Book Review: Synchronicity

Synchronicity: The Marriage of Matter and Psyche by David Peat introduces the concept of synchronicity. Three chapters are about Sigmund Freud (pp. 27–32), Carl Jung (pp. 33–47), and Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 48–63). David Peat is a former theoretical physicist, and Wolfgang Pauli was a theoretical physicist, so many other physicists are mentioned in the book, for example Werner Heisenberg (pp. 48–50), Isaac Newton (pp. 64–66, 78–79), Michael Faraday (p. 66), James Maxwell (p. 66), and David Bohm (pp. 71–73, 126, 132).

I found the collaboration between Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli fascinating. Pauli learned much from Jung, but Pauli also “felt that … Jung was inflating the psyche and giving it an overbalanced importance as opposed to matter” (p. 60). It seems as if “Jung was never able to fully integrate the insights that Pauli was presenting to him” (p. 44).

There are many references to others as well in the book. I think the greatest benefit of the book is that it provides a background and an overview of the concept of synchronicity. It’s not until the last chapter, “Seeking the Source” (pp. 137–149), that the author takes a completely new approach speculating on the possible source for synchronicities.

In conclusion, the book introduces a synchronistic dimension in which “mind and matter are not … separate … but unfold from a universe of infinite subtlety” (p. 138), and which is “closer to a creative living organism than to a machine” (p. 138). The book is well worth reading, but I would have liked if David Peat had explored the idea of a source further. It’s indeed an idea which is related to “the question of the origin of life and the universe” and which has “occupied thinkers down through the ages” (p. 141).

Related book review:
Book Review: Infinite Potential