Fourth Dimension

The ‘Fourth Dimension’ occupies a distinctive and philosophically charged position in the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as a geometric-mathematical concept borrowed from modern physics and as a symbolic index for psychic realities that exceed the grasp of three-dimensional consciousness. Jung deploys it most precisely in Aion, where he constructs a space-time quaternio in which time serves as the fourth dimension of space, or space as the fourth term of temporal experience; either way, the ‘fourth’ is ‘an incommensurable Other’ required for mutual determination. In the Zarathustra seminars, Jung renders it experientially as a vertical axis—‘at right angles to the plane’—that pierces the flat world of ego-extension and locates the Self at an unextended center. Von Franz, working at the psyche-matter frontier, aligns this figure with Wolfgang Pauli’s physics: the fourth dimension is unanschaulich (unobservable), incapable of being imagined, yet mathematically necessary—precisely the condition Jung assigns to the archetypes in themselves. Miller reads the fourth dimension theologically, as the psychic underside Jung added to the Christian Trinity. Across these readings a consistent tension emerges: the fourth is always the disruptive term, the element that cannot be assimilated on the same level as its three predecessors, yet without which no complete orientation—cosmological, psychological, or theological—can be achieved.

In the library 10 passages

If we look at this quaternio from the standpoint of the three-dimensionality of space, then time can be conceived as a fourth dimension. But if we look at it in terms of the three qualities of time… static space… must be added as a fourth term.

Jung establishes the fourth dimension as the ‘incommensurable Other’ in the space-time quaternio, essential for mutual determination of its three co-terms and homologous to the fourth figure in Gnostic, alchemical, and theological quaternities.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 1951thesis

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The fourth dimension, for instance, would be unanschaulich, that is, we cannot form an inner image, an imaginative representation, of it… Jung says that in their ultimate nature archetypes are unanschaulich, just as matter is because it reaches into the fourth dimension.

Von Franz uses the fourth dimension as the precise analogue for the unknowable nature of archetypes in themselves, arguing that both physics and depth psychology confront an unobservable reality that can only be inferred, not imagined.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Creation Myths, 1995thesis

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He added a fourth to the trinity and therewith the dimension of psychic reality to Christian dogma… The experiential and phenomenological God of psychology included a fourth dimension, an underside which Jung saw as shadow, femininity, Mercurius, and the pagan past.

Miller interprets Jung’s addition of a fourth to the Christian Trinity as the introduction of a ‘fourth dimension’ of psychic and shadow reality into theology, equating it with repressed femininity, Mercurius, and alchemy.

Miller, David L., The New Polytheism: Rebirth of the Gods and Goddesses, 1974supporting

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Alchemical speculations led to the idea of four states of aggregation, to the model of a space-time quaternion of four dimensions, and finally to different modern quaternarian models of the subatomic world.

Von Franz traces a historical arc from alchemical quaternary thought through Einstein’s space-time to quantum physics, positioning the four-dimensional space-time continuum as the scientific heir to the alchemical quaternio.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Psyche and Matter, 2014supporting

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Space and time are thus inseparably connected and form a four-dimensional continuum—which is generally called the Minkowski-Einsteinian block universe.

Von Franz presents Einstein’s four-dimensional space-time continuum as a mathematically precise modern formulation of an archaic intuition about the inseparability of space and time, contextualizing the fourth dimension within the unus mundus problematic.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Psyche and Matter, 2014supporting

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The ‘world’ of Einstein-Minkowski possesses a quadridimensional structure. According to modern physics, four fundamental forces can be distinguished in the universe… Jung independently observed that mandalas… have a quaternary structure.

Von Franz marshals the quadridimensional structure of the Einstein-Minkowski universe as convergent evidence alongside Jung’s independent discovery of quaternary mandala symbolism, suggesting a deep archetypal isomorphism.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Psyche and Matter, 2014supporting

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P. Birkhäuser: The Fourth Dimension

Jung references a visual artwork explicitly titled ‘The Fourth Dimension’ as an illustrative image within his discussion of UFO symbolism and alchemical quaternary structures, treating it as an archetypal pictorial motif.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Civilization in Transition, 1964aside

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An experience of higher dimensionality is achieved by integration of experiences of different centres and levels of consciousness… we live simultaneously in different dimensions, of which that of the intellect… is only one.

Govinda invokes a quasi-dimensional model of consciousness in which meditative integration accesses levels of experience incommensurable with three-dimensional intellectual logic, functionally paralleling the Jungian fourth dimension as transcendent psychic register.

Govinda, Lama Anagarika, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, 1960supporting

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The ideas of three-dimensional or four-dimensional space are based on an archetypal representation, which has always worked, to a certain degree, in a very productive way.

Von Franz, citing Pauli, argues that the very concept of four-dimensional space originates in an archetypal idea, demonstrating that scientific models of dimensionality are themselves products of the psyche’s structural dispositions.

Marie-Louise von Franz, James Hillman, Lectures on Jung’s Typology, 2013aside

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