An editor once told us that she was wary of books about synchronicity because most manuscripts on the subject that had come her way were dry and academic with many convoluted sentences peppered with academic parlance. Such books tend to feature the scientific paradigm of controlled experiment and statistical analysis. Bottom line, they don’t sell well for commercial publishers.
While her comments ring true about some tomes published in the years since Jung introduced the link between coincidence and science, there are other academic writers who say it all quite well for a general audience.
A couple that come to mind: The Bridge Between Mind and Matter, by physicist David Peat, and The Sage of Synchronicity, by futurist Marcus Anthony.
Another one I’m reading now is When the Impossible Happens, by Stanislav Grof. Here is a bit of his clear thinking and writing from that book.
“Traditional psychiatry does not distinguish between true synchronicities and psychotic misinterpretations of the world. Since the materialistic worldview is strictly deterministic and does not accept the possibility of ‘meaningful coincidences,’ any intimation of extraordinary synchronicities in the client’s narrative will automatically be interpreted as ‘delusion of reference,’ a symptom of serious mental disease. However, there cannot be any doubt about the existence of genuine synchronicities, where any person who has access to the facts has to admit that the coincidences involved are beyond reasonable statistical probability. This certainly is the case with Joe’s extraordinary encounter with the praying mantis.”
That last line refers to a startling synchronicity experienced by Joseph Campbell. We wrote about that story here.
– R
Wow! I saw the March Hare at the top of this post and I had just come over from a link from Reality Sandwich
https://www.realitysandwich.com/new_york_state_sync
called “Hair Peace Part 1” (as a play on Hair/Hare) by Jake Kotze,
and it is quite synchonisticly spooky.
It’s about an exploration of the synchronicities and themes surrounding the white rabbit/hare in the film & TV career of Patricia Arquette (and Johnny Depp).
You can watch it here…or at the above link(…but this is the better link) ;
https://vimeo.com/15714656
Talk about “When the Impossible Happens”, not even Hollywood could write stuff like this (although some of it,they did.-)
I had to laugh while watching this clip,because Jake points out Drew Barrymore’s initials work out to be 42 (D=4,B=2) and my initials are also DB and my father’s old cab number was 424 (he gave me his old cab to drive as a car,when he had taken it off the road).
Also if you look at the Reality Sandwich link,you’ll see Kevin Halcott is presenting
(pretty much right now…give or take a few hours) –
“a slideshow introduction to Synchronicity and the art of Synchromysticism, followed by a short documentary highlighting patterns of meaningful coincidence in popular culture, mythology, and movies, aiming to allow greater access to mystery, wonder and joy.In my talk about online telepathy I’ll show how we can use social technologies to (re) learn telepathic communication both on and offline. I reveal that along with synchronicity, “magical” powers such as knowing what friends are thinking without direct communication are a part of the overarching evolutionary shift from a linear to a more holographic way of being in the world.
After the talks will be the premiere of Kevin’s video, “Flim: A Thin Skin or Membrane” which looks at the Synchronistic relationship between the concept of going down the “Rabbit Hole” and the symbolic use of the Rainbow in Mysticism and Pop Culture as modern metaphors about our growing knowledge of our Spiritual nature and origins.
In addition we will be showing “Hare Peace”, as a further exploration of the synchronicities and themes surrounding the white rabbit. Hare Peace is put together by Sync Whole bloggers Jake Kotze and Jim Sanders. https://www.joycity.ca/abou?t/ ”
Kevin’s You Tube channel is named “kevin23420”
ttp://www.youtube.com/user/kevin23420 .
My oldest son’s name is Kevin and his birthday is 20th June,mine is 23rd September,also DB= 42,K=11 (or 2),and 2+3+4+2+0= 11 (or K).
…….but I’m sure all of the above is just a coincidence .-)
“And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you’re going to fall
Tell ’em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small
-White Rabbit
Jefferson Airplane
…and a white falling hair is not what you want to find on your
‘Surrealistic Pillow’ in the morning, at my age…it would just about make me dye .-)
🙂
Grof’s book is filled with interesting stories.
I’m with Gypsy, I’ll keep my “delusions of reference”.
Even Jung’s colleagues felt his interest may have been delusional. That’s why it took over 50 years for his family to allow the Red Book to be published. Like Jung, some of us are fortunate to witness truly magical moments. I’m grateful to Trish and Rob for giving us a place to talk about it, and a means to share our stories with the world.
I’ve always wondered about the 50 years it took the family to decide that Jung wasn’t nuts. Just paging through the Red Book it’s obvious he was a genius. And we’re grateful to you all, debra. For years, rob and I thought
we were the white crows!
Maybe being a white crow isn’t so bad: in alchemy, the white crow is the transformed human.
oh, I love it!
LOVE the white crow status!
So if we’re all white crows, are we all transformed humans?!
I would say we’re all a work-in-progress. – R
Ditto!
Jung would enjoy this discussion, I’m sure.
i’m betting he “is” enjoying it! 😉
Maybe he’s come back?!
There is also a fascinating book on synchronicity called “7 Secrets” that you may have heard of. It’s on my bookshelf!
🙂 Thanks, DJan!
well, i personally have languished all my life in delusions of reference as i make my way through my demented psychotic misinterpretations of this world [uh, and other worlds] and i am so proud of it! those boys and girls just don’t know what they’re missing as they peer out from all those victorian textbooks on their cobwebcovered bookshelves –
the minute i read your reference to the joseph campbell/mantis story, i was reminded of an incident with a butterfly that occurred to me many moons ago – but had forgotten i’d mentioned on your blog and there it was, under the comments of the campbell story – butterflies to me have always been such magical little creatures – like dragonflies – and i think i mentioned this to you a while back trish, about the little dragonfly that came into my apartment the day i was leaving shreveport to come back here? –
neat post, R – and thanks for adding another book for my stacks!
You didn’t tell me about the dragonfly! How fitting!
Spot on. I remember the praying mantis story and, as Stanislav Grof writes, ‘ … there cannot be any doubt’. But, unfortunately, at the present time there still is for many people.
I hope the tide is changing!
I have to wonder how many people have been diagnosed with personality disorders, or worse, because they were intuned to their universe. Maybe Tom Cruise was right – psychiatry, especially with all of the doping, is actually very bad for you.
I was not impressed upon meeting Tom Cruise…
Never met him, but he gave Trish a contract to write a Mission Impossible novel, then changed his mind and paid a 100% kill fee. IOW, ‘Here’s the money, you don’t have to write the book.’ Not a bad deal.
That’s the only thing I agree with Scientologists on: that prescribing drugs to “solve” one’s psychological problems is a bad thing. But a lot of Scientology’s resistance to psychiatry may have to do with L. Ron Hubbard’s e-meter being denied by psychiatrists as an instrument to use in diagnosing patients. The reason why I don’t like psychiatry is that Sigmund Freud is still held as a credible psychiatrist. To him, everything seemed to boil down to sex, which is reductionist in the extreme. Not every issue a person has goes back to childhood, one’s relationship with their parents, or sex. I’m more of a Carl Jung person.
I totally agree with you on this.
I think most of us here are more Jung than Freud.
Yes, dry academic writing does take all the magic out of learning. 😀