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WOLFGANG PAULI'S DIALOGUE WITH THE

SPIRIT OF MATTER
Herbert van Erkelens
Published online: 17 Jan 2008.

To cite this article: Herbert van Erkelens (1991) WOLFGANG PAULI'S DIALOGUE WITH THE SPIRIT OF
MATTER, Psychological Perspectives: A Quarterly Journal of Jungian Thought, 24:1, 34-53

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00332929108408890

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HERBERT VAN ERKELENS

WOLFGANG PAULI'S

DIALOGUE

WITH THE

SPIRIT OF MAZTER
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A curious silence has surrounded the person of Wolfgang Pauli for

more than 30 years. In 1958 he unexpectedly died in an advanced
stage of cancer. Since then only few biographical details have come
to light about the later years of his life. In 1988 a serious study by the physicist
K. V. Laurikainen appeared, which sheds light on Pauli's later philosophical
thought. This book, Beyond the Atom,' is based on the correspondence between
Pauli and the physicist Markus Fierz, who had been Pauli's research assis-
tant at the Institute of Technology (Polytechnic) in Zurich. The long excerpts
from the letters of Pauli to Fierz are fascinating to read and provide an ex-
cellent introduction to the philosophical and psychological problems with
which Pauli was wrestling after his return from America to Zurich in 1946.
In one letter to Fierz, dated January 19, 1953, Pauli refers to the fierce
controversy between the 17th-century physicist Johannes Kepler and his con-
temporary, the alchemist and physician Robert Fludd. As outlined by Pauli
in his essay on Kepler; Fludd, in opposition to the new quantitative thinking
of Kepler, defended a view of nature that included the inner experience of
the natural philosopher. Pauli's own comment on this controversy is
remarkable. "I myself am not only Kepler, but also Fludd."' In other words,
the controversy between Kepler and Fludd reflected a deep inner conflict in
Pauli himself.
In the same letter to Fierz, Pauli reveals that his inner opposition
represented by Kepler and Fludd also figures in his dreams. Apparently his
unconscious tried to reconcile the two conflicting standpoints of physics and
alchemy by producing images that could mediate between the two. So Pauli
writes: "My search is for a process of conjunction (unification of opposites),
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Greece, 500-475 BC APHRODZTE URANlA

who symbolized both astral
and terrestrial domains.
36 Psycho1ogica1 Perspectives

but I have only partially succeeded in this. Nevertheless first an exotic woman
(slit-eyed Chinese) appeared in my dreams, and later also a strange, light-
dark man who seemed to know something about the unification of opposites
which I sought.”
Pauli’s search for a unification of the physical and the alchemical stand-
points can be traced in relation to his two dream-figures of the slit-eyed woman
and the stranger. As may be concluded from the unpublished correspondence
between Pauli, C. G. Jung, Aniela Jaffe and Marie-Louise von Franz, both
dream-figures opened u p for Pauli a hidden dimension of reality, which for
300 years had been ignored by the followers of Kepler and Newton: the spirit
of matter. The dialogue of the modern physicist Wolfgang Pauli with this spirit
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belongs to the most puzzling, fascinating, and moving documents of our time.
In the mind of Pauli the spirit of matter, for centuries seemingly dead, strug-
gled for its own resurrection.
THEPERSIAN
When Pauli returns from America to Switzerland after World War I1 and
resumes his professorship in theoretical physics in Zurich, he is an unhappy
man. He has lost some of his fascination for the world of modern physics.
Inwardly, he is teased by a figure in his dreams who wants to be admitted
to the Polytechnic and cause a lot of tumult there. Pauli calls this figure ”the
Persian” and in a dream of December 1947, has an intriguing discussion with
the image. In the days preceding the dream Pauli was very depressed. Perhaps
his energy was retreating to the unconscious in order to activate the figure
of the Persian:
1 arrive at m y former house. I see how a dark-skinned young man
in whom I recognize the Persian is putting objects into the house through
the window. I make out a circular piece of wood and several letters. Then
he approaches me in a friendly manner and 1 begin a conversation with
him:
I : “You are not allowed to study?”
He: “No, therefore I study in secret.”
I : ”What subject are you studying?”
He: “Yourself! ”

I : “You speak to me in a very sharp voice!”

He: “I speak as someone to whom everything else is forbidden.“
I : ‘ I r e you m y shadow?”
He: ‘‘I am between you and the Light, so you are m y shadow, not the
reverse. ‘‘
I : ”Do you study physics?”
He: “There your language is too difficult for me, but in my language
you do not understand physics!”
For years
Pauli had known
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that it w a s
his destiny
to develop a
unified framework
for modern physics
and depth psychology i?
E!
n
4
Wolfgang Pauli
1900- 1958

I: “What are you doing here?”

