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What is
Synchronicity?
In the design of Providence there are no
coincidences.
Pope
John Paul II
Everything divided
and different belongs to one and the same world…
C.G. Jung
The word
‘synchronicity’ was invented by Swiss psychologist
C.G. Jung in 1929. He first used it publicly in May
1930 in a memorial address for Richard Wilhelm,
whose life’s work had been the monumental task of
translating into German the Chinese ‘Book of
Changes’, the I Ching, which is based on the
principle that in the moment of asking a vital
question an answer is also present. Thus Jung
brought to public attention the idea of meaningful
coincidences.
A
synchronistic event not only has something uncanny
about it, something otherworldly,inexplicable and
wondrous, but it also has an important meaning for
the person involved. For example, the writer Bill
Bryson recounts in Notes from a Small Island
how he once wanted to write an article about
remarkable coincidences and approached a magazine
publisher. His proposal was accepted, but he then
realized that he did not have enough personal
experiences to draw on to make the article
interesting enough and wrote to the publisher
informing them that he had changed his mind. He left
the letter on top of his typewriter and went to work
as usual. That very day there happened to be a sale
of unwanted books at his office building. When he
arrived at the sale, his eyes fell immediately on a
book entitled Remarkable True Coincidences. A
quick glance showed that it contained all the
information he needed for his research, but moreover
the first example of synchronicity was about a man
named Bryson! Most people would believe that this
was just another coincidence, a chance happening
without any great significance. But it was a
significant event because it brought the writer
exactly the information he needed as quickly as
possible. Maybe the fact that ‘something’ made
Bryson delay posting his letter and then go to that
book sale and find the very book he needed meant
that synchronicity itself wanted to be written
about…
Bryson’s
need for information about remarkable coincidences
did not cause this book to turn up in the
book sale. These two things happened at the same
time but were, as far as we know, totally
independent of one another and the only thing that
connected them at all was meaning. That is
why Jung called synchronicity an ‘acausal connecting
principle’, as opposed to causality, where one thing
leads to another or happens because of
another. Synchronistic movements are not linear, but
follow a meandering zigzag path and happen
spontaneously without planning or warning.
Some people have tried to find rational explanations
for synchronistic phenomena, suggesting that perhaps
they are a form of telepathy or thought
transference. Could it be that
at some level
everything in this world is connected to everything
else, as if we are living in some giant universal
mind? Or do we have some kind of antennae that can
pick up vital clues and information in situations of
great urgency?
Jung
warned that it would be hard for many people to
accept acausality, to understand that there are
situations that no person or thing caused to happen,
but that emerged as if from nowhere at just the
right time.
Aniela Jaffé,
one of Jung’s most important collaborators, speaks
of a ‘magical causality’, meaning that a link
between two apparently unconnected synchronistic
events exists but that it belongs to the realm of
magic, being controlled by an intelligence of
another dimension. Perhaps the fact that all
synchronistic events are preceded by a thought, an
idea, a plan or an emotions of some kind – even if
we are only aware of this with hindsight – is an
indication of such a magical link.
Marie-Louise von
Franz, Jung’s closest colleague, who was fascinated
by synchronicity, was concerned that no one would be
interested in carrying out further investigations
after her death. She even put out an appeal in her
book Psyche and Matter for her work on this
to continue. But synchronicity is elusive. It cannot
be ordered or repeated and therefore does not lend
itself readily to scientific investigation. It is a
bit like trying to prove scientifically that there
are such things as dreams. We cannot photograph a
dream as proof of its existence. All we have is the
empirical evidence
Furthermore, we can
only speak of a synchronistic event when it can be
verified by observation. Therefore, synchronicity
demands a witness. One of the two events has to be
an inner state of being, a psychological attitude or
disposition or an intention or a wish, and the other
must be an outer observable event that
mirrors the inner happening.
We have been well
trained and socially conditioned to trust only what
we can experience with our five outer senses. Yet
genuine synchronistic events can only be registered
when our normal everyday consciousness is off-guard
and their meaning can only be understood if we allow
ourselves to ‘think’ with that other mind or ours,
that mind which can make connections that are not
obvious at first glance. The trick is to learn to
use that other mind without prejudice and a free
spirit and an open heart.
The most
interesting aspect of all truly synchronistic
phenomena is that there appears to be a pre-existing
knowledge of things to come, things of which we have
at that moment no apparent awareness whatsoever.
There seems to be an altogether ‘other’ that knows
more than us, can see into the future and also has
the ingenious ability to find the quickest route to
guide or return us to our destined path.
