You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In recent years, major concepts from analytical psychology have been used as the mainstay of many so-called New Age writings. It is commonplace to find discussions of complexes, archetypes, the Self, synchronicity, spirituality, and typology in trade paperbacks where unfortunately these concepts are treated simplistically and in isolation from the larger whole that comprises the field of analytical psychology. They are, in a sense, taken out of their disciplinary context, without which their true meaning and significance cannot be sufficiently appreciated. When these books are made available widely to a population lacking the benefit of training in Jungian thought, these concepts are accepted as presented, and this diluted version of a profoundly meaningful field becomes what passes for the popular notion of ‘what Jung taught’ on these various subjects. The result leads sadly to groups of people who sincerely want to understand Jung and analytical psychology, and who believe they have plumbed the depths of Jungian concepts by reading woefully inadequate treatments of these psychological and spiritual structures of thought. There is no greater obstacle to learning than the mistaken belief that one already knows.
What an important contribution, then, is Roderick Main's new book, Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience. With a writing style that is both accessible yet unhesitatingly direct and deep, Main takes two major topics from the Jungian canon, spirituality and synchronicity, and subjects them to an intensive and extensive co-analysis. His treatment provides a competent and comprehensive exploration of these two key topics, educating and empowering the reader to consider further the significance of these phenomena. While some may consider synchronicity vaguely as a disclosure of the unconscious that somehow creates a special experience in an individual who discerns it, Main explicitly emphasizes the spiritual aspects of synchronistic phenomena