Demian, Synchronicity & Carl Jung

I picked up Hermann Hesse's Demian believing it could act as a palate cleanser after my binge-reading of books revolving around Jungian psychology.

Bad call.

Already in the introduction I read that before writing the book in 1920, "Hesse began to explore the writings of Freud and Jung on dreams and archetypes" — something that apparently influenced his writing to a large extent. 😂

Was This Synchronicity?

Was this synchronicity — a meaningful coincidence — at play, to use a concept introduced by Carl Jung himself? 🤔

I failed in my mission to move away from Jung. But the book started off so strong that I couldn't put it aside. Now it's finished, and the full review is on its way.

"When we hate a person, what we hate in his image is something inside ourselves. Whatever isn't inside us can't excite us." — Hermann Hesse, Demian

If you've ever felt yanked toward a thinker or a theme by a string of "coincidences," Jung would say that's not random — it's the psyche pointing at something you need to look at. And Hesse's Demian, written by a man wrestling with the same currents, is the perfect novel to read while you're in that mood.