TA ESUNCONSCIOUS IN’ ITS

EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2023 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation

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 Poles CeOLOGY
OF G.-Go JUNG

Volume I

THE UNCONSCIOUS: IN-ITS

EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

With Special Reference to the Association

Experiment of C. G. Jung

by G. Av MEIER

With 2 plates and 11 illustrations in the text

Translated by Eugene Rolfe

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SIGO PRESS
BOSTON
Copyright © 1984 by C. A. Meier
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof,
must not be reproduced in any form without permission.

SIGO PRESS
77 North Washington Street, 201
Boston, Massachusetts 02114

Publisher and General Editor: Sisa Sternback-Scott

Associate Editor: Becky Goodman

Translation originally funded by the Jung Foundation, New York.

Subsequent funding was provided by Sigo Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Meier, C. A. (Carl Alfred), 1903-

The unconscious in its empirical forms.

(The Psychology of C.G. Jung ; v. 1)

Translation of: Die Empirie des Unbewussten.
Bibliography: p. 215
Includes index.
I, Jung, CoG. (Cark Gustav), 1875-196). 2-Sub-
consciousness. 3. Association of ideas. 4. Association
tests. Iv Titles” Ils Seriests Meier. CA. (Carl Aliredy:
1903- . Lehrbuch der komplexen Psychologie
C:Ge Jungs, ~Enetish v1.
BF173.J85M43513 vol. 1 150.19’54 s [150.1954] 85-13996
ISBN 0-938434-10-1

Set in English Times.

Printed in the United States of America.
 TABLE OF-CONTENTS

Chapter I: CRITICAL HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION = 5

Chapter II: CREATIVE EFFECTS OF
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Chapter III: THE DISTURBING EFFECTS OF
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 FOREWORD

Only gods are born miraculously full-grown from trees, moun-

tains or the head of Zeus. Every science possesses its own phylogeny
and ontology, just as it possesses its own postulates and its own con-
clusions. We epigones are therefore only deceiving ourselves if we
disregard the position of a school or doctrine in the history of
thought or the personal history and development of its founder. If
we do so, our assimilation of our subject will remain, as it were, at
the epiphenomenal level.
Carl Gustav Jung was always aware of the need to take into ac-
count the historical background of psychology. On the other hand,
he never stressed the motivations that arise from an individual’s own
personal history. For him, such considerations were foo personal
and ephemeral—they were, in fact, not important. Yet for anyone
who is, as it were, not exactly born and bred in the same milieu, this
deficiency must inevitably exact its revenge. All too easily, it can give
rise to another illusion, which would have us believe that Jung’s
point of view is a relatively closed and completed structure, whose
origins are to be found in the prehistory of psychology at the turn
of the century and whose end coincided with the death of its
founder.
In contradistinction to this standpoint, we remain firmly con-
vinced that Jung is a figure who far transcends—and will always
transcend—both these particular boundaries. Physically, of course,
the beginnings of his career date back to his first scientific publica-
tions (i.e., to 1902); in the realm of ideas, on the other hand, we
must seek them among his personal forebears and intellectual
precursors, who, in turn, are also our own. The establishment of
contexts of this nature was one of Jung’s own principal concerns in
1X
x FOREWORD

the work of analytical education, since the survival of these

‘‘dominants,’’ as he called them, was never more clearly in evidence
than here. It was in this way that the collaboration between master
and pupil became a creative contribution toward the development
of personality and outgrew ‘‘analysis’’ in the strict sense of that
term, just as the ‘‘Zurich School’’ outgrew the ‘‘Vienna School.”’
It is true that the term ‘‘analytical psychology,’’ which was originally
chosen by Jung to distinguish his own therapeutic method from the
‘“psychoanalysis’’ of Sigmund Freud, still bears witness to the rela-
tionship between the two schools. Yet the term can really only be
justified if we reserve its use strictly to the therapeutic situation.
Many years ago, when I had the privilege of taking over the task
of lecturing on Jung’s psychology at the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology at Zurich, it was clear to me that I could not limit my
theme to the popularization of the problems of the analyst’s con-
sulting room. Jung himself, my predecessor, had lectured on
psychology in quite general terms—although he naturally did so
from his own specific viewpoint. It was therefore by no means
without hesitation that I took up the pupil’s time-honored task of
representing his teacher as faithfully as possible—although to some
extent my appointment could be justified on the grounds that I had
been Jung’s assistant and at times his deputy for many years. On
the occasion of the establishment of the Psychology Fund at the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Jung had outlined a
characteristic program for his own work as a lecturer there:
The treatment of psychology should in general be characterized by
the principle of universality. No special theory or special subject
should be propounded, but psychology should be taught in its
biological, ethnological, medical, philosophical, cultural-historical
and religious aspects.
The aim of this stipulation is to liberate our teaching about the
human soul from the narrowing effects of specialization, and to give
the student who is burdened by his specialist studies an overall
breadth of view and a summary grasp of the whole field which will
make it possible for him to achieve an orientation in spheres of life
for which his specialist training does not prepare him. It is the aim
of these lectures to offer the student, within the broad framework
of general psychology, an opportunity to acquire psychic cultivation.

At the same time, it struck me that the founder of our school, as

he poured forth the full tide of his wisdom and experience, was in-
clined to take too much for granted the context and development
of his own point of view, so that not infrequently the unprepared
FOREWORD xi

student was credited with a knowledge he did not possess. In any

case, I think I may say that my contacts with students in my own
lectures and seminars have taught me the kind of unspoken nuances
involved in any attempt which we may make to arrive at a real
understanding of the many subtle issues in modern psychology. As
an expression of my gratitude for the stimulation and the many fruit-
ful suggestions which I have received, I should like to dedicate this
volume to the Extramural Department and the students of the Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology.
Perhaps the subsequent volumes of this ‘‘textbook’’ will also
make it clear why I prefer to use ‘‘complex psychology’ as the title
of my subject. It is true that this term has at times been opposed,
among “‘Jungians’’ of all people, on the grounds that it is difficult
to translate. Yet German is, after all, a civilized language, and
anyone who doubts the truth of this statement might do worse than
consult the collected edition of Jung’s own works in the original.
“Analytical psychology”’ is in any case an inadequate and superficial
description of our science, particularly as contrasted with
psychoanalysis, even if the emphasis is transferred in this way from
“‘analysis’’ to “‘psychology.’’ Complex psychology (a term we owe
to a suggestion made by the late Toni Wolff") is far less restricted
by the pathological associations of the analyst’s consulting room.
It stresses the point that the major concern of our discipline is with
the complex, rather than the elementary, human phenomena in the
world, and this brings us back once again to the historical
antecedents of psychology. 2
Since in any discussion of a problem Jung’s psychology always
takes into account the unconscious, there is a certain analogy be-
tween this method and problems connected with complex numbers
in mathematics. These are numbers composed as a result of addi-
tions between real and imaginary quantities. In terms of psychology,
the real quantities would be conscious, and the imaginary com-
ponents of the psyche unconscious. In this sense, it can be said that
psychology is exclusively concerned with complex psychic
phenomena. Jung, it is true, did on two occasions concern himself
exclusively with psychological questions which were at least relatively
simple: (1) his research into the nature of complexes (not to be con-
fused with the sense of the word complex in complex psychology)
and (2) in typology, the functions of orientation of the conscious
mind.
Yet here again, we immediately notice how he goes on to consider
the more comprehensive and complex functions, as for instance in
xii FOREWORD

his general theory of complexes, with its applications in

psychotherapy, parapsychology, folklore and mythology, and in the
examples he gives of the impact of typological phenomena and
differences on the history of civilization, e.g., in the medieval con-
troversy about universals and in religion and mysticism.” Thus com-
plex psychology embraces both the simpler psychic phenomena
whose roots, as Freud has shown, are to be found immediately in
the instincts, and also those other, less obvious phenomena to which
we can only attribute a mental origin. When the Codex Jung was
presented to him, the founder of this ‘‘complex psychology”’ con-
fessed his faith in the following terms:
If we really wish to arrive at a psychological understanding of
modern man, then we must have a knowledge of the history of his
mind. We cannot reduce him simply to biological phenomena, since
he is not in fact a purely biological or ‘‘natural’’ creature. He is also
a product of his mental antecedents.

One of the onerous tasks which this textbook sets out to perform
is to provide a conscientious account of the empirical elements in
Jung’s psychology in terms of their historical origins. That is why
I quote only first editions in the Bibliography. My aim is to make
it possible for every reader to follow the original course of develop-
ment. At the same time, this method places Jung’s ideas in the con-
text from which they are actually derived and to which they logically
belong—a process that should supply us with the perspective we need
if we are to understand their true significance.
It is also my intention to try to leave open those questions which
are still in fact really open and not to give the impression that Jung’s
psychology is some kind of ‘‘doctrine.’’ Even in his most detailed,
strictly scientific work, Jung’s ideas still retain their stimulating
quality and in most cases their productiveness has by no means been
exhausted. The complexity of psychological phenomena is in fact
unlimited, and it is precisely here that Jung’s completely open ap-
proach has proved its value as an aid in the most various disciplines;
at the same time, it lays no claim to final completeness. Its frontiers
are as complicated as those of Switzerland itself, and it touches many
different spheres of culture.
We need only call to mind the fact that for no fewer than three
members of the academic staff of the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology Jung’s knowledge has been fruitful in their completely
different fields. I am referring to Wolfgang Pauli (in theoretical
physics), Eugen Boehler (in political economy) and Karl Schmid (in
FOREWORD Xill

Germanic studies). Jung also made a significant contribution to

sinology (through Richard Wilhelm), to Indian studies (through
Heinrich Zimmer), to mythology (through Karl Kerényi) and to
Iranian mysticism (through Henry Corbin). This many-sided pro-
ductiveness is probably the most graphic justification we could find
for our use of the term complex psychology.
When I said that Jung’s psychology was not a closed system or
doctrine of any kind, I was implicitly admitting that an account of
it in textbook form is in the nature of things a hopeless undertak-
ing. Yet experience has shown that there is in fact a need for sum-
mary treatments of this kind, and there are people who actually wish
to learn Jung’s psychology. However, in contrast to previous at-
tempts at a systematic account—beginning with Joan Corrie’s ABC
of Jung’s Psychology’ and continuing with subsequent essays of this
type—we shall do our best to avoid giving the impression that such
an open “‘system’’ as this could be completely covered by any ‘‘ac-
count.’’ If we succeed in discussing only a few of the many issues
which are still quite undecided, the aim of this textbook will have
been amply fulfilled.
Jung himself never produced a systematic treatment of his own
work. He possessed, it is true, neither the aptitude nor the inclina-
tion for such a task. Yet there is, I believe, amore important reason.
He knew that such a treatment could never do justice to the essen-
tial nature of his discoveries. The only two systematic works he pro-
duced (Psychological Types in 1921* and ‘‘On Psychic Energy’’ in
1928°) were never taken up by him again or continued in any way,
although they both contain insights which are extremely useful, par-
ticularly from the point of view of psychological practice.
I hope that the readers of this textbook will accept this attempt
at a treatment which is far from systematic and will bear with me
if in places I am obliged to say things or to introduce concepts which
will only become clearer subsequently, in another context. The same
applies logically to occasional unavoidable repetitions. I shall do my
best not only to state clearly whatever is empirically well-founded,
but also to give appropriate emphasis to the problems still outstand-
ing. That many things, in fact too many things, will be omitted in
the process is inevitable, although the reasons for this will necessarily
be in part subjective. In particular, I refrain from giving any account
of the therapeutic side of Jung’s psychology, since this can only be
learned or rather experienced in the practical work of a personal
analysis. I should also like to make clear that the clinical material
I cite is derived from exceptional cases. In practice, ‘‘miraculous
XIV FOREWORD

cures’”’ of this kind are as rare in psychology as they are at Lourdes.

