DAY 33 - Quark Soup

One of the most unlikely collaborations between two of the most revered experts of the twentieth century reveals how:

We don’t need to choose between science and spirituality - combined they are a powerful force for good.

The two experts I refer to are Carl Jung - the famous psychoanalyst, and Wolfgang Pauli the leading quantum physicist. What on earth did such contrasting schools of academia have in common and why should we be interested?

If we truly understand the reason why these two great minds collaborated to write a book together, we will open up a whole new world of possibilities for our own lives. Carl Jung said that they managed to explore “the no-mans-land between Physics and the Psychology of the unconscious… the most fascinating yet the darkest hunting ground of our times.”

In my book The Secret of The Alchemist - I describe how Pauli was driven by an unshakable belief that the thoughts within the unconscious of the scientist will directly affect the outcome of an experiment. Like Einstein, he wanted to prove that there was a “Grand Unifying Theory” behind everything in the universe; he included human consciousness as one of the components in the theory. The term “The Pauli Effect” was even given to a phenomenon experienced by all scientists, when their equipment fails due to the anticipation of the failure in their own minds.

On a less anecdotal level, Pauli is credited with numerous groundbreaking discoveries of theoretical subatomic particles which significantly advanced the development of quantum physics. His theory of “Electron Spin” provided a mathematical means of identifying invisible particles known as “bosons.” More than fifty years after Pauli’s death, other scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for building on his research, which was in turn inspired through Pauli’s study of alchemy.

Most significantly, Pauli’s “Grand Unified Theory” has seen further experiments like the ones carried out recently at Upton, New York. Physicists at the RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) are studying the primordial form of matter that existed in the universe shortly after the Big Bang. Using both lead and gold ions, they have created a liquid-like substance called “quark-gluon plasma,” or “quark soup” for short, a perfectly dense fluid that exists at temperatures greater than those on our sun. The hypothesis, widely accepted from these experiments, is that this “quark soup” is the force that holds together all the atoms that make up our world.

It is reasonable to assume that what ancient alchemists called the prima materia and Carl Jung called archetypes - is in fact the same conceptual substance that scientists now call “quark soup” and everything that exists contains this.

If the latest science agrees there is an indivisible connection between everything in the universe, then the ability of the observer to affect a change to matter is not as outlandish as previously thought. Jung and Pauli deserve our thanks revealing how as alchemists we can tap into the force within our unconscious thoughts to create a new reality.

Our mantra for today is from The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo:

“I will learn to penetrate the Soul of The World and discover the treasure reserved for me.”

Remember I have asked Love to give you everything you need to be the Alchemist in your world - and it all begins with a thought.