Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2004, 49, 707–728

Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of

Carl Gustav Jung and Wolfgang Pauli
Marialuisa Donati, Milan

Abstract: While exploring the phenomena of synchronicity, Carl Gustav Jung became
acquainted with the quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli and eventually began a collab-
oration 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 char-
acter. Pauli, on the other hand, became increasingly sensitive to the philosophical
aspects concerning the unconscious. Jung and Pauli’s common reflections went far bey-
ond 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 world-
view. 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 philo-
sophical 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.

Key words: archetypes, Jung, Pauli, philosophy of nature, synchronicity, philosophical

worldview.

*
The philosophical context of the synchronicity concept
In his Über einige Motive bei Baudelaire Walter Benjamin points out a particu-
lar phenomenon spreading in our modern world, namely the ‘withdrawal of
the aura’ (‘Der Verfall der Aura’, Benjamin 1939, pp. 646–8). Benjamin’s
observation affirms the perspective of the poet Charles Baudelaire that photo-
graphy dispels the magic outline, or aura, surrounding the things we use every

* This paper is a longer version of one published in the Italian journal Studi Junghiani, 5, Franco
Angeli, Milan, 1999.

0021–8774/2004/4905/707 © 2004, The Society of Analytical Psychology

Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
708 Marialuisa Donati

day. The problem is that a camera captures a person’s image without returning
any ‘glance’, but implied in every glance is the anticipation of the glance being
returned. When this expectation is fully satisfied, we experience the aura of
something. In Benjamin’s opinion the aura experience is based on transferring
a commonly experienced reaction from human relationships to the relation-
ship between inanimate nature and mankind. ‘To feel the aura of something
means to give it the power of returning our glances’.
If our modern world often seems to be meaningless, perhaps this is a conse-
quence of the fact that the objects that surround us have lost their aura, and
have no more power to ‘return a glance’. Objects are reduced to mere func-
tional apparatuses which are seen to be useful only if they satisfy our material
needs. Carl Gustav Jung suggested a form of psychological animism in which
we might treat objects in a different way, taking special care of them almost as
if they were alive. The relationship between subject and object should always
be conceived as a changing and dynamical connection (for details about Jung’s
relationship with objects, see Jung 1962). According to Paul Valéry (see Benjamin
1939) it is only in dreams that there is still an auratic kind of perception.
However, synchronistic phenomena also seem to give objects the power to
reciprocate a human glance; thus synchronicity might be considered to be an
auratic experience that reveals the very deep bond connecting man with
nature, with both conceived as living beings as in Renaissance philosophy.
From a certain point of view, the concept of the aura of things in Benjamin
is not far from what Jung calls ‘numinous’, so by speaking of the synchronistic
phenomena as an auratic experience, one means a numinous experience in
Jungian terms. As it is known, Jung borrowed the term numinosum used by
Rudolf Otto. It derives from the Latin nuere, that means ‘to show signs’, also
through the action of fate or of a divinity (for details, see Jung 1938–40 &
1960).
Many philosophers of the past have spoken of a special correspondence or
sympathy between man and the universe. Frances Yates has pointed out the
role played by the Neo-Platonic anima mundi or ‘soul of the world’ in the
development of this conception (Yates 1964, p. 64). Because it is present every-
where, the soul of the world acts as a sort of medium that assures the uni-
versal connection with everything, thus justifying philosophically the
Renaissance concept of correspondence1 between macrocosm and micro-
cosm. While exploring the synchronicity concept in Philosophical Issues in
the Psychology of C.G.Jung, Marilyn Nagy stresses the role of the Platonic
influence upon Jung’s theory of archetypes. When discussing synchronistic

1
The correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm may be considered as an evolution of
the Stoic doctrine concerning universal sympathy that was formulated by Zeno, the stoic philoso-
pher born in Cyprus in the fourth century BC. The relationship between the Neo-Platonic trend
and Jungian psychology has been investigated by James Hillman (1974, 1982).
Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of Jung and Pauli 709

events as manifestations of archetypes, she also arrives at the concept of the

world soul:
In spite of Jung’s caveat against philosophical interpretation, it [synchronicity]
resembles nothing so much as Plato’s vision of a universe ordered by the eternal
forms, directed by the World Soul, and limited in the perpetration of divine order
only by the parallel existing facts of Necessary Cause.

(Nagy 1991, pp. 185–6)

Nagy’s interpretation of the Jungian thought is not wholly accurate, because,

as her book itself has shown, it is almost impossible to fit Jung’s worldview
into only one philosophical trend. When reading Jung’s works, one very often
finds a coincidentia oppositorum of traditional philosophical points of view.
For example, an empirical method for studying phenomena is used by Jung
which in the long run incorporates more and more idealistic features—
undoubtedly Kant’s philosophy, with its mixture of empirical and idealistic
features, held great influence over Jung’s ideas—creating a peculiar mixture
that deeply characterizes Jungian thought (for a purely phenomenological
approach to Jung’s psychology which leaves out the idealistic features, see
Brooke 1991). It would be a mistake to separate or stress just one of these
philosophical trends which an old and long tradition of thought considered to
be opposites.
Nagy also raises another relevant issue, which is Jung’s attitude toward any
philosophical interpretation of his ideas. Hence, while Jung himself says that
‘synchronicity is a modern differentiation of the obsolete concept of cor-
respondence, sympathy, and harmony’ (Jung 1952b, para. 995), he nevertheless
denies his own concept any philosophical premise. But is synchronicity really
based only on observation and experiments—that is, for the traditional
thought, on no philosophical premise at all2—or is something missing in
Jung’s statements? As will be argued, from a certain point of view Jung is
right, because it is his original intention for his idea of synchronicity to have
no philosophical premise, but later, thanks to Pauli’s contribution, it
developed into a philosophical achievement.

Jung’s initial development of the synchronicity concept

As Carl Gustav Jung studied the phenomena of synchronicity, he recognized
their potential power for psychological transformation in the people who
experienced them (see Jung’s remarks after telling the famous story about the