He: ‘‘I am here to kelp you. You must give up a few illusions. For exam-
ple, you believe that you have several women, but in reality you have
only one. A moment ago 1 looked through the window and saw that you
had no chair in your study. If you had said that to me, 1 could have
smuggled a chair into your room today! But now 1 have to fetch one. 1
will hurry.”
He disappears, and 1 enter the house.
The significance of this conversation between the dream-figures becomes
clear if we take an earlier dream of Pauli into account. In 1935 Albert Einstein
and Niels Bohr were discussing the issue of the incompleteness of quantum
mechanics. At that time Pauli dreamt about a man looking like Einstein who
showed him that quantum mechanics only describes a one-dimensional in-
tersection of a two-dimensional, more meaningful reality. When he awoke,
Pauli immediately realized that the second dimension lacking in the quan-
tum mechanical description of nature could only be the unconscious with
its archetypal contents. Apparently the archetypes - defined by Jung as order-
ing factors in the unconscious with the capacity to structure mental images-
could also structure material processes equally well.
38 Psychological Perspectives

In the years following this dream Pauli tried to find a new language that
could make the hidden dimension in nature accessible to the intellect. Since
this dimension is neither physical nor psychical, Pauli concluded that this
language should be neutral with respect to the distinction between psyche
and matter. In his correspondence with Jung he makes a number of attempts
to construct this neutral language from the physical and mathematical sym-
bols that frequently occurred in his dreams. For instance, Pauli speaks about
the “radioactive nucleus” when referring to Jung’s concept of the Self.
In Pauli’s dialogue with his Persian dream-figure we find an element
that is far more baffling than his rather academic attempts to go beyond quan-
tum mechanics. In the dream the second dimension is no longer an area of
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psychophysical connections waiting to be exploited by some new scientific

method. It has become a person who makes a very definite ethical appeal to
Pauli. The hidden dimension of nature reveals itself as a spirit. The Persian
considers himself to be someone who knows about the secret workings of
nature, yet is unable to understand the difficult language of modern physics.
But in his language Pauli would not understand nature. And now he wants
to be admitted to the Polytechnic. So he is of the opinion that his view or
his knowledge of nature must no longer be ignored by contemporary science.
Therefore, he puts pressure upon the famous theoretical physicist, Pauli, to
become his bridge to the world of the Polytechnic.
In the dream Pauli arrives at his former house. That might be the house
where he, during his first psychological crisis, carefully observed his dreams,
as recorded by Jung in Psychology and Alchemy? The Persian is carrying a piece
of wood and letters into the house. The wood probably symbolizes the material
from his unconscious on which he has to work. The letters contain the
messages from the unconscious that will help him to complete this work. But
there is no chair in his study. The right attitude to the ground, to reality, a
basis to rely on, is lacking. The Persian can provide him with that, but ap-
parently Pauli had not yet admitted to himself that he needed this more stable
connection with reality.
The Persian’s remark about women is mysterious. What could it mean?
Persia is the country of the ”Thousand and One Nights,” perhaps symboliz-
ing a region where Eros is more cultivated than in the West. Pauli certainly
suffered from what he called ”anima projections” on women. Presumably,
Pauli had fallen in love more than once but had difficulties in reconciling these
feelings with his being a marriage partner. The Persian advises him now not
to be blinded by these love-affairs but to see the one woman behind the af-
fairs: his own feminine soul.
The dream of the Persian thus brings to the fore two problems which
at first appear to have no connection with each other: the problem of acknowl-
The Spirit of Matter 39

edging a new dimension of reality and the problem of dealing with love rela-
tionships outside the marriage bond. Three years later Pauli would learn how
intimately these problems were connected in his personal life.

THESTRANGER
In November 1948 the dark-skinned Persian merges with another dream-
figure who has blond hair and a light skin, ”the blond man.” Out of this fusion
a new inner partner arises. Pauli calls this man “the light-dark stranger” or
“the stranger,” because everything this dream-figure embodies is so unfamiliar
to him. In a dream of October 1949 the stranger tries to drive Pauli out of
his familiar field of mathematics and physics by means of fire:
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I am with colleagues on one of the upper floors of a house where