In spite of the absence of ‘scientific’ evidence
that we have a sixth sense, the increase in
synchronistic occurrences and the seriousness with
which they are now being treated by investigators of
paranormal phenomena are indications that the time
is probably not far off when we will need to
acknowledge the fact that there are dimensions to
our minds that are
infinitely wiser
than our ‘normal’ consciousness. Jung and others
have done much to draw this to our attention. The
conscious mind could be regarded as the tip of the
iceberg, with the rest being submerged in the waters
of the unconscious. From time to time something of
this submerged part breaks through the surface –
perhaps in a dream, or as a fantasy or inspiration –
and we receive some important information that
inspires or gives us comfort or is an answer to a
prayer. In that moment we are aware that we are not
alone, that there is a whole other world ‘out there’
of which we normally know nothing but which
nevertheless reveals itself to us in order to help
or warn.
Jung calls this world the ‘collective unconscious’
and its contents ‘archetypes’, which in this sense
are ordering principles that underlie normal
consciousness. Seen from another perspective, they
are root images of human experiences – encoded
experiences that we all share. There are archetypes
of the Mother, Father, God, Self, Fool, Devil,
Child, Love, etc. It is from this realm of
archetypal forces, Jung claimed, that we are guided,
as if by magic, in certain directions that
constitute our individual way through life, the
‘individuation process’ as he called it. All the
archetypes are connected with powerful emotions and
ideas, and all of them could influence us at any
time. How we experience them depends on who
we are. The archetypes cannot be known directly in
their actual form – just as we cannot know
electricity – we can only see and feel their
effects. Therefore, they take on guises that we can
recognize and that will show us what we need to
know.We understand so little about how, why and by
what means other worlds interact with ours that it
is probably not accurate even to assume that
synchronistic events are acausal, in
the sense of ‘by no
physical cause’. The fact is that we simply don’t
know. The worlds that lie beyond ours still remain a
mystery.
The most serious
research into these dimensions is taking place in
the field of quantum physics. Jung, who collaborated
with the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Professor
Pauli, was one of the first serious modern
researchers to state that everything, every being
and every experience, belongs to the same world. But
this one world is not only the world of our known
five senses, but a much vaster one that is not
perceived in the ordinary way. Therefore, in order
for us to get close to, and partake of some of the
benefits of this other reality we need to cultivate
a sensitivity and receptivity to its manifestations.
There are various
ways in which we can prepare ourselves for what the
other side has to offer. We can begin by imagining
that ‘cracks’ between the two worlds appear with
great regularity, affording us a glimpse of the
altogether ‘other’ or allowing it to break through
into our normally rational, limited and closed
minds. If we can start to play with the idea that
there is more to life than we know or can
scientifically prove, then we have taken a big step
towards living a more abundant existence. There are
already telling signs that we are becoming
increasingly sensitive to wider realities through
events such as UFO sightings, encounters with
angels, or astral travelling.
Some people need to be persuaded of this
intellectually, while others are given an experience
that changes their perception overnight. I am
reminded of an event that happened when I was
driving through the French countryside with my
husband early one Sunday morning. As the roads were
still empty and driving conditions excellent, I was
going a bit faster than I normally would. When we
approached a sleepy little village I hardly slowed
down. Besides, didn’t I have priority as I was on
the ‘main’ road? Well, not in France and not in this
village! As we came to the narrow crossroads in the
centre, a large green car pulled into our path from
the right. We had no chance of avoiding it; there
was no time to stop. All I could do was to shut my
eyes and wait for the crash. But when I opened them
again we found ourselves on the top of the hill with
the village beneath us. I stopped the car and pulled
over, unable to speak. We sat there for a long time
in absolute shock. We will never know how we escaped
a probably fatal accident and how we were
transported to safety in a split second. Someone or
something had intervened in our fate. To us this was
undisputed proof that someone was looking out for
us, someone or something in possession of
unimaginable powers, what in religious language was
termed divine providence’. Later, when we pondered
over how and why we were saved, we thought that
perhaps it might have been because we were on a
pilgrimage. At the
time we were writing a travel guide to all the sites
in Europe connected with the Holy Grail and the
Precious Blood (In Search of the Holy Grail and
the Precious Blood) many of which have
themselves witnessed extraordinary synchronistic
miracles.
We need a rainbow
bridge between inner and outer realities, and the
two sides of the brain. Many people all over the
world are already building one by means of
meditation, dream analysis, active imagination or
Rebirthing therapy, to name but a few ways. We can
walk this bridge with our intuition and our
feelings, with love and understanding, and leave
behind the rules of a scientific mechanistic world-
view as we cross it. This needs practice and
perseverance and perhaps also a guide who has
already walked this way before us.
In all synchronistic
events one is in touch with both worlds; psyche and
matter are as one. It is of no importance whether it
is our soul or our rational mind that guides us,
because in that moment there is no difference. |
