Description

The synchronicity concept is the single theory with the most far-reaching implications for Jung’s psychology as a whole, particularly for his psychology of religion, yet both within and outside the Jungian circle it remained the least understood of Jung’s theories.

Prior to this work, no comprehensive study of the synchronicity theory in relationship to the individuation process had been undertaken and, as a consequence, the great import of this theory for Jung’s psychology of religion was overlooked. The purpose of this work, therefore, was to examine the synchronicity theory in relationship to the psychological and indeed spiritual journey Jung has termed the individuation process so as to reveal the specific import of this seminal concept for Jung’s psychology of religion. The unique contribution of this work is essentially threefold.

First, it provides a theoretical framework for the study of synchronistic phenomena—a framework that enables us to view these phenomena in relation to Jung’s model of the psyche and his concept of psychic compensation.

Second, this book explores the significant role that these events played in Jung’s life and work.

And third, by way of careful examination of the synchronicity theory in relation to the process Jung terms individuation, an examination in which considerable case material is presented, the specific import of this seminal concept for Jung’s psychology of religion is disclosed.

 

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction

1. Jung’s Psychology of Religion: The Intrapsychic Model
2. The Synchronicity Theory: A Systematic Study
3. The Psyche as Microcosm
4. The Synchronistic Patterning of Events
5. Jung’s Psychology of Religion: The Synchronistic Model

• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

Excerpts

"When ‘rebellion’ comes to one as fate, which it seems was Jung’s lot in his relationship with Freud, the task of rebellion itself is made all the more difficult to rationalize, both to oneself and others, when points of tension with the person against whom one is destined to rebel are lessened. Perhaps this is why amongst students of Jung, encouraged tacitly by Jung himself, it has remained a largely unacknowledged fact that shortly after the synchronistic events in Vienna, Freud’s attitude toward telepathic-type events was to be considerably revised and, moreover, that Freud would go on to write, after Jung’s departure, four rather favorable papers on this subject." (p. 98)

"For Jung, as evidenced by his own writings on synchronicity and, perhaps more importantly, by the way he lived his own life, the individuation process extends beyond the psychological realm and assumes the character of a drama that takes the whole of nature for its stage. What we normally regard as the discontinuous inner and outer worlds become enclosed within the same circle of wholeness. Inwardly and outwardly nature works, through the compensatory patterning of events, to further the movement of the individual toward wholeness. Accordingly, the conscious individual is led, much as the traditional worldview of the Chinese would carry one, into a new experience of life wherein one is able to perceive with ever-increasing clarity how events in the outer world relate to the events of one’s inner world. Now one is challenged to achieve a full understanding of the meaning that conjoins one, not only to the unconscious, but to nature in its entirety. This is the new spiritual challenge of individuation. It is the task of experiencing within the sacred circle of nature as a whole the meaning of an individual existence." (pp. 165-166)

"In 1937 when Jung exhorted his Yale audience to move beyond the confines of established religion and accept the challenge of ‘immediate religious experience,’ what Jung had in mind was for them to enter consciously into a direct encounter with the unconscious. For those for whom the rituals of conventional religion had lost their efficacy, what Jung offered as an alternative was an intrapsychic ritual which, properly followed, would lead to the emergence of a highly personalized spiritual wholeness. What Jung had in mind in 1937, then, was a ritual to be enacted within the sacred circle of the psyche. As we have seen in the preceding chapters, however, this earlier Jungian notion of religious ritual has been dramatically transformed by the synchronicity concept, indeed, so much so that we can now say that Jung’s notion of ‘immediate religious experience’ may be taken to refer not simply to an intrapsychic encounter, but to a direct encounter with nature in its entirety. The Jungian ritual, to put it simply, is now a ritual which is to be enacted within the sacred circle of nature as a whole." (p. 167)