a local conference on mathematics and physics is being held. I see that
under my name a course of cookery is announced: “Start: December
15.” Surprised, I ask a young man near me why the course begins so
late in the year. He answers: ”Because then the Nobel prize will be
granted.”
Now I notice that a fire has started in the adjacent room. I take
fright (affect), run down a staircase along many floors (hurrying-
panic). Finally I succeed in getting outside. Looking back, I see that two
floors of the house, where the colleagues were gathered, are burnt down.
I walk across the level ground and enter a garage. I see that a taxi is
waiting for me and that the taxi driver fills the tank with petrol. I look
more closely: I recognize “him,“ the light-dark “stranger.“ Immediately
I feel secure. “Probably he has lighted the fire,“ I think, without saying
it aloud. He says to me quietly: ”Now we can refuel, because upstairs
there has been a fire. I will take you where you belong!” Then he drives
me of.
The dream indicates a transformation. First, Pauli is attending a con-
ference on mathematics and physics being held high above ground level in
one of the upper floors of a house. It is a world that has lost contact with
daily reality, a world in which higher mathematics has become the sole means
of imagining matter. Pauli has to give a course on cookery-a course in which
matter is taken as tangible raw material that, via fire, will be transformed into
more worthwhile but equally concrete products.
Suddenly the fire directs itself at Pauli. He has to flee from the conference
and he runs out into the open where a taxi driver is waiting for him. He feels
secure as soon as he recognizes the taxi driver as the stranger. In the dream
Pauli now changes from a theoretical physicist into a follower of the stranger.
This is also the immediate impression Pauli himself had of the dream: ”I awoke
with a feeling of great relief and it seemed to me that essential progress had
40 Psychological Perspectives

been made.” A further transformation is suggested by the motif of the car-

drive. The taxi driver will bring Pauli ”where he belongs,” to his new spiritual
homeland. This homeland is the way the stranger perceives the world. Pauli’s
task is to enter this homeland, to experience the world from this new perspec-
tive, and to become familiar with the perspective of the stranger. But in this
stage of his development, the contrast between the perspective of the stranger
and Pauli’s own view of the world is still too great for fruitful cooperation.
This contrast is described in a letter Pauli wrote to Jung’s wife, Emma, in
November 1950. In it he remarked about the stranger:
My dream-figure is ”ambivalent”: on the one hand, he is a
spiritual light of superior knowledge; on the other, a chthonic spirit
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of nature. But his knowledge brings him again and again back to
nature and his chthonic origin is in fact the source of this
knowledge. So in the end both sides turned out to be two aspects
of the same personality.. . .His actions are always decisive, his
words conclusive, though often incomprehensible. Women and
children follow him gladly and he frequently tries to teach them.
In general he regards his surroundings (in particular, me) as wholly
ignorant and uneducated in comparison with himself. He does
not reject the old manuscripts about magic, but he considers them
as merely a popular preliminary for uneducated people (like me).
But now comes the really curious thing, which is the analogy with
the ”Antichrist”: he is not an Antichrist, but in a certain sense an
“Antiscientist,”science meaning in particular the scientific way of
thinking nowadays taught at colleges and universities. The latter
he experiences as a kind of Zwinguri [castle in Switzerland], places
symbolizing his suppression which he now and then (in my
dreams) sets on fire. If you take too little notice of him, he draws
attention to himself by any means, for instance through syn-
chronistic phenomena (which he, however, calls ”radioactivity”)
or depressive states or incomprehensible emotions.
Here Pauli has acknowledged the stranger as the alchemical lumen
naturae, the light of nature to be found in the unconscious, but closely related
to the world of human beings and of nature. Erich Neumann, a pupil of Jung,
calls this light an Eros light, “springing from strong emotion, from essentially
feeling-toned constellations of the unconscious.” This wisdom always applies
to relations between living things and contrasts with ”the objective, abstract
wisdom of the patriarchal logos which looks at things from a distance.”4
Accordingly, this light of nature is so different from the light of science that
Pauli is being confronted with a deep rift in his own personality. Although
he is considered by many of his colleagues to be the ”conscience of physics,”
the stranger finds him wholly uneducated.
The Spirit of Matter 43

the stranger would make him look ridiculous in the eyes of his colleagues.
The stranger, however, insists precisely on such a public dissemination of Pauli's
new experience and new notion of reality. In many dreams Pauli is invited
to a chair at a new university or he has to accept a new professorship at the
Polytechnic. In other dreams he has to give lectures to "strange people" on
the new contents in himself.
So, in a sense, Pauli is now split into three personalities: the physicist,
the stranger, and his own individual self suffering from the unbridgeable rift
between the first two antagonists. In this stalemate a woman comes to the
rescue. It is the eternal feminine who, as a dark, unknown, or slit-eyed Chinese
woman, takes the lead in Pauli's imaginative world and brings about the
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transformation needed to make him feel at one with himself again.

