Synchronicity
Meaningful Coincidence Beyond Chance
& Synchronized Chaos
Meaningful Coincidence Beyond Chance
& Synchronized Chaos
The principle of synchronicity represents the essential particularity of a non-statistical world, where facts are not measured by numbers but by their psychological significance. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 373-375
Synchronicity is not a name that characterizes an "organizing principle," but, like the word "archetype," it characterizes a modality. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449
"Dr. Jung: The theory of predestination has of course nothing to do with synchronicity.
Synchronicity is a scientific concept and the predestination theory is a dogma.
Synchronicity is a description of facts, whereas the predestination theory is riddled with contradictions.
If predestination is true, then everything goes on as it must: there are some who are chosen to go to heaven, others are predestined to roast in hell and go down to the kitchen.
If you fit the bill, you're chosen—or else the good Lord invalidates his own decree by suddenly sweeping up to heaven someone predestined for hell, or snatches someone down from heaven and sticks
him in the pit.
If you examine these things logically it is simply a juggling with words that has nothing to do with actuality.
Dual predestination, indeed! So I am predestined for hell and predestined for heaven, and then suddenly, by a sleight of hand, I am either here or there.
That is not a workable argument, it is a conjuring trick: you think the top hat is empty, and behold there is a white rabbit sitting in it!
MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE: I had hoped this was a point where depth psychology and theology could finally meet.
Dr. Jung: Oh no, here we are not in agreement at all.
Synchronicity states that a certain psychic event is paralleled by some external, non-psychic event and that there is no causal connection between them.
It is a parallelism of meaning.
That has nothing to do with the acrobatics of predestination."
~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, Pages 387-380.
Synchronicity is not a name that characterizes an "organizing principle," but, like the word "archetype," it characterizes a modality. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449
"Dr. Jung: The theory of predestination has of course nothing to do with synchronicity.
Synchronicity is a scientific concept and the predestination theory is a dogma.
Synchronicity is a description of facts, whereas the predestination theory is riddled with contradictions.
If predestination is true, then everything goes on as it must: there are some who are chosen to go to heaven, others are predestined to roast in hell and go down to the kitchen.
If you fit the bill, you're chosen—or else the good Lord invalidates his own decree by suddenly sweeping up to heaven someone predestined for hell, or snatches someone down from heaven and sticks
him in the pit.
If you examine these things logically it is simply a juggling with words that has nothing to do with actuality.
Dual predestination, indeed! So I am predestined for hell and predestined for heaven, and then suddenly, by a sleight of hand, I am either here or there.
That is not a workable argument, it is a conjuring trick: you think the top hat is empty, and behold there is a white rabbit sitting in it!
MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE: I had hoped this was a point where depth psychology and theology could finally meet.
Dr. Jung: Oh no, here we are not in agreement at all.
Synchronicity states that a certain psychic event is paralleled by some external, non-psychic event and that there is no causal connection between them.
It is a parallelism of meaning.
That has nothing to do with the acrobatics of predestination."
~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, Pages 387-380.
THE REVELATIONS OF CHANCE
SYNCHRONICITY IS A term Jung used to define the "occurrence of a meaningful coincidence in time" (de Laszlo, 1958, P. 282). Synchronicity accounts for striking and apparently inexplicable occurrences that link two or more events, usually an inner thought or feeling and an outer event. It manifests in significantly related patterns of chance that are connected through the sharing of a common meaning, not because one event caused the other. Synchronicity can take three forms:
1. The coincidence of a subjective psychic content with a correspondingly objective process that is perceived to take place simultaneously.
2. The coincidence of a subjective psychic state with a dream or vision, "which later turns out to be a more or less faithful reflection of a 'synchronistic' objective event that took place more or less simultaneously, but at a distance" (de Laszlo, 1958, p. 282)
3. The coincidence of a subjective psychic state with a dream or vision in which the "synchronistic" objective event perceived takes place in the future and is represented in the present by the dream or vision.
“Synchronicity is no more baffling or mysterious than the discontinuities of physics. It is only the ingrained belief in the sovereign power of causality that creates intellectual difficulties and makes it appear unthinkable that causeless events exist or could ever exist. But if they do, then we must regard them as creative acts, as the continuous creation of a pattern that exists from all eternity, repeats itself sporadically, and is not derivable from any known antecedents.” This quote by Jung has an interesting footnote which adds the following, “Continuous creation is to be thought of not only as a series of successive acts of creation, but also as the eternal presence of the one creative act.” --Jung
Jung was intrigued from early in his career with coincidences, especially those surprising juxtapositions that scientific rationality could not adequately explain. He discussed these ideas with Albert Einstein before World War I, but first used the term "synchronicity" in a 1930 lecture, in reference to the unusual psychological insights generated from consulting the I Ching. A long correspondence and friendship with the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli stimulated a final, mature statement of Jung's thinking on synchronicity, originally published in 1952 and reproduced here. Together with a wealth of historical and contemporary material, this essay describes an astrological experiment Jung conducted to test his theory. Synchronicity reveals the full extent of Jung's research into a wide range of psychic phenomena.