As we know, Jung experienced only too fully the truth expressed
by Wieland in the lines
He that has dared to break new ground
A nest of scholarly wasps has found.

I refrain in this book from entering into polemics. This is not

because we cannot learn from them, but because they can only
become profitable if the individual, true to the spirit of analysis,
tackles the task of coming to terms with this own wasps’ nest in a
calm and dispassionate manner. I sincerely hope that the present
volume will provide him with abundant opportunities for this
experience.
It only remains for me to thank the late Professor Arthur Rohn,
former Chairman of the Swiss Educational Council, for inviting me
to deliver lectures on Jung’s psychology at the Swiss Federal In-
stitute. Without the lessons which I myself learned as a direct result
of this opportunity, the present volume could never have been writ-
ten. I should also like to express my appreciation to all those students
who attended my lectures or took part in my seminars for their many
stimulating comments and suggestions. A quite special word of
thanks is due to the late Chairman, Professor Hans Pallmann, for
his unfailing interest and encouragement. It was owing to his good
offices in the first place that I received grants from the Dr. Donald
C. Cooper Fund and the Esther T. Taylor Legacy to the Swiss
Federal Institute. As a result I was able to leave my psychological
practice for a time and devote myself to the task of writing. A final
expression of gratitude is due to my friend, the late Wolfgang Pauli.
My discussions on physics and Jungian psychology with him ranged
over a period of a quarter of a century, and I had the privilege of
his invaluable criticism and stimulation.
 INTRODUCTION

It is the best of news that, with this volume, the English-speaking

world will at last be introduced to Dr. C. A. Meier’s unique work
on C. G. Jung. Dr. Meier has long been known for his book on in-
cubation and healing in ancient Greece, as well as for the published
accounts of the many lectures he has given in America on Jungian
psychology and religion. In a world hungry for a more comprehen-
sive approach to healing, it is strange that after the impact of his
work on incubation the translation of his four volumes on Jung,
long available in German, was not immediately undertaken, since
they render psychology a service which no others have done. This
could easily sound like an exaggeration: there has been no shortage
of books on Jung and his psychology.
These books have ranged from the eminently valuable and dis-
tinguished, each throwing a light on some significant aspect of the
life and work of one of the greatest liberators of the human spirit,
right down to the slanted, the trivial, and the unashamedly false and
destructive. Even the best of these have tended to deal with some
particular part of Jung’s work; none have yet adequately encom-
passed its totality. Despite the numerous books already published
on Jung, the signs are that we are only at the beginning of what
promises to be a flood.
As is their nature, human beings might gather after this flood of
books like some Tower of Babel, and become so smitten by the con-
fusion of tongues that they would lose the unity and meaning of
what Jung achieved against incredible odds of the mind, the spirit,
the scientific and religious establishments, and the trends of the day.
What seemed lacking and urgently needed to prevent this confusion
was something much more comprehensive and far-sighted than what

]
2 INTRODUCTION

had been written. It seemed to people like myself a danger from

which the study of Jungian psychology could be delivered only by
an almost inspired textbook. One which, in the full classical sense
of the term, would describe, explain, evaluate, interpret and verify
incontrovertibly, the immense totality that is Jung, and the psy-
chology associated with his name. Without such a work the student
seeking after knowledge of Jung could, one fears, stray like a sailor
without a compass on the as yet inadequately charted sea of the col-
lective unconscious.
The trouble always was, of course, that a work of that kind re-
quired someone of unusual gifts and stature. For one thing, Jung
travelled fast and travelled far beyond the horizons of his and even
our own day. He himself always claimed that he was an introverted,
intuitive type, using the terms which are such significant signposts
in his far-reaching book on the functions of the human mind and
spirit. Introverted he was, certainly, but I always thought that he
should have put intuition first as his own superior function, followed
by thinking. His whole life proved for me that only a person of the
most inspired and steadfast intuition could have enabled him to go
the unknown and fashionably discredited way he did, against all the
powerful vested interests of the mind and spirit of the modern world.
Indeed he pressed on with such courage and speed in the manner true
intuitives do, that his tendency was to linger with one visionary leap
forward into the dark only long enough to establish it empirically,
pack up as fast as possible, and then press on with the next intuitive
vision. The danger for all intuitives, I imagine, is always that the
blessing of having intuitions is almost enough, and leaves them in-
clined to neglect the dreary work, the exacting detail and long, hard
confrontation with the relevant facts necessary for establishing their
perception in the heart and dust of the imperative here and now.
It is to Jung’s everlasting credit that he had the scientific and
moral discipline to pay in full his empiric dues to his intuitions.
Nonetheless the various stages of his own swift progression into the
unknown remain in need of enlargement. I mention this aspect of
the nature of Jung’s achievement because it has a bearing on the
qualifications which were essential for the sort of comprehensive
work needed on Jung and which, happily, Dr. Meier brings to the
writing of these volumes. Obviously someone who could write with
authority on the totality of Jung the man and his exploration would
need some of his pioneering passion and share his abundant and
many-sided interests. It would not have been enough, for instance,
to have been the devoted student, who, after sitting at Jung’s feet
INTRODUCTION 3

and acquiring all the academic background which such an experience

demanded, then went on merely to repeat what he had acquired in
book form. Dr. Meier, of course, possesses all the elementary
qualifications. He knew, studied and trained with Jung and found
the whole experience so tailor-made to his own seeking and the
demands of his nature that he went on to work closely with Jung.
For a generation or more, he was, as it were, in a kind of psy-
chological partnership with Jung. Besides being one of Jung’s closest
collaborators, he was designated to found the C. G. Jung Institute
in Zurich. Once that was firmly established, he went on to take C. G.
Jung’s old chair of psychology at the E. T. H. in Zurich, so that in
general, and then more and more in his own independent and
individual way, he made a highly significant contribution to the
evolution of analytical psychology. When Jung died, Dr. Meier
established his own clinic in Zurich for broadening and deepening
scientifically the fundamentals of Jung’s work. At this clinic for
many years now, for instance, he has been conducting an intensive
investigation into the nature of sleep and dreams and carried on into
new dimensions the uses of Jung’s association method. Engaged in
such active continuation and not just the teaching of Jung’s findings,
his appraisal of the vast field of Jungian psychology is unshackled
from the past, dynamic and forward-moving, with the sense of the
future that was implicit in all Jung accomplished, with the con-
sciousness more and more acute, as he grew older, of how much
more still remained to be done. Undaunted, Dr. Meier has also
maintained his own work as a psychiatrist. He continues to promote
understanding of ourselves as one of the most urgent tasks of the
day, knowing that only an increase of individual awareness could
prevent the grim neglected and unrecognized forces, building up in
the collective unconscious of an entire world from overwhelming
humankind as it nearly overwhelmed and destroyed us in the great
totalitarian tyrannies of a generation ago. And the battle, now more
insidious and tenacious, is far from over yet. As a result, Dr. Meier
brings to his view of analytical psychology much urgency and im-
mediacy, as well as an unusually wide grasp of the history of heal-
ing and its religious and philosophic implications, starting from far
back in the Greece of Epidauras and Eleusis, and reaching from
thereon through this desperate day forward to the new frontiers of
the natural sciences.
He can claim indeed to stand on the furthest frontier where the
depth psychiatrist and the physicist can recognize each other at last,
not as embittered antagonists but as long-lost partners who must
4 INTRODUCTION

take each other by the hand before they can continue, whole, the
work that has been only half-done until now. Jung’s breakthrough
into the collective unconscious of man and its revelation of the meta-
phoric power latent in the individual there, matches the break-
through into the nuclear heart of the atom, so that on this far
perimeter of human awareness they appear strangely undivided, as
if the one were but life and creation from within as the other is seeing
it from without. It is not for nothing, therefore, that the concluding
volume of this series should be dedicated to Wolfgang Pauli, the
great Swiss physicist and Nobel prize winner.
Though initially qualified as a doctor, surgeon, and research
biologist, Dr. Meier came to psychology unusually well-protected
against the dangers of becoming a prisoner of the orthodox medical
and psychiatric specialists of the day. Educated both in Switzerland
and France, his imagination always has been unusually open and
alive to all the rainbow diversity and abundant potential of the Euro-
pean culture he inherited. History for him lives in the present. He
is the only person I know who travels in Greece with a classic
Baedeker compiled in Greek before the birth of Christ. He has a pro-
found gift for and love of music, of literature, of art, and overall
an abiding sense of the pattern of metamorphosis and the
pentecostal nature of his calling, knowing that analytical psychology
has meaning and succeeds only in the service of a transcendent
religious design in the life of man and the universe. With it all, Dr.
Meier has a gift of expressing the most complex concepts and issues
simply, instead of making the simple and obvious complex and ob-
scure aS SOmany writers on scientific subjects have the unhappy hab-
bit of doing. Even a lay person like myself finds him always easy
to follow and a delight to read. I am convinced that these books of
his will not only enrich the natural scientist but act as an unfailing
guide to the increasing hordes of lost people in search of a soul, in
a world that has forfeited its meaning.
This, then, in English at last, is the first of four books without
which no school, university, seminary or public library conscious
of their duty, can do without.
Sir Laurens van der Post
London
July, 1984
 CHAPTER«]

CREICA HISTORICAL

INTRODUCTION

Cobbler, stick to your last!!

Scarcely more than sixty years have passed since Freud began his
great pioneer work.’ He was the first to draw our attention to those
psychic phenomena whose occurrence can only be explained on the
hypothesis of the existence of an unconscious psyche. He arrived at
his point of view as a result of his experience as a doctor with men-
tally sick patients, and for this reason the phenomena he observed
were mainly of the nature of psychic disturbances, i.e., they related
to undesirable and usually most unpleasant effects of the un-
conscious. When it became clear to what a tremendous extent the
psychic life of everyone, including the normal, was affected by
mechanisms of this kind, a storm of indignation arose. It is in fact
remarkable how soon this storm subsided, and indeed to what a
degree the public today has actually assimilated Freud’s concepts
(although not necessarily his point of view). His concepts have not
only found acceptance among the general public; there is no doubt
that they now dominate the broad field of academic and applied
psychology, especially in the United States. The reason for this
dominance is alleged to be the scientific clarity and precision with
which Freud’s teachings were formulated, the result being, it is
claimed, that they can actually be taught and learned.
Yet here psychologists would do well to remind themselves of the
well-known saying of Niels Bohr, the physicist, to the effect that

