Synchronicity

To understand synchronicity, the notion of cause and effect must be left behind.'
What do we replace it with? C. G. Jung reflected deeply on this question and towards the end of his life he proposed another kind of 'event'.

He called it synchronicity, an acausal connecting principle. Here one event does not cause another but coincides or participates in a way that is meaningful. An example can be taken from his own files. A patient was telling him about a dream she had. In it she was given a golden scarab. When she mentioned this, Jung, with his back to the window, heard a tapping noise. A flying insect was knocking against the window from the outside. He opened the window and caught it in his hand as it flew into the room. It was a scarabaeid beetle, the closest thing to a scarab found in that region.

What does this mean? The dream of the scarab, and the telling of the dream to Jung in his office, did not cause the scarabaeid beetle to tap at the window and fly into Jung's hand yet the two events are connected. They share meaning. According to Jung, the patient was extremely rational and rejected any emotions or phenomena that could not be validated through logic including the reality of her own unconscious. Jung said, "The meaningful connection is obvious enough ... in view of the approximate identity of the chief objects (the scarab and the beetle)." The Scarab, he knew, in Egyptian mythology is associated with rebirth and it was just such a rebirth of consciousness that his patient not only needed but was handed in her dream, and in the coinciding scarabaeid beetle who flew uncharacteristically away from light and into the darkened room.

Couldn't this just be chance? Many synchronicities might be dismissed as random chance though this can only be the case if we experience the events as existing outside ourselves--external phenomena with no internal meaning. If there is no connection to our inner world, then we do not experience it as a synchronicity. Jung felt that the psyche (soul) and soma (the body) were linked and that an inner event could manifest as an outer event and visa versa. He said,

"Meaningful coincidences are unthinkable as pure chance--the more they multiply and the greater and more exact the correspondence is...they can no longer be regarded as pure chance, but, for the lack of a causal explanation, have to be thought of as meaningful arrangements." The question is, what is being arranged, and between whom?

Enter the Unus Mundas. This is a term taken from alchemists of the middle ages that means 'one world'. It depicts the union between inner events, such as dreams, ideas, thoughts and imagination and the outer world of tangible existence. Synchronicity --the experience of unrelated coincidences --is a moment of Unus Mundas where the inner world (such as thinking of a person who we haven't seen in a long time) meets the outer world ( when that person calls on the phone just as we think of them).


Types of Synchronicities

1) The coincidence of an inner psychic state in the observer with a simultaneous objective, external state that corresponds in some way, (e.g. the scarab), where there is no evidence of a causal connection between the psychic state and the external event, and where, considering the psychic relativity of space and time, such a connection is not conceivable.

2) The coincidence of an inner psychic state with a corresponding external event which takes place at a distance and is only later validated.

3) The coincidence of an inner psychic state with a corresponding future event that is distant in time and can is only later be validated. (e.g. Jung's example)

When are synchronicities likely to occur? Jung found that synchronicities tend to occur when we are in states of openness or heightened awareness. Meditation can also heighten our awareness and make us more attuned to synchronicities.

Because synchronicity is characterized by a sense of meaning, it can be seen as a bridge between the inner world of the psyche and the outer world of reality. Within a synchronicity, patterns of external events mirror an inner experience; likewise dreams and fantasies may seem to flood over into the external world. But how do we apply meaning? What exactly do we mean when we say the word?

Meaning for C. G. Jung was an exploration away from causal paradigms. Not looking for a rational explanation for an event, Jung looked instead for 'meaning' or purpose. He did not ask what caused something to happen; he asked 'what happened?'

This reorientation away from cause and effect is reflected in modern physicists who are looking more for connections than explanations based on 'natural laws'. It also highlights the potential of synchronistic events to be markers of the future-- where causation has ties with the past. As markers of time, synchronicities happen in chairos or when 'the time is right'. Another marker of chairos is found in myth.

“Myths evoke feelings and imagination and touch on themes that are part of the human collective inheritance. The myths…remain current and personally relevant because there is a ring of truth in them about shared human experience.”

Both synchronicity and mythology form a bridge between psyche and soma, mind and matter. This concept can be explored through the language of myth and fairy tale.

In the mythologies of many people, the mythic figure who is the embodiment of the unexpected (synchronicity) is the Trickster, who steps godlike through the cracks and flaws in the ordered world of ordinary reality, bringing good luck and bad, profit and loss

This is an archetypal figure known to Native Americans as 'Coyote' and 'Maui' to the Polynesians. He is also known as Loki, Krishna and Hermes. These archetypes of the Trickster command the boundaries between conscious and unconscious, life and death. As Psychopomp, Hermes is a guide of souls to the underworld as well as the patron of travelers and thieves.

