Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self. Harper Row, 1979/1982.
Jean Bolen has been a favourite writer
since I first encountered her Goddesses In Everywoman a quarter
century ago. This little book, The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity
and the Self, links the ideas of Logos, Tao, and Jung's Collective
Unconscious/Self. She defines "synchronicity" as
"meaningful coincidence, a subjective experience in which the
person gives meaning to the coincidence." [p.15] Which is why, I suspect, she and Jung seem to appeal to writers. Because what they are
describing seems to me to be connected to how metaphor functions. How
we tend to try to define the unknown in terms of the known &
familiar. How do we explain "mystery"?
We are part of a larger whole -- Jung's
collective unconscious. "When we feel synchronicity, we feel
ourselves as part of a cosmic matrix, as participants in the Tao. It
gives us a glimpse into the reality that there is indeed a link
between us all, between us and all living things, between us and the
universe." This is why synchronicity, she says, breaks through
our modern isolation and loneliness and we feel we have had a
numinous, religious, spiritual experience. [p.103]
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