Synchronicity - Part 1
For a very long time I have struggled with Jung's notion of synchronicity. Simply put synchronicity is the concept of meaningful coincidence, of the acausal connection - a connectedness between apparently disparate phenomena and events.
For me, the problem of synchronicity is that it is riddled with so much mystical jiggery-pokery on the one hand and ideas about fatalism and divinity on the other. There are so many esoteric deterministic elements that might be thrown into the synchronicity melting pot including ideas about pre-destination and pre-ordination. Who establishes that these coincidences have meaning or significance? Are events and phenomena not open to subjective re-interpretation in order to show their coincidental significance? Is the construction of the meaning and relatedness of phenomena and events simply an act of creating their subjective correspondence?
I shall suspend my scepticism and go off here on a short excursus, a voyage of discovery in words to see if I can articulate what I feel about synchronicity.
In case I am being too abstract, perhaps I should attempt to give one or two examples of synchronous events: A woman orders a red dress for a party but a black dress is delivered to her in error. As she is about to phone the shop where she bought it to advise them of the mistake, the phone rings. It is her sister, "Mother has died. You need to come for the funeral." The woman thought she was in control of her life; she believed she knew what would happen next. The synchronous event told her otherwise and outfitted her for what was actually coming next, something much deeper had occurred.
That is a powerful example. I know in my own life, there feels to be other purposeful connections that have been made that may not happened had my life followed its planned course.
We seek to understand our world in terms of cause and effect. I do not believe that everything can be understood in those scientific and rational terms. Cause and effect are the rationale of industrial man. It is a form of cultural and intellectual arrogance of the worst kind that maintains that the scientific mode of understanding is the only valid way of knowing and understanding our world. The obsession with rationality pre-dates industrialisation, but perhaps rational consciousness was a social pre-condition or a cultural pre-requisite of the change to be brought about by the industrial revolution. What is interesting is that it was the Catholic Church who seized upon rationality as the only way of knowing. During the inquisition and beyond, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of women were put to death by the Catholic Church for so-called witchcraft. To be a witch was to have a "heretical" belief either good or bad that could not be substantiated by rational proof. Of course, the only heretical beliefs one was allowed to hold were those religious beliefs proselytized by the Catholic Church itself. Inquisitions happened everywhere throughout the Middle Ages. To have non-rational beliefs was to risk being put to death; it is no small wonder that rationality has a stranglehold on our consciousness. But I digress.
Back to synchronicity: I am going to try and drop rationality for a while too and simply share the sense I have of synchronicity.
Synchronicities appear to cluster around significant events. Many meaningful coincidences occurred, for instance, when the Titanic sank and when Kennedy was assassinated. Also personal disasters or crises in our personal lives seem to invite synchronicity.
Perhaps synchronicity is the surprise that something suddenly fits! Synchronous events are meaningful coincidences or correspondences that guide us, warn us, or confirm us on our path in life. Coincidence happens at a specific moment. In this sense it is existential, tied to the here and now. Correspondences may continue. This is how synchronicity is essential, always present, in our human experience. Synchronicity may also be found in a series of similar events or experiences. It can appear as one striking event that sets off a chain reaction. It is always unexpected and somehow uncanny, almost eerie in its accuracy of connection or revelation. This is what makes it impossible for me to dismiss synchronicity as mere coincidence.
There may be synchronicity in the fact that our knowledge of our real issues, of ourselves and of our relationships, comes simultaneously with the strength to face them. We are usually in denial for a long time before we finally recognise and acknowledge our own truth. Synchronicity is in the fact that we often only let ourselves know when we can deal with what we know.
Synchronicity also occurs in looking back at one's life and seeing how it all prepared or instructed you for the realisation of one's full potential. A hidden feeling or truth may have waited to be awakened by the right person or circumstance, sometimes painfully. My destiny, perhaps, was to have had such a beginning. My neglectful and abusive father helped me practice for the independent and loving life I lead now. James Hillman writes: "This way of seeing removes the burden from the early years as having been a mistake and yourself a victim of handicaps and cruelties; instead it is the acorn in the mirror...." This may be light years ahead of what I wrote earlier.
Everyone and every event in life's drama is part of the metaphor of our personal development. The issue from an old relationship may not be: "how bad she was" but "how much I needed to learn." Most of us keep meeting partners who show us exactly where our we need to work on ourselves in order to become ourselves, e.g., men who abuse, women who are unfaithful. The wounds are openings into our missing life. Often, the only way in which a lost piece of ourselves or of our history comes back to us is through another person. The unknown is scary so people and events come along that help us go there. This is synchronicity. The only mistake we make is hanging on to some people too long or too briefly. We ask, “How, why and with whom did I do that?” We fall into the trap of taking them as literally themselves instead of metaphorical forces that have come to boost, chide or light our way in life. “Who finally pointed the way beyond my limitations?”
My personal jury has been out on synchronicity for about 15 years now. It looks like it just walked back in and voted in its favour. “Now who or what took me there?” I wonder. Time will tell me all I need to know so long as I listen carefully and pay attention.
My acknowledgements to Dr David Richo whose book, "Unexpected Miracles: The Gift of Synchronicity & How to Open it" inspired this piece and also to the work of Carl Gustav Jung on which my thinking about synchronicity is based.