2
In the past there was the firm belief that observation could be pure, that is just empirically based,
without links to abstract and philosophical theories. N. Russel Hanson underlined ‘the ‘theory-
laden’ character of ‘causal talk’, showing that it is hard to find an observation which can be
defined as pure in the sense that is deprived of any interpretation. In his words, ‘observation is the-
ory loaded’. See N. R. Hanson 1958, pp. 4–30 & 54–69.
710 Marialuisa Donati

golden scarab: Jung, 1952a; regarding definitions of the synchronicity con-

cept, see Jung 1952b). In fact, he found that a synchronistic event—the mean-
ingful coincidence of an inner image with an outer event—can often let one see
the world in a new light, especially if one responds very deeply, with the full
involvement of his or her being to the meaning of the event (Mansfield 1995).
After having observed and collected a great number of meaningful coinci-
dences, Jung decided to introduce an empirical concept in order to classify
those strange phenomena. As David Lindorff points out (1995b, p. 574), Jung
first used the term ‘synchronism’ in a dream seminar held in 1928 (McGuire
1982, p. 44), in order ‘to account for what he called non-causal coincidences’.
In 1930 Jung began to call such a concept a ‘synchronicity principle’ (see the
memorial address for Richard Wilhelm in Jung 1957, pp. 53–62), and he
refers to it in his reflections upon the archetypes.
The history of the development of the concept of the archetype reveals how
this conception grew richer throughout the years and eventually played a cru-
cial role in Jung’s development of the synchronicity concept. In his initial pub-
lications on this topic Jung speaks of ‘archetypes’ and ‘original primordial
images’ as synonymous, while later he draws a distinction between the arche-
type as such and its manifold phenomenal manifestations (images). By doing
so, he showed his increasing interest in the ultimate structures of reality that
cannot be considered as reducible to the empirically observed phenomena. In
‘On the nature of the psyche’ (1954a), Jung states:
The archetypal representations (images and ideas) mediated to us by the unconscious
should not be confused with the archetype as such. They are very varied structures
which all point back to one essentially ‘irrepresentable’ basic form [ . . . ]. The arche-
type as such is a psychoid factor that belongs, as it were, to the invisible, ultraviolet
end of the psychic spectrum. It does not appear, in itself, to be capable of reaching
consciousness.

(para. 417)

Jung uses the word psychoid in order to describe the character of the arche-
type as such, which is neither purely psychical nor merely physical. With this
particular expression Jung points to the psycho-physical nature of the arche-
type and at the unitary reality consisting of both psyche and physis that he
refers to as transcendental, because it underlies the whole of our phenomenal
world and is intrinsically unknowable. Of course, these concepts are clearly
related to Kant’s philosophy, as Jung himself attests in many passages (Jung
1954b). On the surface it is not difficult to see Jung’s archetype as such as a
kind of Kantian noumenon which indicates the unknowable reality underly-
ing every phenomenon, whereas the archetypal representation might be
interpreted as a phenomenon that can be grasped by cognitive means.
Despite any apparent connection with Kant’s philosophy, however, it is
necessary to underscore that there is no identity of contents between the
Jungian archetype as such and the Kantian noumenon because Jung features
Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of Jung and Pauli 711

the archetype as dynamical and non-rational,3 whereas the noumenon is

characterized by rationality and unchangeableness. It is possible, therefore,
to place Jung near Kant only to the extent that both of them postulate the
existence of a reality that is placed beyond the phenomenal world and is in
itself unknowable.4
The relation between the concept of the archetype and the Platonic ideas
raises a similar question. Jung himself defines the archetype as synonymous
with the Platonic Idea (Jung 1954b, para. 149). However, Marie Louise von
Franz in her Psyche and Matter points out the essential difference between the
Platonic idea and the Jungian archetype: the former is in fact conceived of ‘as
a purely cognitive content, whereas an archetype might as easily manifest as a
feeling, an emotion or a mythological fantasy. Thus the Jungian archetype is a
somewhat broader concept than the Platonic idea’ (von Franz 1992, p. 6).
Jung disapproved of the philosophical trend that over the centuries concealed
the archetypes’ instinctual and non-rational side in order to reduce them to
intellectual categories, with the consequent loss of their metaphysical value
(Jung 1948, paras. 263–82). Physicist Charles R. Card likewise has under-
scored the archetype’s dynamical character in contrast to the changelessness of
the Platonic ideas (Card 1991, p. 22):
[Jung] felt that the concept of archetype ‘puts the Platonic Ideas on an empirical
basis’. However, the Idea is conceived as transcendent and immutable, whereas the
archetype has an inherent dynamism. The Idea is a model of ‘supreme perfection in
the luminous sense’, whereas the archetype is ‘bipolar, embodying the dark side as
well as the light’.

Despite differing interpretations, Plato’s philosophy is based on the central

role played by the Ideas, which enjoy a full ontological status. By contrast, the
phenomenal world is ontologically degraded to be an imperfect copy of the
ideal and eternal world. In Jung, however, there is no trace of an ontological
degradation of phenomenal aspects. The distinction between the archetype as
such and its manifestation is never developed in order to give the archetype-
Idea an absolute ontological supremacy. Moreover, the Platonic dualism
between the sensible and the intelligible worlds, stated on an ontological level,
implies an analogous distinction from an epistemological point of view. The
knowledge of images, which give a picture of the sensible world, is obtained,
according to Plato, through imagination (eikasía) and belief (pístis), and this
knowledge leads to the acquisition of opinions (dóxa), whereas only the
knowledge of Ideas achieved rationally through reason (diánoia) and intellect

3
By the expression ‘non-rational’ we mean that the formulation of the archetype concept trans-
cends the sphere of a purely rational definition and includes emotional aspects. Anyway we prefer
‘non-rational’ rather than ‘irrational’ in order to avoid the opposition between rational and irra-
tional, which could be misleading in this context.
4
For a better understanding of what Kant means by the terms phenomenon and noumenon, see
Kant 1781, pp. 96–9.
712 Marialuisa Donati

(noûs), can be defined as science (epistéme) (for details, see Adam 1963, Book
VII). Unlike Plato, Jung never judges rational and intellectual knowledge as
the only kind of true knowledge. In Jung’s opinion knowledge is valid only if it
is lived both intellectually and emotionally; he is aware of the relevant role
played by phenomena, including their emotional aspect,5 because they repre-
sent the only way to acquire some sort of knowledge of the transcendental psycho-
physical reality that is supposed to exist beyond them. Within this unitary
reality it is not difficult to locate the collective unconscious, that is the meta-
phorical ‘place’ of origin of the archetypes as such. Reviving an alchemical
expression, Jung called such a reality the unus mundus. As Marie-Louise von
Franz (1992, p. 40) states explicitly:
When he created the concept of synchronicity, Jung laid a foundation which might
lead us to see the complementary realms of psyche and matter as one reality [ . . . ].
Synchronistic events thus seem to point towards a unitary aspect of existence which
transcends our conscious grasp and which Jung called the unus mundus.

In a concluding passage of his essay ‘On the nature of the psyche’, Jung out-
lined the hypothesis of an inherent unitary reality where psyche and matter are
‘two different aspects of the same thing’, because ‘they are included in one and
the same world’. This is not a purely theoretical statement because it is derived
and somehow corroborated by the existence of synchronistic events. Thus syn-
chronicity plays a special role inside analytical psychology, because it reveals
the presence of some phenomena from which one can derive theoretical con-
clusions that involve different levels, ranging from psychological to ontologi-
cal-metaphysical areas of thought. In addition to a methodological approach
in Jung’s work that is clearly empirical, there is a metaphysical concern that
establishes a philosophical involvement with ontological issues to the discus-
sion of synchronicity. In a letter to Michael Fordham (3 January 1957), Jung
admits his fervent interest in the metaphysical aspect of these phenomena:
I well understand that you prefer to emphasize the archetypal implication in syn-
chronicity. This aspect is certainly most important from the psychological angle, but
I must say that I am equally interested, at times even more so, in the metaphysical
aspect of the phenomena, and in the question: how does it come that even inanimate
objects are capable of behaving as if they were acquainted with my thoughts? This is,
as the above formulation shows, a thoroughly paranoid speculation which one had
better not ventilate in public, but I cannot deny my fervent interest in this aspect of
the problem.

