First, two
points.
One, synchronicity.
Totally amateurishly explained, it means something like acausal meaningful
coincidence. To make an example rewritten from Jung, a woman tells him about
her dream of a foreign special type of beetle. At the same time there is a
sound of wings hitting the window, Jung opens the window and in flies a domestic
beetle of a very similar kind. It is a coincidence, something takes place at
the same time in the psychic/mental realm (the dream or telling of it) and in
the physical realm (the beetle appears). It is acausal, because the dream
retold some days later than when it took place could not have made the beetle
appear, and the beetle could not have made neither the dream to be dreamt some
days earlier or the telling of it to take place at that time. But the
coincidence is meaningful to the person witnessing it. It is as if some unseen,
outside force made the mental/psychic thing to take place at the same time as
something physically happened. Some outside force is at hand, something perhaps
paranormal.
Two, I am a
collector of books. I take good care of them. They are neatly arranged in the
bookshelves of my home. None of them are placed so that they could fall out,
everything is strict, that is a madness of mine.
OK, the
scene is set. The story of what took place yesterday.
We have
been trying to sell the house, but it is slow. Yesterday was a viewing, but
only a handful of people came and the agent said none wished to bid. So my wife
and I in the evening sit down with a couple of drinks (not whisky). "This
was a very bitter experience", I say, "very bitter". "Yes",
says the wife, "bitter is the word". Then there is a loud crash
coming from upstairs. Loud. "What was that?" says the wife, and bids
me to go upstairs to have a look.
Up I go.
Upstairs are some bedrooms and a floor between them. A couple of bookshelves,
orderly and neatly filled. But in the middle of the floor lies a book, pages
down, front and back cover up. It lies some three feet away from the bookshelf
where it had stood. It had not fallen directly down, and there was no
reason why it should have, as it was arranged in one of the shelves. It was as
if it either had been pushed from the back of the shelf or drawn out from its
place and tossed very hard on the floor. None of the neighboring books were
affected, only this one. And the noise no way corresponded to a softcover book
having fallen down, it was way to loud. It had fallen at an angle of 45 degrees
from the shelf, some three feet forwards and three feet downwards.
The book
lies with its cover directly to me.
Every book
has a title.
This one
too.
The title
is written in large letters on the cover.
You want to
know its title?
Sure you
do.
The book's
title was:
"Bitter
almonds".
I put it
back, go downstairs and tell my wife what had happened and say "Someone
wanted to tell us something". "Yes", says the wife,
"someone wanted to".
I think all
you Jungians will take delight in this story.
And all you
non-Jungians coincidence-lovers, please at least admit it was
interesting/strange/chilling/a "wow"-thing.
