Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity As Spiritual Experience (Suny Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology) - Softcover

Main, Roderick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0791470245 ISBN 13: 9780791470244

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2007

Synopsis

Explores the plausibility and value of viewing synchronicity as a form of spiritual experience.

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.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

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.

"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

About the Author:

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0791470245
• ISBN 13: 9780791470244
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272