EROS
In January of 1951 Pauli experienced a transference with Marie-Louise
von Franz, a colleague of Jung. When Pauli expresses his feelings for her for
the first time in a letter, she is celebrating her 36th birthday. Despite her young
age she already had developed a deep understanding of the unconcious, hav-
ing worked with Jung for more than 15 years. Accordingly, her influence on
Pauli's inner development is great.
For years Pauli had known that it was his destiny to develop a unified
framework for modern physics and depth psychology. Before his encounter
with von Franz, Pauli tried to work out this framework through the creation
of a neutral language in which physical processes are described in such a way
that the new formulation also applies to psychological and parapsychological
processes. Now he discovers that this approach is too abstract and too intel-
lectual. Besides physics, psychology, and a neutral language, a fourth element
is needed. In a letter to Jung, Pauli calls this element Eros.
One may wonder why love is required to bridge the rift between physics
and psychology. Since Pauli, as a physicist, and von Franz, as a psychologist,
are both interested in unifying physics and psychology, their common interest
would have been enough to bring the two together. Indeed, von Franz had
already assisted Pauli in translating Latin fragments of Kepler and Fludd. Even
so, Pauli regards Eros as essential for his undertaking and his transference
to von Franz seems to have a deeper, spiritual meaning. Again Pauli's inner
dialogue with the stranger gives us a clue. The stranger wants Pauli to take
him seriously. But who is the stranger? He is an incarnation of the alchemical
spirit, Mercurius, a modern parallel to the figure of Mephistopheles in Goethe's
Faust. Like Mercurius in medieval alchemy and Mephistopheles in Fuust, the
stranger tries to commit Pauli to his inner destiny through the experience of
love. According to Jung, Mercurius "tempts us in the world of sense; he is
44 Psychological Perspectives

the benedicta viriditas (blessed greenness) and the multi flores (many flowers)
of spring.. . .He is at the same time a Hermes Chthonios and an Eros, yet
it is from him that there issues the light surpassing all lights, the lux
moderna. . .the light veiled in mattedf7
Pauli, however, does not seem to have taken his own feelings seriously.
In a letter. to von Franz dated April 18, 1951, Pauli writes "that we should
more entertain the amor coelestis than the amor vulgaris." Here Pauli uses the
terminology of Marsilio Ficino to discriminate between heavenly, spiritual love
and ordinary love. In his opinion the heavenly love consists of "a meditative
spirituality expressive of feeling." Presumably, Pauli tries to save himself from
what he fears might become a commitment. This is understandable, but in
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a footnote Pauli mentions a negative motif for doing so. He complains that
Jung intended his book, The Psychology of the Transference, for doctors (i.e.,
therapists). Pauli remarks: "I defend the thesis that the future of Jung's
psychology does not lie in therapy and in the hands of doctors, but in natural
philosophy, that is to say in any case leads to the Faculty of Philosophy."
What Pauli writes here is rather strange. A transference relationship can
heal deep inner conflicts. But Pauli does not seem to like this therapchic ef-
fect at all. He wants to conceive a nice piece of natural philosophy without
having to show his personal involvement. Similarly, Pauli sometimes writes
about his feelings for von Franz as "apparently personal" -that is, as merely
concealing objective problems that should be discussed rationally. This might
be one of the reasons why von Franz has certain reservations about Pauli's
intentions. From the beginning Pauli is not willing to surrender himself hon-
estly to the demands of the unconscious and to suffer the consequences.
Nevertheless, during the first three years of their relationship Pauli is
loyal enough to his feeling side to enter more and more deeply into one of
the most pressing problems of our time: the lack of soul in the modern scien-
tific conception of the world. In 1952 he discovers that the "meditative
spirituality" mentioned above is better suited to express the soul in matter
than his neutral language. In October he writes to von Franz: "For a long time
I have wanted to write to you in order to communicate a certain mood in which
a kind of unified view begins to assert itself in me. In order to give it expres-
sion I have to write in a curious way, half rational, half fantastic. In this way
a kind of meditation is developing which also contains two dreams you do
not know yet."
A year later this meditation is completed by Pauli. He calls it Die
Klavierstunde- eine aktive Phantasie iiber das Unbmusste (The Piano Lesson -
an Active Fantasy about the Unconscious). It is dedicated in friendship to
Marie-Louise von Franz and contains a purely meditative and imaginative
answer to the problems Pauli has wrestled with over the years. The figure
The Spirit of Mutter 41

