Number 3

the number three plays a big role in fairy tales, but when I count it is generally four... the fourth is not just another additional number unit; it is not another thing of the same kind, but something completely different.

Von Franz argues that the apparent primacy of three in fairy tales is structurally subordinate to a four-term rhythm, in which three stages of similar repetition are followed by a qualitatively different fourth — making three a marker of process rather than completion.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales, 1970thesis

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three, the first uneven prime number, the sum of one and two, the first triangular number; four, the first quadrangular number, the first square number; and so on.

Von Franz reports Jung's attempt to isolate the irreducible individuality of each natural number, recording his characterization of three as the first triangular number — a foundational statement of three's unique mathematical and symbolic identity within Jungian number-psychology.

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

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the number three is the number of ego-... the original state of wholeness, which is a kind of latent fourness, must be assaulted by the number three... a pie was being divided up into triangular sections. The original wholeness was being assaulted by the triangle.

Edinger formulates three as the psychological number of the ego, whose emergence requires an assault on the prior quaternary wholeness of the Self, illustrated clinically by a dream of a pie divided into triangles.

Edinger, Edward F., Transformation of the God-Image: An Elucidation of Jung's Answer to Job, 1992thesis

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the fateful aspect of the number three, which typically, either through repeated trials or rote repetition, 'makes something effective,' and thereby leads to the solution of the drama, or links one to a demonic factor.

Jung assigns three a fateful, activating function in dream dynamics: repeated triadic trials 'make something effective,' establishing a destiny and, in some configurations, connecting the subject to a demonic force.

Jung, C.G., Dream Interpretation Ancient and Modern: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936-1941, 2014thesis

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The one engenders the two, the two engenders the three and the three engenders all things. (Tao Teh Ching, 42). The relation between the image of 'the way' and ternary symbolism is illustrated in a very interesting case study.

Edinger invokes the Taoist cosmological formula to ground triadic symbolism in a universal generative sequence, then demonstrates its clinical relevance through a patient whose three-day anticipatory dream preceded a breakthrough experience of psychic unity.

Edinger, Edward F., Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche, 1972supporting

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Three years pass between the making of the bargain and the Devil's return... In mythology the three-year period is the time of mounting momentum, as in the three years of winter that precede Ragnarok.

Estés reads the mythological three-year interval as a temporal symbol of mounting psychic pressure prior to crisis, contextualizing it within Norse eschatology and the archetypal pattern of unconscious sacrifice.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph D, Women Who Run With the Wolves Myths and Stories of the Wild, 2017supporting

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The number seven is composed of the number three, which is in motion, which is still part of a process, and the number four, which is expressive of external form.

Hamaker-Zondag treats three as the dynamic, processual component within compound numbers, contrasting it with the static, form-giving quality of four — a numerological extension of the three/four polarity found throughout Jungian number symbolism.

supporting

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the third part of trees was burnt up... the third part of the sea became blood... the third part of the creatures which were in the sea... died... the third part of the ships were destroyed.

Edinger highlights the apocalyptic motif of 'one third destroyed' in Revelation as a symbolic assault on the number three, reading it as an attack on the ego-attitude that three represents in later-life psychology.

Edinger, Edward F., Transformation of the God-Image: An Elucidation of Jung's Answer to Job, 1992supporting

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The Mystical Numbers 7 a

Eliade's discussion of mystical numbers in shamanic cosmology provides a comparative context in which three functions as one among several numerically charged thresholds in archaic religious experience.

Eliade, Mircea, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951aside

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