Synchronicity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 1/14/12 4:49 PM

Synchronicity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently

causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance and that are
observed to occur together in a meaningful manner. The concept of
synchronicity was first described in this terminology by Carl Gustav Jung, a
Swiss psychologist, in the 1920s.[1]

The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality.
Instead it maintains that, just as events may be grouped by cause, they may
also be grouped by meaning. A grouping of events by meaning need not
have an explanation in terms of cause and effect.

Contents
1 Description
2 Examples
3 Criticism
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links

Description
The idea of
synchronicity is that the
conceptual relationship
of minds, defined as the
relationship between

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ideas, is intricately
structured in its own
logical way and gives Diagram illustrating concept of synchronicity by CG
rise to relationships that Jung
are not causal in nature.
These relationships can manifest themselves as simultaneous occurrences
that are meaningfully related.

Synchronistic events reveal an underlying pattern, a conceptual framework

that encompasses, but is larger than, any of the systems that display the
synchronicity. The suggestion of a larger framework is essential to satisfy
the definition of synchronicity as originally developed by Carl Gustav
Jung.[2]

Jung coined the word to describe what he called "temporally coincident

occurrences of acausal events." Jung variously described synchronicity as an
"acausal connecting principle", "meaningful coincidence" and "acausal
parallelism". Jung introduced the concept as early as the 1920s but only gave
a full statement of it in 1951 in an Eranos lecture[3] and in 1952, published a
paper, Synchronizität als ein Prinzip akausaler Zusammenhänge
(Synchronicity — An Acausal Connecting Principle) [4], in a volume with a
related study by the physicist (and Nobel laureate) Wolfgang Pauli.[5]

It was a principle that Jung felt gave conclusive evidence for his concepts of
archetypes and the collective unconscious,[6] in that it was descriptive of a
governing dynamic that underlies the whole of human experience and
history—social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. Concurrent events
that first appear to be coincidental but later turn out to be causally related are
termed incoincident.

Jung believed that many experiences that are coincidences due to chance in
terms of causality suggested the manifestation of parallel events or
circumstances in terms of meaning, reflecting this governing dynamic.[7]

Even at Jung's presentation of his work on synchronicity in 1951 at an

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Eranos lecture his ideas on synchronicity were still evolving. Following

discussions with both Albert Einstein and Wolfgang Pauli Jung believed that
there were parallels between synchronicity and aspects of relativity theory
and quantum mechanics. Jung was transfixed by the idea that life was not a
series of random events but rather an expression of a deeper order, which he
and Pauli referred to as Unus mundus. This deeper order led to the insights
that a person was both embedded in an orderly framework and was the focus
of that orderly framework and that the realisation of this was more than just
an intellectual exercise but also having elements of a spiritual awakening.
From the religious perspective synchronicity shares similar characteristics of
an "intervention of grace". Jung also believed that synchronicity served a
similar role in a person's life to dreams with the purpose of shifting a
person's egocentric conscious thinking to greater wholeness.

A close associate of Jung, Marie-Louise von Franz, stated towards the end
of her life that the concept of synchronicity must now be worked on by a
new generation of researchers. [8] For example in the years since the
publication of Jung’s work on synchronicity, some writers largely
sympathetic to Jung's approach have taken issue with certain aspects of his
theory, including the question of how frequently synchronicity occurs. For
example, in The Waking Dream: Unlocking the Symbolic Language of Our
Lives, Ray Grasse suggests that instead of being a "rare" phenomenon, as
Jung suggested, synchronicity is more likely all-pervasive, and that the
occasional dramatic coincidence is only the tip of a larger iceberg of
meaning that underlies our lives. Grasse places the discussion of
synchronicity in the context of what he calls the "symbolist" world view, a
traditional way of perceiving the universe that regards all phenomena as
interwoven by linked analogies or "correspondences." Though omnipresent,
these correspondences tend to become obvious to us only in the case of the
most startling coincidences. The study of astrology, he argues, offers a
practical method of not only becoming more conscious of these subtle
connections but of testing and even predicting their occurrence throughout
our lives. [9]

One of Jung's favourite quotes on synchronicity was from Through the

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Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, in which the White Queen says to Alice:

"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards".[10][11]

'The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday--but never jam to-
day.'
'It MUST come sometimes to "jam to-day,"' Alice objected.
'No, it can't,' said the Queen. 'It's jam every OTHER day: to-day
isn't any OTHER day, you know.'
'I don't understand you,' said Alice. 'It's dreadfully confusing!'
'That's the effect of living backwards,' the Queen said kindly: 'it
always makes one a little giddy at first--'
'Living backwards!' Alice repeated in great astonishment. 'I never
heard of such a thing!'
'--but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works
both ways.'
'I'm sure MINE only works one way,' Alice remarked. 'I can't
remember things before they happen.'
'It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' the Queen
remarked.

