Synchronicity, Jung and me

A brief introduction to Carl Jung.

I’ve just finished reading an introductory book to the late, great psychologist: Carl Gustav Jung.

I’ve been interested in him and his ideas for a while now as some of the topics he talks about are things I have contemplated in my own mind for a long time.

Naturally this drew me in to find out more.

Carl Gustav Jung (July 26th 1875-June 6th 1961) was a psychologist and psychoanalyst born in Switzerland.

Aside from his ideas on synchronicity he also happens to be the founder of analytical psychology, the theory of introverted and extroverted personalities as well as being the first person to put people in categories based on his theory of personality types. Jung put himself into the category of the introverted, intuitive personality type.

“A meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved”-Carl Gustav Jung on synchronicity

Synchronicity and the I Ching.

Synchronicity can be seen as a way of looking at how events take place in our world. Cause and effect says that events happen in a strictly linear order; event A causes event B, causes event C.

Synchronicity says that events A and B can happen at the same time without one causing the other whilst still being meaningfully connected in the psyche and the outside world.

Cause and effect is known as a form of causality and is described as causal. Synchronicity is known as a form of acausality and is described as acausal.

Jung originally proposed the idea of synchronicity as “acausal parallelism”. This is the idea that everything that happens is actually related in some way to everything else. He thought there was an acausal order of some kind at the root of all phenomena. This theory allowed the idea that that two events could be connected without actually causally affecting one another. He later called this phenomena Synchronicity.

Today, modern quantum physics generally accepts acausal effects to be a reality. Particles have been known to react when other, seemingly unrelated particles are stimulated. These particles can be in different locations, sometimes vast distances away from each other. Quantum entanglement and string theory work well together to support this idea but that’s a whole book in of itself!

The first time Jung encountered synchronicity was when he was using the I Ching; a Chinese text used traditionally as an oracle of some sorts. I imagine it as an intricate magic 8 ball. You’re supposed to throw sticks or reeds onto the ground, then read the random patterns they create using the tome.

The I Ching then supposedly gives you an insight into your life based on the choices you made through pure “chance”. Although of course the whole point is that it isn’t just chance that plays a part and something else is guiding the passages you pick and in effect the answers you receive. Jung himself found this method useful in the treatment of some of his patients in providing insight into their life and subsequent problems.

Even though most, if not all people will experience strange coincidences in their lives the vast majority of people will put it down in their minds as just that, a strange coincidence. Jung however, did not.

Jung believed that the individual psyche and the outer world had a certain kind of connection, almost like the concept of Ying and Yang. Two parts of the same whole flowing between each other. He believed that these synchronistic experiences were actually a necessary and also healthy function of the psyche interacting with the outside world. The important part wasn’t just that the experience had happened it is what the experience was trying to tell you, much like a dream.

Personally I like this concept. The idea that everything is part of the same whole seems to sit right with me.

A lot of people also seem to believe that synchronicity can be a sign that you are on the right path in life, like a letter of approval to your psyche signed by our external reality.

Maybe all of reality is some kind of expression of consciousness, maybe consciousness and reality are two different expressions of a different, larger whole. I hope one day we find out.

Jung studied Eastern philosophy very closely and took great inspiration from their ideas.

Alas, even Jung and his peer Wolfgang Pauli (what an awesome name) -whom he wrote a book with on the subject, entitled “The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche”- didn’t know exactly what it was that was causing these synchronistic events to take place.

The fact that even they couldn’t completely nail this theory down in tangible reality left them open to criticism by the scientific community. Well, that and because their theory is neither testable or falsifiable because all of this is supposedly occurring outside of the boundaries of our perception…

However in my humble opinion it’s definitely a real phenomenon. So real that even though you can’t see it or touch it, sometimes you can still feel it.

It could be the hairs all over your body standing up, or a cold chill going from your head to your toes when you realize what’s happening. Many people describe these events as somehow profound.

“Corrections to chance fluctuations by meaningful and purposeful coincidences of causally unconnected events” -Wolfgang Pauli on Synchronicity

My experiences.

I guess this brings me nicely to my own experiences of synchronicity.

There have been many times in my life when I have felt like a coincidence wasn’t just a coincidence, that some greater force had caused instances and events to occur in harmony within my life. Sometimes a dream that I would see aspects of in my waking life shortly after, sometimes a thought I dwell on that turns out to relate to an event that hasn’t happened yet.

Most of the time I quickly forget about them and move on, but one incident in particular has stuck with me over the years.

There was nothing strange or un-ordinary about that day at all and although the events I’m about to describe weren’t particularly significant or exciting in themselves, in the context of synchronicity they were a set of particularly eye opening “coincidences”.

I must of been around 20, it could of been any other un-important, grey-skied day in the north of England. Me and my close friend Jonny were walking from one side of our town to the other. I don’t remember what we were doing, probably nothing out of the ordinary.

We started talking about our friend Robbie and how we hadn’t seen him for a while, the three of us were very close friends at the time so it was unusual that we hadn’t all been together as of late. Sadly Robbie passed away a year or two after these events.

A couple a minutes later we noticed we were coming to an intersection that on the left led straight down to Robbie’s house. I didn’t think this was particularly strange in itself as I presumed this was going to be the route we were taking. I thought perhaps that was the reason why Robbie was on our minds as we subconsciously knew that his road was coming up.

As we were crossing the street I glanced in the direction of Robbie’s house. I could just about make it out without my glasses on and at that exact moment, my phone began to ring. I nonchalantly reached for my phone not expecting what was coming, took one look at the screen. Paused. I then turned to Jonny and showed him my phone screen out of disbelief. “No f***ing way!!” he instantly exclaimed as he saw Robbie’s name flashing on my screen accompanied by the sounds of my ringtone.

His disbelief matched mine, I almost didn’t believe it at all. I felt as though somehow Robbie and Jonny were playing a prank on me and had planned this the whole time to confuse me. I soon found out this wasn’t the case. Whatever it was though I knew immediately it wasn’t pure coincidence. I could feel it in every fiber of my being that it was all somehow connected.

If it was purely just that Robbie had called me when I was walking across his street then maybe, just maybe I could of chalked it up to coincidence, but combine that with the fact we both hadn’t seen him for such a long time and also just happened to be talking about him a minute or two prior and I couldn’t put it down to pure chance. Something else was at play here.

I’m not claiming to know how synchronicity works. All I know is on that day it was clear to both me and Jonny that something a little bit spooky had occurred. It felt as though we had somehow willed Robbie’s phone call into fruition. Or perhaps it was Robbie and the act of him phoning us that had somehow caused us to think and talk about him in advance.

Concluding thoughts.

Five or so years later and I’m now 25. The events that took place on that day have only become more significant in my mind after Robbie’s passing a few years ago.

I’m fortunate enough to say that he is the only close friend I’ve known to die but that makes it even more unlikely that he would of been involved with me on that day. I’m not sure why but to me that makes it all a little bit stranger.

Some may call it fate, some may call it destiny, some would call it God or maybe even declare that the universe itself is bending to them. Some would dismiss it all and put it down to nothing more than chance.

I’m not sure about all that, my point is that to experience something like that most people undeniably get a sense of something greater than chance.

Carl Jung and I would call that something synchronicity. Whatever the hell that means!