Synchronicity

Carl Jung coined the term "synchronicity" in the 1950’s to refer to what some might call "meaningful coincidences". The well-known example of synchronicity cited by Jung involved a patient of his relaying a dream in which a scarab beetle played a prominent role. At the very moment the patient was describing the dream, an actual scarab beetle flew through Jung’s office window. Was it mere coincidence? Did some principle or force create this strange coordination of events? Or does the sense that the coincidence was meaningful simply qualify as a mild example of apophenia (the perception of a connection between unrelated events that is taken to a psychotic extreme)?

Certainly one can imagine how perceiving connections between unrelated events can be taken too far. As I write this, my pet frog, Lilith, is swimming around frantically in her tank for some reason I can’t possibly fathom. At the same time, I’m feeling rather anxious and I can’t figure out why. The dark chocolate I’m eating to take the edge off has some lighter streaks in it that resemble the mushroom clouds produced by atomic bombs. While I nervously reach for another piece of chocolate, I accidentally knock over a pencil holder and when the pencils land on the floor they look to be spelling, in Greek, "Die, die, die you writhing stinking worm, die!" Just then I get a phone call from a fellow who wants to sell me life insurance. Obviously, these are signs that my present anxiety (and the anxiety of my pet) is actually symptomatic of the unconscious knowledge that I will soon meet a sudden, gruesome death. So, at my very earliest convenience, I should break out into a cold sweat, panic, beg everyone around me for help without telling them what the problem is, then in my utter terror run out into the street to be crushed by a garbage truck that just happens to be passing through at that very moment. After all of this, renowned director M. Night Shyamalan shall yell, "CUT!"

It’s fallacious, though, to think that just because one can come up with absurd examples of perceiving connections between unrelated events that there are no examples that aren’t absurd. Mental illness should not be used as a catchall for perceptions that don’t fit into our ordinary understanding of the universe. In fact, some scientists are beginning to conceive of synchronicity in a framework that makes sense when it’s applied to, among other things, quantum physics. Certainly, though, these applications of the concept are highly speculative and not widely accepted by the greater scientific community. Still, I find the concept to be a fun one to kick around.

I find it helpful to think of synchronicity as a quality of nature that endows events in time with a kind of "mass", such that before the event actually occurs, the universe "anticipates" the event as it enters the event’s "gravity well". To clarify, imagine visiting your childhood home and finding an old photograph of you and your best friend from grammar school, whom you haven’t heard from in over twenty years. After that, you hear or see that friend’s name constantly, wherever you go. After a month has passed, you answer a knock at your door to find this old friend standing on your porch, and she tells you that she was, by chance, in the neighborhood and thought she would look you up. Such an event is typically labeled a "coincidence". But applying the concept of synchronicity gives a different interpretation. For some reason, the future, unexpected visit possessed a significant "mass" in time, perhaps because it reached a critical degree of inevitability. As the event grew nearer in time, its arrival could be anticipated by the rest of the universe (and you in it) just as a particle in space experiences a large object’s gravity well before it experiences the large object. A "gravity well" in time, then, is experienced as omens, visions, or premonitions.

It is a concept like synchronicity that is the basis for belief in various forms of divination. The idea is that an imprint of the future exists in the very fabric of the present. Events we might regard as "random" are subject to conform to this imprint. Think of an old grave stone where the words carved into it are too worn away to read. If you take a piece of paper and lay it over the stone, then gently rub pencil lead across the paper, the shallow letters on the stone appear plainly on the page. Likewise, a diviner casts cards, dice, animal bones, etc., upon the surface of time to see if a pattern or image emerges. By this image, they get a glimpse of the near future.

Synchronicity operates in human life in a very definitive way. The hallmark of human intelligence is the ability of one mind to deeply anticipate the experiences and intentions of another to the point of the two minds sharing those experiences and intentions. This is an amazing ability, when you think about it. For human beings do not simply react to one another. They also work with one another, many times as if they are moving with one mind instead of two, and what humans accomplish in such moments is greater than the sum of their individual contributions. This behavior is called cooperation, and the great sociologist Carl Couch recognized it as the very foundation of human life. It is the capstone of the overarching concept, synchronicity, which is a unifying principle of all events in the universe.

If synchronicity is the mortar, though, there is another concept that is the architect. More fundamental than any unifying principle is the governing principle. And that’s the one that Grandpappy liked to talk about most.

And so we’re taken back to the beginning of our discussion regarding the governing principle… which is right where any discussion of the governing principle ultimately ought to take us.