‘! . .This light of nature

is so different
fiom the light of science
that Pauli is being confronted
with a deep rift
in his own personality.”
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Apparently the physicist and the stranger live in two different worlds.
The physicist lives in a world where a clear distinction exists between spirit
and matter, physis and psyche. As a consequence, from the physical point of
view there is a clear difference between the well-known process of radioac-
tivity and a phenomenon which Jung termed synchronicity. Jung introduced
this concept as a principle that would account for the strange, meaningful
coincidences he frequently observed between outer events and inner moods,
images, and dreams. One of his definitions of synchronicity reads: “Syn-
chronicity therefore means the simultaneous occurrence of a certain psychic
state with one or more external events which appear as meaningful parallels
to the momentary subjective state - and, in certain cases, vice versa.”
Surprisingly, for the stranger, synchronicity is a form of radioactivity.
He speaks the neutral language Pauli is looking for! For him there is no distinc-
tion between the physical and psychical. As the spirit of matter, he embodies
a unity of physis and psyche which cannot be comprehended rationally.
Therefore, the stranger can manifest himself inside as well as outside, if Pauli
takes too little notice of him. Here, one is immediately reminded of a curious
parapsychological effect that accompanied Pauli: the so-called Puuli-effect. Many
anecdotal accounts have documented how Pauli exerted a malicious influence
on experimental equipment. When he came into a room, equipment some-
times spontaneously exploded into many pieces! For this reason Pauli was
forbidden to enter the laboratory of his friend, Otto Stern. Pauli himself always
felt an unpleasant inner tension before the actual Puuli-effect occurred; after-
wards, he felt relieved and freed from tension!
The Puuli-effect is another sign of the strong tensions that resulted from
the dissociation process in Pauli’s personality. He could no longer identify
himself with his role in the outer world as one of the outstanding physicists
of his time. But he has even more difficulty in following the inner demands
of the stranger. He has strong resistances against this figure, presumably
because he is afraid that a public acknowledgment of the truth embodied by
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The Spirit of Matter 45

of the stranger is now called “the master,” and instead of the former sharp
collisions with this inner authority, a woman piano teacher now mediates
between Pauli and his own higher self.
Why does Pauli now speak about “the master”? In the correspondence
with von Franz we find interesting remarks by Pauli that shed light on his
change of attitude. In the letter to von Franz quoted earlier, Pauli writes: ”[The
stranger is] an archetypal figure who represents an essential aspect of the
[human] nucleus (the ”Self”)-and in a paradoxical way that stranger is at
the same time the very intimate familiar one (he plays the part of Khadir, the
greening one).”
Here Pauli identifies the stranger with the spiritus familiaris in alchemy
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and with the figure of Khadir in the Islamic tradition. Khadir is the messenger
of God who wanders freely around in the world of human beings as an
unrecognized stranger. Since this Islamic figure is based on the Jewish legends
about Elijah, it is interesting to notice that Pauli remarks that in his dreams,
his godfather Ernst Mach has long played the part of his higher inner self
instead of Elijah. Here we find a clear expression of Pauli’s religious struggle.
In his youth he had adopted the positivism and instrumentalism of Mach
as his religion. Now he must break away from his godfather’s influence. He
must develop, in sharp contrast to the anti-metaphysical philosophy of Mach,
a religious attitude toward matter that even recognizes a divine spirit in it.
In Die Klavierstunde this recognition goes so far that Pauli calls the
stranger “the master.” In Pauli’s imagination this master-figure first appears
as Christ in Capernaum, where an officer shelters him and he can heal the
sick son of the officer. And similarly the homeless, wandering Son of God
now hopes that Pauli will shelter him:
The master will assert himself under all circumstances and he
seems to find me particularly suited for that purpose: he wants
to get out into the daylight through me, at any cost! I admit, I often
feel weird and I am frightened of him and apprehensive. He is
not only good, but can also be evil and dangerous. And he is most
dangerous, when you try to ignore him.. . .So on the one hand
I am afraid, on the other hand he fascinates me. I can no longer
keep away from him, as he can no longer from me.
46 Psychological Perspectives

THE PIANOLESSON
In Die Klavierstunde there is no direct confrontation of Pauli with the
master-figure. Pauli moves into a dimension beyond space and time where
he meets a piano teacher who is dependent on the master and is accustomed
to following his authority blindly. But thanks to the arrival of Pauli, she now
gets the opportunity to develop herself more independently and to act as a
bridge between Pauli and the master.
The piano symbolizes the world of creation. This one world is split into
two. With their higher mathematics scientists understand the words of crea-
tion but not the meaning symbolized by the piano playing of the woman. The
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depth psychologists around Jung acknowledge that meaning, but in their turn
they fail to understand the words Pauli uses as a physicist. Pauli suffers from
the fact that he cannot bring these two schools together. The unity of the world
seems lost. Therefore, Pauli has to take a piano lesson: that is, he must develop
his feeling side before he can experience the world again as a unity.
The piano teacher is a personification of Pauli’s feminine soul, his anima,
who can help him bring about this transformation of his personality. In his
dreams she appears as a dark unknown woman who sometimes looks like
Marie-Louise von Franz. But more frequently she is slit-eyed and embodies
an exotic view of the world in contrast to Pauli’s rational ego-consciousness.
Her Chinese face signifies to Pauli that she holds the key to that experience
of the world that in China has been crystallized in the ancient concept of Tao.
Frequently Pauli calls China ”the realm of the middle.” Here, middle means
the Self: ”The Self is not only the center, but also the whole circumference
which embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is the center of this totality,
just as the ego is the center of consci~usness.”~
In the room of this woman Pauli no longer feels himself torn between
the two schools that have put him in distress. He calls her a “lady” and dur-
ing the discussion that develops, they both try to understand how the world
appears as the incarnation of the impersonal and abstract language of higher
mathematics from one point of view, and from another, is seen as being filled
with purpose and meaning.
At the end of their discussion Pauli again feels sadness. In his imagina-
tion he sees the master’s homeland, the new land that has risen from the
sea of the unconscious and which, in the future, may feed the people who
are hungry for a new spirituality. Pauli is afraid that he will never enter this
homeland. But he promises his lady that he will try to reconcile the master
with the world of science. Then the voice of the master sounds more friendly
than before: ”That is what I have long waited for.” Thereupon Pauli bows deep-
ly to his lady and wants to leave the room. But the master says: ‘Wait. Transfor-
The Spirit of Matter 47

