Synchronicity

My wife and I were having dinner with our publishers in Pari, a small Italian village south of Siena. One of the guests had travelled all the way from the Netherlands to interview our host, David Peat, about 'synchronicity'. 'What exactly is "synchroncity"' I asked our host, David Peat. 'I'll lend you a book' he replied. We were due to leave early the next morning - but I skim read the book before falling asleep. One image stayed vividly in my mind. Jung wrote about this moment as follows: 'A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream, I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from the outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata), which, contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt the urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since. ' We spent our next night at Ascoli Piceno - a day's drive from Pari. That evening we were sitting in a small trattoria discussing a website for our book ('Shakespeare's 100 Greatest Dramatic Images') and making notes on the paper table cloth. Our activity interested a yong couple at a near by table who moved over to join us. He turned out to be a Jungian psychologist. I told him about my introduction to 'synchronicity'. What is 'synchronicity'? his partner asked and he proceeded to tell her the story of Jung and the patient and the scarab beetle. The next day I emailled David Pete to tell him of the encounter. Back in England I bought and read David Peat's 'Pathways of Chance'. In this book he tells the story of how he and his wife came to live in Pari. They had been visiting estate agents in Siena with the view to buying a small property in Italy. Outside one of the estate agents there was a group 'speaking in German, and looking down at the ground'. They were looking at a golden scarab beetle. 'They'll have an apartment for us' David had immediately said to Maureen, his wife. And now their family are settled in Pari. Maureen runs Pari Publishing with her daughter while David runs the Pari Centre for New Learning. This year's courses will include: 'Synchronicity: The Bridge between Matter and Mind September 6-12, 2012'