(Jung 1973, pp. 343–4; author’s italics)

From this point of view, synchronistic phenomena become the empirical man-
ifestation of a transcendental realm that pervades the universe as a whole.

5
James Hillman has stressed the important role played by emotional aspects in analytical psycho-
logy, above all pointing out a different kind of thought, called ‘thought of the heart’; see Hillman
1979, pp. 133–82.
Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of Jung and Pauli 713

However, Marie-Louise von Franz observed that notwithstanding his

metaphysical interests (or maybe owing to them), Jung ‘discovered that the
synchronistic phenomena provide empirical evidence for the existence of such
an unus mundus’ (von Franz 1992, p. 41). Thus for Jung synchronistic phe-
nomena represent the empirical test corroborating the existence of the unus
mundus, without which it would be just a theoretical speculation. Conse-
quently, synchronicity is tightly bound to the unus mundus-collective uncon-
scious and to the archetypes as such. In fact, Jung proposed that there is a
‘constellated’ archetype whenever synchronistic phenomena occur. At first he
studied synchronistic events from an empirical point of view, without any
overt philosophical purpose, but over the years as his thought deepened,
synchronicity became the empirical manifestation of the archetype’s psychoid
nature and of the transcendental unity of psyche and physis, that is manifested
in the coincidence between a psychical and a physical event.
The above considerations suggest how the idea of synchronicity matured as
the result of Jung’s theoretical reflections. There is a related question, of what
exactly was Pauli’s contribution? In what follows it will be shown that
through the collaboration with Pauli, Jung’s view of synchronistic phenomena
underwent a change with increased emphasis on the ontological-archetypal
basis of synchronistic phenomena rather than on their empirical-phenomeno-
logical aspects.

Pauli’s contribution to the development of the synchronicity concept

Nowadays, more and more is known about Wolfgang Pauli beyond the facts
and circumstances by which he became a Nobel Prize winning physicist. In
fact, in his early thirties Pauli went through an emotional crisis which led him
to ask for Jung’s help. He has been described as ‘a very one-sided thinking
intuitive who had been cut off from feeling [ . . . ] and confronted by his bestial
foundations’ (Lindorff 1995a, p. 556). During his psychological treatment
Pauli began to experience ‘an archetypal journey marked by the emergence of
symbols of wholeness’ (ibid.). It was a sort of ‘religious conversion’, in the
sense that a confirmed atheist became aware of ‘things that cannot and should
not be explained from material causes’ (Lindorff 1995a, p. 556; Hermann
et al. 1979, p. xxi). This seemed to ‘support Jung’s statement that “behind
every neurosis there is a religious problem’’’ (Lindorff 1995a, p. 556). Because
of its inherent interest, Pauli’s world of dreams has been widely investigated by
many people: firstly, by Pauli himself, with the help of his therapist Erna
Rosenbaum (one of Jung’s female students), then by Jung himself, and more
recently by van Erkelens, Enz, and Lindorff (van Erkelens 1991 & 1993b; Enz
1992; Lindorff 1995a).
In addition, Pauli’s cultural, psychological and philosophical interests have
come under much scrutiny in recent years, as witnessed by various publica-
tions (these include Card 1991, 1992; Laurikainen 1988; Peat 1988; van
714 Marialuisa Donati

Erkelens 1993a; Stapp 1992; Lindorff 1995b; Atmanspacher & Primas 1996).
However, until the publication of the correspondence between Pauli and Jung
(Meier 1992; 2001), just a few of his essays (most of which can be found in
Pauli 1961) revealed his deep interests in psychological and philosophical
issues of which most contemporary physicists were, and remain, unaware.
Perhaps the most important among these essays is Pauli’s writing on Kepler,
which was his contribution to The Interpretation of Nature and Psyche,6 the
volume published jointly with Jung that included Jung’s essay on synchronic-
ity. Kalervo Laurikainen (1988, p. 140) has pointed out that concerning syn-
chronicity, ‘Pauli considered the connection between his own thought and that
of Jung’s to be so important [ . . . ] that he forbade the translation of his article
on Kepler into English without Jung’s article on synchronicity’.
In his Kepler essay, Pauli expressed an interest in the origin and develop-
ment of scientific theories, and for that reason he began to study seventeenth
century philosophical thought where he hoped to find the origin of many
unsolved problems that contemporary science still has to face, such as the
nature of the link between psyche and matter. Pauli found that in certain
Renaissance texts such as those of Robert Fludd, a symbol may often appear
that possesses at the same time a religious, magic and scientific meaning with
no clear distinction between these levels of meaning. The similarity of these
symbols with those occurring in his own dreams fascinated Pauli and led him
to write his monograph on Kepler (for an explicit statement by Pauli concern-
ing the role of his dreams in leading him to complete his essay on Kepler, see
Meier 1992, letter n. 32, p. 35; Meier 2001, p. 31).
In his essay Pauli stands apart from pure empiricism–the philosophical trend
that considers natural laws to be the result of mere experience. Pauli, on the
contrary, points out the considerable role of intuition in developing ‘the con-
cepts and ideas, generally far transcending mere experience, that are necessary
for the erection of a system of natural laws (that is, a scientific theory)’ (Pauli
1955, pp. 151–152). Pauli faces the old philosophical question about ‘the
nature of the bridge between the sense perceptions and the concepts’, and
arrives ‘at the conclusion that pure logic is fundamentally incapable of con-
structing such a link’. He further concludes that it is necessary to postulate ‘a
cosmic order independent of our choice and distinct from the world of phe-
nomena’. This objective order should include ‘both the soul of the perceiver
and that which is recognized by perception’, and ‘every partial recognition of
[ . . . its existence . . . ] in nature leads to the formulation of statements that, on
the one hand, concern the world of phenomena and, on the other, transcend it by
employing, ‘idealizingly’, general logical concepts’. This leads Pauli to define the
process of understanding nature as one that is [ . . . ] ‘based on a correspondence,

6
Pauli 1955, pp. 147–212. The Jungian side of Pauli was already discovered and outlined by
Robert Westman, who analysed only Pauli’s essay on Kepler, without reference to the correspond-
ence between Pauli and Jung which was unavailable at that time. See Westman 1984, pp. 177–229.
Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of Jung and Pauli 715

a “matching” of inner images pre-existent in the human psyche with external

objects and their behaviour’. He is aware that behind this conception there is a
great philosophical tradition, going back from Kepler to Plato, and that is why
he is so interested in the former. In fact, Kepler calls ‘archetypal’ (archetypalis)
the primary images ‘that are pre-existent in the mind of God’ and which ‘the
soul can perceive with the aid of an innate “instinct’’’; and Pauli does not fail
to point out their essential agreement with Jungian archetypes. He is particu-
larly interested in this ‘archaic level of cognition’, where images with strong
emotional content take the place of clear concepts:
Inasmuch as these images are an ‘expression of a dimly suspected but still unknown
state of affairs’ they can also be termed symbolical, in accordance with the definition
of the symbol proposed by C. G. Jung. As ordering operators and image-formers in
this world of symbolical images, the archetypes thus function as the sought-for
bridge between the sense perceptions and ideas and are, accordingly, a necessary
presupposition even for evolving a scientific theory of nature.

