137 - Arthur I. Miller [112]
In working on the psychological side of the problem of how we go from three to four Pauli had gained a deeper understanding of himself and how the whole course of physics seemed to be guided by the “archetype of the quaternity.” He saw this course as leading to an extension of archetypes out of the collective unconscious into a new form of physics. This would surely be a major result of his joint work with Jung. He wrote to him:
In this way, the ancient alchemical idea that matter indicates a psychic state could, on a superior level, experience a new form of realization. I have the impression that this is what my physical dream symbolism is aiming at.
PAULI had definite ideas on how an appropriate form of mysticism would appear. He was adamant that “my real problem was and still is the relation between Mysticism and Science, what is different between them and what is in common. Both mystics and science have the same aim, to become aware of the unity of knowledge…. And who believes that our present form of science is the last word in this scale? Certainly not I.”
In the summer of 1957 Pauli described his attitude to mysticism in a letter to the Israeli physicist and historian of science, Shmuel Sambursky: “In opposition to the monotheist religions—but in unison with the mysticism of all peoples, including Jewish mysticism—I believe that the ultimate reality is not personal. Thus is it also in the Vedantic philosophy, and so it is in Chinese Taoism, the Nirvana of Buddhists…and the En-Sof of Jewish mysticism. It is the task of mankind, through personal association not to implement these forms themselves (Yoga-teaching)…. In this sense only is Yahweh for me a local demon who displays his efficacy primarily in Israel. How has he behaved with me? He was relatively mild, he only beat me gently on the left ear.” Why “left”? Perhaps Pauli was thinking of his unconscious. Or perhaps he meant that God gently chided him for suggesting the existence of the neutrino, the weak particle that ended up causing a revolution in physics because it spins only to the left.
As for von Franz, in 1955 Pauli was writing to her using the familiar “Du.” But two years later their exchanges abruptly ended. Perhaps Pauli felt he opened up too much to her. As he once wrote to her, when it comes to feelings “there I am no celebrity, but underdeveloped, even infantile.” Von Franz claimed that he had become unpleasant and wanted her to analyze his dreams for free. She was bitter about this and, in turn, became critical of him.
According to Carl A. Meier, who knew both of them, “she totally misunderstood Pauli, failing to appreciate his efforts to conduct an analytic dialogue with her and that their relationship was tragic.”
A supreme example of synchronicity: The Pauli effects pile up
On May 26, 1955, Pauli was due to give a lecture on Einstein at the Zürich Physical Society, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of the special theory of relativity. Before the lecture, three of his friends and colleagues met up for a teetotal dinner. Then they all set off for the meeting.
David Speiser, a young Swiss physicist, was on his Lambretta. He discovered he was low on gas and went to a gas station. Then his scooter suddenly caught fire. He threw a jug of water over the flames and extinguished them but the scooter was totaled and he had to walk. Another young Swiss physicist, Arman Thellung, discovered his bicycle had two flat tires so he also had to walk. Ralph Kronig, the original discoverer of electron spin, took the tram. It was a journey he had made many times in the past but for some reason he failed to notice the Gloriastrasse stop and forgot to get out. He only realized several stops later. It was a magnificent example of a multiple Pauli effect. Fortunately they all arrived on time for Pauli’s talk and Pauli himself was most amused to hear about their mishaps. As Thellung recalled, “a defining feature of the Pauli effect was that Pauli himself