How synchronicity reignites magic and mystery in our world.
Clarity in complexity! On this week’s Connecting with Coincidence podcast, Roderick Main brilliantly describes a sequential synchronicity involving the magical praying mantis and its symbolism throughout cultures and time.
Synchronicity shatters the rigid walls of contemporary scientific meaninglessness by re-introducing magic, mystery and the sacred into Western consciousness.
Before diving into Roderick’s insights on Carl Jung and synchronicity, I’ll share a synchronistic story of my own. This one goes back a couple of decades.
At the end of my fifth-grade year, my family moved from Shaker Heights, Ohio, to Wilmington, Delaware. At my new school, Edgemore Elementary, I learned about an upcoming election for student council president. Any sixth-grader could run. At my previous school, there had been well-established campaign methods. I had watched them, and I used them in my student council campaign at my new school. I tapped the shoulder of Jimmy Folks and asked him to play saxophone for the “Bernie Beitman for President” campaign. He recruited a few others, and we walked around the outside of the one-level school, which had large windows on every classroom. I stood in front of the band and smiled as Jimmy and the others played “The Star Spangled Banner” and “America the Beautiful”. My favorite part of the election was a poster I created that folded in half. On the front it said, “Open this poster and you will see who is voting for Bernie B”. When they opened the poster, they looked into a mirror and saw themselves. So the new boy won the election. I bring this up because it shows that luck is the meeting of opportunity and preparation. The opportunity of running for president was there, and I was prepared because I’d seen it before. That’s serendipity in action. You don’t know what you’re going to get sometimes, but when you see it, you go for it. That’s what I did.
On my podcast this week, I’m excited to welcome one of my favorite people writing about synchronicities. Roderick Main works at the University of Essex in the UK, where he is a Professor in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, as well as Director of the Center for Myth Studies.
His books are very synchronistically oriented, including The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture. and Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity As Spiritual Experience. His newest book is Breaking The Spell Of Disenchantment: Mystery, Meaning, And Metaphysics In The Work Of C. G. Jung.
Roderick knows the mind of Jung very well, and his books are worth reading, especially if you’re interested in Carl Jung.
Watch the podcast now:
You can learn more of Roderick’s ideas on this previous Coincider blog post.
And be sure to check out our complete list of coincidence podcasts and synchronicity podcasts here…
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
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