(Pauli 1955, p. 153)

This passage is particularly meaningful because it reveals Pauli’s acceptance of

two of the most important Jungian concepts—the symbol and the archetype.
It is necessary, however, to underscore that Pauli’s acceptance is not at all
passive. Instead he elaborates Jung’s ideas on the ground of his own philo-
sophical and epistemological interests, with the result that the archetypes
become the solution of the old philosophical question mentioned previously,
because they function, ‘as the sought-for bridge between the sense perceptions
and the ideas’. Moreover, by stating that the archetypes are ‘a necessary pre-
supposition even for evolving a scientific theory of nature’, Pauli goes beyond
Jung’s specific purposes, revealing his own opinion that science has an arche-
typal basis and encouraging scientists to search for its archetypal foundation.
This becomes clear also in the discussions about synchronicity he had with
Jung.
Jung involved Pauli in his studies of synchronistic phenomena, expecting
from him collaboration based on his scientific knowledge. As for Pauli, he
undertook the task of promoting and encouraging Jung to compose the essay
on synchronicity, as Jung explicitly confesses in a letter (22 June 1949) in
which he also asks Pauli for a critique of his writing (Meier 1992, p. 40; 2001,
p. 36). Pauli’s critical contribution is aimed at helping Jung to clear up and
define precisely some conceptual formulations which at first sight might be
considered to be misleading. Notwithstanding any difference of opinion
expressed during their correspondence, Jung and Pauli agree upon ‘the possi-
bility and usefulness [ . . . ] of a further principle of interpretation of nature
other than the causal principle’ (Meier 1992, p. 56; 2001, p. 53).
However, an important difference between Jung’s and Pauli’s points of view
concerns the relationship between synchronistic and quantum phenomena.
Whereas Jung tended to establish analogies between the two kinds of phenomena,
716 Marialuisa Donati

Pauli stressed mainly their difference, namely that synchronistic events were
non-reproducible. In his opinion the only feature both of them certainly share
is ‘going beyond the framework of “classical” determinism’ (Meier 1992, p. 58;
2001, p. 55). Pauli recalls that every experimental science is based on the
possibility of reproducing experiments and that in quantum physics in order to
satisfy this condition, one pays a very high price, accepting the statistical char-
acter of natural laws. Pauli, in fact, identifies ‘statistical correspondence’ as the
kind of law that ‘acts as a mediator between the discontinuum of individual
cases’ that are themselves non-reproducible, ‘and the continuum that can only
be realized (approximately) in a large-scale statistical framework’. He feels
that ‘the statistical correspondence of quantum physics, seen from the point of
view of synchronicity, is a very weak generalization of the old causality’. This
is clear when one considers that in microphysics there is some place for an
acausal form of observation, whereas there is no trace of the concept of ‘mean-
ing’ (Meier 1992, pp. 58–59; 2001, p. 56). In Pauli’s opinion, the possibility of
reproducing the statistical regularities of microphysical natural laws represents
‘such a fundamental difference between the acausal physical phenomena [ . . . ]
and the “synchronistic” phenomena’ that it is necessary to conceive of them
‘as phenomena or effects on different levels’ (Meier 1992, pp. 58–59; 2001,
pp. 55–56). This may certainly be considered as Pauli’s main conceptual con-
tribution to the formulation of the synchronicity idea, because it leads Jung to
give a double definition of the concept. It is just because Jung admits a dif-
ference of levels between the synchronistic and the quantum phenomena
that he asks himself (30 November 1950) if there exists a more general order
that contains both phenomena, and by doing so, he shifts from an empirical
background to an ontological approach:

Insofar as for me synchronicity represents first and foremost a simple state of being,
I am inclined to subsume any instance of causally nonconceivable states of being into
the category of synchronicity. The psychic and half-psychic cases of synchronicity
would be the one subcategory, the nonpsychic ones the other. Insofar as physical
discontinuities prove to be causally no further irreducible, they represent a ‘so-ness’
[‘So-sein’], or a unique ordering factor or a ‘creative act’, just as well as any case of
synchronicity. I fully agree with you that these ‘effects’ are on various levels, and
conceptual distinctions should be made between them. I just wanted to outline the
general picture of synchronicity.

(Meier 1992, p. 63; 2001, p. 60)

In this passage Jung’s aim becomes clear: he wishes to develop a global acausal
conception of reality that includes both synchronistic and quantum physical
phenomena. At this point synchronicity has been transformed from an empiri-
cal concept, as it was in the first formulations of Jung’s research on this topic,
into a principle that seems to belong more to the realm of philosophy of nature
rather than only to that of psychological research. Pauli was aware of the deep
change taking place within the synchronicity concept. Above all, in a letter to
Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of Jung and Pauli 717

Fierz (3 June 1952) he expresses his opinion that ‘the chapter IV in Jung’s
work appears to be something more than a “summary’’; it looks like his intel-
lectual legacy, something which is pushing its way away from special “analytic
psychology” into the philosophy of nature in general and the psycho-physical
problem in particular’ (Laurikainen 1988, p. 225; see also Pauli’s letter to
Jung, dated December 12th 1950, in Meier 1992, p. 67; 2001, p. 65).
Facing the evident difference between synchronistic and quantum pheno-
mena, Jung elaborated a double definition of synchronicity: in a strict sense, it
includes a psychical character that reveals itself to be connected with a phys-
ical event. From this point of view, synchronicity in the narrow sense is clearly
distinguished from the microphysical phenomena in which there is neither the
direct participation of the observer’s psyche nor the relevant presence of
‘meaning’. But one could postulate the existence of a wider acausal order, a
‘so-ness’, that would include every contingent event whose manifestation
expresses a certain inner uniqueness, almost as if it were a creative act. In such
a wider order it would be possible to include the discontinuities of microphys-
ics, too, which reveal an individual character whenever they are considered
singularly.
As we have seen, with this dual definition of synchronicity, Jung clearly
expressed his inclination to develop a worldview. Pauli accepted such a global
conception of reality, stating (12 December 1950) that he did not adopt the
wider definition of the concept before, because there was the fear that ‘too
much might get lost that is specific to psychic and half-psychic synchronicity’
(Meier 1992, p. 66; 2001, p. 63). Pauli was afraid that upon adopting a wider
definition of the concept, one could forget to consider the importance of
‘meaning’ and the idea of the psychoid archetype. As a consequence, he asked
himself how it is possible to conceive of a general category that includes the
ordering archetype as a specific case:
In cases of non-psychic acausality [ . . . ] the statistical result as such is reproducible,
which is why one can speak here of a ‘law of probability’ instead of an ‘ordering
factor’ (archetype). Just as the mantic methods point to the archetypal element in
the concept of number, the archetypal element in quantum physics is to be found in the
(mathematical) concept of probability- i.e., in the actual correspondence between
the expected result, worked out with the aid of this concept, and the empirically
measured frequencies.