These images of transition warn us that when the Trickster shows up an experience of synchronicity is at hand. Another powerful Trickster figure is seen in the archetype of the uninvited guest as depicted by the 13th Fairy and the goddess of strife, Eris.

The Uninvited Guest “I am the Fairy Uglyane! Pray where are your King’s manners, that I have not been invited?”

Thanks to Walt Disney, almost everyone is familiar with the story of Sleeping Beauty. Although the highlights may be on Prince Charming, love’s first kiss, and happy ever after, the action of the tale, the event that really gets things started, comes from the curse of the uninvited guest--the 13th fairy.

It is this neglected enchantress, disgruntled by being ignored, that causes the entire kingdom to fall into unconsciousness.

There is another tale that comes to us from Homer’s Iliad. Here it is the tempestuous goddess of strife, Eris, who has also been overlooked. When she fails to receive an invitation for the event that all the gods and goddesses are attending, she crashes the party. Eris then stirs things up by tossing a golden apple down the banquet table. Bouncing and crashing through the crystal and fine china, it ultimately falls to rest midway between Hera, Queen of the gods, Athena, goddess of wisdom, and Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. Around the golden apple is inscribed “for the fairest” and of course, each of the three deities reach for it.

Zeus, sensing trouble, quickly calls upon the young mortal Paris to decide which of the three goddesses deserves the apple--which is most fair. Paris may or may not have realized the dubious nature of this honor. In any case, it seems he had no choice. Each goddess paraded in front of him, offering reward after her own fashion—Hera offered power, Athena offered strategy and Aphrodite offered the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen. Paris chose Helen and thus began the Trojan war.

The result of this event was the destruction of Troy (a synchronicity foretold by his mother's dream) and enormous loss of lives all round. Helen and Paris had a very hard time, as did her Greek husband, Menelaus, and all because nobody thought to include the goddess Eris to dinner. In the words of Richard Idemon, 'There is a message here.'

The message has to do with the results of neglect and the kinds of synchronicities that may be evoked by the 'Trickster'. This is not a reference to neglecting health, diet or exercise and then suffering the physical consequences. This is about neglecting the needs of our own innate energy, our inner world, and the results that oversight may bring.

If inner needs are ignored, we only have to look to fairy tales and myths to find out what can happen. In human nature, the worst punishment is ostracism and the outcome of such an exclusion, even self inflicted, is often self-destructive. The inner life of the psyche has its way of being felt, for better or for worse. One way an uninvited element of the unconscious may manifest in life is through dis-ease (strife) of a physical or emotional nature. This can be experienced as a synchronicity, especially if the illness prevents forward movement, changing a job, relationship or location and forces one into self-reflection. Synchronicities may come at times when inner reflection is most needed.

Jung believed that dreams hold within them their own meaning, just as we recall them (the manifest dream). Unlike Freud, he felt they were not distorted or disguised but difficult to discern. He saw them as messages, natural expressions of the unconscious and challenging to interpret only because they express in their own unique language of symbols and metaphor.

I have found again and again in my professional work that the images and ideas that dreams contain can not possibly be explained solely in terms of memory. (Jung, 1964 p.26)

Many people have experiences in which the outside world meaningfully, but non causally, relates to their dream states. These dreams are synchronistic encounters of the 'third' kind and describe synchronistic events-- The coincidence of a psychic state with a corresponding future external event.

Divination & Synchronicity

Divination is not a rival form of knowledge; it is a part of the main body of knowledge itself. --Michel Foucault, The Order of Things

The ancient art of Divination has existed as an archetype--in all places, in all cultures, in all times. From the throwing of the bones in Africa to the precise horizon astronomy of the Mayans, humans have developed tools for the symbolic interpretation of their inner life. Jung described the I Ching, Tarot and Astrology as examples of the principle of synchronicity. He felt that in the given moment of the ‘falling of the coins or yarrow stalks’, in the layout of the cards or the symbol system of 'the stars' was reflected the state of mind of the questioner, seeing them as a function of and unified by the divination process. As above, so below.

In a letter to Freud dated June 12, 1911, Jung wrote:
"My evenings are taken up largely with astrology. I make horoscopic calculations in order to find a clue to the core of psychological truth. Some remarkable things have turned up which will certainly appear incredible to you ...I dare say that we shall one day discover in astrology a good deal of knowledge that has been intuitively projected into the heavens."