5
6 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

there is an inverse relationship between the clarity and the truth of

a concept. Yet is it not possible that Freud’s concepts are by no
means so clearly defined? If, as is said, their applicability is univer-
sal, is it not likely that they are often simply applied in the wrong
way? I should prefer, in the present context, not to pursue this ques-
tion; instead, I should simply like to make the point that it is, in prin-
ciple, perfectly possible to consider the unconscious from a point
of view quite distinct from that of the analyst’s consulting room.
In that case, the unconscious may also be credited with more grati-
fying effects, and this should make it easier for us, not merely to
accept its evidence, but actually to acknowledge it with gratitude.
It is the aim of this volume to demonstrate the part played by the
unconscious in the genesis of human utterances and actions of every
conceivable kind. In particular, the point of view of the Complex
Psychology of C.G. Jung will be shown to be relevant in this con-
text. Actually, it was the introduction of the concept of the un-
conscious which first enabled psychology to do justice to the true
motives and dynamism of human life and action, so that our whole
contemporary picture of man can no longer be conceived without
the unconscious dimension.
If our theme in what follows is to be the manifestations of this
‘‘unconscious,’’ I must make it clear at the outset that our treatment
of it will be subject to two qualifications.
In the first place, there is absolutely no human activity in which
the unconscious does not play some part. This means that we shall
have to be selective and to concentrate on phenomena in which these
effects can be clearly demonstrated and which positively demand the
hypothesis of the unconscious if they are to be understood at all.
So we shall have to restrict our scope and abandon any claim to
complete comprehensiveness, if only for this reason.
In the second place, we shall have to refrain from offering a
definition of the unconscious, however appropriate this might ap-
pear to be at the beginning of our inquiry. Such an omission is in
fact desirable both on educational and scientific grounds. Before we
decide any theoretical questions about the unconscious, we need to
establish and investigate its phenomenology. For this purpose, we
shall adopt a skeptical and empirical standpoint, and I should like
these terms to be understood in the sense given them by the later
Greek sophists.
Let us recall, for example, the philosophical doctor Sextus Em-
piricus (c. 200 a.D.), who taught in Alexandria and at Athens. The
Greek empeiria (uretotx) means experience and is the exact
equivalent of the Latin experientia. The attitude adopted by Sextus
CRITICAL HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION il

Empiricus is skeptical and antirationalistic. He divides philosophers

into three classes: the Dogmatists, who assert that they know the
truth; the Academics, who affirm that the truth is absolutely
unknowable; and the skeptics (his own school), who are undecid-
ed about the essential nature of things. For the sake of ataraxia, or
tranquillity of mind, they prefer to suspend judgment about the real
nature of things, since they are seriously persuaded of the inherent
uncertainty of our knowledge. They call this suspension, in which
they take great pride, éxoyy (epoché), and they justify it on the
grounds that, in their view, our logical reasoning is invariably cir-
cular. They use the following syllogism, based on Aristotle, to il-
lustrate this argument?:
Men, horses and mules are long-lived.
Men, horses and mules have no gall-bladder.
Therefore all animals that have no gall-bladder
are long-lived.*

Of course, this example is not a logical proof at all, but an easily

recognizable petitio principii. Sextus Empiricus makes this the oc-
casion for a criticism of a// Aristotelian syllogisms, on the grounds
that the major premise, on which the conclusion is based, always
implies the truth of the latter. He therefore gives living experience
(éunetp{x) a decisive preference over logic. Doctors—especially when
they have had a philosophical training—would be bound, no doubt,
to concede without grudging that in medicine experience is more
valuable and important than logic. In any case, it was medical ex-
perience that led to the discovery of the phenomenology of the un-
conscious, and if scientists such as Freud and Jung had had a purely
rationalistic outlook, we should probably still be unconscious of the
unconscious today. In the case of the two great pioneers of the
unconscious, however, the abandonment of pure rationalism de-
manded an unusually high degree of that moral courage which is an
essential qualification of every responsible scientist. Their first
discoveries consisted of nothing but the uncomfortable, objec-
tionable and forbidden aspects of the psyche—in a word, all those
things that are happily forgotten and repressed, and that have fallen
a victim to the good intentions of our educational system. Freud’s
discoveries in particular were painful in the way Wilhelm Busch had
in mind when he wrote:
When with grass an ancient wound
Is covered in the plain,
Sure as fate a camel comes
And gnaws it bare again.
8 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

Jung understood the unconscious in a much wider sense than

Freud. The unconscious is not simply the threshold and matrix of
the conscious mind; it remains essentially unfathomable, like the
soul itself. “You will never discover the frontiers of the psyche, not
even if you wander through all the ways in the world; so deep is its
meaning.’’’ Once, in a discussion, Jung made a bon mot in this con-
nection; he said, ‘‘The exciting thing about the unconscious is
precisely the fact that it really is unconscious!’’ So he too understood
‘the unconscious’’ not in terms of a definition, but negatively, as
that which is not conscious. In the first place, then, it is a ‘‘limitative
conception’”’ in the sense in which Kant® employs that term, and
‘‘only of negative use.’’
Clearly, Kant’s definition of the borderline concept agrees quite
well with Jung’s pithy saying quoted above. He calls it, ‘“A concep-
tion... connected with the limitation of sensibility, without,
however, being capable of presenting us with any positive datum
beyond this sphere.’’’ This ‘‘positive datum”’ is something transcen-
dental, namely the ‘‘noumenon’’ or ‘‘thing-in-itself.’’
Such questions, however, belong to the realm of the philosophers.
We doctors, as I have said, must remain content with experience.
Yet we too cannot experience the unconscious as such. This would
involve a contradiction in terms. We can only experience its effects.
We shall have to confine ourselves, therefore, to a discussion of cer-
tain examples of such effects, which cannot be explained on the basis
of the conscious mind alone, but which simply ‘‘happen’’ to us, as
it were.
It is characteristic of the general attitude of humankind that these
phenomena first became the subject of scientific interest in their
negative form, i.e., as disturbances of the normal functioning of the
psyche. Once again, it was the doctors, and in particular the
psychiatrists, who first observed them. Psychotic disturbances are
essentially bizarre exaggerations or lapses which occur in the daily
life of normal people. That common sense shares this point of view
was made clear to me by the following incident. I once had to show
a Zurich magistrate, who had originally been a master locksmith,
around the psychiatric clinic at the University,* and in so doing, I
made a point of demonstrating to him some of the most serious
cases. At the end of the visit, I asked him about his impressions. He
replied promptly, ‘‘That is a concentrated collection of Zurich
oddities!’’°
 CHAPTER II

CREATIV EVEFFECTS ‘OF THE

UNCONSCIOUS

I begin my account of the empirical basis of a psychology of the

unconscious by citing some more agreeable examples, which show
quite clearly that this unconscious of ours can also produce positive
achievements—i.e., that it can also function in an entirely normal
manner. I have selected the phenomenon of ‘‘bright ideas’’ to il-
lustrate this point.

“Bright Ideas’”’
When we are dealing with pictorial expressions, it is always in-
teresting from a psychological point of view to investigate the mean-
ing of the word concerned. The German word Einfall, or bright
idea, means literally infall and presumably refers to something which
falls into us from above, in the form of a finished product or even
of a foreign body. It is a kind of procreation or conception (e.g.,
the ‘‘conception’’ of ideas), and it therefore stands in a certain rela-
tionship of antithesis-cum-identity with the mythological motif of
“‘birth from the head’’ (e.g., Zeus and Pallas Athene). The fact that
it ‘‘falls’? upon us from above contains a reference to its suspected
origin in an unconscious regarded as existing at a higher level. This
should warn us against the use of such a derogatory expression as
‘‘the subconscious.”’
I interpret the expression ‘‘bright idea’’ very widely, that is to say
as a very frequent phenomenon—and it is an interesting fact that

3)
10 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

in contrast to the disturbances which we noted above, it is precisely

the absence of bright ideas which strikes us as unpleasant. As a func-
tion, bright ideas are operative, for example, when a speech ‘‘flows’’
instead of going stickily; here again, the metaphor gives us to under-
stand that we have to assume the existence of a spring that bubbles
up of its own accord—and this, of course, is the unconscious.
Thus our ordinary use of language shows us that a vis a tergo of
this kind is naively assumed as something given. When things are
going well, its functioning is quite undramatic and we do not notice
it at all. If, however, we happen to have ‘‘a good idea,’’ we do not
want to hear any more about the autonomous working of this func-
tion; in that case, we call it a ‘‘thought,’’ and we flatter ourselves
that we ourselves have produced it. And yet, from the point of view
of psychological hygiene such an attitude has little to recommend
it. It may amount to hubris, and in that case it conceals within itself
the danger of a psychological inflation, in the sense in which Jung
employs that term. !
As a perfect example of the opposite of this condition, I should
like to cite the case of the orator Aelius Aristides of Smyrna, who
lived from 129 to 189 a.p. He belonged to the so-called ‘‘Second
Sophistic’’ school of Greek philosophers and was a pious adherent
of a pantheistic form of syncretism. True to this creed, he thanked
the gods for all the creative ideas in his speeches and paeans, with
which he had achieved triumphant successes throughout the ancient
world; by so doing, he protected himself against the danger of suc-
cumbing to megalomania.’ An attitude of this kind had in fact been
traditional since the earliest days of Greek poetry. The poet would
invoke the muse for inspiration; and he would also thank her. I need
only recall the poet’s invocation of the Muse in the opening lines of
the Odyssey: ‘‘Tell me, O Muse, the tale of the man of many
wanderings. .....°°
The polar opposite to this attitude is to be found in the rationalism
of a much later period—for example, in the French rationalism
which coined the phrase ‘‘J’ai fait un réve’’ (‘‘I have made a
dream’’), where the ego actually claims to be the author of the
dream, although there is not the slightest doubt that in fact the
dream provides us with a classic example of a spontaneous product
of the unconscious. The same attitude is expressed by the proverb
‘‘Tout songe tout mensonge’”’ (‘‘All dreams are lies’’), although in
this case dubious mendacious tendencies are ascribed to the same
ego.
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 11

The Role of Bright Ideas in Artistic Creation

Some bright ideas can only be described as creative. They are
unusually vivid and compelling; in fact, they may make us practi-
cally drunken or possessed. In what follows, I should like to describe
a number of such cases, which are derived from the lives of excep-
tionally creative people.‘ These can perfectly well be allowed to
speak for themselves, and all I shall attempt in the commentaries
that accompany them is to discuss certain details typical of the rela-
tionship of the subject with his unconscious and of his productive
intercourse with it.
1. Mozart (in a letter which was lost until 1931):°

This kindles heat in my soul—that is, if I am not disturbed—; and

it gets bigger and bigger, and I spread it out and make it wider and
brighter; and the whole thing is almost finished in my head, even if
it is a long piece, so that afterwards I can see it in my mind at a single
glance, as if it were a beautiful picture or an attractive person, and
similarly, when I rehearse it over in my imagination, I do this not at
all in sequence, as it will have to be produced later, but I hear it al
together, at the same moment. That is a feast, if you like! The whole
process of finding and making the music only takes place in me as
it were in a Jovely, vivid dream; but the best part about it is hearing
everything all together like that! (K) [Author’s italics]

As we see, a musical work of art constitutes a whole, which may

therefore quite appropriately be anthropomorphized (‘‘an attractive
person’’); at the same time, the musical ‘‘sequence’’ is fused into
an ‘‘all-together’’—i.e., the time factor is practically nullified. This
feature is really a characteristic of unconscious processes in general,
and it gives rise to a problem with which we shall have to concern
ourselves more than once later on. The expression ‘‘lovely, vivid
dream’’ might actually be recommended as an extremely apt
technical term for conditions of this kind; not only does it testify
to their unconscious nature, but it also helps us to realize that the
content which is ‘‘rehearsed over’’ actually appears in the form of
a finished product, with which Mozart is confronted as a subject
meets an object. This explains the feeling which we have in such
cases that ‘‘something is thinking inside us,’’ or that ‘‘we are being
thought’’ and nof¢ that we ourselves are making these products.
2. Goethe:
(a) Tame Epigrams, Il (circa 1820):
12 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

All our most honest and sincere endeavours

Only succeed in the unconscious moment.
How dearly would the rose adore to blossom
Could she but see the sun in all his splendour!
(K)°

(b) Tame Epigrams, VIII (circa 1823)