mation of the center of evolution." And Pauli remarks: "In earlier times one
said: lead transforms into gold."
The text of Die Klavierstunde then ends as follows:
At that moment the lady slipped a ring from her finger which
I had not seen yet. She let it float in the air and taught me:
"I suppose you know the ring from your school of mathematics.
It is the ring i. "
I nodded and I spoke the words:
"The i makes the void and the unit into a couple. At the same time
it is the operation of rotating a quarter of the whole ring."
She: "It makes the instinctive or impulsive, the intellectual or ra-
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tional, the spiritual or supernatural, of which y y spoke, into the

unified or monadic whole that the numbers without the i cannot
represent ."
I: "The ring with the i is the unity beyond particle and wave, and
at the same time the operation that generates either of these."
She: "It is the atom, the indivisible, in Latin. . ." With these words
she looked at me significantly, but it seemed to me unnecessary
to speak Cicero's word for the atom aloud.
I: "It turns time into a static image."
She: "It is the marriage and it is at the same time the realm of the
middle, which you can never reach alone but only in pairs."
There was a pause; we waited for something.
Then: The voice of the master speaks, transformed, from the center
of the ring to the lady:
4 "Remain merciful."
Now I knew I could go out of the room into normal time
and normal everyday space.
When I was outside, I noticed that I was wearing my coat
and hat. From afar I heard a C-major chord of four tones C-E-G-
C, apparently played by the lady herself when she was on her own
again.

THERING i
Here we encounter a culminating point of Pauli's alchemical journey.
At the moment he surrenders to his inner calling, the reconciliation of the
spirit of matter with the spirit of science, the Chinese lady presents him with
the symbol that may shed new light on the connection between quantum
physics and the unconscious. As a mathematical element the complex unit
circle is simplicity itself, but as a symbol it is as profound as the cross in Chris-
tianity. Its subtlety consists primarily in that it represents a marriage of two
dimensions, the real and the imaginary. In quantum physics these two dimen-
sions are necessary to bridge the theoretical gulf between the world of ordinary
48 Psychological Perspectives

For the Technically-Minded Only

FIGURE 1: The complex plane.

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0 1=(1 ,O)
X

The imaginary unit i is a number that obeys all rules of arithmetic with
the added convention that i times i equals -1. In order to represent this
mathematical symbol graphically, we can make use of what is called a "complex
plane." In a plane two lines or axes, denoted by X and Y, intersect at right angles
at a point 0. Any point in the entire plane may then be uniquely determined
by its perpendicular distance from the axes X and Y the point P, for example,
by the distance xp from the X-axis and the distance yp from the Y-axis. Con-
versely, any pair of numbers (a, b) can be represented by a point in the plane
spanned by the orthogonal axes X and Y.
Complex numbers can be written as x + iy where i denotes the imagina ry
unit. Here x is called the real part of the complex number, while y, since it is
multiplied by i, is called the imaginary part. This means that any complex number
is characterized by a pair of numbers (x, y). The imaginary unit corresponds
with the pair (0, 1). This is why Pauli stated: "The i makes the void and the
unit into a couple." The ordinary unit corresponds with the pair (I, 0).
Since pairs of numbers can be represented by points in the XY-plane, it
is easy to turn this plane into the complex plane. We only need agree upon mak-
ing the distance x to the X-axis signify the real part of the complex number, and
the distance y to the Y-axis signify the imaginary part. The point P then represents
the complex number xp + iy,. Since the imaginary unit i is lying on the Y-
axis, this axis is called the imaginary axis. All the complex numbers with
vanishing imaginary parts are called "real numbers" and lie in the complex plane
on the X-axis or real axis.
The Spirit of Matter 49

FIGURE 2: The ring i.

