Observations placeholder
Pauli, Wolfgang - The pendulum extremes from the thug to the hermit
Identifier
019748
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Extract from Letter to C G Jung from Pauli
"The specific threat to my life has been that in the first half of life I swung from one extreme to the other ... I was a cold and cynical devil to other people, a fanatical atheist and intellectual 'intriguer.'
The opposition to that was, on the one hand, a tendency toward being a criminal, a thug (which could have degenerated into me becoming a murderer) and on the other hand, being detached from the world - a totally unintellectual hermit with outbursts of ecstasy and visions."