137 - Arthur I. Miller [2]
Unless indicated otherwise, all translations are mine.
My primary interest has always been in studying the creative process. The interaction between Jung and Pauli is a powerful example. To unravel the equations of the soul, they embarked on a path that led them deep into the psychology of the unconscious, which Jung called the “darkest hunting ground of our times.” To tell their story I have spun a scenario based on available information. In this way I hoped to look into their minds and understand better who these men really were.
Chapters 8 and 9 explore Jung’s analysis of Pauli’s dreams. We cannot know exactly what transpired between them in the privacy of Jung’s study. I have inferred the scenario in these chapters on the basis of the in-depth descriptions Jung made soon afterward and Pauli’s biographical details.
For all this I bear full responsibility. Any errors that remain are my own.
Many thanks to those who provided me with photographs and who helped me locate them as well as their copyright owners. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders; if any have been missed, I would appreciate them contacting me.
My wife, Lesley, as always full of good cheer and love, provided me with peace of mind and indispensable encouragement. She is also a fount of invaluable advice on how to turn out a readable book. I am indebted to her for all this and for much else. This book is dedicated to her.
Arthur I. Miller
London, 2008
www.arthurimiller.com
The no-man’s land between Physics and the Psychology of the Unconscious [is] the most fascinating yet the darkest hunting ground of our times. —CARL JUNG
What is decisive for me is that I dream about physics as Mr. Jung (and other non-physicists) think about physics. Every time I have talked to Mr. Jung (about the “synchronistic” phenomenon and such), a certain spiritual fertilization takes place. —WOLFGANG PAULI
Prologue
IS THERE a number at the root of universe? Is there a primal number? Is there a number that everything in the universe hinges on, that explains everything? Many of the major discoveries in science have emerged out of mathematics—Einstein’s general theory of relativity, black holes, parallel universes, string theory, and complexity theory are only a few of many examples. All of these can be expressed in equations; yet they also depict concrete aspects of the physical universe.
Could there be a single number at the root of the universe which is, as Douglas Adams has it in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “the answer to life, the universe and everything?” Physicists, psychologists, and mystics have pondered this question. Some have proposed the number three—as in the Trinity and the three dimensions of length, breadth, and depth. Some have argued for four—after all, we have four seasons, four directions (north, south, east, and west), and four limbs. Some have been convinced that the answer might be the very weird number 137, which on the one hand very precisely describes the DNA of light and on the other is the sum of the Hebrew letters of the word “Kabbalah.” This is a matter that exercised many of the great minds of the twentieth century, among them the physicist Wolfgang Pauli and the psychoanalyst Carl Jung.
137 is the story of two mavericks—Pauli, the scientist who dabbled in the occult, and Jung, the psychologist who was sure that science held answers to some of the questions that tormented him. Both made enormous and lasting contributions to their fields. But in their many conversations they went much further, exploring the middle ground between their two fields and striking sparks off each other.
In 1931 Wolfgang Pauli was at the height of his scientific career. He had discovered the exclusion principle—known to this day as the Pauli exclusion principle—which explains why the structure of matter is as it is and why certain stars die as they do.
Just a year earlier, he had made the audacious suggestion that there might be an as yet undiscovered particle—an outrageous suggestion in those days. Besides the