Carl Jung, Part 1: Paranormal, Coincidences and Synchronicity

I find it fascinating that one of the founders of modern psychiatry was personally and professionally involved in the paranormal. Over the years, I read bits of Carl Jung’s writings and heard stories from others about how strange experiences tended to follow the man. Only recently though, did I actually delve into Jung’s background and philosophy. This came about because increasingly in my life, I’ve observed how “coincidences” at times tend to happen way beyond mere chance. Who better to study on this subject than Jung, the man who coined the term “synchronicity” and promoted the view that certain coincidental events have origins far beyond the physical world we know.

A Swiss citizen, Carl Jung’s life spanned the period between 1875 and 1961. Founder of Analytical Psychology, he developed the ideas of the Complex, the Archetype and the Collective Unconscious. The man’s efforts inspired the Myer’s Briggs Personality Test and Alcoholics Anonymous. In his day, Jung associated with the likes of Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli and William James. Not a bad list of scientific and philosophical connections if you ask me.

Even so, Jung was fascinated by events we would call paranormal today and believed that understanding such things were a natural part of our heritage as human beings. He also believed that using such knowledge in psychotherapy was beneficial to his patients. The man was a pioneer that today’s mental health experts would do well to revisit.

In reading about Jung’s background, I discovered his interest in the paranormal sprang not just from his studies but from his personal experiences as well. In fact, the man had so many such events that it looks to me like they occurred during his entire life. I found the stories of Jung’s experiences so interesting that I have developed a series of blog postings where I retell each one of them. Jung’s own writing is a little intricate and dense so I thought this method would make for easier reading.

Listed below are the titles of those postings with the final paranormal event titled, “The Breakthrough.” That last story is really the beginning for Jung in many ways. Evidently, a severe illness that almost killed him in 1944 led to a life changing near-death experience. After 1944, Jung did some of his finest work.

I hope you enjoy reading about those things that helped shape one of the world’s great thinkers. Over time, as I publish each post, I will create a link to each of the stories below so that new readers will eventually be able to access all the events from this article:

Part 2: The Split Table

Part 3: The Knife

Part 4: The Ghosts

Part 5: The Cottage

Part 6; Jung and Freud

Part 7: The Wedding

Part 8: The Suicide

Part 9: The Scarab Beetle

Part 10: The Flood

Part 11: The Mosaics

Part 12: The Final Breakthrough

The book covers I’ve inserted into this post are from two works that I’ve found especially useful regarding Jung and the topic of synchronicity. Click on the links below to look at them more closely:

Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal

Synchronicity: The Art of Coincidence, Choice and Unlocking the Mind

To read about two events in my own life that Jung would have definitely considered synchronistic, click here and here.

For other such events and discussions, see the blog categories  titled, Paranormal Coincidences, and Paranormal and Carl Jung.