Examples
The French writer Émile Deschamps claims in his memoirs that, in 1805, he
was treated to some plum pudding by a stranger named Monsieur de
Fontgibu. Ten years later, the writer encountered plum pudding on the menu
of a Paris restaurant and wanted to order some, but the waiter told him that
the last dish had already been served to another customer, who turned out to
be de Fontgibu. Many years later, in 1832, Deschamps was at a dinner and
once again ordered plum pudding. He recalled the earlier incident and told
his friends that only de Fontgibu was missing to make the setting complete—
and in the same instant, the now senile de Fontgibu entered the room. [12]

In his book Synchronicity (1952), Jung tells the following story as an

example of a synchronistic event:

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A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in

which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this
dream, I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a
noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a
flying insect knocking against the window-pane from the outside. I
opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It
was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab one finds in our latitudes,
a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata),
which, contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt the urge to get
into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that
nothing like it ever happened to me before or since. [13]

The comic strip character Dennis the Menace featuring a young boy in a red
and black striped shirt debuted on March 12, 1951 in 16 newspapers in the
United States. Three days later in the UK a character called Dennis the
Menace, wearing a red and black striped jumper made his debut in children's
comic The Beano. Both creators have denied any causal connection.

Jung wrote, after describing some examples, "When coincidences pile up in

this way, one cannot help being impressed by them—for the greater the
number of terms in such a series, or the more unusual its character, the more
improbable it becomes."[14]

Criticism
Among some psychologists, Jung's works, such as The Interpretation of
Nature and the Psyche, were received as problematic. Fritz Levi, in his 1952
review in Neue Schweizer Rundschau (New Swiss Observations), critiqued
Jung's theory of synchronicity as vague in determinability of synchronistic
events, saying that Jung never specifically explained his rejection of "magic
causality" to which such an acausal principle as synchronicity would be
related. He also questioned the theory's usefulness.[15]

A possible explanation for Jung's perception that the laws of probability

seemed to be violated with some coincidences[16] can be seen in Littlewood's
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law.

In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is a tendency to

search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's
preconceptions and avoids information and interpretations that contradict
prior beliefs. It is a type of cognitive bias and represents an error of
inductive inference, or as a form of selection bias toward confirmation of the
hypothesis under study or disconfirmation of an alternative hypothesis.
Confirmation bias is of interest in the teaching of critical thinking, as the
skill is misused if rigorous critical scrutiny is applied only to evidence
challenging a preconceived idea but not to evidence supporting it.[17]

Wolfgang Pauli, a scientist who in his professional life was severely critical
of confirmation bias, made some effort to investigate the phenomenon,
coauthoring a paper with Jung on the subject. Some of the evidence that
Pauli cited was that ideas that occurred in his dreams would have
synchronous analogs in later correspondence with distant collaborators.[18]

It has been asserted that Jung's analytical psychological theory of

synchronicity is equal to intellectual intuition.[19]

See also
Apophenia
Multiple discovery
Pareidolia

References
1. ^ Tarnas, Richard (2006). Cosmos and Psyche. New York: Penguin Group.
p. 50. ISBN 0-670-03292-1.
2. ^ Jung, Carl (1960). The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (Collected
Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 8). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
pp. 417–519. ISBN 0691097747.
3. ^ Casement, Ann, "Who Owns Jung?" (http://books.google.com/books?

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id=0g8chpSOI3AC&printsec=frontcover) , Karnac Books, 2007. ISBN 1-

85575-403-7. Cf. page 25.
4. ^ Jung, Carl G. (1993) [1952]. Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting
Principle. Bollingen, Switzerland: Bollingen Foundation.
ISBN 9780691017945.
5. ^ Roderick Main (2000). "Religion, Science, and Synchronicity"
(http://www.essex.ac.uk/centres/psycho/publications/RMpapers.htm) . Harvest:
Journal for Jungian Studies.
http://www.essex.ac.uk/centres/psycho/publications/RMpapers.htm.
6. ^ Jung defined the collective unconscious as akin to instincts in Archetypes and
the Collective Unconscious.
7. ^ In Synchronicity in the final two pages of the Conclusion, Jung stated that not
all coincidences are meaningful and further explained the creative causes of this
phenomenon.
8. ^ Tarnas, Richard, "Cosmos and Psyche", 2006, Penguin Group, New York,
Pgs 50-60
9. ^ Grasse,Ray,"The Waking Dream: Unlocking the Symbolic Language of Our
Lives", 1996,Quest Books, pages=249-255
10. ^ lecture notes, Jung Foundation, New York City, 1980s.
11. ^ Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll, Ch. 5, Wool and Water.
12. ^ Emile Deschamps, Oeuvres completes : Tomes I — VI, Reimpr. de l'ed. de
Paris 1872 - '74
13. ^ The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, paragraph 843, Princeton University Press
Edition.
14. ^ C. G. Jung Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal, p. 91
15. ^ Bishop, Paul (2000). Synchronicity and Intellectual Intuition in Kant,
Swedenborg, and Jung. The Edwin Mellen Press. pp. 59–62.
ISBN 0773475931.
16. ^ Jung On Synchronicity and the Paranormal p.91
17. ^ Tim van Gelder, "Heads I win, tails you lose": A Foray Into the Psychology
of Philosophy (http://sites.google.com/site/timvangelder/publications-1/heads-i-
win-tails-you-lose-desire-s-hold-over-reason/HeadsIWin.pdf)
18. ^ RealityShifters | Synchronicity
(http://realityshifters.com/pages/articles/synchronicity.html)
19. ^ Bishop, pp 17-20.