Jung found, for example, that the choice of a marriage partner could not be reduced to “mere chance” but rather that there appeared to be a causal connection between birth signs and marriage partnerships. He also found examples of synchronicity within the constructs of his study and that “the psychic and physical event (namely the subject’s problems and choice of horoscope) correspond, it would seem, to the nature of the archetype in the background and could therefore represent a synchronistic event."

The link between synchronicity and divination can be seen through the astrological model in what is termed transits. Consider the example of transiting Saturn passing over (or conjunct) an individual’s sun in their natal chart. What may coincide with this event? What synchronicity might be seen between the nature of the planets involved and the person linked to them?
Saturn’s role as the Beast is a necessary part of his meaning, for as the fairytale tells us, it is only when the Beast is loved for his own sake that he can be freed from the spell and can become the Prince."

Saturn is traditionally associated with limits, restrictions, blocks, hard work and loss of esteem or recognition. There is a connection to form and matter, including the skeleton, rocks, mountains and anything that provides scaffolding or structure. He is also linked to the archetype of the ‘pragmatic’ and the ‘isolated’ and concepts such as gravity and reality.

A transit from this planet can coincide with an experience of limitation, isolation and hindrance. Through what appears to be a synchronicity between the individual psyche, the outer planet and the daily life, one is forced to examine what is not working because they get stopped.

Experiences that associate with Saturn can be anything from being fired, rejected, turned down, relationship break-ups to a ‘fall’ that results in a broken limb, lack of finances or restrictions that appear to come from an outside source—all situations that provide the opportunity to reassess life goals and the structure on which aims and objectives are built and nourished.

I simply believe that some part of the human Self or Soul is not subject to the laws of space and time. --Carl Jung

The concept of Synchronicity began with the collaboration of the Nobel Prize physicist Wolfgang Pauli and analytical psychologist C.G. Jung. Both these men felt there was 'something else' at work in synchronistic events other than the classical understanding of cause and effect or chance. Uniting the approaches of analytical psychology and quantum physics, Jung and Pauli suggested the understanding of synchronicity necessitated the building a bridge with one foundation derived into the objectivity of hard science and the other into the subjectivity of personal values.

Synchronicities connect an individual's inner world in space and time with a universal order or Unus Mundus.

While the conventional laws of physics do not heed human desires or the need for meaning--apples fall whether we will them to or not--synchronicities act as mirrors to the inner processes of mind and take the form of outer manifestations of interior transformations. (Peat, n.d.)

Synchronicity has the curious trait of being simultaneously a singular, individual event and the manifestation of universal order. In this sense it is contained within the temporal moment, exhibiting a transcendental and numinous nature. Transcendental, in quantum physics, refers to quantum objects that are 'waves of possibility' --transcendent potentials that exist outside of space and time yet can effect space and time.

It is this relationship between the transcendent and the coincidental arrangement of mental and physical happenings that the synchronicity acquires its numinous meaning. Synchronicities then are a bridge between mind and matter.

Psyche & Matter

Psyche and matter exist in one and the same world, and each partakes of the other, otherwise any reciprocal action would be impossible. If research could only advance far enough, therefore, we would arrive at an ultimate agreement between physical and psychological concepts

Synchronicity and quantum phenomena have common ground. There are also important differences. Nonlocality, like synchronicity, involves two quantum events where the observed properties of the quanta have an element of spontaneity in their manifestation, and the correlations between the two quanta are not due to efficient causation between them.

However, quantum nonlocality phenomena differ from synchronicity, because two quantum events can be both events in the outer physical world. Synchronicity is a connection between an inner psychic event and an outer event, bridging psyche and matter, and thus pointing to the unus mundus. This most important aspect of synchronicity relates to the inner psychological meaning and its connection to matter, or manifest reality.

In the quantum phenomenon ...there is no meaning involved. ...In contrast, when an archetype manifests in a synchronicity experience, meaning is the critical point.

Summary
In quantum theory we find time flows symmetrically forward and back with no distinction between past and future.

Synchronicity appears to function in the same way, where future events are perceived in the present.

Quantum theory’s non-locality, the seamless connection between objects, links to synchronicity as it connects the awareness of objects or events outside of the classical range of perception by a non-causal means.

Quantum theory’s ‘action at a distance’, where objects communicate instantaneously at faster than light speed, relates to synchronicity in its potential for instant communication between a thought and a corresponding 'outside' event. In the world of quantum theory, our most fundamental notions about reality break down, but the foundations of synchronicity start to make sense.