137 - Arthur I. Miller [106]
Numbers as archetypes
Pauli imagined that being a physicist by day, his psyche would compensate by throwing up images from psychology by night. But to his surprise, his dreams were full of symbols from physics. He noticed that his dreams contained concepts from Kepler’s time. Strangely they “did not simply refer to modern, traditional physics but [represented] a sort of correspondentia between psychological and physical fact.” Perhaps this was the way to extend terms from physics and mathematics into psychology.
By the early 1950s Jung agreed with Pauli that numbers undoubtedly were archetypes and added that they could “amplify themselves immediately and freely through mythological statements,” such as the one attributed to Maria Prophetissa. The common ground between physics and psychology was not to do with parallel concepts “but rather in that ancient spiritual ‘dynamis’ of numbers…. The archetypal numinosity of number expresses itself on the one hand in Pythagorean, Gnostic, and Kabbalistic (Gematria!) speculation, and the other hand in the arithmetical method of the mantic [divinatory] procedures in the I Ching, in geomancy and horoscopy.” This Jung wrote to Pauli in 1955.
Mathematicians might argue over whether numbers were originally invented or discovered, just as psychologists debate whether archetypes are innate or acquired. “In my view both are true,” wrote Jung. Jung was interested not in what mathematicians did with numbers, “but what number itself does when given the opportunity. This is certainly the method that has proved particularly successful in the field of archetypal ideas.” He was curious, in other words, about whether numbers have mystical powers and what these might be. It was certainly a fresh approach to numbers, evidence of the fruitfulness of the collaboration between the two men.
Pauli also discussed his thoughts on psychology with von Franz. She had helped Pauli with translations from Latin to German for his article on Kepler and Fludd. Part of her work with Jung concerned the dreams of the French philosopher René Descartes. She had written an article on the subject and hoped to publish it in Jung and Pauli’s joint work, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, in 1952. Pauli spoke at some length with her about the article but in the end it was not included in their book. Von Franz was very disappointed and there was a brief disruption in their relationship. But by the end of 1952 they had resumed their friendship, taking long walks, excursions, and boat trips together on Lake Zürich.
Their relationship was a tumultuous one. The two had very different points of view and regularly argued about Pauli’s dreams and Jung’s psychology. Pauli’s analysis was that they were both thinking types. From their correspondence, it seems clear there was a mutual attraction, though Pauli tried to keep his feelings focused on intellectual matters. Some people have suggested that at some point they had a sexual relationship, but von Franz insists otherwise. As to what really happened, we will never know, for Pauli’s widow burned all von Franz’s letters to him when she discovered them in a box in Pauli’s office at the ETH.
Once—it was in 1952—von Franz pointed out to Pauli that “nothing much has been done on the archetypal meaning of numbers.” Inspired by her remark, Pauli turned to a book on the history of mathematics, Science Awakening, by a Dutch colleague of his, B. L. van der Waerden. There he learned that Pythagorean number mysticism was a “further development of Babylonian number mysticism.” According to the book, the Chinese originated the idea that even numbers were feminine and odd numbers masculine. The Babylonians took the idea from them. But Pauli considered this line of development “improbable.” It was more likely that the notion arose from the “presence of pre-existing (archetypal) images, which are released through numbers.” Thus “the archetype of ‘oneness’ and the archetypes of opposing pairs” might