Numinous Matter: Synchronicity and the Reanimation of the Physical World

Buy the recording

Numinous Matter: Synchronicity and the Reanimation of the Physical World with Roderick Main

10,00€

Shop now

Numinous Matter: Synchronicity and the Reanimation of the Physical World

with Roderick Main

In this session we shall explore the implications of synchronicity for our experience of and relationship to the physical world.  The presumption of disenchanted science is that matter is in itself inherently inert and devoid of meaning.  Contrary to this, with the concept of synchronicity as well as his use of alchemical symbolism, Jung proposed that meaning and numinosity, as expressions of the psychoid archetype, could be inherent properties of not only the psyche but also matter. Such a view arguably fosters a more participative and respectful, rather than instrumental and exploitative, relationship to the physical world.  We shall examine some of the experiences and underpinning philosophical assumptions that have been invoked in support of this view.

Roderick Main, works at the University of Essex, UK, where he is Professor in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies and Director of the Centre for Myth Studies.  He is the author of The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture and Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience, the editor of Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal, and co-editor of Myth, Literature, and the Unconscious.  He was Principal Investigator in the  Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project ‘“One world”: logical and ethical implications of holism’ (2016-18).