(Meier 1992, p. 66; 2001, p. 64)

Jung was excited to see his idea of archetype side-by-side with that of mathe-
matical probability, even though he realized that it is necessary to modify the
concept of archetype in order to consider its possible application to physical
reality. Then Jung (13 January 1951) asked himself some questions that led
him to sketch a worldview that was actively shared by Pauli: if the psychoid
nature of archetypes has something to do with physical phenomena, then why
should archetypes be involved solely in psychical events? Moreover, if the
718 Marialuisa Donati

Renaissance idea of correspondentia included nature as a whole, why should

we limit ourselves to consider just what is psychical? It might be that one and
the same reality is expressed physically through the mathematical laws of
probability and psychically as manifestations of archetypes. Then when con-
sidering psychical synchronicities, the problem arises whether one should see
its ‘archetypal distinctive feature’ as included in a more general acausal order,
or if this general acausality should be subordinated to the universal value of
the archetype (Meier 1992, pp. 71–2; 2001, p. 69). The second hypothesis is
very attractive because it leads to the formulation of just one concept that
would be able to account for both physical and psychical reality. Thus, after
long discussions about synchronicity, both Jung and Pauli aimed at the
achievement of a worldview about nature conceived as a whole. They had
reached the previously mentioned turning point in the development of the syn-
chronicity concept where they were able to move beyond a mainly empirical
psychological approach to the realm of philosophy of nature. It is Pauli (12
December 1950), in fact, who led Jung in this direction:
[ . . . ] I have once again carefully weighed up the pros and cons of the narrower and
broader definitions of ‘synchronicity’. Pure logic gives us a free hand to choose either
definition. In such a case, the deciding factor is intuition, pointing the way to the
future as it does, but this is psychology and the branch of psychology that I am
particularly interested in- namely, the formation of scientific concepts [‘naturwissen-
schaftliche Begriffsbildung’]. With me, the intuitive function has such a strong ten-
dency toward the apprehension of holistic structures that despite all arguments to
the contrary, I find myself leaning toward your broader definition: Given the impos-
sibility of a direct application of the concept [‘Begriff’] of ‘archetype’ in microphys-
ics, I am more inclined to believe that the present [idea] [‘Begriff’] [of] ‘archetype’ [is
not still consistent enough] [‘noch ungenügend’], rather than that your broader
definition is in itself inappropriate.

(Meier 1992, p. 67; 2001, p. 65; author’s italics)7

Pauli’s critical reflections induced Jung to widen his definition of synchronic-

ity. Under the influence of his own intuitive function, Pauli accepted very will-
ingly the enlargement of the Jungian concept, provided that Jung kept his
discussion of synchronistic phenomena in a narrow sense clearly separated
from the quantum physical discontinuities. It is interesting that Pauli was
moved to accept the wider definition of synchronicity as the result of his intui-
tion, especially as for Jung intuition is that psychological function which
allows a person to capture the overall structure of an object independently of

7
First, ‘naturwissenschaftiche Begriffsbildung’ is translated into ‘the formation of scientific
concepts’ instead of ‘the scientific formation of concepts’, in fact Pauli was interested in the gene-
sis of scientific ideas: this process in itself is mainly psychological than scientific. Second, I have
translated here the German ‘Der Begriff’ into the English ‘concept’ or ‘idea’, instead of ‘term’, as
reported in Meier 2001. And third, I used to translate the German ‘noch ungenügend’ into the
English ‘is not still consistent enough’ instead of ‘is inadequate’, since Pauli believed that the idea
of archetype was still not developed enough to include the quantum phenomena.
Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of Jung and Pauli 719

the present conscious and partial perception that one can have of it (for a defi-
nition of intuition as a psychological function, see Jung 1921, paras. 770–773).
Thus Pauli’s disposition to accept the wider definition of synchronicity was
favoured by his unconscious inclination to search for overall structures and
worldviews—an inclination that he experienced as a deep personal need, too.
The importance of shifting from a stricter definition of synchronicity to a
wider one should not be underestimated. If Jung had formulated only its
stricter version, the concept of synchronicity would have retained its essential
empirical character—namely that there are some very rare phenomena that we
do not know how to explain, that neither have affinity with other known
events nor permit a causal interpretation, and that therefore cannot be
included in a wider conceptual frame. On the contrary, the more general
formulation of synchronicity changes from a purely empirical concept to a
possible explicative principle that takes its place beside causality in the realm
of philosophy of nature. Synchronicity, owing to Jung and Pauli’s collabora-
tion, acquires a somewhat revolutionary character—it leads to a fundamental
change of worldview, apart and beyond what it may mean for the life of an
individual. It turns from being an empirical concept gathering a series of
subjective phenomena to become a philosophical principle belonging to an
objective field of studies. The same view of synchronicity as belonging to an
objective field of studies is shared by Joseph Cambray in his fine contribution
(2002, pp. 415–7) where according to a scientific perspective based in com-
plexity theory, studying complex adaptive systems—‘that have “emergent”
properties, that is, self-organizing features arising in response to environmen-
tal, competitive pressures’—synchronicities can be seen ‘as a form of emer-
gence of the Self and have a central role in individuation or psychological
maturation (taken as a homologue of biological evolution), providing a more
scientific basis for this aspect of Jung’s thought’ (ibid.).
It is worthwhile to observe that in the course of their collaboration, Pauli
and Jung slightly diverged with regard to the role that they assigned to
therapy. As pointed out by Zabriskie in quoting Jaffé and von Franz (1995,
p. 548):
Pauli did not expect that the concepts of the unconscious would ‘go on developing
within the narrow frame of their therapeutic applications’, but that their merging
with the general current of science in investigating the phenomena of life is of para-
mount importance for them’ (in Jaffé 1972, p. 43). According to von Franz, Pauli
concluded ‘Jungian psychology should be transformed into a philosophy’ [ . . . ]

(Sieg 1991, p. 56)

