Suzanne Gieser: The Innermost Kernel Preface
Preface
To sum up, I should like to say that it seems that there must be very deep connections between soul and matter and, hence, between the physics and the psychology of the future, which are not yet conceptually expressed in
modern science. [–––]
Such deep connectionsmust surely exist, because otherwise the human mind would not be able to discover concepts which fit nature at all.
Pauli to Ralph König, 10Mar. 1946.
In the autumn of 1986 I readRobert S.Westman’s excellent essay Nature, Art, and Psyche: Jung, Pauli, and the Kepler-Fludd Polemic.1
In it, he expresses surprise at the failure of anyone to ask why the physicist Wolfgang Pauli wrote a science-history essay couched in Jungian language.
Why has nobody wondered what sort of terms Pauli was on with Jung?
Later in the essay, Westman says that at first sight Jung’s writings must appear enormously interesting and relevant to a historian of ideas and science.
I myself had been very interested in the new perspectives on man and on the nature of human knowledge that developed around the turn of the century and during the inter-war period.
Around this time, our view of man was changed by the emerging depth psychology and our view of the world by modern physics.
I found it particularly intriguing that there had been points of contact between these two disciplines.
Many of the physicists who are regarded as pioneers of modern physics also took an interest at that time in epistemology and psychology.
As I had had a particular interest in the psychology of C.G. Jung since 1981, Robert Westman’s remarks gave me both encouragement and inspiration.
Without more ado, I wrote to him asking whether he had any more information on the relationship between Pauli and Jung.
He quickly replied, referring me to Armin Hermann and thus to the publication, just about to take place, of Pauli’s collected scientific correspondence – and to the person chiefly responsible for it, Karl von Meyenn.
Meyenn was at this time at the University of Barcelona and immediately invited me to visit and study the material.
Without his help, support and encouragement, this work would never have
been possible.
So in the autumn of 1987 I sat in a Jesuit monastery on the outskirts of Barcelona, reading Pauli’s correspondence.
Most of it concerned physics, but there were letters here and there which dealt with Pauli’s philosophical interests.
I felt a thrill of excitement at these letters. In one of them, Pauli related that he had written on a certain subject to Jung.
My heart leapt: could there be a correspondence between Pauli and Jung?
I wrote to C.G. Jung’s estate and its then administrator, Dr Lorenz Jung, and in due course received the reply that such a correspondence had indeed been preserved and that it was filed in the archives of ETH (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in Zürich.
He gave me special permission to read these letters, which at the time were still medically confidential.
In the summer of 1988, with the aid of a grant from the John and Johanna H˚akansson Benevolent Fund, I was able to go to Zürich.Working among the ETH history of science collections at that time was Dr Beat Glaus.
I cannot find the superlatives to do justice to the friendliness, helpfulness and enthusiasm he showed on my numerous visits to the archive.
It was to no small extent due to his efforts that I was able to get in touch with Aniela Jaffé shortly before her death.
She had been Jung’s secretary for many years and – it turned out – had an extensive correspondence with Pauli.
It became apparent that Pauli’s correspondence on the subject of the psychology of C.G. Jung was very substantial.
Also filed at the ETH was a correspondence between Pauli and Jung’s colleague Marie-Louise von Franz, and at CERN in Geneva there were the letters exchanged between Pauli and his erstwhile assistant Markus Fierz, dealing largely with psychological and philosophical topics.
On my visits to the CERN archive I have always received guidance fromDr Roswitha Rahmy. She has also been of great assistance in my investigations in Pauli’s literary and scientific library, which is preserved in La Salle Pauli.
I also wish to thank Markus Fierz, Res Jost, Marie-Louise von Franz, C.A. Meier and Franz Jung for taking the time to answer my questions concerning the relationship between Pauli and Jung.
It was now understood that I was going to write about the relationship
between Pauli and Jung, with the letters as a starting point. But this was going to require me, as a confirmed humanist, to penetrate a little deeper into the world of physics.
I was still vacillating nervouslywhen Svante Lindqvist, at the Department ofHistory of Science and Technology at KTH(the Royal Institute of Technology) in Stockholm, started to urge me on.
His personality and his practical and moral support made the whole enterprise seem less daunting.
Since my arrival at the Department of History of Science in Uppsala I have
received support and encouragement from people too numerous all to be
mentioned here.
However I should like to give particularly heartfelt thanks to Professor Tore Frängsmyr, who shows real concern for his doctoral students and who has given me the benefit of his practical and factual knowledge throughout.
In addition I should like to thank everybody at the Center for History of Science at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, especially Christer Wijkström, who has always found the time to order books for me.
I am indebted to the Niels Bohr Archive in Copenhagen for obliging help in
connection with the correspondence of Niels Bohr.
I am grateful for valuable discussions withHans Primas and Ulrich Müller-Herold at ETH, Charles Enz at the University of Geneva and Lars Söderholm at KTH.
For help with the English translation I wish to thank Bernard Vowles.
For the practical production of this book I should like also to thank
the Hierta-Retzius Scholarship Fund and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg
Foundation.
The English translation has been producedwith the aid of grants fromthe Swedish Council for Research in theHumanities and Social Sciences
and the Anders Karitz Foundation.
Finally I should thank the most important person of all: my life companion
Lars-Göran Eriksson, whose patience and wide range of knowledge,
particularly concerning C.G. Jung, has made him an invaluable partner in
discussion.
Stockholm in March 2004 Suzanne Gieser ~Suzanne Gieser, The Innermost Kernel, Page vii-ix
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