Free translation from the thoughtprocess of Jean Carteret.
‘At a certain moment Carteret was very impressed by a line in Jungs book 'Man and
his symbols': Matter and psyche are two aspects of one and the same phenomenon. Superficially
from this comes that matter obvious is the visable side of the psyche. But if one
stays in this stage, it becomes a formula and becomes a presence where you cannot
go about. That never happened to Carteret, therefore was his analysing quality to
His second association by the phrase of Jung was: matter and psyche are sort of the
same, but matter is also energy. Coming from this scientific fact, he then formulated:
the energy in the matter can be seen as workable infinity, an infinity in action.
And matter is a condition of limitation. So there is a couple of matter/energy and
besides that there is also the psyche. But psyche also is invisible like energy.
Psyche, which is an inner concept, asks for a fourth concept, that is to the psyche
what energy is to matter.
The search for this fourth concept could start, a search which could take weeks,
sometimes even months. But also sometimes only a blink of an eye. The latter was
wat happend here. Suddenly he thought of something from the psychiater Lacan about
language. And apart from how Lacan meant that, he had found his fourth concept to
use in a dialectic. He formulated it about this: Matter is the 'condition' of 'limitation'
from an 'infinity' in 'action' (energy).
Psyche is just like energy an 'infinity' but a 'condition' of infinity. And language
is the 'condition' in 'action'. Because the psyche is the oceanic infinity and the
ocean does not move, while on the contrairy the rivers do. So the psyche is the condition
of infinity of which language is the 'condition' in 'action'. So on one hand as a
physical aspect of the world, there is the couple matter/energy: a condition of limitation
and an infinity in action.
And on the other hand, complemantairy to that and as a metafysical aspect, there
is the couple psyche/language: a condition of infinity and a limitation that can
work on that actively. The result of that, if maximum, is poetry and if this does
not work then there is the language that totaly drawns in the actual unspeakable
of the psyche, which gives the mystical’.
From ‘Het poëtische denken van Jean Carteret’ by George Bode