The philosopher whose views I like to share’
Teaches—unlike most, if not all, the rest—
That we unconsciously produce our best.
I think so too—and live without a care.
(K)’

(c) Eckerman, ‘‘Conversations with Goethe,’’ 11th March

1828:
ce
‘“‘No productiveness of the highest kind,’’ said Goethe, ‘‘no
remarkable discovery, no great thought that bears fruit and has
results, is in the power of anyone; such things are above earthly con-
trol. Man must consider them as an unexpected gift from above, as
pure children of God which he must receive and venerate with joyful
thanks. They are akin to the daemon, which does with him what it
pleases, and to which he unconsciously resigns himself whilst he
believes he is acting from his own impulse. In such cases, man may
often be considered an instrument in a higher government of the
world—a vessel worthy to contain a divine influence. I say this when
I consider how often a single thought has given a different form to
whole centuries, and how individual men have imprinted a stamp
upon their age which has remained uneffaced and operated
beneficially for generations.’’ (K)°

Some observations which throw a great deal of light on our sub-

ject are to be found in the correspondence between Goethe and
Schiller. I have selected only the following representative example:
3. Schiller to Goethe (27th March 1801):
Only a few days ago I attacked Schelling about an assertion he makes
in his Transcendental Philosophy, that, ‘‘in Nature one starts from
the Unconscious in order to raise it to the Conscious; whereas, in
Art, one proceeds from the Conscious to the Unconscious.’’ Here,
it is true, he speaks only of the contrast between the product of
Nature and that of Art; in so far he is quite right. I fear, however,
that idealists, such as he is, take too little notice of experience, and
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 13

in experience the poet too only starts with the Unconscious; nay, he
may consider himself fortunate if, by being most clearly conscious
of his operations, he gets to that point where he meets again in the
work he has completed, with the first, obscure total-idea of his work,
and finds it unweakened. There can be no poetic work without an
obscure, but mighty total-idea of this kind, which precedes all
technical work; and poetry seems to me, in fact, to consist in being
able to express and communicate that Unconscious state—in other
words, to transfer it to some object. (K)'°

In his reply to Schiller (4th April 1801), Goethe writes:

With regard to the questions contained in your last letter, I not on-
ly agree with your opinion, but go even further. I think that
everything that is done by genius as genius, is done unconsciously.
A person of genius can also act rationally, with reflection, from con-
viction, but this is all done as it were indirectly. No work of genius
can be improved, or be freed from its faults by reflection and its im-
mediate results, but genius can by means of reflection and action be
gradually raised, in so far as in the end to produce exemplary works.
The more genius a century possesses the more are individual things
furthered. (K)'' [Author’s italics]

Clearly Schiller’s ‘‘obscure but mighty total idea’’ represents an

experience which is extremely reminiscent of the statement by
Mozart that we quoted above. But it also directs our attention to
what is probably the crucial problem in all creative achievement—the
question, that is, as to how what has been envisaged and conceiv-
ed within the human mind can be delivered into the outside world
without damage at birth, or as Schiller puts it, how the idea can be
‘transferred to an object.’’ The extent to which Goethe’s ‘‘genius
of the century’’ can be compared with Jung’s collective unconscious
is a matter which must be left to a later stage in our inquiry. The
religious ardor with which the Romantics gave themselves up to the
unconscious is of course proverbial. However, in view of the fact
that a great deal of material has already been collected on this
topic,'? I shall confine my attention to two examples which seem to
me to be particularly noteworthy. ;
4. Jean Paul (1763-1825), in ‘‘Vorschule der Asthetik’’ (Introduc-
tion to Aesthetics) Abt. I, § 13:
Man’s Instinct'’
The most powerful force in the poet’s mind, which is responsible for
the inspiration of his works by the spirits of both good and evil, is
14 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

precisely the unconscious... If we were entirely conscious of

ourselves, we should be our own creators and therefore un-
bounded . . . If we have the audacity to speak about what is un-
conscious and unfathomable, we can only presume to determine its
existence, not its depth. [Author’s italics]

We shall select three points for emphasis from the text of this
quotation:
(a) The danger of hubris, which arises as soon as we refuse to
recognize the boundary between the ego (i.e., the conscious mind)
and the unconscious, is clearly recognized by the author when he
speaks of a state of identification with the Creator (on inflation, cf.
p. 10 of the present volume).
(b) This danger expresses itself in a fear of the unconscious, so
that even to speak of it is described by the author as audacity. From
time immemorial an attitude of caution has been adopted toward
the unconscious—a kind of superstitious awe, as it were—and this
attitude has by no means been confined to primitive peoples.
Unknown quantities should always be treated with respect, and we
should be well advised to have recourse to euphemism (évejutowdc)
in our dealings with them.
The Greeks always spoke of the ‘‘Eumenides”’ (Evyevides), “‘the
Kindly Ones,’’ when they meant the Erinyes (’Epwwvwec), the wrathful
huntresses who track down every evil deed, the Furiae (furies) of the
Romans. They also thought it more prudent to speak of the dreaded,
inhospitable Black Sea (mévtoc &&etvoc)as the mévtoc Evéewoc or
Friendly Sea.
Today, the reverential awe of the ancients has given place to a
secularized form of euphemism, which we use when we say, for ex-
ample, as if to reassure ourselves, ‘‘It was only a complex,”’ or ‘‘only
a dream.’’ It is open to question whether this attitude is any better
than that other reaction—equally widespread—which is encountered
among scholars in arts subjects whenever psychology presumes to
indicate certain connections between phenomena of special interest
to these experts and qualities of the unconscious psyche. In such cir-
cumstances, the charge of psychologism is very quickly raised,
though it has to be admitted that it is often provoked by the free-
and-easy way in which the psychologists often employ their own
jargon. This only too easily gives rise to the suspicion that the
psychologists are know-alls or even materialists—which in turn only
aggravates the resistances that are to be found among the experts
in any case. Yet it is obvious that in the realm of fairy tales or myths,
for example, a language is being spoken which only relates to the
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 15

conscious mind in the second instance, and which does not address
it directly at all. At all events, respect for the unconscious is
associated with a positive attitude: resistances, on the other hand,
put us rather in mind of tilting at windmills.
(c) Jean Paul contents himself with establishing the existence of
the unconscious. His attitude is empirical, and his warning against
any attempt to determine the depth of the unconscious, distinctly
recalls the fragment of Heracleitus which we quoted above (where
‘“‘deep’’ corresponds to the Greek Bac). And yet, scarcely a cen-
tury later, Freud was driven by the modern spirit of research to at-
tempt to plumb those selfsame depths; and since Olympus proved
unfavorable to such an undertaking, he was obliged to invoke the
assistance of Acheron (one of the rivers of Hades), as we can see
from the epigraph to his ‘‘Interpretation of Dreams’’ (Flectere si
nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo = “‘If I cannot sway the Gods,
I will move Acheron’’).'* He is unlikely to have been fully aware of
the fact that by quoting this verse he was putting himself into the
position of the jealous goddess Juno!
As a second example from the history of the Romantic movement
I should like to use the following passage.
5. E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822), in his ‘‘Rat Krespel’’:

I did not doubt for one single moment that Krespel had gone mad.
But the Professor denied this. ‘‘There are people,’’ he said, ‘‘from
whom nature or some strange fatality has removed the covering
under which we ordinary mortals carry on our private lunacies
without fear of discovery. They resemble those thin-skinned insects
which appear misshapen when we watch the vivid play of their
muscles in full view, although everything soon reassembles again and
assumes its proper form. What in ourselves remains a thought, is all
translated by Krespel into action. The bitter scorn which he feels at
the way in which the spirit encapsulated in our earthly doings seems
to dominate his life is acted out by Krespel in crazy gestures and
skilful caperings like a rabbit. But this is actually his lightning con-
ductor. What arises out of the earth he returns to the earth; yet he
knows how to cherish the divine spark. And so, as I see it, his inner
consciousness is really in excellent shape, in spite of the apparent
craziness which is so obvious to the outside observer.”’

Here, as before (see p. 8), the psychopathological is seen as the

normal, from which, however, the ‘‘covering’’ has been ‘‘removed,”’
so that the underlying unconscious processes become visible. Seen
from outside, they appear to be crazy; yet it is admitted that they
contain much that is divine. This reminds me of a case which takes
16 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

me back to the days when I worked at the Psychiatric Clinic (it was
in 1932). I should like quite briefly to tell you about it."
The patient was a youngish man who had for years been confined
to the clinic on account of a severe catatonic condition. When I took
over the department for violent patients in which he was confined,
I was specifically warned by my predecessor to beware of this pa-
tient, who was widely feared in the hospital because of his supposed
aggressiveness. I found him standing in a practically cataleptic state
in a corner of the dayroom.
Next morning, I took a closer look at this patient. I noticed that,
in contrast to his general attitude, there was a gleam of something
unusually lively, warm and human in the expression of his eyes. I
went up to him and held out my hand to greet him. To my astonish-
ment, he returned my greeting and pressed my hand very cordially,
though without speaking. On the following day, I took him along
to my room—a gesture which caused quite acommotion among the
nursing staff. When he was with me, the patient immediately started
talking, and in the course of the ensuing sessions he explained to me
his entire delusory system, which I do not propose to discuss fur-
ther in this context.
Within the next two weeks the patient returned to psychic nor-
mality, and after another two weeks it was possible to discharge him
from the clinic. Nine years later, I happened to meet him in the street
in Zurich, and he introduced me to his fiancée. He said that since
his discharge from the hospital he had worked successfully and con-
tinuously and that there was scarcely any risk that he would suffer
a relapse. His parting words to me were, ‘‘You know, doctor, if I
hadn’t experienced it myself, I should never have believed what a
blessing such an illness can bring!’’ The expression on his face as
he said that was unmistakable and left no possible doubt that the
years he had spent in the Burgholzli had been transformed into a
deep and genuine religious experience which had healed this man,
i.e., had made him whole.
6. Charles Lamb (1775-1834), who is best known for his ‘‘Tales
from Shakespeare,’’ once said—according to Max Schulz'*—that
“‘the true poet dreams being awake.’’
7. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), the Scottish writer, who
is probably best known to us as the author of Treasure Island and
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,"’ is one of the few
men of letters who have provided us with ample opportunities for
gaining an insight into their creative processes. ‘‘A Chapter on
Dreams’’ in his book Across the Plains (1892) must be regarded as
a locus classicus for those creative effects of the unconscious with
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS ly

which we are concerned in this chapter. In it, he describes how for

a long time he suffered from an inability to write, till at last he
discovered that his dreams often contained interesting motifs. He
then succeeded, in a meaningful way such as is only possible to an
artistically gifted personality, in opening up a relationship with his
own unconscious material which led to a genuine cooperation, so
that finally he was able to dream and record completely connected
stories and thus to achieve an extremely fruitful output as a writer.
Very much in the spirit of Aelius Aristides (cf. p. 10), he now
gave the entire credit for his creative work to his dream figures; in
the course of time these had become stereotyped, and Stevenson,
following the usage of Scottish folklore, called them his ‘‘Brownies’’
or ‘‘the Little People.’’ How far he was prepared to take this
metaphor can be seen from the following passage:

