity" at the level of the unified psychophysical reality and with „the relativity of the concept of space in relation to the psyche".

In a very deciding dream from September 28, 1952 the above-mentioned oscillating movement of Wolfgang Pauli’s (Chinese) Anima caused space to contract and to begin to rotate. This shows that the „preconscious knowledge" of the collective unconscious also wanted to point out a new concept of space, that not only is subjected to a contraction - as specified in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity - but must be brought into connection with the concept of rotation as well.

One can formulate generally that the constellated problem somehow is connected with a process in which an oscillation turns into a rotation and in a yet unknown manner remains related to radioactivity. It seems to be this development, the future interpretation of which on a psychophysical level will bring extremely important insights into the processes in the unified reality that Wolfgang Pauli and C.G. Jung searched for more than fifty years ago.

My above-mentioned thoughts bring the psychic (and not the physical) relativity of space and time into connection with the phenomenon of synchronicity, which is shown through Pauli's dreams as connected to radioactive decay, interpreted at a deeper, the psychophysical level. Hence as a working hypothesis one can state that radioactivity (interpreted on a psychophysical level) is connected with psychic relativity of space-time, wherein empirical psychic or even psychophysical experience is possible, that with the help of physical concepts no longer can be explained.

The theoretical description and the empirical proof of such hypothetical connections between radioactivity and space-time on a psychophysical level is a challenge for the future, yet it seems to me, that the above-mentioned working hypothesis is a fruitful first starting point. Wolfgang Pauli’s question regarding a physical-symbolic dimension of radioactivity showed us a first step in the right direction. But he was painfully conscious of the limits of his scientific creativity when he wrote to C.G. Jung in 1952 that the future challenge must include finding „that other, more comprehensive coniunctio" (union of opposites), that transcends the artificial separation of psyche and matter and the "smaller coniunctio" of quantum physics, namely Bohr’s complementarity of particle and wave. He thus stated in a letter to Markus Fierz with a sigh: „Möge eine ‘glücklichere Nachkommenschaft’ dies erreichen" ("May a 'more fortunate offspring' achieve this").