Synchronicity is the occurrence of two or more events that appear to be meaningfully related but not causally related. Synchronicity holds that such events are "meaningful coincidences". The concept of synchronicity was first defined by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, in the 1920s. During his career, Jung gave several slightly different definitions of it.
Jung variously defined synchronicity as an "acausal connecting (togetherness) principle," "meaningful coincidence," and "acausal parallelism." He introduced the concept as early as the 1920s but gave a full statement of it only in 1951 in an Eranos lecture
In 1952, he published a paper "Synchronizität als ein Prinzip akausaler Zusammenhänge" (Synchronicity – An Acausal Connecting Principle) in a volume which also contained a related study by the Nobel laureate physicist Wolfgang Pauli.
Synchronicity implies that, just as events may be connected by causality, they may also be connected by meaning. Events connected by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of causality; this contradicts the Axiom of Causality in specific cases but does not contradict causality generally.
In his book Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, Jung wrote:
How are we to recognize acausal combinations of events, since it is obviously impossible to examine all chance happenings for their causality? The answer to this is that acausal events may be expected most readily where, on closer reflection, a causal connection appears to be inconceivable.
In the introduction to his book, Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal, Roderick Main wrote:
The culmination of Jung's lifelong engagement with the paranormal is his theory of synchronicity, the view that the structure of reality includes a principle of acausal connection which manifests itself most conspicuously in the form of meaningful coincidences. Difficult, flawed, prone to misrepresentation, this theory none the less remains one of the most suggestive attempts yet made to bring the paranormal within the bounds of intelligibility. It has been found relevant by psychotherapists, parapsychologists, researchers of spiritual experience and a growing number of non-specialists. Indeed, Jung's writings in this area form an excellent general introduction to the whole field of the paranormal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity
According to Jung, synchronicity is more likely to occur in an "aroused psyche" -- when we are in a highly charged state of emotional and mental awareness—when, the “archetypes,” universal images or themes underlying human behavior, are activated, in such situations as major life passages, emotional intensity and upheaval, and often peaks right before a psychological breakthrough. Synchronicities may come singly, in strings, or in clusters.
http://www.flowpower.com/understanding_synchronicity.htm
Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer.
Synchronicities are those moments of “meaningful coincidence” when the boundary dissolves between the inner and the outer. At the synchronistic moment, just like a dream, our internal, subjective state appears, as if materialized in, as and through the outside world. Touching the heart of our being, synchronicities are moments in time in which there is a fissure in the fabric of what we have taken for reality and there is a bleed through from a higher dimension outside of time. Synchronicities are expressions of the dreamlike nature of reality, as they are moments in time when the timeless, dreamlike nature of the universe shines forth its radiance and openly reveals itself to us, offering us an open doorway to lucidity. --Paul Levy
Synchronicities occur at times of deep archetypal excitation in the field, which is to say moments of crisis, transition, creative tension and dynamic intensity. The archetype that gets activated by the field precipitates itself into the field as a synchronistic expression of the very field which activated it. Periods of disturbance in our world are both a manifestation of and trigger for a corresponding archetype in the collective unconscious of humanity to draw to itself everything it needs to synchronistically render itself visible in form. Times of distress, both individually and collectively, catalyze a deeper, self-regulating and healing archetypal process to awaken within the human psyche which simultaneously expresses itself throughout the whole universe.
There is a profound and intimate synchronistic correlation between what is happening deep within the collective unconscious of humanity and what is playing out collectively on the world stage. Just like a dream, whatever we are unconscious of gets dreamed up and out-pictured in and as our waking dreamscape. What plays out in one person’s night dream is a reflection of their inner process; similarly what is getting dreamed up by all six and a half billion of us on the world stage is a reflection of a process going on deep inside of the collective unconscious of humanity.
When a formless archetype of the collective unconscious is at the point of becoming conscious and incarnating, it has an energetic charge that will seize people, get them in its grip and compel them to act itself out so as to give shape and form to itself. What we are unconscious of and don’t remember, we act out in the outside world. --Paul Levy
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/wordpress/catching-the-bug-of-synchronicity/
Just as a causality describes the sequence of events, so synchronicity to the Chinese mind, deals with the coincidence of events. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Page 593.
