I wondered if I would ever find what I was looking for. Then I found Carl Jung.

Even though I gave up the first time I tried to read this book.

My oldest daughter and I left the sanctuary where I had to leave my macaws, my dear companions, a couple of months before. At the bottom of the hill that led to the property, we turned north on a lush, narrow country road.

A short time later, we passed through Duvall, and Jade noticed a bookstore. Maybe it was the quaint western fake front. Maybe it was the book-stack bench on the sidewalk. It seemed like a good place to take a breather after the stress of the visit. The stress of having to leave my friends again.

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I’d heard about Carl Jung, but hadn’t read any of his work

I’d been searching for years to try to understand the profound events I’d been experiencing, so I pulled The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung off the shelf to see what it was about. I got through about 50 pages on Freud, Oedipus, dreams, language, and aspects of the unconscious like instinct and will. It wasn’t what I was looking for. I moved on.

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The limitations of “Spirituality”

I believed I was looking for information about God, but one day in the library, I saw the term, “spiritual.” I thought, This is what I need!

Well, yes and no. I found people who believe they are Starseeds, and that didn’t align with what I was experiencing. I found people who were promoting meditation, and I wanted to do the opposite, to use every spare minute I had to find answers. I found Reiki healers, psychics, Buddhists, and witches. Nothing similar to what I had been experiencing.

One afternoon, I was led to a collection of books. I was trying to find an answer to something I couldn’t define, but felt sure I would recognize, and it helped me understand the origins of many of the beliefs in spiritual communities. I was so stunned by one of the things I found about the so-called “power of now,” as well as finally understanding why I didn’t, or couldn’t ever, fit in, I published a book called Critical Revelations in the Realm of Contemporary Spirituality (more on that later).

I became friends with a guy who read Critical Revelations, and he suggested a workshop being offered by The Centre of Applied Jungian Studies. An event I experienced during the workshop (that I share in my mini-book, Synchronicity, Documented: Ch 3 - “Becoming,”) brought me back to Jung.

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A short time later, I saw this quote:

“I said, ‘I do not need to believe in God; I know.’ Which does not mean: I do know a certain God (Zeus, Yahweh, Allah, the Trinitarian God, etc.) but rather: I do know that I am obviously confronted with a factor unknown in itself, which I call ‘God.’

It is an apt name given to all overpowering emotions in my own psychical system subduing my conscious will and usurping control over myself. This is the name by which I designate all things which cross my path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans, and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse.

In accordance with tradition, I call the power of fate in this positive as well as negative aspect, and inasmuch as its origin is beyond my control, “god,” a “personal god,” since my fate means very much myself, particularly when it approaches me in the form of conscience as a vox Dei, (the voice of God[1]), with which I can even converse and argue.”[2]

— Carl Jung, 1/21/60

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This is what I have been experiencing.

Premonitions and guidance that have been leading to either profound synchronicity or changes in my life beyond what I ever dreamed could be possible.

I eventually found my way to people who are exploring consciousness, including philosophers and scientists, and I will share more about that soon.

And in case you’re wondering what happened to my friends, my macaws, as their story unfolded another event occurred, and it was so incredible, it was the turning point that compelled me to write a memoir.

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1) “Jung’s Moral Relativism.” Jungian Center for the Spiritual Sciences, 27 Feb. 2021, https://jungiancenter.org/jungs-moral-relativism/.

2) Purrington, Author: Mr., et al. “Dr. Jung Clarifies Misunderstanding of BBC Broadcast of: ‘I Don’t Believe. I Know.’” Carl Jung Depth Psychology, 3 June 2020, https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2020/06/03/dr-jung-said-i-dont-believe-i-know/.