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-i

The point 0 where the real and the imaginary axis intersect corresponds
with the pair (0, 0). All the points in the complex plane that have a distance
D = 1 to the point 0 constitute a circle: the complex unit circle. Pauli calls
this the ring i. The real axis intersects the ring i at the points that represent
the numbers 1 and -1. The imaginary axis intersects the ring i at the points
i and -i. Since i times 1equals i, the imaginary unit i as multiplication factor
rotates the point 1 along the ring to the point i. In the same way we can graphically
follow that i times i gives -1: multiplying i with itself gives a further rotation
to the point -1. In general, the imaginary unit as multiplication factor is "the
operation of rotating a quarter of the ring" (Pauli).
The complex unit circle as psychological symbol belongs to a group of ar-
chetypal motifs that Jung called "mandala" symbols. The mandala symbols ap-
pear spontaneously in dreams and frequently contain a quaternity in the form
of a cross. In the ring i such a cross is formed by the intersection of the real
and the imaginary axis.
P auli and Heisenberg lived for physics, yet the two young men
were like night and day. Pauli loved to stay out all night drinking
and arguing, so that by the time he crawled out of bed the follow-
ing morning, Somrnerfeld‘s lectures were over. Heisenberg, by con-
trast, was an early riser, a hard worker whose favorite activities
were a long walk in the mountains or sifting under a tree and
reading Pluto. But in spite o$ or because of, their differences in
temperament, the two students became deep friends, meeting each
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day to talk and argue about the new physics. Much later, when
looking back on his professional life, Heisenberg claimed that his
most important influence had not been university professors or text-
books, but his discussions with Pauli.
The two young men talked about everything-God,
philosophy, the ultimate nature of matter, where the forms of nature
had come from, Einstein‘s the0y of general relativity, the new ex-
perimental results of the spectroscopists, and, of course, Bohr’s
remarkable the0y of the atom. They made an ideal combination.
Heisenberg was passionately interested in philosopy and possessed
a powerful scientific imagination. Pauli, for his part, was an
iconoclast. Never allowing his intellect to rest and not willing to
accept any idea at face value, he was always critical, employing
~
his exceptional physical intuition to constantly question and probe.
Even a physicist as great as Einstein did not intimidate the young
Pauli, who was willing to stand up in a lecture hall and criticize
what the older scientist had just said. In fact, while still a stu-
dent, Pauli had published a major article (today available as a book)
reviewing Einstein‘s the0y of relativity. Pauli’s fearlessness and
cutting criticisms soon earned him the nickname “Pauli, the whip
of God.”
E David Peat
Einstein’s Moon
Contemporary Books, 1990
The Spirif of Matter 51

macroscopic matter and the world of atoms. When Werner Heisenberg and
Erwin Schrodinger introduced the imaginary unit as a fundamental element
into our description of matter, suddenly all the seemingly contradictory ap-
pearances of quantum particles could be harmoniously integrated in the
concept of the complex probability amplitude.
This ability of quantum physics to reconcile the wave and particle aspects
of matter had always made such an impression on Pauli that he hoped that
this branch of physics also could serve as a model for the more encompassing
undertaking of reconciling the physical and the spiritual aspects of matter.
Here the unconscious presents Pauli with exactly the same symbol that helped
modern physics to unlock the closed doors of atomic subatomic matter. So
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there really seems to be a close connection between quantum physics and

other fields of experience.
Pauli’s teacher in physics and friend, Niels Bohr, had always stressed
this connection from an epistemological point of view. For Bohr the complemen-
tarity of wave and particle aspects of matter was but one example of a wider
class of phenomena in which seemingly irreconcilable pairs of opposites need
not be contradictory. The statements about the ring i in Pauli’s Klauiersfunde
strongly support Bohr’s philosophy of complementarity. We can even look
upon the ring i as the symbolic, mathematical expression for complementarity,
as has been proposed recently by depth psychologist J. Marvin Spiegelman
and physicist Victor Mansfield?
The ring i, however, has a wider meaning than complementarity. Being
a symbol and not a philosophical concept, the ring i can express feeling-tones
that are absent in Bohr’s philosophy. In the first place we should notice that
the ring i symbolizes Eros and relationship. But genuine relationship presup-
poses individuation or, in the words of von Franz: ”Eros is in its essence only
meaningful if it is completely, uniquely i n d i v i d ~ a l .For
” ~ Pauli this probably
meant that he would have to take his love for von Franz not merely as a pro-
jection of his anima, but as a personal commitment. Only with her could he
arrive in the ”realm of the middle,” that is, in the middle position between
the instinctive and the spiritual, the physical and the psychic, the scientific
and the religious.
Seen from this perspective the ring i also symbolizes a relationship with
nature that is no longer dominated by collective, male aggression toward the
feminine, but has as its starting point a feeling relationship between man and
woman. From the standpoint of physics, that sounds almost ridicuIous, not
to say blasphemous. Twenty years ago female students were not allowed to
attend the now famous lectures on modern physics by Richard FeynmanJO
But the living conscience of physics, Wolfgang Pauli, suffering from deep
distress, is led by some inner necessity to a small house in Kusnacht, near
52 Psychological Perspectives