Synchronicity means the simultaneous occurrence of a psychic state with one or more external events, which appear as meaningful parallels to the momentary subjective state. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Page 441.
I have observed personally quite a number of synchronistic events where I
could establish the nature of the underlying archetype.
The archetype itself (nota bene not the archetypal representation!) is psychoid, i.e., transcendental and thus relatively beyond the categories of number, space, and time.
That means, it approximates to oneness and immutability.
Owing to the liberation from the categories of consciousness the archetype can be the basis of meaningful coincidence.
It is quite logical therefore that you are interested in the effect of mescalin and similar drugs belonging to the adrenalin group.
I am following up these investigations.
It is true that mescalin uncovers the unconscious to a great extent by removing the inhibitory influence of apperception and by replacing the latter through the normally latent syndromous associations.
Thus we see the painter of colours, the inventor of forms, the thinker of thoughts actually at work. --C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 317-319.
The trouble with parapsychology is that the very framework of our understanding and explanation, namely time, space, and causality, becomes questionable. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 373-375
SYNCHRONICITY IS A term Jung used to define the "occurrence of a meaningful coincidence in time" (de Laszlo, 1958, P. 282). Synchronicity accounts for striking and apparently inexplicable occurrences that link two or more events, usually an inner thought or feeling and an outer event. It manifests in significantly related patterns of chance that are connected through the sharing of a common meaning, not because one event caused the other. Synchronicity can take three forms:
1. The coincidence of a subjective psychic content with a correspondingly objective process that is perceived to take place simultaneously.
2. The coincidence of a subjective psychic state with a dream or vision, "which later turns out to be a more or less faithful reflection of a 'synchronistic' objective event that took place more or less simultaneously, but at a distance" (de Laszlo, 1958, p. 282)
3. The coincidence of a subjective psychic state with a dream or vision in which the "synchronistic" objective event perceived takes place in the future and is represented in the present by the dream or vision.
“Synchronicity is no more baffling or mysterious than the discontinuities of physics. It is only the ingrained belief in the sovereign power of causality that creates intellectual difficulties and makes it appear unthinkable that causeless events exist or could ever exist. But if they do, then we must regard them as creative acts, as the continuous creation of a pattern that exists from all eternity, repeats itself sporadically, and is not derivable from any known antecedents.” This quote by Jung has an interesting footnote which adds the following, “Continuous creation is to be thought of not only as a series of successive acts of creation, but also as the eternal presence of the one creative act.” --Jung
Jung was intrigued from early in his career with coincidences, especially those surprising juxtapositions that scientific rationality could not adequately explain. He discussed these ideas with Albert Einstein before World War I, but first used the term "synchronicity" in a 1930 lecture, in reference to the unusual psychological insights generated from consulting the I Ching. A long correspondence and friendship with the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli stimulated a final, mature statement of Jung's thinking on synchronicity, originally published in 1952 and reproduced here. Together with a wealth of historical and contemporary material, this essay describes an astrological experiment Jung conducted to test his theory. Synchronicity reveals the full extent of Jung's research into a wide range of psychic phenomena.
Synchronicity is the occurrence of two or more events that appear to be meaningfully related but not causally related. Synchronicity holds that such events are "meaningful coincidences". The concept of synchronicity was first defined by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, in the 1920s. During his career, Jung gave several slightly different definitions of it.
Jung variously defined synchronicity as an "acausal connecting (togetherness) principle," "meaningful coincidence," and "acausal parallelism." He introduced the concept as early as the 1920s but gave a full statement of it only in 1951 in an Eranos lecture
In 1952, he published a paper "Synchronizität als ein Prinzip akausaler Zusammenhänge" (Synchronicity – An Acausal Connecting Principle) in a volume which also contained a related study by the Nobel laureate physicist Wolfgang Pauli.
Synchronicity implies that, just as events may be connected by causality, they may also be connected by meaning. Events connected by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of causality; this contradicts the Axiom of Causality in specific cases but does not contradict causality generally.
In his book Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, Jung wrote:
How are we to recognize acausal combinations of events, since it is obviously impossible to examine all chance happenings for their causality? The answer to this is that acausal events may be expected most readily where, on closer reflection, a causal connection appears to be inconceivable.
