Synchronicity: Science, Myth, and the Trickster

For all those potential readers and for those previous reviewers, I state that this book is one of a mere handful of books to adequately treat this subject with the respect and wonder that it deserves. Though few books deserve the title of "perfection" I must defend the authors in their attempt at covering this subject, however misunderstood. This book is a brief attempt at exploring the concept of synchronicity. That being said, for what it is, it is an excellent coverage of the subject. Easy to read and quite relative to those who have experienced the phenomenon, (which, I assume, includes nearly every single one of us) this little text is a very wise choice for inspiration towards the wonder that is meaningful acausal experiences. Yours truly, Ph.D. student at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology

I read the first edition of this book years ago and the concepts in it have haunted me ever since. Then, I bought my own copy of this second edition and found that the ideas contained in it had lost none of their power and were every bit as profound as I had remembered.Briefly, this book deals with the concept of synchronicity or meaningful coincidence. It deals with it on two levels, the level of science and the level of myth. Indeed, it is shown that synchronistic events in themselves demonstrate the interpenetration of matter (the realm of science) and mind (the realm of myth.) Synchronicity is shown to leap the gap between not only the conscious and unconscious aspects of the mind, but between the world of mind and the world objective events. In this way it corresponds very well to the myth of Hermes, the god of boundaries, and the messenger between the world of the gods and the world of men.The greatest strength of this book over other treatments of the topic is the clear and up-to-date manner that it addresses the possible scientific explanations of synchronicity. It draws primarily from the world of the new physics. Here is an extremely clear explanation of Bohm's theories on a holographic universe with explicate (physical, day-to-day) and implicate (hidden and fundamental) orders. In spite of the references to the modern world of subatomic physics, it struck me that this sounds remarkably like the hidden currents of the cosmos that occultists have always alluded to. The pattern based theories of Sheldrake, Laszlo, and Chester are also examined and compared. Indeed, the concepts of morphic fields and resonance seem to uncannily resemble the old magical principles of sympathy and correspondence between our own world and the world of archetypes. Indeed, it is shown that a balanced mind (both hemispheres at the same frequency) in deep meditation or prayer may be able to "range" the implicate order and bring about increased instances of synchronicity. Since it is suggested that synchronicity is the real basis for all ESP phenomena ( telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis, etc.) it could be said that this is an effective explanation for the concept of sympathetic magic.The use of the concept of the mythological trickster is especially appropriate and effective. Many times synchronistic coincidences seem to exist for no other reason that to shatter our preconceived and ossified concepts of the universe. That was also the function of Hermes/ Mercurius/ Coyote in mythology. It is also the function of this book in a world still mired in the dogma of materialistic scientism.

The previous reviewer ("Throw out a life line") - who seems to be trying to sell an unpublished science fiction story to Hollywood - is typical of the mental-rational minded types who see the Universe as a big clockwork toy, a camera, a sewing machine and other metaphors governed by his own unique take on Planck's theory (see his website). Whatever. Such hyper-rationalist always miss the point of such informative, playful and subtle books as Comb's and Holland's "Synchronicity". Maybe the point is indeed to drown - the rational ego that is - which is continually trying to wrap the Trickster up in neat mechanistic metaphors. This book is a wonderful introduction to the archetypes and psychological and scientific theories constellating around the acausal realm of 'coincidences.' I feel in good company with Georg Feuerstein, the late Willis Harman, David Loye and Guy Burneko in recognizing that this book speaks to us at the mythic, mental and integral or intuitional levels of consciousness and holds them all together with a light eloquent style that belies it's intent - as the authors say at the end: "Dance, like play, is a metaphor for a state of being that is both relaxed and disciplined.Both are open and responsive to relaxed intuition... To dance is to move in the rhythm of this entire orchestration. And so we must learn to dance." Along with many other excellent books on the Trickster - including Lewis Hydes' "Trickster Makes This World", Antoine Faivre's, "The Eternal Hermes", and two classics, Norman O. Brown's "Hermes the Thief", and Raphael Lopez Pedraza's "Hermes' Children," this book reveals a powerful yet hidden god for the Western mind which needs no lifeline back to the leaky ship of rationalism.

This is one of my favorite types of books: short, profound and beautifully written. It moves smoothly back-and-forth between cutting-edge scientific support for synchronicity, real-life examples, and the mythological underpinnings of synchronicity. It is so lucidly written that the reader will probably read it from start to finish, and never realize that they are dealing with difficult concepts. A truly wonderful book.