Von Franz went on to assert that ‘psychology has to transcend the hitherto
delineated limits of science, because it cannot exclude “meaning” and the feel-
ing function from its way of describing its object’ (von Franz 1992, p. 289).
She pointed out the importance given by Jung to the vague language of myth
in describing psychological facts, as if to say that in Jung’s view psychology
720 Marialuisa Donati

cannot be reduced to a science. Of course, one would naturally expect that the
psychotherapeutic aspects of synchronicity and of archetypes would be given
greater consideration by Jung the psychologist than by Pauli the theoretical
physicist, but in the course of their collaboration, both men had been led well
beyond the boundaries of their respective professions. The apparent diver-
gence of thought between the two men can be seen as minimal if one considers
that for both men, the boundaries that had traditionally distinguished psycho-
logy from physics and science from philosophy were being dissolved as these
isolated disciplines coalesced into a new conception of nature. As Lindorff has
observed (1995b, p. 584), Jung ‘appeared to be in agreement that the future of
his ideas would not be found primarily in therapy but in a “unified holistic
conception of nature and the status of man within it”’. Their vision of this
unified holistic conception gives the collaboration of Jung and Pauli its revolu-
tionary significance.
It is also worthwhile noting at this point that the struggle between Jung and
Pauli to conceptually distinguish acausally ordered quantum phenomena from
synchronistic phenomena ‘in the narrow sense’ has a modern-day counterpart
in the attempt of Victor Mansfield, Sally Rhine-Feather and James Hall (1998)
to conceptually distinguish synchronistic events, again ‘in the narrow sense’,
from the more general class of parapsychological phenomena which have
become the subject of controlled, repeatable experimentation. They have
concluded that,
[ . . . ] these meticulous laboratory studies of parapsychological phenomena with all
their consistency and repeatability (their scientific causality) have more potential to
revolutionize science and our entire worldview than the sporadic and unpredictable
synchronicity phenomena. For all their numinosity, synchronicity experiences are, by
their very nature, resistant to the kind of careful empirical investigation required for
them to be integrated into our modern scientific understanding. While synchronicity
speaks directly to the evolution of our subjective being, the exacting laboratory
studies of the parapsychological speak more directly to our objective understanding
of nature.

Although the effort of research based on controlled and repeatable parapsy-

chological experiments certainly should be acknowledged, the claim that syn-
chronistic phenomena are not amenable to integration into ‘our modern
scientific understanding’ proceeds from an overly restrictive conception of
what constitutes scientific knowledge. For example, few would deny a place in
the domain of science for the study of the origin of the universe or of the past
evolution of biological species, yet neither of these events themselves could
ever be the subject of controlled, repeatable experimentation. Synchronistic
phenomena are really no more scientifically ‘fragile’ than dreams, themselves,
so from the above standpoint of Mansfield, Rhine-Feather, and Hall, the
psychological analysis of dreams could never be integrated into ‘our modern
scientific understanding’ either. The aspect of synchronistic phenomena that
has far greater potential to revolutionize science than do parapsychological
Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of Jung and Pauli 721

phenomena in general is the role played by archetypes as ordering factors in

both the psyche and the physical world. As has been shown above, this led
Jung and Pauli to a view of the world as an unus mundus, a psycho-physical
unity, that stands as a radically different conception from the idealistic ‘mind-only’
standpoint of Mansfield (1995), from which he has attempted to re-interpret
synchronicity.
In this respect it is most interesting to see how Pauli uses the principle of
synchronicity in order to try to explain the origin of life. As a matter of fact, in
a letter addressed to Marcus Fierz (5 March 1957) who was one of only a very
few physicists with whom he could discuss his interests in Jungian psychology,
Pauli supposed that synchronistic phenomena might play a role in biological
evolution (Laurikainen 1988, pp. 204–206). He reflected on the question
‘where does life begin’, particularly ‘in the connection with the book on evolu-
tion written by the German zoologist Bernhard Rensch’ (Laurikainen 1988,
p. 204). Pauli ‘found stimulating [ . . . ] some special views concerning the rela-
tionship of the physical to the psychical’. In fact, according to Rensch, ‘‘the
psychological parallel components” could not possibly have “suddenly sprung
up” in the otherwise continuous ontogenesis’, and he postulated that ‘the
so-called inanimate (non-organic) matter already must show “weak psycho-
logical parallel components’’’ (Laurikainen 1988, p. 204). Pauli thought that
Rensch’s conclusion was reasonable and suggested that ‘these [components]
(and consequently life) express themselves principally in non-reproducible
phenomena’. Here the connection with synchronistic events becomes apparent:
This is probably the same thing which C. G. Jung names ‘inconstant connection
through contingency’ as well as the ‘synchronicity phenomenon’. Let us be brief and
call them the ‘Σ phenomena’. They may give reason for consequences with ‘signifi-
cances’ (in the sense of the statisticians), which are neither random series (since no
probability exists), nor regularities (since a regularity is not reproducible). From the
standpoint of a statistics which is based on the calculation of probabilities (or rather
of its representatives) these ‘spurious significances’ mean ‘nothing at all’. That is to
say, as concerns the traditional scientist they go ‘through the mesh of his net’. That is
how I imagine the ‘beginning of life’, at which time the Σ phenomena could express
themselves microscopically as ‘chemical patterns’.

(Laurikainen 1988, p. 205)

Then using a motif that originated in Marcus Fierz’s correspondence, Pauli

compared the overall course of the process of life with a Moebius strip,8 speci-
fying the possible role played by the Σ phenomena:
I always imagine the Σ phenomena to be nothing more than a transitional phase, as
something temporary. Then, somewhere, a causal fixation enters the picture, makes

8
A Moebius strip is a geometrical object with only one surface and one edge. It can be visualized
by taking a strip of paper and giving it a half-twist, and then merging the ends of the strip together
to form a single strip. The Moebius strip is named after August Ferdinand Möbius, a nineteenth
century German mathematician and astronomer, who was a pioneer in the field of topology.
722 Marialuisa Donati

it quasi superfluous, and determines its further course. The way I imagine this fixa-
tion is that from the standpoint of the normal physical-chemical laws it must indeed
always be ‘possible’ although, nevertheless, it would be more or less improbable
from the standpoint of these laws. Then come occasionally Σ phenomena of a differ-
ent type, etc. Seen from the standpoint of the whole, the Σ phenomena and the causal
phenomena could thus be regarded as the two sides of a Moebius strip and just, as a
unity, make up life.
(Laurikainen 1988, p. 205)

These words represent one of Pauli’s last reflections about synchronicity,

because he died the following year, in 1958. From them it is clear that
synchronicity takes its place beside causality in order to give an account of the
beginning of life. Only the unity of both of these principles, like the two sides
of a Moebius strip, can build up a complete philosophical worldview. The syn-
chronistic principle seems to give an account of the actuality of single unique
events at many levels, for example in the biological processes engendering the
appearance of new determining conditions for the evolution of species (see
also Cambray 2002, p. 418).
Also Jung touches on this subject in his letter to Erich Neumann (10 March
1959) when he says that there is ‘no idea where the constructive factor in
biological development is to be found’, but
it staggers the mind even to begin to imagine the accidents and hazards that, over
millions of years, transformed a lemurlike tree-dweller into a man. In this chaos of
chance, synchronistic phenomena were probably at work, operating both with and
against the known laws of nature to produce, in archetypal moments, syntheses
which appear to us miraculous. Causality and teleology fail us here, because syn-
chronicity phenomena manifest themselves as pure chance.

