It is not what we can do with numbers but what they do to our consciousness
The anthroposophist Ernst Bindel has likewise explored the meaning of natural numbers in connection with the musical scale, a field I do not intend to consider in this book because it would lead too far from my main argument.
Nonetheless his exposition should be mentioned here in passing.
The whole province of music and its relation to number seems to me to represent a feeling grasp of the same elements which I shall attempt to formulate consciously.
Leibniz once made the significant remark that music was a hidden practice of the soul, which does not know that it is dealing with numbers …. In a confused and unnoticed kind of perception the soul achieves that which, in the midst of clearer perceptions, it is not able to observe.
If therefore the soul does not notice that it calculates, it yet senses the effect of its unconscious reckoning, be this as joy over harmony or as oppression over discord.
Through the discovery of the unconscious it has now become possible to throw a clearer light on these hitherto vaguely surmised relationships.
If, following Jung’s suggestion, we admit that the unconscious participates in the formation of our representations of natural numbers, then all statements about them become recognizable as realizations of only partial aspects of the number archetype.
In order to grasp the meaning of these aspects more closely we must first return to simpler facts, namely, to the individual numbers themselves, and gather together the sum total of thought, both technical and mythological assertions, which they have called forth from humanity.
Numbers, furthermore, as archetypal structural constants of the collective unconscious, possess a dynamic, active aspect which is especially important to keep in mind.
It is not what we can do with numbers but what they do to our consciousness that is essential.
Because of this my subsequent remarks balance to some extent on the razor’s edge between philosophical— mathematical and numerical-symbolical statements.
But individual number, its unique and fundamental factual material, stands always at the center of my attention, because in the final analysis it has given rise to mankind’s most varied assertions. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Number and Time, Page 33-34
Carl Jung: To be fully Conscious is Possible
Dr. Jung: To be fully conscious is quite possible.
Mrs. Crowley: But what I do not understand is the idea of that complete self identity, identity just with yourself, because it seems to me that you are simply in another layer where you are completely surrounded by another stream-only on another level–so that you cannot but disidentify. You are still an instrument or part of the stream, you are still part of a vast layer of non-understanding.
Dr. Jung: Naturally. You must always be, otherwise you would be God himself. The point is that you should assimilate yourself and not project half of yourself into other people or institutions. Of course you are far from being perfect, or perfectly conscious. When you are integrated you are perhaps as unconscious as you ever were, only you no longer project yourself; that is the difference.
One should never think that man can reach perfection, he can only aim at completion–not to be perfect but to be complete. That would be the necessity and the indispensable condition if there were any question of perfection at all. For how can you perfect a thing if it is not complete? Make it complete first and see what it is then. But to make it complete is already a mountain of a task, and by the time you arrive at absolute completion, you find that you are already dead, so you never even reach that preliminary condition for perfection yourself.
Completion is not perfection: to make a building perfect one must first construct it, and a thing which is not even half finished cannot be perfected. First make it complete: then polish it up if you have time and breath left. But usually one’s whole life is eaten up on the effort at completion. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 589-590