And for the Little People what shall I say—they are but just my
Brownies, God bless them! who do one-half of my work for me
while I am fast asleep, and in all human likelihood, do the rest for
me as well, when I am wide awake and fondly suppose I do it for
myself. That part which is done while I am sleeping is the Brownies’
part beyond contention; but that which is done when I am up and
about is by no means necessarily mine, since all goes to show the
Brownies have a hand in it even then. Here is a doubt that much con-
cerns my conscience. For myself—what I call I, my conscious ego,
the denizen of the pineal gland unless he has changed his residence
since Descartes, the man with the conscience and the variable bank-
account, the man with the hat and the boots, and the privilege of
voting and not carrying his candidate at the general election—I am
sometimes tempted to suppose he is no story-teller at all, but a
creature as matter-of-fact as any cheesemonger or any cheese, and
a realist bemired up to the ears in actuality; so that, by that account,
the whole of my published fiction should be the single-handed pro-
duct of some Brownie, some Familiar, some unseen collaborator,
whom I keep locked in a back garret, while I get all the praise and
he but a share (which I cannot prevent him getting) of the pudding.
I am an excellent adviser, something like Moliére’s servant; I pull
back and I cut down; and I dress the whole in the best words and
sentences that I can find and make; I hold the pen, too; and I do the
sitting at the table, which is about the worst of it; and when all is
done, I make up the manuscript and pay for the registration; so that,
on the whole, I have some claim to share, though not so largely as
I do, in the profits of our common enterprise.'*

As my final example from the literary field, I should like to quote

two passages from Nietzsche.
8. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900):
18 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

(a) Ecce Homo, 1888 (the reference in this passage is to the

composition of Thus Spake Zarathustra, 111):
Has any one at the end of the nineteenth century any distinct notion
of what poets of a stronger age understood by the word “‘inspira-
tion’’? If not, I will describe it. If one had the smallest vestige of
superstition left in one, it would hardly be possible to set aside the
idea that one is a mere incarnation, mouthpiece or medium of an
almighty power. The idea of revelation, in the sense that something
which profoundly convulses and shatters one becomes suddenly visi-
ble and audible with indescribable certainty and accuracy, describes
the simple fact. One hears—one does not seek; one takes—one does
not ask who gives; a thought suddenly flashes up like lightning, it
comes with necessity, without faltering,—I never had any choice in
the matter.'?

(b) Antichrist, 14 (1888):

We deny that anything can be made perfect so long as it is still made
conscious.*°

The first example makes it clear that instead of ‘‘bright ideas’’ we

could equally well speak of inspiration or illumination (‘‘lightning’’).
In the extreme terms in which (b) is formulated, on the other hand,
we find that ‘‘transvaluation of all values’’ which is so characteristic
of Nietzsche. Unfortunately, he was himself too little aware of the
perilous nature of this extreme position, as was proved by the se-
quel, shortly afterwards.

The Role of ‘‘Bright Ideas’’ in Scientific Discoveries

In the realm of science, we are fortunate enough to possess at least
one first class testimony to the importance of a ‘‘bright idea’’ in the
genesis of a great discovery.
1. August Kekulé von Stradonitz (1829-1896):
Kekulé’s great achievement is frequently cited as an illustration
of the part played by the unconscious in creative work. Unfortu-
nately, however, almost all the writers who have dealt with this sub-
ject have either not read Kekulé’s own autobiographical account,
or if they have read it, their own unconscious has played tricks on
them in the form of mnesic delusions or of a petitio principii. The
one honorable exception which is known to me is H.E. Fierz-
David,’' in his communication in Gesnerus”? and in his book on Die
Entwicklungsgeschichte der Chemie.”?
Whenever, in the following account, we allow Kekulé to speak for
himself, his remarks are taken from the speech which he made in
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 19

the Town Hall of Berlin on 11th March 1890, on the occasion of the
celebration organized by the German Chemical Society in honor of
the twenty-fifth anniversary of his discovery of the formula for
benzene in 1865. The attitude of this scientist toward his own
brilliant achievement is sc exemplary that I cannot refrain from in-
cluding in my quotation those passages which prove that genuine
achievement makes its originator modest—provided, of course, that
he does not identify himself with it.
In this context it should be borne in mind that Kekulé’s discovery
of the ring formula for benzene was the first occasion on which the
concept of a ring formation had been applied to any chemical com-
pound, so that the importance of this discovery for aromatic
chemistry and for the tremendous development of organic chemistry
as a whole since that time can scarcely be overestimated.”*
At the present moment, I am simply incapable of thanking the
speakers as is their due, or indeed of making any reply to all the kind
things which have been said about me. One point is absolutely clear
in my mind: my own modest merits have been praised far beyond
their due. In all the speeches and addresses which have been made
I hear the same tone of exaggeration... You have organized a
really incredible and magnificent celebration without any adequate
cause and you have associated this celebration with my name. And
sO, very much against my own inclination, I am constrained to speak
about myself and to consider the question as to whether my own
modest merits have deserved such homage, and indeed whether they
have deserved any homage at all...
My dear colleagues, we all stand on the shoulders of our
predecessors: is it strange, then, that we can see further than they
could? If we travel along the routes opened up by them or at least
tread the paths which they trod before us and so, quite effortlessly,
reach positions which they only attained after overcoming in-
numerable difficulties and which to them represented the utmost
limits of their advance—in these circumstances is it any credit to us
if we still have the strength to press on further into the realm of the
unknown than they did?
Certain ideas are in the air at certain periods; if they are not given
expression by one thinker, another will do so shortly afterwards. It
has been said that the benzene theory appeared suddenly, like a bolt
from the blue—that it was absolutely new and unprecedented.
Gentlemen! the human mind does not work like that! No absolute-
ly new idea has ever been conceived by man—least of all in the realm
of chemistry...
It is not true, as has often been maintained, that our present ways
of thinking are built on the ruins of past theories. None of these
20 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

earlier theories has in fact been rejected by later generations as totally

erroneous; stripped of certain unsightly curlicues, it has always been
found possible to incorporate them into the later structure, and they
have blended with it to form a harmonious whole.
It has been said that the benzene theory sprang, fully-armed, like
Pallas Athene from the head of a chemical Zeus. Perhaps it did look
like that from outside. But I can assure you that the reality was very
different. I am in a position to give you inside information on this
subjects oe
It may perhaps be of some interest to you if I make some very in-
discreet disclosures about the actual workings of my mind, and show
you how I arrived at certain ideas.
During my period of residence in London (in 1854), I lived for
some time in Clapham Road, in the neighbourhood of Clapham
Common. But I often spent my evenings with my friend Hugo
Miiller in Islington, at the opposite end of the great city. We used
to talk about various things, but mostly about our beloved chemistry.
‘One fine summer evening, I was returning by the last omnibus,
‘‘outside’’ as usual, through the deserted streets of the metropolis,
which are at other times so full of life. I fell into a reverie and lo!
the atoms were gambolling before my eyes. Whenever, hitherto,
these diminutive beings had appeared to me, they had always been
in motion; but up to that time I had never been able to discern the
nature of their motion. Now, I saw how, frequently, two smaller
atoms united to form a pair; how a larger one embraced two smaller
ones; how still larger ones kept hold of three or even four of the
smaller; I saw how the larger ones formed a chain’? and dragged
smaller ones along at the ends of it.

[The point at issue here was the quadrivalence of carbon and its im-
plications for chain formation.]
I saw what Kopp, the Grand Old Man of chemistry and my own
revered teacher and friend, describes so enchantingly in his
“‘Molecular World’’; but I saw it long before he did. The voice of
the conductor calling out ‘‘Clapham Road’’ awakened me from my
reveries, but ‘I spent part of the night putting on paper at least
sketches of those dream forms.’ That was how the structural theory
came into being.

[And here, as we can see, the question at issue is the ring structure
of benzene in the narrower sense:]
The benzene theory had a similar origin. During my stay in Ghent
(1865) I lived in fashionable bachelor quarters in the High Street. But
my study was in a narrow side street and during the daytime it had
no light. For a chemist, who spends his daylight hours in the
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 21

laboratory, this was not really a disadvantage. I simply sat there and
wrote away at my textbook. And yet somehow I couldn’t get it go-
ing properly. My mind was on other things. ‘I turned my chair to the
fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gambolling before my eyes.
This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My
mental eye, rendered more acute by repeated visions of this kind,
could now distinguish larger structures, of manifold conformation;
long rows, all twining and twisting in snakelike motion. But look!
What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail,
and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of
lightning I awoke.’ This time, too, I spent the rest of the night work-
ing out the implications of the hypothesis.
Let us learn to dream, gentlemen; then, perhaps, we shall discover
the truth:
**And if to think you cannot shift
She’ll come to you as a gift
No need for care or sorrow’’ (Goethe)
—but let us take care not to publish our dreams before they have
been examined by our waking intellect. ‘‘Countless germs of men-
tal life fill the spaces of the universe, but it is only in a few rare
chosen spirits that they find the soil they need for their development;
in such spirits the idea which comes from nobody knows where is
brought to life in the creative act.’’** [Author’s italics]

We have here a most carefuly formulated description by a scien-

tifically trained intellect which has clearly acquired a certain skill in
the observation of semiconscious or unconscious processes (cf. the
case of Robert Louis Stevenson, pp. 16-17 above), and it is therefore
only fair to him that we should take his account seriously. The
phenomena which he is describing relate to dozing or reverie, and
not to sleep and dreaming (as is often carelessly stated).
Today we should probably be reminded in the first place of a trick
film or, in the technical language of psychology, of hypnagogic
visions.’ Although the phenomena take the form of ‘‘images’’ of
atoms, they behave quite anthropomorphically, like independent liv-
ing creatures engaged in a peculiar kind of ‘‘round dance’’ which
is reminiscent of folklore or even mythology. At all events, if ac-
count is taken of the conclusions which Kekulé was able to draw
from them, their activities must be regarded as highly meaningful.
But when, finally, the snake seized hold of its own tail, a new
psychological element appeared; this was a tremendous emotion,”
which startled Kekulé into full waking consciousness. The ‘‘mock-
ing whirling of the form’’ was also a part of this emotionality, and
so, too, was the exclamation ‘‘But look! What was that?’’ The simile
pp) THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

of the ‘‘flash of lightning’’ also points to a moment of illumination

(cf. the case of Nietzsche, pp. 17-18 above), and if we wished to
describe the way in which the idea of the ring-structure was actually
conceived, this is the figure of speech we should inevitably use.
It need hardly be said that much remained to be done before the
theory was finally formulated, and that a great deal of work still had
to be put in at the conscious level; the same was true of the period
leading up to the occurrence of the ‘‘historic moment.’ Yet the
decisive image was ‘‘given’’ to Kekulé, as he himself admits in that
quotation from Goethe. So the chemist H.E. Fierz is justified in
claiming that ‘‘The symbol of the benzene ring could not have been
discovered by rational scientific thought.’’*? At all events, this state-
ment holds good if we qualify it by adding ‘‘at the level of the scien-
tific knowledge and experimental technique which prevailed at the
time’’; there were, of course, no Laue and Debye-Scherrer Diagrams
at that period.
Yet if we are to do justice to the text of Kekulé’s autobiographical
description, we must still make some attempt to explain the origin
of the image of the snake biting itself in its own tail. We learn from
the biography of Kekulé that as a student he was involved in a
murder trial in which the crucial piece of evidence was a finger-ring
that ‘‘consisted of two intertwining circlets, one of gold and the
other of white metal, in the form of two snakes biting themselves
in the tail.’’*° Yet, as we have seen, this fact is not mentioned by
Kekulé in the passage quoted here.
If we look up the other contexts in which this peculiar image oc-
curs, we discover that it plays a significant part in an almost forgot-
ten sphere of culture, which is in fact historically related to
chemistry, and that is in the old natural philosophy of the
alchemists. The Greek alchemists called this snake ouroboros
(dvp0B8dp0c),*'the tail-eater, and very often made it their central sym-
bol. One of the oldest pictorial representations of it is to be found
in the Codex Marcianus 299, f. 188 V. (Library of Saint Mark,
Venice). Here the circular area enclosed by the snakes bears the in-
scription &vto m&v(the One, the All), which is based on the ancient
interpretation of the ouroboros as a symbol that unites the
opposites. *?
The ouroboros can be regarded as hermaphroditic: the tail end
is then masculine, while the mouth which receives it is a feminine
symbol. This makes it a conjunctio oppositorum, while at the same
time the motif of self-devouring is a symbol of death culminating
in rebirth, a much older idea which probably dates back to the Egyp-
tian conception of the identity of the Father God with Pharaoh, the
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS Pa

