The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and Self

This book by Bolen reinforced my belief in what Jung talked about regarding synchonicity and circumambulation. A wonderfully written and warm book and easy to read. I learned more about what I already know to be true.

Dr. Bolen describes the nature of synchronicity (Jung's concept of meaningful coincidence) and its relationships with the Tao (the Way), ESP, the occurrences of life, flow, and many diverse wisdom teachings. Her language is straightforward, her book very readable. Within its few, tiny pages, it says quite a lot. The author makes a very interesting observation that there is a strong correspondence between ones inner state and one's outer circumstances. Which is the cause and which is the effect? Maybe, per her book, each is both. This leads her to conclude that we can change both simultaneously. On page 61, she writes: "Synchronicity holds the promise that if we will change within, the patterns in our outer life will change also. If the people and events of our lives are here because we have drawn them here, then what happens in our lives apparently by chance or fortune is not really accidental." This parallels Jung's view that the therapist and patient become a dyad and progress together. Dr. Bolen quotes Jung on page 51, "'The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: If there is any reaction, both are transformed.' In some instances, each personality at that exact moment in time may be unusually susceptible to the particular "chemical" action of the other." This reciprocity is exemplified in romance. From pages 55-6: "When, in everyday life, a person "falls head over heels in love," the loved one has provided the "hook" that attracts the archetypal projection ...What is seen is an archetypal image that is a projection; put another way `Beauty is in the archetype of the beholder'...That person is then reacted to emotionally as if he or she were one and the same as the image." Indeed, such relationships are internally/externally reciprocal as well. Per page 59, "the projection may have a Pygmalion-like effect...in some way influencing her to take on the predetermined role...Synchronicity suggests that the outer world really does reflect the inner world, not just that it seems to." In support of her thesis, Dr. Bolen describes the holistic view vs. the limited view using the famous "Dermis Probe" (Idries Shah's term and book title) of the blind men and the elephant (page 102) surmising that no extant religious view has all the answers. She asserts on page 76 that psychotherapy helps us to transcend our self-imposed limitations: "Often people have been programmed by overly critical or rejecting parents to accept a limited or negative view of themselves or to be suspicious or mistrustful of others...In order to grow, the mental limits are the handicaps that must be transcended." Despite the existence of "Negative" synchronicity" (coincidental events that block, hinder, and frustrate what one is attempting),...when a person is following a path with heart, his or her dreams are usually nourishing...Synchronistically, opportunities seem to open fortuitously" (page 94). This seems to parallel Csiksze

Jean Shinoda Bolen has a unique approach to psychology, which heals the whole being on a deep level. This book presents a very intriguing view of synchronicity (which I find especially interesting because I am a twin). Her practice of recognizing synchronicity in the therapist/patient relationship seems to facilitate a faster and deeper healing process through the respect that it is the patient who heals him/herself. The therapist works with the patient by tuning into his or her individual path towards healing. I first discovered Jean's work while reading the book "Memory and Abuse" by Charles Whitfield who quotes Jean extensively in his book. I went on further to explore her writing in the book "Ring of Power: The Abandoned Child, The Authoritarian Father, and The Disempowered Feminine: A Jungian understanding of Wagner's Ring Cycle", "Goddesses in Every Woman", and "Crossing to Avalon". She has also written "Gods In Every Man" and many other interesting books. In reading this book I have gained a more thorough understanding of how our aversions and attractions to people are often based on identification with an archetype (stemming from the collective unconscious). Her explanation of this is very interesting. I especially enjoyed the last two chapters: "The Tao as Path with Heart" and "The Message of the Tao Experience: We Are Not Alone". In my own personal healing from abuse I have understood on the deepest level that we are all connected, and that healing oneself is healing a part of the world. I like the message in this book that certain things happen to us over and over because it is furthering our growth, not because it is punishment. My understanding of the world and what lies beyond is a very personal understanding that often cannot be portrayed through words. There is an interconnection of psychology, synchronicity, spiritual understanding, biology and physics. In psychology I prefer Jungian or Buddhist to other western models. Since childhood I have experienced a sense of peace and oneness with the universe and myself. I experience this knowing as a humming in my being. When I feel disconnected or off-kilter I hum to the rhythms of my true nature to bring me back to wholeness. It was a pleasant surprise when I reached the end of chapter 8 in "The Tao of Psychology", and read a beautifully articulated metaphorical description of a similar experience.In reading the last two chapters of this book two things came strongly to mind: poems by the Sufi poet, Hafiz and the movie "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" by Franco Zeffirelli.

Just as synchronicity brings meaningful events together, this book unites some very meaningful topics: coincidences, psychology, Jung, Taoism and the I Ching. Dr Bolen weaves these phenomena together in a highly readable format. If you've ever believed that there is more to coincidences than meets the eye, then reading this book is perhaps the next meaningful coincidence awaiting your life.

Quantum physics has defined a basic unit of matter that makes up all things, both organic and inorganic, which is pure energy. The same unit of energy that is a part of your body today may, only days before, have been a part of a bird flying over Beijing or an Ethiopian villager. This "new" knowledge from modern physics sounds very much like the Tao--in Eastern phillosophies, the "unifying principle in the universe to which everything in the world relates." The tao (lowercase) is the life path that is in harmony with the universe, the "path with heart." Jung believed that all people and all animate and inanimate objects are linked through a collective unconscious. Synchronicity, he said, was a connecting principle that manifests through "meaningful coincidences." Bolen proposes that synchronicity is the Tao of psychology; it relates the individual to the totality. She makes good use of anecdotes to explain Jung's layers of consciousness, the Jungian analytical tools of amplification and active imagination, and the difference between causality and synchronicity. Bolen has a gift for making clear Jungian concepts that seem obtuse or hazy in the hands of other writers.