In the introduction to his book, Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal, Roderick Main wrote:
The culmination of Jung's lifelong engagement with the paranormal is his theory of synchronicity, the view that the structure of reality includes a principle of acausal connection which manifests itself most conspicuously in the form of meaningful coincidences. Difficult, flawed, prone to misrepresentation, this theory none the less remains one of the most suggestive attempts yet made to bring the paranormal within the bounds of intelligibility. It has been found relevant by psychotherapists, parapsychologists, researchers of spiritual experience and a growing number of non-specialists. Indeed, Jung's writings in this area form an excellent general introduction to the whole field of the paranormal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity
According to Jung, synchronicity is more likely to occur in an "aroused psyche" -- when we are in a highly charged state of emotional and mental awareness—when, the “archetypes,” universal images or themes underlying human behavior, are activated, in such situations as major life passages, emotional intensity and upheaval, and often peaks right before a psychological breakthrough. Synchronicities may come singly, in strings, or in clusters.
http://www.flowpower.com/understanding_synchronicity.htm
Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer.
Synchronicities are those moments of “meaningful coincidence” when the boundary dissolves between the inner and the outer. At the synchronistic moment, just like a dream, our internal, subjective state appears, as if materialized in, as and through the outside world. Touching the heart of our being, synchronicities are moments in time in which there is a fissure in the fabric of what we have taken for reality and there is a bleed through from a higher dimension outside of time. Synchronicities are expressions of the dreamlike nature of reality, as they are moments in time when the timeless, dreamlike nature of the universe shines forth its radiance and openly reveals itself to us, offering us an open doorway to lucidity. --Paul Levy
Synchronicities occur at times of deep archetypal excitation in the field, which is to say moments of crisis, transition, creative tension and dynamic intensity. The archetype that gets activated by the field precipitates itself into the field as a synchronistic expression of the very field which activated it. Periods of disturbance in our world are both a manifestation of and trigger for a corresponding archetype in the collective unconscious of humanity to draw to itself everything it needs to synchronistically render itself visible in form. Times of distress, both individually and collectively, catalyze a deeper, self-regulating and healing archetypal process to awaken within the human psyche which simultaneously expresses itself throughout the whole universe.
There is a profound and intimate synchronistic correlation between what is happening deep within the collective unconscious of humanity and what is playing out collectively on the world stage. Just like a dream, whatever we are unconscious of gets dreamed up and out-pictured in and as our waking dreamscape. What plays out in one person’s night dream is a reflection of their inner process; similarly what is getting dreamed up by all six and a half billion of us on the world stage is a reflection of a process going on deep inside of the collective unconscious of humanity.
When a formless archetype of the collective unconscious is at the point of becoming conscious and incarnating, it has an energetic charge that will seize people, get them in its grip and compel them to act itself out so as to give shape and form to itself. What we are unconscious of and don’t remember, we act out in the outside world. --Paul Levy
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/wordpress/catching-the-bug-of-synchronicity/
Just as a causality describes the sequence of events, so synchronicity to the Chinese mind, deals with the coincidence of events. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Page 593.
Synchronicity means the simultaneous occurrence of a psychic state with one or more external events, which appear as meaningful parallels to the momentary subjective state. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Page 441.
I have observed personally quite a number of synchronistic events where I
could establish the nature of the underlying archetype.
The archetype itself (nota bene not the archetypal representation!) is psychoid, i.e., transcendental and thus relatively beyond the categories of number, space, and time.
That means, it approximates to oneness and immutability.
Owing to the liberation from the categories of consciousness the archetype can be the basis of meaningful coincidence.
It is quite logical therefore that you are interested in the effect of mescalin and similar drugs belonging to the adrenalin group.
I am following up these investigations.
It is true that mescalin uncovers the unconscious to a great extent by removing the inhibitory influence of apperception and by replacing the latter through the normally latent syndromous associations.
Thus we see the painter of colours, the inventor of forms, the thinker of thoughts actually at work. --C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 317-319.
The trouble with parapsychology is that the very framework of our understanding and explanation, namely time, space, and causality, becomes questionable. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 373-375
My further writing led me to the archetype of the God-man and to the phenomenon of synchronicity which adheres to the archetype. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 479-481.
“According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don't bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous." - Deepak Chopra
“I do believe in an everyday sort of magic -- the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we're alone.” ― Charles de Lint
“As soon as we notice that certain types of event "like" to cluster together at certain times, we begin to understand the attitude of the Chinese, whose theories of medicine, philosophy, and even building are based on a "science" of meaningful coincidences. The classical Chinese texts did not ask what causes what, but rather what "likes" to occur with what.”