(Jung 1973, vol. II, pp. 494–5)

As for Pauli, even if he is very cautious when dealing with the synchronistic
principle in order not to amplify its concept too much, there are clear indica-
tions that he conceived of it as the means for a possible completion of a world-
view. As seen above, Pauli finds stimulating the ‘hylo-psychical’ hypothesis
formulated by Rensch—Pauli mentions this hypothesis in connection with syn-
chronicity also in his essay entitled ‘Naturwissenschaftliche und erkenntnisthe-
oretische Aspekte der Ideen vom Unbewußten’ (Pauli 1961, pp. 113–28),
according to which inorganic matter also would possess psychical compo-
nents, even if these psychic elements are conceived as more primitive than
those characterizing living beings. In a note to his essay about the epistemolo-
gical aspects concerning the problem of the unconscious, Pauli asks himself if
the synchronistic phenomena might be a manifestation of these primitive
psychic components of inorganic matter (Pauli 1961, p. 125). Here once again
one can clearly see Pauli’s theoretical link with the mature stage of Jung’s
thought, with its vision of the unity of psyche and matter in one and the same
world—the unus mundus. This is explicitly one of the reasons Jung decided to
Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of Jung and Pauli 723

publish the essay on synchronicity. He believed (7 March 1953) that ‘the

discussion of Matter must have a scientific basis’, stating that with the work
on synchronicity he ‘attempted to open up a new path to the [animation]
[Beseeltheit] of Matter by making the assumption that ‘being is endowed with
meaning’ (i.e., extension of the archetype in the object)9 ‘(Meier 1992, p. 100;
2001, p. 98; see also Jung’s letter to Erich Neumann dated 10 March 1959, in
Jung 1973, vol. II, pp. 493–6). Pauli very willingly gave his contribution in
order to develop this idea, and that is how their philosophical worldview
arose.

Conclusion: the synchronicity principle and its heuristic value

The synchronicity concept possesses a heuristic value from three different
points of view. First, synchronicity plays a heuristic role within the discussions
between Jung and Pauli, leading them to widen it conceptually and to elabo-
rate the archetypal hypothesis. It thereby reveals its cosmological implications,
because it tries to shed new light upon old philosophical issues such as the
relation between matter and mind (the present-day mind-body problem), the
speculation about the beginning of life, the enigmatic connection of science
with philosophy and metaphysics, and the religious question about the meaning
of man in the universe. As the result of their discussions of synchronicity, Pauli
and Jung’s investigation crosses the limits of single sciences such as physics
and psychology, in order to take its place within the wider realm of the philos-
ophy of nature. It cannot be ignored that Pauli and Jung’s philosophical
worldview originates as the result of the heuristic value assigned to synchro-
nicity, because this principle acts as a guiding thread which leads both men in
their conceptual reflections. Second, synchronicity may have a heuristic value
in the scientific field too. Some scientists, as the physicist Charles R. Card,
consider the archetypal hypothesis of Jung and Pauli that developed from their
reflections on synchronicity to be a leading idea and an inspiring motive for
their own research activity. Third, synchronicity plays a heuristic role with
regard to the relationship between science and philosophy, too. As a matter of
fact, Jung’s double definition of the concept leads toward the formulation of
issues belonging to the philosophy of nature. There is a tacit criticism of
modern science which is usually conceived as separated from any philoso-
phical background that is commonly thought to be misleading or useless for
scientific aims. Today, science is considered as the only discipline which can
successfully study nature, whereas philosophy is restricted to the mind, often
in the form of the historical interpretation of old philosophical problems or at

9
I preferred translating the German word ‘Beseeltheit’ into the English ‘animation’, instead of
‘state of spiritualization’ as reported in the published translation of Pauli and Jung’s correspond-
ence, since it is semantically closer to other terms such as ‘animism’, and the Latin ‘anima’ which
in German is translated into ‘Die Seele’ and in English into ‘soul’.
724 Marialuisa Donati

best to concentrate on science and its research methods, thus dealing mainly
with epistemological and logical issues. Certainly this has been due to the
predominant metaphysical dualism separating psyche and matter whereby
they are regarded as two different objects, thus creating two different and
separated fields of study. But where has the old philosophy of nature gone?
Jung and Pauli’s discussions on synchronicity shed light on the special need for
a philosophy of nature today, emerging from a theoretical revision of the rela-
tion between mind and matter. As a further consequence of the worldview
arising from the discussions of synchronicity, philosophy would be no longer a
mere, almost useless, appendage of science, but it would discover its role of
active collaborator again, directly helping scientists to approach the study of
nature and the construction of a philosophical and scientific worldview.10
As envisioned by Pauli and Jung, the synchronicity principle, with its mani-
fold symbolic value, provides greater unity and completeness to a philosoph-
ical worldview in which science becomes reconciled with its archetypal origins
and with the ancient holistic knowledge of nature symbolized by synchronic-
ity. This does not involve a radical confusion between science and pseudosci-
entific superstition that was the neo-positivists’ bugbear in the twentieth
century but means, in fact, an ideal reconciliation of science with an historical
and philosophical dimension which does not exclude heterogeneous elements
only for fear of sliding into an obscurantist irrationalism. According to Jung
and Pauli’s view, we have to grant privilege to a unitary worldview in which
both science and philosophy (including metaphysics) together should help to
create a fertile ground for the emergence of scientific theories.

