The next story needs a little background.
Carl Jung’s investigation of synchronicity was triggered by a patient’s dream, in which she was given a golden scarab. Jung knew the scarab is a symbol of rebirth in Egyptian mythology and believed the dream might portend some sort of psychological rebirth that would pull her out of the excessive rationalism that had impeded her treatment. As he was about to say as much, he heard a noise behind him and glanced around to see an insect fluttering at the glass. He opened the window to let the bug in, caught it, and discovered it was the closest thing his area had to a scarab beetle. Jung then shared his interpretation of the dream and from that point forward, the stunned patient started to improve.
Now skip ahead many decades. One night I Googled physicist and author F David Peat, whose book, Synchronicity: The Bridge Between Matter and Mind – is one of my favorites. I found his website – Pari Center on Learning, located in Italy – and discovered he was going to be teaching a workshop this summer on synchronicity. I requested information on it and explained that we were writing a book on the topic and felt the workshop would be a terrific opportunity to expand our knowledge. His story about a scarab was in one of our email exchanges and he gave us permission to use it. He subsequently allowed us to use another one of his great synchronicity stories: Jung, Pauli, and Peat
Trish
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I did experience something curious in 1994, the year we came to Italy.Its a complicated story but in our move from Ottawa to London we had three months to kill and decided to spend them in Siena. A travel agent arranged a flat in Siena and the day we left for the airport told us it had falled through but she had got us a bedroom in someone’s house – but it was outside Siena.
The accommodation was less than ideal and we went to all the agencies in Siena but it was the month of the Palio, filled with tourists, plus students at all the language schools. We had visited the last agency on the list and considered that maybe we should go to Portugal instead. Then I noticed a plaque on a wall in the corner of the square – maybe it was an agency not on the list? I walked to the door but was stopped by a group of people speaking German and looking down at the
floor.
It was a golden scarab! I said to my wife. “Now, we’ll get something.”
But it was the same story. However, on the way out, the secretary said that her friend had a house for sale in a hilltop village 30 km south of Siena. Maybe she would agree to rent it to us.And so we came to Pari, a year later we returned and we’ve been here every since.
I often thought that I was made to come here, that the village wanted us to be here and called us.
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David Peat also contributed another synchronicity to the blog:
https://ofscarabs.blogspot.com/2009/05/jung-pauli-and-peat.html
You’re probably right. Jung was a Leo, with a need to have everything presented in a light that made him look good. Even his autobiography seems to have been written with that presentation in mind. He did not, for instance, write about his affairs. That was left to his biographers.
It is noteworthy that Jung who recorded dates for everything apparently failed to date the occurrence of his shared life defining Scarab synchronicity between him and his patient. I also believe that this omission was quite likely no coincidence.
So for Jung’s patient, the golden scarab in her dream signaled her “rebirth” – progress in her therapy. For Jung himself, the scarab fluttering at the window launched his research into synchronicity, a kind of rebirth. For David Peat, the golden scarab also signaled a rebirth – his move to Italy. Intriguing connections.