Goethe and C.G. Jung

“Faust I”, the Germans’ favorite drama is about a scholar who wants the impossible, who wants to know what keeps the world together at heart. Goethe’s Faust failed on this worldly question, which ultimately leads either straight to Augustine’s heaven or Dante’s hell. Therfore Faust needed and accepted diabolical assistance. But what keeps the world together is also a fundamental question of today’s particle physics. The essay approaches Faust’s complex question from philosophy,  depth psychology, religion and science.

To enlighten me more,
What Holds the world together at its innermost core
All this potency and seed I shall see,
And stop peddling in words that mean nothing to me.
Daß ich erkenne, was die Welt
Im Innersten zusammenhält,
Schau alle Wirkenskraft und Samen,
Und tu nicht mehr in Worten kramen.

Many suggestions and thoughts derived from a monastery-retreat with that title, held by a particle physicist…