Terra Kaffe - Shop now
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle. (From Vol. 8. of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung) (Jung Extracts) Paperback – November 14, 2010

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,143 ratings

Jung was intrigued from early in his career with coincidences, especially those surprising juxtapositions that scientific rationality could not adequately explain. He discussed these ideas with Albert Einstein before World War I, but first used the term "synchronicity" in a 1930 lecture, in reference to the unusual psychological insights generated from consulting the I Ching. A long correspondence and friendship with the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli stimulated a final, mature statement of Jung's thinking on synchronicity, originally published in 1952 and reproduced here. Together with a wealth of historical and contemporary material, this essay describes an astrological experiment Jung conducted to test his theory. Synchronicity reveals the full extent of Jung's research into a wide range of psychic phenomena.


This paperback edition of Jung's classic work includes a new foreword by Sonu Shamdasani, Philemon Professor of Jung History at University College London.

The%20Amazon%20Book%20Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Great on Kindle
Great Experience. Great Value.
iphone with kindle app
Putting our best book forward
Each Great on Kindle book offers a great reading experience, at a better value than print to keep your wallet happy.

Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.

View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.

Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.

Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.

Get the free Kindle app: Link to the kindle app page Link to the kindle app page
Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.

From the Publisher

Complicit: How We Enable the Unethical and How to Stop Max H. Bazerman

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Winner of the 2012 First Place Cover/Jacket in the Professional, Scholarly Series, New York Book Show"

About the Author

Sonu Shamdasani is editor of The Red Book and Philemon Professor of Jung History at University College London.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press; Revised edition (November 14, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 152 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0691150508
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0691150505
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.5 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,143 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Carl Gustav Jung
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology (also known as Jungian psychology). Jung's radical approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in counter-cultural movements across the globe. Jung is considered as the first modern psychologist to state that the human psyche is "by nature religious" and to explore it in depth. His many major works include "Analytic Psychology: Its Theory and Practice," "Man and His Symbols," "Memories, Dreams, Reflections," "The Collected Works of Carl G. Jung," and "The Red Book."

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
1,143 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers

Customers say

Customers find the book easy to read and follow. They find the content thought-provoking and interesting, opening their minds to fascinating ideas. The author's thorough argument for synchronicity is appreciated, with clear examples and parallels drawn. Overall, customers describe it as an excellent collection of Jung's related works.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

59 customers mention "Readability"45 positive14 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and follow. They find it enlightening and enjoyable, conveying thought-provoking concepts and ideas. The writing is imaginative and well-presented. Overall, readers describe it as an excellent product with good explanatory notes.

"...such as ESP, and Jung provides numerous examples and well-organized scientific data to prove the existence of psychokinesis and telepathy...." Read more

"...What an awesome book!..." Read more

"...It's worth reading, because he touches upon Quantum subjects, having discussed with the physicist Einstein opinions on "time"." Read more

"Good reading" Read more

35 customers mention "Thought provoking"31 positive4 negative

Customers find the book insightful and engaging. They say it opens their minds to a fascinating yet unexplored subject. The ideas are fascinating to consider, but may be impossible to prove. Some readers mention some points are outdated now. Overall, the book is described as a powerful spiritual work by Jung that has become part of their daily experience.

"...It contains fascinating accounts of paranormal phenomenon, such as ESP, and Jung provides numerous examples and well-organized scientific data to..." Read more

"...or the role of archetypes in the mystic arts you should read this insightful work by one of the great thinkers of psychology and the nature of the..." Read more

"...upon Jung's thoughts concerning synchronicity this is still a very good place to start...." Read more

"...The ideas are fascinating to consider, but may be all but impossible to prove...." Read more

8 customers mention "Synchronicity"8 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's thorough argument for synchronicity. They find the explanation of meaningful coincidences and the depiction of synchronicity clear. The author also mentions that the Universe is no coincidence and neither are we.

"...Meaningful coincidences - which are to be distinguished from meaningless chance groupings - therefore seem to rest on an archetypal..." Read more

"...Synchronicity is acausal. Beyond cause as we know it. A bridge between the known and the unknown, between the conscious and the unconscious...." Read more

"...All in all, though it's as good an introduction into synchronicity and meaningful coincidence as any book of its kind...." Read more

"...one keeps you alert and involved, with the amazing examples and parallels it draws...." Read more

6 customers mention "Classic content"6 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the classic content. They find it an excellent collection of Jung's related works.