Further reading
Aziz, Robert (1990). C.G. Jung's Psychology of Religion and
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Aziz, Robert (1990). C.G. Jung's Psychology of Religion and

Synchronicity (10 ed.). The State University of New York Press.
ISBN 0-7914-0166-9.
Aziz, Robert (1999). "Synchronicity and the Transformation of the
Ethical in Jungian Psychology". In Becker, Carl. Asian and Jungian
Views of Ethics. Greenwood. ISBN 0-313-30452-1.
Aziz, Robert (2007). The Syndetic Paradigm: The Untrodden Path
Beyond Freud and Jung. The State University of New York Press.
ISBN 978-0-7914-6982-8.
Aziz, Robert (2008). "Foreword". In Storm, Lance. Synchronicity:
Multiple Perspectives on Meaningful Coincidence. Pari Publishing.
ISBN 978-88-95604-02-2.
Carey, Harriet (1869). "Monsieur de Fontgibu and the Plum
Pudding". Echoes from the Harp of France. p. 174.
Cederquist, Jan (2010). Meaningful Coincidence. Times Publishing
Limited. ISBN 978-0-462-09970-5.
Holland, Mark (2001). Synchronicity: Through the Eyes of Science,
Myth, and the Trickster. New York: Marlowe. ISBN 1-56924-599-1.
Franz, Marie-Louise von (1980). On Divination and Synchronicity:
The Psychology of Meaningful Chance. Inner City Books. ISBN 0-
919123-02-3.
Grasse, Ray (1996). The Waking Dream: Unlocking the Symbolic
Language of Our Lives. Quest Books. ISBN 0-835-6074-96.
Jaworski, Joseph (1996). Synchronicity: the inner path of leadership.
Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc.. ISBN 1-881052-94-X.
Jung, Carl (1972). Synchronicity — An Acausal Connecting
Principle. Routledge and Kegan Paul. ISBN 0-7100-7397-6.
Jung, Carl (1977). Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal: Key
Readings. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-15508-8.
Jung, Carl (1981). The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.
Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01833-2.
Koestler, Arthur (1973). The Roots of Coincidence. Vintage.
ISBN 0-394-71934-4.
Main, Roderick (2007). Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity as
Spiritual Experience. The State University of New York Press.
ISBN 0-7914-7024-4.
Mardorf, Elisabeth (in German). Das kann doch kein Zufall sei.

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Mansfield, Victor (1995). Science, Synchronicity and Soul-Making.

Open Court Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8126-9304-3.
Peat, F. David (1987). Synchronicity, The Bridge Between Matter
and Mind. Bantam. ISBN 0-553-34676-8.
Progoff, Ira (1973). Jung, synchronicity, & human destiny:
Noncausal dimensions of human experience. New York, Julian
Press. ISBN 0870970569. OCLC 763819
(http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/763819) .
Wilhelm, Richard (1986). Lectures on the I Ching: Constancy and
Change Bollingen edition. Princeton University Press; Reprint.
ISBN 0-691-01872-3.
Roth, Remo, F., Return of the World Soul, Wolfgang Pauli, C.G.
Jung and the Challenge of Psychophysical Reality [unus mundus].
Pari Publishing, 2011

External links
Tarlacı, Sultan (2006) Jung's Error: Synchronicity A New Theory.
New/Yeni Symposium Journal, 44 (3). pp. 151-156.
(http://www.noroloji.biz/index.php?
option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&sobi2Id=24&Itemid=60)
Carl Jung and Synchronicity (http://www.carl-
jung.net/synchronicity.html)
The Synchroncity of the Two Octopuses, Rhine Research Center
Summer 2011 Newsletter
(http://www.rhine.org/Newsletters/201106RhineNewsletter.pdf)

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