"In this work, a model has been introduced that identifies the key aspects of the synchronistic event. Furthermore, utilizing this same framework, we have been able to explore in considerable detail the theorizing about the synchronicity principle that has been carried out by Jung and others. In this way, both the strengths and weaknesses of the theoretical models associated with the synchronicity concept have been revealed. Jung, as we have seen, never developed a satisfactory, comprehensive theory to account for the key features of the synchronistic event, on the one hand, and the activities of the synchronicity principle, on the other. As a consequence of this, it seems to me that his discussion of this phenomenon was greatly inhibited. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Jung delayed the writing of the principal essay on synchronicity for some twenty years. Perhaps it is also partly the reason why he focused away from the human element when he finally found his way to writing that paper. Clearly, the presentation of the synchronistic case material, if it is to be done in any detail, requires a comprehensive theoretical understanding of synchronicity—a comprehensive theoretical overview that Jung’s writings on this subject suggest he did not have. In the same manner, the literature that has followed the principal essay has been equally held back by the absence of such a theoretical overview. Hopefully, this work makes a contribution toward resolving that particular problem." (p. 217)

Reviews

Back Cover Reviews

"This is the most stimulating writing on Carl Jung I have read for some time. It resolves two issues which in Jung’s own writing and in the secondary sources had remained unclear: the notion of synchronicity and the degree to which individuation involves the external world as well as the inner archetypes. This is a most significant scholarly accomplishment. Throughout, the writing is clear and concise, and the argument is solidly founded on the research sources."

"In this groundbreaking work, Robert Aziz explores the most pressing issue still confronting Jungian psychology, that issue being our answerability and responsibility to the world. The interaction between the inner and the outer—in which for too long the inner has been given almost exclusive priority—is rebalanced in this important volume. Synchronicity as interpreted by Aziz avoids priorities and affirms an interaction between equals: nature within and nature without."

"This work is extremely important because it shows through a combination of scholarly research, analysis, and extensive use of examples that Jung’s concept of synchronicity is the dynamic essence of his psychology of religion."

Further Reviews

"Aziz can be credited with completing Jung’s thinking in regard to both synchronicity and the psychology of religion. The book is based not only on Jung’s collected works but his correspondence, lectures, interviews, his autobiography, and secondary sources. As Aziz suggests, Jung’s time may have been too early for the bombshell of his theory of synchronicity set forth in all of its ramifications, including those for religion. Additionally, it may have been more even than Jung himself could attempt, coming, as it would have had to do, on top of his already heretical views. His brand of psychotherapy itself was revolutionary enough, without revealing how revolutionary it really was. Coming at this time, the view Aziz sets forth can be seen as evolutionary rather than revolutionary, although there will doubtless be many who will find it too radical. In the space of a mere abstract, which is already lengthening like a full-length book review, it is not possible to set forth in this brief space the views that required an entire book."

"The book took eight years to write, Aziz tells us, and it shows its long preparation. It is often dense to read, but it is packed with substance, and worth the effort. Aziz takes us on excursions beyond his centre of interest, moving to discuss Freud and telepathy (pp. 100ff.), shamanism and therapy (pp.11ff., 170ff.), synchronicity and transference, and Jung’s eschewal of the couch (p. 169), synchronicity and déjà vu phenomena (p.175), the shadow (p. 195), participation mystique (p. 190), and the place of synchronicity in society (pp. 200ff.)."

"Jung’s views on religion, a glimpse of which can be seen at the end of his life in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, do not emerge clearly from his own writings. His concept of synchronicity, a seminal theme in his work and that of others after him, is an extremely complex one to understand in any depth, though the idea of synchronicity in events has become accepted in a general way to a surprising degree. This scholarly book … examines these two aspects of Jung’s work and relates them to the whole. Aziz provides a theoretical framework for the study of synchronistic phenomena and he explores the interaction between inner and outer, giving to the outer its proper place in the balance between the two. An important book for the student of these difficult areas of Jungian ideas."

"This is a much-needed and excellently-worked book. Here at last is a sympathetic yet finely critical attempt to elucidate systematically Jung’s theory of synchronicity. Even if one does not have specific Jungian sympathies oneself, the concept of synchronicity is so much used and abused, in parapsychological and psychical research circles as elsewhere, that one can welcome a work that makes clear what Jung, as its originator, actually intended the concept to mean. … Besides clarifying the synchronicity concept as it was intended to be understood by Jung, Aziz’s book does a service to parapsychology and psychical research by heightening awareness of how closely bound up the intelligibility of paranormal experiences can be with the details of their psychological context—a fact which is perhaps too often rather wishfully ignored."