"Absolute classic!..." Read more

"Excellent collection of Jung's related works." Read more

"a timeless masterpiece" Read more

"A classic." Read more

Great book
5 out of 5 stars
Great book
Great book easy to read easy to follow Comfortable to read would recommend
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry, there was an error
Sorry we couldn't load the review

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2003
    _Synchronicity_ is one of Jung's longer and better known essays. It contains fascinating accounts of paranormal phenomenon, such as ESP, and Jung provides numerous examples and well-organized scientific data to prove the existence of psychokinesis and telepathy. Such apparently miraculous phenomena are presumably the result of a purely subjective universe, in which seemingly concrete and objective happenings are created and altered within the confines of our individual subjective psyche. Jung provides compelling evidence to prove this phenomenon of subjective psychic control over the outside, physical world; in the ESP experiments he cited, subjects were placed hundreds of miles away from the site of the experiment (in which a sequence of five different images were randomly uncovered and recorded), and asked to guess the sequence of images days and even weeks later. Most subjects were able to guess what the images were at a rate that was statistically determined to be astronomically improbable. By conducting the experiments in this manner, researchers were able to prove that, not only does ESP exist, it is NOT an energetic, kinetic, or physical phenomenon in the traditional sense. The separation in time and space between the experimenter and the subject proves that ESP is not a phenomenon that can be attributed to wave motion or spacial transmission. It is a purely subjective and psychic phenomenon.
    The highlight of this book, however, is Jung's discussion of Tao. Jung compares his synchronistic theory to the ideas of MEANINGFULNESS and HARMONY in the philosophy of Tao. Ideas like ESP and psychokinesis help bolster Taoism's theory of the inherent harmony and intelligent, purposeful design underlying the universe. Believe what you will, but this is a very interesting and very convincing book. It is somewhat of a departure for Jung, however, and is not exactly his quintessential work; it would be a mistake to judge Jung simply based on this one narrowly focused work. But it is very interesting nonetheless, and I highly recommend it to all readers.
    Also keep in mind that _Synchronicity_ is reprinted in volume 8 of the Princeton/Bollingen series of the collected works of Carl Jung, entitled _The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche_. Serious Jungians will probably want to go ahead and buy this full-length version, as it contains many other useful essays in addition to "Synchronicity".
    180 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2004
    .
    What an awesome book! Our whole civilization is based on Newton's cause and effect and great technological and scientific achievements have been produced from such knowledge. However, it is Max Plank's and Einstein's discovery of quantum physics, that of the atom, where such Newtonian law of cause and effect does not apply. There is a relativity or undetermined, non-causuality of the movement of the electron. It does not operate according to such law and this is a strange thing indeed. It appears to operate in an acausal effect, one that is determined my chance, and by the person who is examining such movements appears to have an effect on such just by his observation! There is an amazing chaotic element of the operation here.

    And this takes us to the idea of synchronicity, that of events occurring outside of Newtonian's law of cause and effect. In this book, Jung does a detailed analysis of planetary alignment and married couples. Anotherwards this acausal effect takes in astrology and chance. Now come to play the games of chance such as Tarot and I-Ching, both ancient oracles in predicting events of chance.

    While Jung cannot prove anything measurable in line with science's cause and effect analysis, he does portray a much higher probability in such measurements he records, much more than average chance occurs, relating his argument in the existence of acausal happenings outside of our Newtonian frame of minds. It is an amazing task.

    What is so interesting is that the motivation and faith of the person partaking in the experiment appears to have a direct effect on the outcome. I've read this before how faith - an inner determined belief - has a creative effect on our destination and karmic outcome. And what is of equal interest is Jung's few accounts, his story of a fish, his story of a beetle - as in the Scarab beetle dream of a patient that synchronized with an event of a beetle and so forth.

    While astrology and I-Ching and other clairvoyant and telepathic events may be blown off by the Newtonian minds of science and trashed by the religious fundamentalists who superstitiously equate acausal events to demons, the idea of acausal events, synchronicity is a reality to be observed, as in the electron, and yet not proven scientifically.
    15 people found this helpful
    Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
  • EK
    2.0 out of 5 stars Edição enfadonha
    Reviewed in Brazil on August 22, 2023
    Edição monótona, enfadonha, cansativa. Trata-se de mera impressão de texto, sem tratamento gráfico.
    Não tem coerência com a obra de Jung, geralmente bem diagramada e ilustrada. A espera também foi bem maior do que o previsto, e eu deveria ter cancelado. Não recomendo.
  • Lea Johnson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Meaningful coincidences
    Reviewed in Canada on September 4, 2021
    Brilliant mind! Very powerful: the reality of meaningful coincidences and the impact on one's life.🕺💃
  • AAA
    4.0 out of 5 stars Interessante
    Reviewed in Italy on January 1, 2020
    Molto interessante ma non aspettatevi un libro semplice :-)
  • Mr. Truth
    5.0 out of 5 stars It takes more than one read to grasp like any other Jungian work
    Reviewed in India on February 23, 2018
    Phew. It takes more than one read to grasp like any other Jungian work.
  • cara
    5.0 out of 5 stars A+++++
    Reviewed in Australia on June 22, 2024
    Great format for an important book