the lake of Zurich, where he hopes to find the medicine that can heal him:
"Then I thought, the only thing left to me is to visit a girl who lives in
Kusnacht ."
Unfortunately, there is little evidence that Pauli, after 1953, took his active
fantasy seriously enough to draw ethical consequences from it. He never
published anything related to the master-figure or the ring i. This might explain
why the transforming effect of the ring on the master-figure did not last long.
In Die Klavierstunde the master suddenly speaks from the center of the ring
i and seems to have lost his threatening power. This might mean that enter-
ing into a genuine, understanding relationship with the spirit of matter can
transform its fiery nature.
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But for some reason Pauli was not willing to risk his reputation as the
conscience of physics. So he did not keep his promise to reconcile the master
with the world of modern physics. In particular, Pauli lacked courage to speak
openly about his inner urge to develop a unified view of matter and spirit.
His papers on physics, depth psychology, and religion collected in Physik und
Erkenntnistheoriell deal only with those aspects of the problem that allow
rational formulation. But a truly unified view must include the feeling func-
tion, since without feeling there is no meaning or value in life and no proper
acknowledgment of the phenomenon of synchronicity?2
Pauli knew this, but he preferred to keep silent. As a consequence the
master-figure grew angry and started to persecute him again in his dreams.
Pauli began to lose his orientation in life. At the beginning of 1956 he gave
u p hope that he could communicate his experience of the common origin of
scientific understanding and religious feeling, and so he concluded a letter
to his friend Markus Fierz with the words: "When one descends sufficiently
deep into the nether world, then-at the stream of life (Styx) itself-the pair
of opposites [of science and religion] must fade."' In December of 1958 the
Styx turned out to be for Pauli what it really is: the river of death.
After suffering a painful attack while delivering a lecture, Pauli had to
take a taxi home and a day later he was lying in the Red Cross Hospital of
Zurich. There, on the 15th of December, he died. According to a private com-
munication between Pauli's wife and Jung's secretary, Aniela Jaffe, one of the
last things Pauli said before he passed away was, "The only person I would
love to see now is C. G. Jung." When Jaffe later told this to Jung, the depth
psychologist was silent and looked sad. He would have much appreciated
it, if Pauli, earlier on, had come to see him.
The Spirit of Matter 53

FURTHER
READING

1. Beyond the Atom: The Philosophical Thought of Wolfsang Pauli. (1988). Kalervo
Laurikainen. Berlin: Springer Verlag.
2. ’The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific Theories of Kepler.” (1955).
Wolfgang Pauli. In The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche by Wolfgang Pauli
and C. G. Jung. New York: Pantheon.
3. Psychology and Alchemy. Vol. 22. The Collected Works of C. G. lung. (1953).
Translated by R. F. C. Hull. Bollingen Series XX. Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press.
4. The Child, Structure and Dynamics of the Nascent Personality. (1973). Erich
Neumann. New York: Harper & Row.
5. Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. Vol. 8. The Collected Works of C. G. lung.
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(1959). See #3.

6. Natunoissenschaft und Geschichte. (1988). Markus herz. Basel: Birkhauser Verlag.
7. Alchemical Studies. Vol. 13. The Collected Works of C. G. lung. (1967). See #3.
8. ”Complex Numbers in the Psyche and Matter.” (1990).J. Marvin Spiegelman
& Victor Mansfield. Harvest (Fall).
9. A Psychological Interpretation of the Golden Ass of Apuleius. (1970).Marie-Louise
von Franz. Zurich: Spring Publications.
10. “The Anomaly of a Woman in Physics.” (1977).Evelyn Fox Keller. In Ruddick
and Daniels (Eds.), Working It Out. New York: Pantheon Books.
11. Physik und Erkenntnistheorie. (1984). Wolfgang Pauli. Braunschweig: Friedr.
Vieweg & Sohn.
12. “Meaning and Order: Concerning Meeting Points and Differences between
Depth Psychology and Physics.” (1981). Marie-Louise von Franz. Quadrant
(Spring), pp. 4-22.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to express my gratitude to the Swiss analyst Eva Wertenschlag, who

helped me to understand the deeper significance of Pauli’s struggle with the
unconscious.
I also wish to thank Dr.Marie-Louise von Franz, Mrs. Aniela Jaffe, Mr. Franz
Jung, and Dr. Carl Alfred Meier. They kindly gave me permission to quote from
or to paraphrase passages in the unpublished letters and manuscripts of Pauli to
be found in the archives of the ETH in Zurich, section ”Wissenschaftshisforische
Sammlungen” (WHS). All uncited quotations in this article are taken from these
previously unpublished writings.

Lk Herbert van Erkelens is a theoretical physicist at the Free Universityin Amsterdam, Holland.
His research project concerns the relationship between modern physics and Western religion.