Revelations of Chance
Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience
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Explores the plausibility and value of viewing synchronicity as a form of spiritual experience.
Description
In this fascinating book, Roderick Main examines meaningful coincidence or what Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung called synchronicity. Moving beyond Jung's psychological theory, he explores the plausibility and value of viewing synchronicity as a form of spiritual experience and clarifies connections between the phenomenon and a range of traditional spiritual concepts, including numinosity, miraculousness, transformation, unity, transcendence and immanence, providence, and revelation. Through the detailed analysis of two remarkable series of synchronistic events, Main illustrates and further develops these connections. He also includes an examination of the alleged synchronistic basis of the ancient Chinese Oracle of Change, the I Ching.
Roderick Main is Lecturer in Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom and the author of The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity and Jung's Critique of Modern Western Culture.
Reviews
"This is a valuable contribution to our thinking and mission in the churches, as the idea of 'the spiritual' is becoming more and more accepted as a mark of the human being, and a bridge between Christians and the secular … I strongly recommend this book." — Revd William A. Simons, The Christian Parapsychologist
"Main's presentation of the existing literature on synchronicity is nearly exhaustive. He explicates the varying positions held by others and then proceeds to criticize all of them. His criticisms of others, especially Jung, are unfailingly logical, precise, and fair. He then lays out his own views systematically and illustrates them in an array of venues, each of which he analyzes methodically and open-mindedly. Bold and original, this is an important work." — Robert A. Segal, University of Aberdeen
"By breaking synchronicity out of the cage of psychological study into the larger world of religious and spiritual concern, Main addresses an important topic that has not been adequately treated despite the recent torrent of writing on synchronicity. The care and thoroughness of his analysis is impressive. Mature, authoritative, and interesting, this is Main's best work." — Victor Mansfield, author of Synchronicity, Science, and Soul-Making: Understanding Jungian Synchronicity through Physics, Buddhism, and Philosophy