"In this work Robert Aziz makes the revolutionary claim that, effectively applied, the synchronicity theory radically transforms the Jungian world view, significantly broadens the dynamic of analytical psychology, and accordingly extends the range of its application. In short, it opens the door to a completely new understanding of the meaning of life. This is a serious work, double attractive in being both scholarly and entertaining, carefully organised to be easily understood, and unhampered by jargon or polysyllabic obscurity. Aziz contends that until now no one, including Jung, has possessed an adequate theoretical framework for properly observing and interpreting the ongoing and by no means only intermittent reality that synchronicity is; that Jung himself, for fear of an uncomprehending scientific community and general public, did not reveal anything like the full depth of his experience and critical appreciation of synchronicity phenomena; and that Jung perhaps knew and accepted that it would be up to his followers to properly apply the concept and bring about the ‘paradigmatic-leap’ in the transformation of analytical psychology which the application of the concept entails. This is the mission to which the book addresses itself. Though grounded in Jungian orthodoxy, its ultimate intention far outstrips its source. Published almost a year ago, the work awaits the evaluation of a wide and competent readership. The international Jungian community, analysts and non-analysts alike, should, in my opinion, pursue the discussion which Aziz has so courageously initiated."

"The delights of Aziz’s work include a willingness to rap Jung’s knuckles for sins Aziz imputes to him—often, of causing the reader needless confusion through imprecisions of thought and language. Aziz also has a lengthy and fascinating section on Freud and his surprising openness, within limits, to the idea of parapsychological phenomena."

"Jung’s long-time collaborator Marie-Louise von Franz makes very clear by her subtitle, ‘His Myth in Our Time,’ that she is giving us an archetypal interpretation of Jung’s life designed to exemplify how any of us might live in a world in which ‘God is dead’ (von Franz, 1975: 15ff). Her book—much more explicitly than ‘Jaffé’s’—gives us a perspective on Jung. Jung’s entire life and professional work is viewed through the lens of his late doctrines of synchronicity and the unus mundus… Von Franz gives us a more mythic Jung even than Jaffé. For this reason her book has fallen out of favor, which is a shame insofar as the Jung of synchronicity and the unus mundus represents the legacy he tried to leave us. To my knowledge, only Robert Aziz has consistently developed this perspective to demonstrate how Jung’s intrapsychic theory of the period from 1913 to 1928 was enlarged into a theory of psyche-in-the-world through the doctrine of synchronicity."

"Aziz’s constructive synthesis of synchronicity and the psychology of individuation is masterful. He illuminates in Jung’s work the religious and spiritual dimensions that Jungians and non-Jungians alike have either felt, intuited, or suspected. And he presents these dimensions systematically."

"But the great point that Aziz is driving at is that Jung, far more than he ever realized, was moving away from the ‘intrapsychic’ model to one influenced by his discovery of synchronicity, such that nature (as evidenced by the activity of archetypes) can itself work synchronistically. There may be something in this, and if so, Aziz is to be commended for his perception that this change should have prompted Jung’s explicit revision of other aspects of his overall theory."

"Von Franz gives us a more mythic Jung even than Jaffé. For this reason her book has fallen out of favor, which is a shame insofar as the Jung of synchronicity and the unus mundus represents the legacy he tried to leave us. To my knowledge, only Robert Aziz has consistently developed this perspective to demonstrate how Jung's intrapsychic theory of the period from 1913 to 1928 was enlarged into a theory of psyche-in-the-world through the doctrine of synchronicity."

"Appreciation of the psychological dimensions of religion owes much to the depth psychologies of Freud and Jung. Their decoding of the unconscious meanings embedded in religious symbols, rituals, and beliefs has irreversibly changed our understanding of the role of religion in human life. This stimulating book by Robert Aziz offers a complex picture of this area of work that goes beyond the usual contrast between a rationalistic Freud, hostile to the infantilizing tendencies of religion, and a romantic, mystical Jung who finds a cure for many psychological problems in religion." ... " this is a book of remarkable clarity and thoroughness. While Aziz is the first to acknowledge the confusions, inconsistencies, and gaps in Jung's own thinking and writing, he makes a well-documented case for a coherent position that finally puts Jung's metaphysical cards on the table."