Synchronicity: Nature and Psyche in an Interconnected Universe (Carolyn and Ernest Fay Series in Analytical Psychology) - Hardcover

Cambray, Joseph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1603441433 ISBN 13: 9781603441438

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Also available in an open-access, full-text edition athttp://txspace.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/88024/Cambray_Synchronicity_9781603441438_txt.pdf?sequence=4
In 1952 C. G. Jung published a paradoxical hypothesis on synchronicity that marked an attempt to expand the western world’s conception of the relationship between nature and the psyche. Jung’s hypothesis sought to break down the polarizing cause-effect assessment of the world and psyche, suggesting that everything is interconnected. Thus, synchronicity is both "a meaningful event" and "an acausal connecting principle." Evaluating the world in this manner opened the door to "exploring the possibility of meaning in chance or random events, deciphering if and when meaning might be present even if outside conscious awareness."

Now, after contextualizing Jung’s work in relation to contemporary scientific advancements such as relativity and quantum theories, Joseph Cambray explores in this book how Jung’s theories, practices, and clinical methods influenced the current field of complexity theory, which works with a paradox similar to Jung’s synchronicity: the importance of symmetry as well as the need to break that symmetry for "emergence" to occur. Finally, Cambray provides his unique contribution to the field by attempting to trace "cultural synchronicities," a reconsideration of historical events in terms of their synchronistic aspects. For example, he examines the emergence of democracy in ancient Greece in order "to find a model of group decision making based on emergentist principles with a synchronistic core."

 

About this title

About the Author

JOSEPH CAMBRAY is the President of the International Association for Analytical Psychology. He is a consulting editor of the Journal of Analytical Psychology, and coeditor of Analytical Psychology: Contemporary Perspectivces in Jungian Analysis (Brunner-Routledge, 2004). He resides in Providence, Rhode Island.

Review

"Cambray's book offers a different view of synchronicity than Jungian readers are used to encountering and his cutting-edge research and scholarship in physics, neuroscience and cultural history make this book a fine extension and contribution to the synchronicity literature."--Susan Meindl, C.G. Jung Society of Montreal (Susan Meindl C.G. Jung Society of Montreal)

" . . . one of the finest books in the Fay Series. . . Cambray has written the clearest and most coherent study to date on the subject of synchronicity. This book deserves to be widely read and disseminiated because in the past 'synchronicity' has been enshrouded with confusion and prejudice and the general reader has not been able to find a suitable point of entry into the debate. . . What is remarkable about this book is that Cambray takes synchronicity out of the confines of Jungian studies and links it to current research taking place in a variety of new and exciting fields in physics and the natural sciences."--Journal of Analytical Psychology

(David Tacey Journal of Analytical Psychology 2010-08-01)

About this edition

• Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1603441433
• ISBN 13: 9781603441438
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 168