representative of God and the Son. So too it is frequently interpreted

as a symbol of the circulation of the alchemical opus, which is
repeatedly described as an opus circulare (circular work) or rota
(wheel). As serpens Mercurii or serpent of Mercurius (quicksilver),
the ouroboros also unites the opposites solid metal—liquid metal,
cold—fiery, poison—remedy and matter—spirit. In this connota-
tion it became extremely popular and appeared in countless
variations.
It is undoubtedly an archetypal image in the sense in which Jung
used that term. In his last great works Jung assembled the material
relating to this image.*’ In certain people whom we call ‘‘creative,”’
the tension between what we know and what we do not know is
resolved in such a way, that, in Goethe’s words, (cf. example (a), pp.
11-12), ‘‘in the unconscious moment’’ a synthetic uniting achieve-
ment is attained. Often, as here in the case of Kekulé, an archetypal
symbol appears at the same time—and this, in turn, is accompanied
by the emergence of an additional quantum of emotion, as we can
see very clearly from Kekulé’s account. At this stage, there is no
point in speculating about causal relationships; we must content
ourselves with noting the presence of this triad of components—
tension, symbol or archetypal image, and emotion—out of which,
if all goes well, the solution of the problem will emerge as the fourth
element. In the history of science there are also instances in which
the emotion seems to have appeared as a result of the solution, as
for example in the well-known case of Champollion.
2. Jean Francois Champollion (1790-1832), the decipherer of the
Egyptian scripts and the father of modern Egyptology:
The decisive insight which enabled Champollion to fight his way
through to the discovery that the hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic
scripts were all essentially phonetic, came to him on September 14,
1822, at the end of a severe crisis, during which he had to fight a
battle inside himself against the claims of other hypotheses. His
biographer, H. Hartleben,** describes the scene as follows:

And so September 14th dawned, the day that was to witness the
outbreak of nothing short of a revolution in that old house, which
even then looked gloomy and inhospitable, but which nevertheless
offered to the nascent science of Egyptology a modest shelter.
Together with Figeac [his brother] and his son, Ali, Champollion oc-
cupied the second storey of the house, but had established his
“‘arsenal’’ one floor above, in an airy and bright room, surrounded
by a gallery, where before him Horace Verney had had his studio for
a while . . . It was approaching midday when Champollion finally
worked his way through to the ultimate incontrovertible certainty;
24 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

then, gathering together the whole mass of the evidence which he had
collected, he left his desk and hurried away, just as he was, to tell
the news to his brother. His brother was working, as usual, at the
Institut,?> and he was not a little astonished when Francois rushed
up to him, flung a pile of papers onto the table and cried, “‘I’ve got
it!’’ He was completely beside himself with joy, but scarcely had he
begun to stammer out the reason for his extraordinary statement
than he suddenly collapsed and fell like a dead man to the ground.
For a moment Figeac was petrified with horror. But he quickly
realized that it was not death but a fainting-fit which almost
counterfeited the rigidity of death that had stricken his overwrought
brother. They carried him into the flat nearby and left him un-
disturbed in the complete peace which he needed so desperately in
both mind and body.
And he remained in this lethargic condition for five whole days.
Yet Champollion had scarcely opened his eyes, on the evening of
19th September, when he was back again like a flash of lightning in
the midst of his intellectual preoccupations. But his tired body still
needed rest.

On 27th September, 1822, at a meeting of the Académie Royale

des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Champollion delivered his first
report on his discovery of the key which was to open the door at a
single stroke to more than thirty centuries of texts and inscriptions
from what has been described as one of the richest cultures in the
world. H. Hartleben has this to say about it:

Champollion’s report made no mention of the i//umination which

had come to him so suddenly on 14th September, and which at a
single stroke had demonstrated the phonetic basis of the script used
in Egypt in the middle of the second millenium B.c. His audience—
and, subsequently, his readers—had the impression that the realiza-
tion had come to him quite gradually.
There was great excitement among those present, since, in addi-
tion to the theoretical and practical use of the hieroglyphic alphabet,
a basis was now suggested for the dating of a large number of the
great monuments of Ancient Egypt; a point of special interest was
the information relating to the royal titles of the son of Julius Caesar
and Cleopatra (Ptolemy-Caesarion) on the temple at Dendera, since
they provided a new element of historical certainty. Above all, the
age of the Zodiac had now been determined; in fact, Champollion
was driven to suppose, on the basis of the material in his possession,
that the Zodiac itself had now spoken. It was also possible to iden-
tify other monuments of this type as Egyptian work carried out
under Roman emperors; the actual names of these emperors were
given.*°
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 25

This passage shows once again that an unusually powerful emo-

tion must have been involved, which, however, revealed itself post
eventum—as in the case of the ‘‘Rider over Lake Constance.’’?” This
displacement of phases is probably connected with the fact that the
full realization of an achievement of this kind inevitably takes quite
a considerable time; so, too, it is well known that the emotional reac-
tion, or psychic pain, which is caused by severe strokes of misfor-
tune is often only experienced later, and that students who have
taken an examination may afterwards fall into a so-called ‘‘examina-
tion hole’’ or period of emotional desolation.
We cannot here examine the extremely interesting problem of how
image, symbol, archetype and emotion are interrelated; we shall only
recall Jung’s suggestion that image and emotion may be interpreted
in terms of form and dynamism—in such a way that they would
represent different aspects of one and the same transcendent psychic
phenomenon’’; in that case the question of causality would become
irrelevant. It should be remembered that the process which we have
described in relation to Kekulé has a very common counterpart in
the most banal situations of everyday life. When our train of
thought refuses to flow properly, i.e. when our ideas insist on re-
maining vague and indistinct, we quite automatically take refuge in
figurative expressions and say something like “‘It’s as if... .’’; and
this is followed, not by a concept but by an image. It is far simpler
to find and to formulate the right concept on the basis of some such
pictorial expression.
Phenomena of this kind can probably be explained as exemplifica-
tions of the well-known axiom that figures of speech have their roots
in archetypes, and that consequently, like every true symbol, they
perform a synthetic function, which makes it possible for us to con-
tinue to spin the thread of our thought to a successful conclusion.
This means that a positive solution to the conflict between the con-
scious mind and the unconscious which had previously been disturb-
ing us has now been achieved.
My attention was drawn by my late friend Wolfgang Pauli to
another case in which the unconscious played a significant part in
a major discovery. The case in point is the periodic system of the
elements, which was elaborated by Mendeleev.
3. Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907):
Our account is based on P. Walden’s essay in Das Buch der
grossen Chemiker.*°

When he was 35 years old (in 1868-69), Mendeleev constructed his

‘“periodic system of the chemical elements,’’ and in so doing pro-
26 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

vided the clearest possible evidence of his vision and capacity as a

true man of science. This system has won a permanent place in the
history of the human mind as an example of bold perspicacity in ac-
tion. From the point of view of the biology of scientific discoveries
or just in simple human terms, it may be interesting to reconstruct
the genesis of this system, all the more so since we can do this in
Mendeleev’s own words. The external causes were relatively
unimportant.
Mendeleev himself wrote as follows: ‘‘When (in 1868) I undertook
to write a manual entitled ‘Elements of Chemistry,’ I had to decide
on some regular system for the classification of simple bodies [he
distinguishes between elements and simple bodies], so that when I
was arranging them I should not fall back on random or instinctive
suggestions, as it were, but should make use of some specific,
precisely defined principle.’’
Now we know that, throughout all changes in the properties of
simple bodies, their atomic weight remains the still pole or constant
factor. So Mendeleev continues, ‘‘I therefore decided to try to base
my system on the size of the atomic weights . . .’’ (1869). He goes
on to say, ‘‘We have to find a functional relationship between the
individual properties of the elements and their atomic weights.
‘*But to find anything—whether it be mushrooms or a relationship
of some kind—we can only proceed by observation and experiment.
So, after I had written down the elements with their atomic weights
and basic properties on small separate cards, I began to collect
elements which resembled one another and atomic weights which
were closely related to one another in magnitude—and this quickly
led me to the conclusion that the properties of the elements stood in
a periodic relationship to their atomic weights .. .’’
The process of selecting the most appropriate arrangement in-
volved trying out a large number of alternatives; afterwards,
Mendeleev described how one evening he experimented once again
with different methods of grouping his element cards, and then later,
when he was asleep and unconsciously still working on his problem,
he had suddenly caught sight of the right system, which he wrote
down as soon as he woke up. The exhaustive testing of this system
from every possible point of view in chemistry and in physics was a
task which absorbed him till the day of his death. . . .*°

We are dealing here with a dream in the strict sense of that term;
at the same time, however, we are also told that the preoccupation
of the conscious mind with the problem of the periodic system was
carried over into sleep, so that this is obviously a very clear case of
cooperation between the conscious mind and the unconscious which
directly produced a creative result.
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS psy

It is possible that the examples which we have quoted above may

give rise to misunderstandings of three different kinds:
¢ It may be supposed that it is our intention to represent every
creative ‘‘bright idea’? as due to the cooperation of the
unconscious.
¢ It may be held that the view which we have taken only holds
good in exceptional cases.
e It may be imagined that we are claiming that the meager hints
which we have given ‘‘explain’’ the mystery of creative
achievement.
In order to dispel these possible misconceptions I should like to
make the following points.
Dogmatism and generalization are nowhere more out-of-place
than in psychology. Unfortunately, however, both are eagerly prac-
ticed in this field. All that we are concerned to suggest in this con-
text is that room should be left in our thoughts for the unconscious
and that we should be aware of the part it plays in our lives. On the
whole, artists and scientists do still realize that—although work,
knowledge and ability are obviously indispensable—we still need
now and then to sleep over our problems. Unfortunately for us
psychologists, this means that in most cases we are not able to supply
conclusive evidence of the cooperation of the unconscious; this of
course does not disturb creative people. It is, however, precisely the
authors of quite exceptional achievements who are most in need of
that prudent counsel which suggests that in the interests of
psychological hygiene we should express our gratitude to the
kairos.*! Exactly where the unconscious comes in, especially when
we are dealing with team work, is likely to be a difficult question
to answer. My own remarks do not claim to be more than a point
of view which merits consideration.
The choice of exceptional cases was dictated entirely by their
heuristic value, though a further argument in its favor is the fact that
the mental discipline practiced by great thinkers and scientists makes
them more critical and honest than others in their self-appraisal, and
this gives their evidence greater authority.
Outstanding achievements such as those we have mentioned pro-
vide us with unusually vivid exemplifications of the great riddle of
the human spirit. To understand more about this is a pleasure of a
very special kind, and all creative people, whether they are aware
of it or not, indulge in this pleasure in their own fashion. In the spirit
of our introductory chapter, and in the absence of more positive
knowledge, we call this great enigmatic factor simply the un-
28 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

