Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Synchronicity: Science, Myth, and the Trickster by Allan Combs, Mark Holland ISBN: 1-56924-845-1 Publisher: Marlowe & Co Pub. Date: October, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The return of human meaning to the cosmos
Comment: 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.
Rating: 4
Summary: Very good book on a difficult subject
Comment: Synchronicity has long been a subject of much fascination but also much confusion as generally it is handled more in a poetic than a scientific way. A strength of Combs and Hollands' book is its bold use of new science to try to move toward the adequate answer to the question of how synchronicity works in scientific as well as experiential terms. Here, as with his classic work on consciousness The Radiance of Being -- hands down one of the best on this subject -- Allan Combs displays why he has gained a reputation as one of the most firmly grounded of researchers who can also bring difficult concepts to life with the rare skill of an Arthur Koestler.
Rating: 2
Summary: interesting issues, but confusing and unsound
Comment: I was waiting for some intersting insights on how synchronicity accounts for threshold leaps in complex systems, and what place does it take overall from scientific prespective. I really struggled with the unstructured, swing-like style of the book. The example with Jung and the beattle must have been repeated more than 10 times. The language was awful, thoughts flying back and forth, ignoring the titles of chapters. Some of the concepts are facinating, but if anything, this book turns me away from synchronicity, because of its incoherence. This kind of writing is not scientific enough. The authors should have written this book in the style of 'Chaos' or 'Complexity'. It is sad that book on such interesting subject is written in such a way.
 |
Title: The Power of Flow : Practical Ways to Transform Your Life with Meaningful Coincidence by Meg Lundstrom, Charlene Belitz ISBN: 060980197X Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 21 July, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: Ageless Body, Timeless Mind : The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old by M.D. Deepak Chopra ISBN: 0517882124 Publisher: Harmony Books Pub. Date: 27 December, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: Paradox and Healing: Medicine, Mythology and Transformation by Michael T. Greenwood, Peter J. Nunn ISBN: 096958220X Publisher: Paradox Publishing Pub. Date: January, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