TRANSLATIONS OF ABSTRACT

Jung a rencontré le physicien quantique Wolfgang Pauli au moment où il explorait le

phénomène de la synchronicité, et a démarré une collaboration avec celui-ci. Cette col-
laboration a considérablement changé l’approche de Jung du phénomène de synchro-
nicité. Avant elle, Jung mettait l’accent principalement sur les traits phénoménologiques
et empiriques du phénomène de synchronicité. A la suite de son travail avec Pauli, il se
concentra plus sur le caractère ontologique et archétypal de ces traits. Pauli, de son
coté, devint de plus en plus sensible aux aspects philosophiques liés à l’inconscient. Les
réflexions communes de Pauli et de Jung dépassèrent largement la psychologie et la

10
For a very interesting view about a contemporary philosophy of nature and its relation to Pauli
and Jung’s archetypal hypothesis, see Card 2001, pp. 259–94. For the tacit philosophical implica-
tions contained in any of today’s scientific weltbild, see Van Melsen 1961. For the distinction
between the philosophy of science and the philosophy of nature, and for the disappearance of the
latter owing to the metaphysical dualism between matter considered as substance (which became
the realm of science) and spiritual mind (studied by psychology and philosophy), see I. Leclerc
1986. For a revaluation of metaphysics in philosophy of science, see the idea of ‘influential meta-
physics’ in John Watkins, 1975, pp. 91–121.
Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of Jung and Pauli 725

physique, ce qui les amena dans la zone où ces deux champs se rencontrent à l’intérieur
de la philosophie de la nature. En fait, le résultat de leur collaboration fut que le con-
cept de la synchronicité, d’une approche empirique est devenu un principe fondamental
d’exploration-interprétation, qui, allié au point de vue causal, peut donner une vision
plus complète du fonctionnement du monde. L’exploration du caractère problématique
du concept de synchronicité a une valeur heuristique dans la mesure où elle amène à
reconsidérer les enjeux philosophiques qui ont conduit Jung et Pauli à changer les arrières
plans conceptuels soutenant leur pensée. Il y a dans la vision philosophique du monde qui
découle des discussions de Pauli et Jung sur la synchronicité de nombreux points qui vont
à l’encontre du courant scientifique dominant et qui sont porteurs d’une sorte de critique
de certains des points de vue généralement tenus dans la science de nos jours.

Während er die Phänomene der Synchronizität erforschte, lernte Carl Gustav Jung den
Quantenphysiker Wolfgang Pauli kennen, und begann schließlich mit ihm zusammen-
zuarbeiten. Während dieser Zusammenarbeit änderte sich Jungs Forschung an den
synchronistischen Phänomenen in bemerkenswerter Weise. Jung hatte bis dahin
hauptsächlich die phänomenologischen und empirischen Eigenschaften der synchroni-
stischen Phänomene betont, während der Zusammenarbeit mit Pauli konzentrierte er
seine Aufmerksamkeit auf ihren ontologischen und archetypischen Charakter. Pauli
dagegen öffnete sich zunehmend den philosophischen Aspekten in bezug auf das
Unbewusste. Jungs und Paulis gemeinsame Reflexionen gingen weit über die Psycholo-
gie und Physik hinaus, und drangen in das Reich ein, in dem sich die beiden Bereiche in
der Naturphilosophie treffen. Tatsächlich wurde die Synchronizität als Folge ihrer
Zusammenarbeit von einem empirischen Konzept in ein grundlegendes erklärend-inter-
pretierendes Prinzip transformiert, das möglicherweise zusammen mit der Kausalität zu
einer umfassenderen Weltsicht führen könnte. Die Untersuchung des problematischen
Charakters des Synchronizität—Konzeptes hat einen heuristischen Wert, weil es zum
Überdenken der philosophischen Fragen führt, die Jung und Pauli zur Klärung des
konzeptuellen Hintergrundes ihrer Gedanken brachte. Innerhalb der philosophischen
Weltanschauung, die von Jungs und Paulis Diskussionen über Synchronizität ausgeht,
gibt es viele Aspekte, die gegen den populären Hauptstrom der Wissenschaft gerichtet
sind und die einen kritischen Blick auf einige der üblichen Ansichten der gegenwärtigen
Wissenschaft ermöglichen.

Durante la sua indagine sui fenomeni sincronistici, Carl Gustav Jung conobbe e iniziò
una collaborazione con il fisico quantistico Wolfgang Pauli. Nel corso di tale collabora-
zione lo studio dei fenomeni sincronistici da parte di Jung attraversò un notevole cam-
biamento; in origine Jung aveva posto l’accento principalmente sulle caratteristiche
fenomenologiche ed empiriche degli eventi sincronistici, salvo poi, insieme a Pauli, spo-
stare la sua attenzione sul loro aspetto ontologico e archetipico. Pauli stesso divenne
sempre più sensibile agli aspetti filosofici riguardanti l’inconscio. Le riflessioni con-
giunte di Jung e Pauli hanno oltrepassato i confini della psicologia e della fisica per
approdare alla regione in cui le due aree si incontrano nella filosofia della natura.
Infatti, in seguito alla loro collaborazione, la sincronicità si è trasformata da concetto
empirico in un principio essenzialmente interpretativo- esplicativo che, insieme alla
causalità, potrebbe condurre a una visione del mondo più completa. L’indagare il
726 Marialuisa Donati

carattere problematico dell’idea di sincronicità possiede quindi un valore euristico

perché induce a prendere in considerazione le istanze filosofiche che hanno spinto Jung
e Pauli a chiarire il retroterra concettuale delle loro riflessioni. Nell’ambito della visione
filosofica del mondo che emerge dalle discussioni di Jung e Pauli sulla sincronicità si
annoverano molti aspetti simbolici che vanno controcorrente rispetto alla mentalità
scientifica odierna e che rappresentano una sorta di critica di alcune delle idee più
comuni della scienza moderna.

Mientras exploraba los fenómenos de la sincronicidad, Carlos Gustavo Jung se rela-

cionó con el físico quántico Wolfgang Pauli y eventualmente comenzó a colaborar con
él. Durante esta colaboración los estudios de Jung sobre la sincronicidad sufrieron un
cambio considerable; previa a esta cooperación había estudiado las características
fenomenológicas y empíricas de los fenómenos de la sincronicidad, mientras que en la
asociación con Pauli, focalizó su atención en el carácter ontológico, arquetipal de los
mismos. Pauli, por otra parte, se hizo especialmente sensible a los aspectos filosóficos
concernientes al inconsciente. Las reflexiones compartidas por Jung y Paulifuron
mucho mas allá de la psicología y la física, penetrando en el espacio donde las dos áreas
se encuentran en la filosofía de la naturaleza. De hecho, como una consecuencia de su
colaboración, la sincronicidad fue transformada de un concepto empírico en un princi-
pio fundamental explicativo e interpretativo, el cual conjuntamente con el de la causali-
dad podría orientarnos en una visión mas completa del universo. Explorar el carácter
problemático de la sincronicidad tiene un valor heurístico por cuanto conduce a la
reconsideración de los hechos filosóficos que llevaron a Jung y a Pauli a clarificar la
base de sus pensamientos. Dentro la visión filosófica universal que emerge de las discu-
siones de Jung y Pauli sobre la sincronicidad, surgen muchos aspectos que chocan
contra la ciencia convencional y ello representa una cierta forma de crítica a algunos de
los puntos de vista de la ciencia actual.

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Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Charles R. Card for carefully reading the drafts
and the most helpful suggestions he gave, and Joseph Cambray for carefully
revising and improving the final drafts. A special thank also to my husband,
Francesco. This paper is dedicated to my father’s memory.

[Ms first received May 2003; final version April 2004]