conscious; by so doing we neither impair nor diminish its stature in

any way. It would not disturb us if anyone were to prefer a more
frankly religious terminology, even though we ourselves, as
psychologists, feel it is our duty to stick to our last.
We now come to our final example from the history of science.
This will, however, oblige us to go beyond the subject of the pre-
sent chapter in certain respects.
4. Julius Robert Mayer (1814-1878), the discoverer of the prin-
ciple of the conservation of energy:*
This case—for it is a case in the strict psychiatric sense of that
term—aroused the most violent emotional reactions at the time it
occurred. Contemporary opinion was divided by two distinct con-
troversies. In the first place, there was the dispute, which raged for
years, over the question of Mayer’s priority in making the discovery.
This was finally settled in Mayer’s favor by the magnanimous in-
tervention of Clausius and Tyndall. And secondly, Mayer’s sup-
porters and biographers carried on an indignant campaign against
the alleged defamation of their hero by his psychiatric diagnosis; in
this cause, they did not even shrink from falsifying the historical
record. Such a reaction illustrates in the most graphic way the strong
social prejudice which attaches itself to anyone who at times
becomes a plaything of the unconscious; this prejudice is of course
intensified if the condition of the unfortunate sufferer makes
hospitalization necessary.*°
Mayer came from Heilbronn, where he also practiced as a doc-
tor. He came from a district in which manic depressive insanity may
be said to be practically endemic. Ever since his student days, his
life had been overshadowed by the symptoms of this disease. We
have an excellent description of his personality, which we owe to
Rumelin, the friend of his youth who—without himself being a
doctor—possessed an extraordinarily sensitive understanding of his
friend’s strange yet characteristic psychology. He explains that even
as a boy Mayer had been subject to flights of ideas, and that he often
produced ‘‘a regular firework display, in which thoughts jumped
about like crackers.’’ His brilliant and bizarre notions actually
earned him the nickname of ‘‘the Brain.’’ At school and universi-
ty he was known as ‘‘a whimsical fellow’? and ‘‘a dreamer.’’
At Schonthal training-college, where he lived between the ages of
14 and 18, he went through agonies of self-reproach which were
quite unfounded; at the same time, he suffered from fits of
hypochondriacal depression, which were accompanied by feelings
of world-weariness and a fear of going mad. He also experienced
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 29

hypomanic phases. In 1832 he was expelled from the University of

Tubingen for belonging to a forbidden students’ association. He was
put in the students’ lock-up and went on hunger strike for six days,
with the result that he had to be released. The doctor who was called
in was of the opinion that ‘‘he could not be regarded as completely
insane, but was in a condition which could easily develop into in-
sanity. This view was shared by all those who had known him for
any length of time; they were all agreed that if an incident occur-
red which he found objectionable in any way, Mayer was always
liable to become extremely agitated, and that he could easily pass
into a borderline state.”’
After he had completed his medical studies, Mayer experienced
an irresistible urge to become acquainted with the world, and in par-
ticular with the tropics. He obtained a post as a ship’s doctor ona
Dutch sailing vessel bound for the East Indies. While awaiting in-
structions to join his ship, he visited Paris with his friends
Wunderlich and Griesinger.** There he suffered an unmistakable,
slightly manic phase, in the course of which he spent a great deal
of money. On February 22, 1840 he left Rotterdam on board the
Java. Fortunately, we possess his diary, written during the journey
out, which lasted three months, and some letters dating from the
same period. In one of these he wrote,
And now farewell, for a time, my dear, dear parents; my child’s
thanks for the innumerable kindnesses which you have constantly
shown me, and please, please forgive me for being so often
ungrateful to you and accept my most fervent prayers for your well-
being. In tears I throw myself into your arms and kiss you.
—Your grateful son Robert

Here already we can see the first signs of an endogenous depres-

sion; this gradually deepened, and finally revealed itself quite openly
in a number of entries in the diary. Thus on April 4 he writes:
Today was not too terribly hot. The thermometer on deck registered
24°. The evening was brightened by a beautiful sunset, with a roman-
tic afterglow. This had a soothing effect on my mind, which since
the beginning of this month has been oppressed by troubled
forebodings.

On April 10 we read:
Today gloomy thoughts and leaden cares, which center around the
hallowed head of my father, weight more heavily than ever upon my
SOU a
30 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

At such times I look out more than anything else for my father’s
favourite constellation, the Great Bear, and think that perhaps he
himself is gazing at it this very moment; then I call out friendly
greetings to it for my dear ones in the home country.

On May 30:
Father’s birthday. Gloomy cares oppress me on this festival day,
which I have often spent so happily in the bosom of my family; it
was only after a struggle that I managed to fight my way out of them
at last.
On June 8, the day on which the southwestern tip of Java emerged
into view above the sea, the ‘‘peripeteia’’** of the illness can be seen
very clearly. Mayer writes:
The breakers which seethed against the rocks and cliffs of the
southern coast with furious energy, the splendid spectacular green
of the tremendous trees which cover the mountain face as it rises
sheer out of the water, the arrow-swift path of our ship through the
waves, and the glorious weather—all this aroused a tempest of the
most blissful feelings within me.. .

On June 12:

Yesterday evening at 11 o’clock we arrived safely at the roadstead

of Batavia. OGod! Your world is beautiful! The strait of Sunda is
surely one of the most beautiful places in the world; . . . Admittedly
the heat is pretty intense—25° to 27° or 28° Centigrade at midday;
so far, however, I am bearing it without the slightest discomfort—
in fact, I have never been more healthy in my life—though at the
same time I am taking every possible care of myself. [Here his
hypochondriacal side comes out.] My mind is so peaceful, and the
only thing I need to complete my happiness is news about my dear
ones. With thousands of greetings and kisses to you, dear parents,
brothers and aunts and all my loved ones; I can see you all in my
mind’s eye as I write.
—Your obedient son Robert

On June 22, 1840 he writes once again from Batavia to his

parents:
As a firm faith in God and a glad heart are my constant companions
you can imagine that I look to the future with a quiet mind; like the
past, its parade of dark and sunny hours will soon be over. My
health, which is in any case sound, is still further sustained by self-
control, a habit in which I am well-advanced.
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 31

In a letter home dated July 25, he gives a summary description

of his stay in the East Indies, and I quote the following passages
which are relevant to our subject:

The days fly past me like hours and are pleasantly and usefully oc-
cupied in study. Mental activity and physical rest are all I look for
in this climate; it is astonishing how much effort a little letter costs
me, and I am amazed, too, at the way in which my thoughts—
otherwise so free, freer than ever before, in fact—become so stupid
when I touch the beastly paper .

This was the historic moment at which Mayer conceived the idea
of the conservation of energy. He wrote about this to his friend
Griesinger, the psychiatrist, on June 16, 1844:

This theory was by no means hatched out at my writing desk. I had

occupied myself, eagerly and continuously, on my journey to the
East Indies, with the physiology of the blood, and my observation
of the changed physical condition of our crew in the tropics, and of
the process of their acclimatization, provided me with a great deal
of food for thought; the types of illness from which they suffered,
and particularly the state of their blood, drew my attention over and
Over again to the generation of animal heat in the body as a result
of the process of respiration. But we cannot gain an insight into
physiological matters if we know nothing of the corresponding
physical processes—unless indeed we prefer to approach the subject
from a metaphysical angle, a prospect which fills me with infinite
distaste. So I concentrated on physics and pursued this subject with
such enthusiasm that many people might be inclined to laugh at me,
since I asked very few questions about the strange part of the world
in which I found myself, but preferred to remain on board, where
I could work uninterruptedly, and where I quite often felt like aman
inspired—in fact I cannot remember having experienced anything
similar, either before or since that time. I had a number of flashes
of insight—this happened on the roadstead at Surabaya—which I
followed up assiduously, without delay, and these in turn led me on
to new themes. Those times are now past, but the calm testing of
what I experienced at that period has convinced me that it was
truth—not merely something which was felt subjectively, but
something which can also be objectively substantiated—though
whether this can be done by a man so little versed in physics as
myself is a question which must remain undecided for the present.
What is certain is that the day will come when these truths will be the
common property of science; by whom, and when, this development
will be brought about, who can tell?
32 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

It is a well-known fact that an old-style sea-voyage is always liable

to activate the background of the human psyche. This makes it
possible for us to understand how it came about that on two occa-
sions during the voyage to the East Indies Mayer fell a victim to
inexplicable fits of depression. We should express this in our ter-
minology by saying that during these periods of relative
introversion,*® libido (i.e., psychic energy) flowed backwards, in
such a way that the subject’s interest now concentrated on certain
contents belonging to his inner reality and turned away from the out-
side world; this process is also known as regression.
We saw from Mayer’s correspondence that one special object of
his interest at this time was ‘‘the hallowed head of his father.’’ This
image is an excellent symbol for the ‘‘patris potestas,’’*’ that is to
say for the man who, by virtue of his dominant position, served as
an example to his son in his primary task of mastering his own
powers—a task in which Mayer had so significantly failed. As usu-
ally happens in such cases, the image activated by the regression of
the libido had a fascinating effect upon Mayer. It appeared to him
in projected form in the heavens; he was fascinated by the sun as
a center of energy.** Whenever a fascination of this kind occurs, we
can take it that a primordial image, or—in Jung’s terminology—
an archetypal image, is at work. Once such an image has been ac-
tivated, it will obtrude itself upon the conscious mind with elemental
power.
Meanwhile, Mayer’s depressive fits died away and gave place—
particularly on his arrival in Java—to a manic mood disorder.
Mayer was now possessed by ‘‘the most blissful feelings’? —and sud-
denly we find him working away like mad at scientific problems. He
even forgets the conscious purpose of his laborious journey—to
learn about the tropics in the Far East, and only sets foot on land
once, for a brief visit to Madura. The automatic onset of the pro-
gressive movement of the libido, which is a well-known feature of
manic depressive insanity, had brought about a projection of the
emergent archetype, and in view of Mayer’s outstanding scientific
endowment, it is not surprising that the entire progressive movement
of the libido flowed over into the concept of energy and the prin-
ciple of the conservation of energy—two concepts which in fact may
very well represent the father-archetype at the conscious level.
The quantum of energy which is invariably inherent in archetypal
images gave an added impetus to the forward movement of the
libido, with the result that the manic excitement was intensified and
began to assume threatening forms. We know from oral com-
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 33

munications subsequently made by Mayer to his friends that he suf-

fered from ‘‘acute attacks of delirium’’ on the voyage home, and
it is clear from all the evidence that this was in fact one of the worst
manic phases in his entire career.
On returning from his trip to the East Indies, Mayer devoted
himself almost exclusively, and with incredible concentration, to the
development of his concept of the conservation of energy. From that
time on he regarded it as the result of his journey. I do not believe
that we shall be far wrong if we take it that the energy which he
employed for his purpose derived from the archetype which he had
encountered in Surabaya Bay. I should like to take this opportunity
to forestall another objection which may easily be raised in this con-
text. We may be told that any attempt to explain the outstanding
achievement of the discovery of the principle of the conservation of
energy as ‘‘nothing but’’ the product of an essentially pathological
phenomenon amounts to ‘‘professional defamation.’’ Nothing could
be further from my thoughts than that. It would, in fact, reduce me
to the level of the anecdotal psychiatrist who is said to have replied
to Robert Mayer, when the latter wished to explain to him his
physical theory, ‘‘Well, well, my dear Mayer, still the same old crazy
idea?’’
As I have already remarked, Robert Mayer had worked inten-
sively on his ‘‘idea.’’ After his first publication*’ had been received
with a certain amount of surprise by the experts, who found his for-
mulations too far removed from the language of physical science,
he, a layman in physics, did not shrink from the task of familiarizing
himself with the higher ranges of the calculus and of mathematical
analysis, a purpose in which he was assisted by his friend Baur, who
was at that time professor of mathematics at Stuttgart.
There is no doubt that these studies and the new wording of his
paper,°° which was more adequate to the level of knowledge in
physics at that period, represented a tremendous achievement in
terms of Mayer’s work on himself. To a considerable extent he had
succeeded in objectivizing the original, largely subjective content of
his idea and had transformed it in such a way that it constitutes a
universally valid truth. It is, in fact, nothing less than the First Law
of Thermodynamics. Not only did he give the world a great new
idea, which secured his fame alike as a genius and an enricher of
civilization’'; he had also, at the same time, redeemed his own soul.
This is substantiated by a passage from a letter dated August 16,
1841, in which he writes to his friend Baur (the reference is to this
second publication): ‘‘Dixi et animam salvavi’’ (‘‘I have spoken and
34 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

