Epilogue
Have I met my goal that I set out when beginning this essay: to find a personal standpoint and a more religious attitude?
No, I have not; but at least I have made a beginning. Paracelsus was not only a figure of past history, he is a phenomena of the future. A truly holistic scientist, his central research goals were to unify the macrocosm and the microcosm to complete the work of God and to save his own soul. He had a genuine religious attitude to his work; he saw a deeper meaning to science than just producing technical improvements or saving lives. He also was an incorrigible individualist, following his own extreme path of conscience in the face of collective values that probably crucified the individual just as much as they do today. Thus he provides an inspiration to follow my own path with equal resoluteness and to put my soul before the collective phantasms of my outer job. I must therefore take courage to awaken whatever remnants of a miserable feeling function I might have through active imagination and the diligent study of my dreams, and to look honestly at my shadow.
Aware that my fascination with nature probably stems from the darkness of matter (the coldness) as well as darkness of my own shadow (the inflation, the timelessness), how can I bring a more religious attitude into my outer job (geophysics) as well as into my inner life? Although my extreme intuition and lack of sensation reek havoc, they (actually this is T.B.) stem from a part of my soul that is from another world, from the timeless universe. It balances the rational scientific world (Harvey), the opposite to which it is naturally attracted. In addition, it may be able to help me “find the eternal through the natural,” to use Paracelsus’ paradoxical phrase. How could I do this?
By researching the archetypal motifs in geology and physics. These motifs represent the eternal part of the psyche. It is tempting to hypothesize that they also represent the eternal in nature. This work could help to put myself in touch with the eternal in the psyche that is somehow connected with the eternal in nature.
By remembering how eternal time – the great cycles – interact with historical time. Although the theories of the Earth’s evolution may be based on timeless physical laws, each instant of Earth’s history has been unique (much of the oceanic crust gets recycled, but the face of the Earth is changing every instant).
By bringing the irrational into my work. I could try to let my feeling function (however weak) determine more what to do, instead of just following blindly what is in front of me.
By realizing the personal psychological meaning of my work. Am I studying how continents form in order to “find the eternal in the natural”? Who is it for? I used to have the feeling that I was telling the Earth something about itself that it did not know. I think now it is more likely that it is for my ego – to put me in touch with the eternal part of my soul. For me, someone who is afraid to be who he really is inside, afraid to look honestly at himself, and afraid to stand up for himself when he has found something genuine, it could indeed be healing to relate to an ageless stone.
I have no ancient tradition, no set of rituals. Either I find a relationship to God or else I am lost. Can I find this relationship in books, in equations, in theories of physics? Or in the wonder, the awe, the feeling of something much greater than myself in the natural world around me? One part of me (Harvey) identifies with those physicists, like I.I Rabi, who turned from religious traditions that no longer held meaning for them to the world of physics “to be closer to God.”[1] On the other hand, T.B. always reminds me of a statement Jung made in his autobiography to the effect that lasting steps forward are made by going backward.[2] Of course, T.B. interpreted that literally to mean going back to wood houses, campfires, and walking. A while back I had a dream in which I stepped off a mad highway rushing into the suicidal psychosis of a technological future. I found myself beneath concrete bridges, in a world where the sun never reached. However, there were people and a river on which we had to paddle our canoes and try somehow to survive. Obviously I cannot afford to go along with the mania of progress in the collective. Yet I am living in an increasingly digital world – I cannot naively turn my back on it. Evidently I must work on building a personal relationship to the eternal collective unconscious but in this world, the world of time. As always, my voices have something to say about all this.
Harriet: “Although this may momentarily alleviate your guilt, it may not bring you closer to God, closer to a tradition, or closer to a set of rituals, all of which you need desperately.”
Ash: “Even as you said that you know that it is not true. Somewhere paying attention to old Paracelsus, with his radical fantasies, but a genuine relationship to the unconscious, is helping an old tradition – that of those who turned their faces from the world and into their inner world. It is supporting Jung and von Franz in their work to demonstrate the value of the psyche.”
T. B.: “Is it healing my character faults? No. It cannot do that. Is it teaching me to live with myself as I am? No. It does help me be aware of the dangers of science, but I am not on par with a Fermi or my chemist colleague. I know I will never come up with big ideas or important results.”
Harvey: “Still you could get just as possessed by little ideas and by the trappings of modern science.”
But there is yet another voice, and it sounds like mine:
All told, this path – with its different voices and personalities – is my path, the only way that I can approach God, even if I am unsure and doubting.
[1] Quoted in full in Chapter 1, J. S. Rigden Rabi, Scientist and Citizen, p. 73.
[2] “Reforms by retrogressions, on the other hand, are as a rule less expensive and in addition more lasting, for they return to the simpler, tried and tested ways of the past and make the sparest use of newspapers, radio, television and all supposedly time-saving innovations.” C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams Reflections, Collins paperback edition, p. 264, Vintage Books paperback edition, p, 237.