Roderick Main, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Psychosocial & Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex in England.
He holds a master’s degree in Classics from the University of Oxford and earned a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Lancaster University, where his thesis was on synchronicity as a form of spiritual experience.
In 1997, he joined the Department of Psychosocial & Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex as a visiting research fellow, and was appointed as a lecturer in 2000. His many roles in the department include Course Lead for the Master of Arts in Jungian & Post-Jungian Studies from 2002 to 2009, and Department Head from 2008 to 2012. From 2014 to 2016, he was seconded to a University role as Deputy Dean (Education) in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Currently, he serves as Director of the Centre for Myth Studies.
Dr. Main’s teaching and research focus on the work of C.G. Jung, especially in relation to religion, mythology, literature, and society. His publications have engaged in particular with Jung’s concept of synchronicity. He is the author of the books, The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity & Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture (Routledge, 2004); Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience (Routledge, 2007); and Breaking the Spell of Disenchantment: Mystery, Meaning, & Metaphysics in the Work of C.G. Jung,Vol. 8 in the Zürich Lecture Series published by Chiron (2022).
He is also editor of the volumes, Jung on Synchronicity & the Paranormal, part of the Encountering Jung series from Princeton University Press (1997); and a forthcoming edition of The Interpretation of Nature & the Psyche: The Work of Carl Jung & Wolfgang Pauli from Routledge in which he will present the original essays with a brand-new introduction and commentary.
From 2016 to 2018, Dr. Main served as Principal Investigator on an Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded project titled One World: Logical & Ethical Implications of Holism, which resulted in two books co-edited with Christian McMillan and David Henderson – Holism: Possibilities & Problems (Routledge, 2020); and Jung, Deleuze, & the Problematic Whole (Routledge, 2021).
In October of 2021, Dr. Main delivered the Zürich Lecture Series at the International School of Analytical Psychology (ISAP Zürich) and this June will be presenting “The Hermeneutics of Exceptional Experiences” at the Pari Center conference, At the Edges of Consciousness: Science & Anomalous Experiences, which will be held June 6-13, 2023 in Pari, Italy.
This video interview was recorded on Wednesday, January 11, 2023. It’s 01:10:37 long and 66 MB. You can watch it on our YouTube channel or listen to it right here in your browser (click the play button in the bar below) or download it directly to your computer.
SHOW NOTES
Lancaster University Lancashire, England
Department of Psychosocial & Psychoanalytic Studies University of Essex, England
C.G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion & Synchronicity by Robert Aziz
Psychology & Alchemy Vol. 12 of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung
The I Ching or Book of Changes Translated by Richard Wilhelm; Foreword by C.G. Jung
Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience by Roderick Main
When the Impossible Happens: Adventures in Non-Ordinary Realities by Stanislav Grof (includes Joseph Campbell’s praying mantis story)
A Mantis Carol by Laurens van der Post
Communion: A True Story by Whitley Strieber (Ep. Q15)
Putting the Sinn back into synchronicity: some spiritual implications of synchronistic experiences by Roderick Main (full text)
The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity & Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture by Roderick Main
C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews & Encounters Includes “Eliade’s Interview for ‘Combat’”
On Divination & Synchronicity: The Psychology of Meaningful Chance by Marie-Louise von Franz, Jungian analyst
Breaking the Spell of Disenchantment: Mystery, Meaning, & Metaphysics in the Work of C.G. Jung by Roderick Main
The 2021 Zürich Lecture Series with Roderick Main
A Secular Age by Charles Taylor
The Vocation Lectures by Max Weber (full text)
Mysterium Coniunctionis Vol. 14 of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung
At the Edges of Consciousness: Science & Anomalous Experiences Pari Center Event, Jun. 6-13, 2023, Pari, Italy
The Interpretation of Nature & the Psyche: The Work of Carl Jung & Wolfgang Pauli Forthcoming from Routledge
ADDITIONAL LINKS
One World: Logical & Ethical Implications of Holism An Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded project
Research in Analytical Psychology: Applications from Scientific, Historical, & Cross-Cultural Research by Joseph Cambray & Leslie Sawin (Routledge, 2018)
HIS BOOKS
Breaking the Spell of Disenchantment: Mystery, Meaning, & Metaphysics in the Work of C.G. Jung Zürich Lecture Series, Vol. 8 (Chiron Publications, 2022)
The Interpretation of Nature & the Psyche: The Work of Carl Jung & Wolfgang Pauli Edited by Roderick Main (Forthcoming from Routledge)
Jung, Deleuze, & the Problematic Whole Edited by Roderick Main, Christian McMillan and David Henderson (Routledge, 2020)
Holism: Possibilities & Problems Edited by Christian McMillan, Roderick Main and David Henderson (Routledge, 2019)
Myth, Literature, & the Unconscious Edited by Leon Burnett, Sanja Bahun, and Roderick Main (Routledge, 2013)
Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience SUNY Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology (State University of New York Press, 2007)
The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity & Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture (Routledge, 2004)
Jung on Synchronicity & the Paranormal Encountering Jung Series (Princeton University Press, 1997)
HIS BOOK CHAPTERS
Full text not available online. For free downloads, see section below.
The Pauli-Jung Conjecture & Its Impact Today “Synchronicity and the Problem of Meaning in Science"
Seriously Strange: Thinking Anew about Psychical Experiences “Anomalous Phenomena, Synchronicity, and the Re-sacralization of the Modern World”
HIS PAPERS
Link is to full text available online:
Mystical Experience and the Scope of C.G. Jung’s Holism in the book, Consciousness Unbound: Liberating Mind from the Tyranny of Materialism (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2021)
The ethical ambivalence of holism: An exploration through the thought of Carl Jung and Gilles Deleuze in the book, Jung, Deleuze, & the Problematic Whole (Routledge, 2020)
Myth, synchronicity, and the physical world in the book, Explaining, Interpreting, and Theorizing Religion & Myth: Contributions in Honor of Robert A. Segal (Brill, 2020)
Synchronicity and holism Revue de Psychologie Analytique (2019)
Research on synchronicity: status and prospects in the book, Research in Analytical Psychology: Applications from Scientific, Historical, & Cross-Cultural Research (Routledge, 2018)
Panentheism and the undoing of disenchantment Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, Vol. 52, No. 4 (December 2017)
The cultural significance of synchronicity for Jung and Pauli Journal of Analytical Psychology, Vol. 59 (2014) – Click on PDF link in upper right corner
Myth, synchronicity and re-enchantment in the book, Myth, Literature, & the Unconscious (Routledge, 2013)
New Age thinking in the light of C.G. Jung’s theory of synchronicity Journal of Alternative Spiritualities & New Age Studies, Vol. 2 (2006)
Putting the Sinn back into synchronicity: some spiritual implications of synchronistic experiences (2001)
Religion, Science, and Synchronicity Harvest: Journal for Jungian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 2 (2000)