I have saved my own soul’’). In our terminology, we should say that

the work put in here by Robert Mayer can only be described as a
piece of self-analysis. The point at issue was the assimilation of an
exceedingly potent content of the collective unconscious, namely the
archetype of the father.
We may be tempted to suppose that this magnificent performance
of Mayer’s was equivalent to an analysis of the causes of his
disorder, and that as a result of it he would have been restored to
health. However, this was not to be. During the period 1845 to 1853
we find him involved in extremely severe manic phases and depres-
sions. During one of these episodes (in 1850) he made a really
dangerous attempt at suicide, and in the ensuing years he voluntarily
entered a mental hospital whenever he was threatened with the onset
of a manic or depressive phase.
Unfortunately, no detailed notes or medical histories are available
to us from this period, and I am by no means certain that reports
of this nature would in fact provide us with any real information
about the content of Robert Mayer’s psychosis. We do know,
however, that in the years after 1871 he was again compelled to enter
a psychiatric institution. The manic and depressive attacks became
less and less pronounced, however, and we find that, as the emo-
tional fluctuations ebbed away, their place was increasingly taken
by a rising tide of deep religious feeling.
In 1869, when the controversy over the significance and priority
of his achievement which had agitated the entire scientific world had
been finally settled in his favor, he was invited to give a lecture at
Innsbruck to the Forty-Third Conference of German Scientists and
Doctors on the subject of ‘‘The Necessary Consequences and In-
consequences of Heat Mechanics.’’ To the great surprise of all those
present, he concluded his otherwise impeccably scientific disserta-
tion with the following remarks:

Let us now leave the realm of nature as it is known to physics and

approach the living world. Where the former is governed by necessity
and the unvarying clock of law, we now enter a realm of purposive
adaptation and beauty—a realm of progress and freedom. And the
boundary between the two is marked by number. In physics, number
means everything, in physiology it means very little, and in
metaphysics nothing at all. From the bottom of my heart I must pro-
claim this truth! A sound philosophy can and must be nothing less
than a preparatory school for the Christian religion!

It can easily be imagined what a ‘‘shaking of heads’’ was pro-

duced by this outburst among the scientific audience of this lecture.
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 35

Yet what we have here is an inevitable psychological consequence

of Robert Mayer’s basic problem. We could actually use the very
wording of the title of his lecture in a figurative sense and speak of
““a necessary consequence of heat mechanics’’!
Act I of his illness had confronted Robert Mayer with the idea of
the principle of energy. It approached him in a form which enables
us to recognize the characteristics of an archetypal content of the
imagination in the midst of his severe psychotic symptoms. This con-
tent is in fact a genuine symbol, i.e., it is an image of a psychological
state of affairs which could not be better or more completely ex-
pressed in any other way than by this precise image. We can see quite
distinctly that this expression includes both a rational and a nonra-
tional factor. The first, purely scientific treatment of this content
by Robert Mayer remained entirely within the confines of the ra-
tional dimension; and in fact he believed, very much in the old Kan-
tian spirit, that his mathematical-cum-physical treatment of the sub-
ject had exhausted its entire significance. However, it was inevitable
that this one-sidedness would take its revenge on a mind as deep as
Mayer’s. Almost without intermission the primordial image tore him
once again from the most exalted heights and plunged him into the
most abysmal depths, till as a result of these repeated grievous ex-
periences he realized and accepted their ultimate nonrational residue.
Now at last he gave an impression of genuine balance, so that,
for example, his friend Heinrich Rohlfs could say of him in 1876:
**At the same time Mayer developed a dazzling wit and a delightful
sense of humor which—though often sharp—was always at the same
time good-humoured, and of such an engaging childlike and lovable
quality that I was quite carried away.’’*? It was not until now, in Act
II of the tragedy of his fate, that Mayer’s dictum, ‘‘Dixi et animam
salvavi’’ was completely verified.
To explain and clarify what I had in mind when I chose Robert
Mayer as an example, I should like to add the following remarks:
The idea of the conservation of energy was in the air at that period
(cf. W.R. Grove*?, Joule, Colding, Carnot, Clausius, Tyndall,
Helmholtz etc.), and it took possession of a mind that was scarcely
capable of comprehending it in strictly scientific terms by first
assuming the form of an image of an archetypal nature (cf. Kekulé’s
ouroboros or Schiller’s ‘‘obscure but mighty total idea’). Subjec-
tive reasons why this idea should have fastened on Mayer, a men-
tal patient, of all people, are to be found, we believe, in the nature
of his illness, manic depressive insanity, a disease in which the
dynamic nature of the psyche manifests itself in a particularly ob-
trusive form—to the extent, in fact, that the patient becomes a
36 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

defenseless plaything of emotional forces. This oscillation between

manic and depressive mood disorder is related to such concepts as
the ‘‘progression’’ and ‘‘regression’’ of the psychic energy known
as libido, and also to the two opposite habitual attitudes of that
energy (extraversion and introversion), which we shall be examin-
ing later on.
In the realm of folklore the phenomenon of powerful emotional
fluctuations was personified in the figure of the Low German folk
hero Till Eulenspiegel; quite generally, too, fools, buffoons and
court jesters (cf. Rigoletto) exhibit these marked oscillations of
mood. Another equivalent of Goethe’s ‘‘One moment exulting, the
next quite cast down’’ (Egmont, Act III) in the realm of normal
psychology is provided by Goethe’s own ‘‘diastole’’ and ‘‘systole.”’
However, when the amplitude of the oscillations is as great as it was
in the case of Robert Mayer, the need is felt for a regulating or
governing principle, and at the same time we are faced with the
urgent problem of finding an energic equivalent on the unconscious
side of the equation—a question which arises owing to the fact that
although the psychic manifestations of the manic phase are plain to
see on every hand, during depressive episodes such evidence will only
be forthcoming if an active search is made for it. A brief example
from clinical experience may serve to illustrate this point:
A primary schoolteacher about 50 years old entered the psychiatric
clinic on account of an acute attack of melancholia, as endogenous
or psychotic depression is also called. He gave an impression of com-
plete mental paralysis and apathy. All the same, when I visited him
I gave him little lectures on the dynamics of the psyche, along the
lines of the theory set out above. In essence I told him, ‘‘It is
necessary to assume that in this condition extremely crucial
developments are taking place within the psyche. It would be most
useful from a therapeutic point of view if you would be on the
lookout for any development of this kind; the best source of infor-
mation about such things is dreams; you should make a point of
remembering your dreams, etc.’’ In spite of the apparent inap-
proachability of patients of this type, my powers of persuasion were
so far successful that one morning ten days later this patient came
up to me of his own accord in-a completely transformed state of
mind; whereas previously he had been practically mutistic, he now
told me that on the previous night he had dreamed that someone had
been singing very beautifully in the courtyard outside, under his
bedroom window; he had got up and had discovered that the song
was in fact intended for him and that it was a radiantly beautiful girl
who had serenaded him in this fashion. The patient was virtually
CREATIVE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 37

restored to health from that moment, and it was possible for him to
be discharged and sent home a few days later.**

However, since Mayer was fascinated by natural science, he

devoted himself to the question of the balance of energy in terms
of the contemporary level of knowledge on that subject—at first
with little success and many disappointments, but later with increas-
ing objectivity, until at last he won the highest degree of scientific
recognition. This whole course of development toward a rational
formulation of the principle of energy in terms of physical science
was not accompanied by any improvement in his psychic condition.
On the contrary, a nonrational element, which can probably be best
described as a god-image, asserted itself with increasing effec-
tiveness. And it was in fact not until this stage had been reached
that Mayer too attained a healing balance in the emotional sphere,
so that his scientific achievement was finally crowned by its
psychological counterpart.
To sum up Mayer’s case in simplified terms, we could say that in
the course of a sea voyage (sea = unconscious) and during a
depressive phase (introversion + regression of the libido), in con-
ditions of tropical heat (sun = energy), at the moment of landfall
(= consciousness), after 98 days at sea and in stormy weather (wind
= spirit), the image of the father (patris potestas) and the idea of
the conservation of energy had obtruded themselves on the atten-
tion of our author. At the same time the depressive episode gave
place to a manic phase, since the libido was fascinated by these im-
ages, and under the influence of this attraction it moved forward
and became available for intellectual work. The subsequent history
of Mayer’s life shows that, in addition to the solution of the prob-
lem on the scientific level, another solution, complementary or com-
pensatory to the first, is required on the metaphysical level, so that
the mind can occupy a central position between the two of them.
Perhaps the process can be represented by the following equation:

Sun = Father = ‘‘Force’’

pee FirstLawof Thermodynamics
oe God-Image
Incidentally, this scheme would exemplify Jung’s concept that
every archetypal image and every commonplace emotion alike con-
tain two aspects: (a) dynamism and (b) form, content or image—
both of which have to be taken into account.
To conclude this chapter, I should like to add one or two further
qualifications. We have dealt with certain notable cases, wherever
38 THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS EMPIRICAL MANIFESTATIONS

possible quoting the accounts given by the subjects themselves,

which make it clear that the collaboration of the unconscious has
been an essential factor in the outstanding achievements of unusually
gifted creative personalities.
If we are inclined to accept this finding, we are immediately con-
fronted by a number of questions. For example, is this positive
cooperation of the unconscious with the conscious mind confined
to men of genius and in fact does this constitute the nature of genius,
quite independently of any specific gifts or endowment? It is clearly
not my responsibility to examine this problem here. I should like
simply to ask a counter question. Are examples of this kind really
exceptional? Is it not really far more probable that they do not differ
in kind but only in degree from productive achievements which are
to be found in the realm of the normal or of the average? In such
cases the only difference would be that both the achievements
themselves and the components of the unconscious involved in them
would be less spectacular.
In saying this it is not my intention to detract in the slightest
degree from the respect that is due to genius; I simply wish to give
us ordinary mortals some share in the opportunities of life.
Psychological experience teaches us that a creative quality is in fact
involved in all kinds of problem solving, and that fortunately for
us this spark of creativity is often successful. And if ever we have
a chance to observe the natural genesis of this process under
laboratory conditions, as it were, in such a way that we are able to
form a general picture of at any rate the major factors involved in
its working, we regularly find that—to paraphrase Nietzsche (see p.
18)—nothing succeeds perfectly without the assistance of the un-
conscious—and that in any case this principle invariably holds
good when we are dealing with a problem which is psychic in the
narrower sense. This qualification should destroy the force of the
charge of psychologism, and one possible cause of irritation to which
our particular point of view might give rise would—at any rate in
theory! —be eliminated.°**