― M.L. von Franz
“Coincidences give you opportunities to look more deeply into your existence.”
― Doug Dillon
This means that when we observe statistically we eliminate the synchronicity phenomenon, and conversely, when we establish synchronicity we must abandon the statistical method. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 546-548.
“According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don't bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous." - Deepak Chopra
“I do believe in an everyday sort of magic -- the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we're alone.” ― Charles de Lint
“As soon as we notice that certain types of event "like" to cluster together at certain times, we begin to understand the attitude of the Chinese, whose theories of medicine, philosophy, and even building are based on a "science" of meaningful coincidences. The classical Chinese texts did not ask what causes what, but rather what "likes" to occur with what.”
― M.L. von Franz
“Coincidences give you opportunities to look more deeply into your existence.”
― Doug Dillon
This means that when we observe statistically we eliminate the synchronicity phenomenon, and conversely, when we establish synchronicity we must abandon the statistical method. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 546-548.
Time Out of Time, Iona Miller, 1995
“We do not create our destiny; we participate in its unfolding. Synchronicity works as a catalyst toward the working out of that destiny.” ― David Richo, The Power of Coincidence: How Life Shows Us What We Need to Know
“When you stop existing and you start truly living, each moment of the day comes alive with the wonder and synchronicity.” ― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
“To have humility is to experience reality, not in relation to ourselves, but in its sacred independence. It is to see, judge, and act from the point of rest in ourselves. Then, how much disappears, and all that remains falls into place.
In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.”
― Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings
“When you stop existing and you start truly living, each moment of the day comes alive with the wonder and synchronicity.” ― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
“To have humility is to experience reality, not in relation to ourselves, but in its sacred independence. It is to see, judge, and act from the point of rest in ourselves. Then, how much disappears, and all that remains falls into place.
In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.”
― Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings
Nonlinear Sciences > Chaotic Dynamics
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2213
Synchronicity From Synchronized Chaos Gregory S. Duane (Submitted on 11 Jan 2011 (v1), last revised 20 Jun 2014 (this version, v4))
The synchronization of loosely coupled chaotic oscillators, a phenomenon investigated intensively for the last two decades, may realize the philosophical notion of synchronicity. Effectively unpredictable chaotic systems, coupled through only a few variables, commonly exhibit a predictable relationship that can be highly intermittent. We argue that the phenomenon closely resembles the notion of meaningful synchronicity put forward by Jung and Pauli if one identifies "meaningfulness" with internal synchronization, since the latter seems necessary for synchronizability with an external system. Jungian synchronization of mind and matter is realized if mind is analogized to a computer model, synchronizing with a sporadically observed system as in meteorological data assimilation. Internal synchronization provides a recipe for combining different models of the same objective process, a configuration that may also describe the functioning of conscious brains. In contrast to Pauli's view, recent developments suggest a materialist picture of semi-autonomous mind, existing alongside the observed world, with both exhibiting a synchronistic order. Basic physical synchronicity is manifest in the non-local quantum connections implied by Bell's theorem. The quantum world resides on a generalized synchronization "manifold", a view that provides a bridge between nonlocal realist interpretations and local realist interpretations that constrain observer choice .
Letter dated May 26, 1954
1. The connections between astrology and psychology.
There are many instances of striking analogies between astrological constellations and psychological events or between the horoscope and the characterological disposition. It is even possible to predict to a certain extent the psychic effect of a transit.
For example [Astrological Symbols not included]…One may expect with a fair degree of probability that a given well-defined psychological situation will be accompanied by an analogous astrological configuration, Astrology, like the collective unconscious with which psychology is concerned, consists of symbolic configurations: the “planets” are the gods, symbols of the powers of the unconscious.
2. The modus operandi of Astrological Constellations. It seems to me that it is primarily a question of that parallelism or “sympathy” which I call synchronicity, an acausal connection expressing relationships That cannot be formulated in terms of causality, such as precognition, premonition, psychokinesis, and also what we call telepathy. Since causality is a “statistical truth,” there are exceptions of an acausal nature bordering on the category of synchronistic (not synchronous) events. They have to do with “qualitative time.”
3. Attitude to positions taken by astrologers [etc.]. The first experiences in life owe their specific (pathogenic) effect to environmental influences on the one hand, and on the other to psychic predisposition, i.e. to heredity, which seems to be expressed in a recognizable way in the horoscope. The latter apparently corresponds to a definite moment in the colloquy of the gods. That is to say the psychic archetypes.
4. Qualitative Time. This is a notion I used formerly but I have replaced it with the idea of synchronicity, which is analogous to sympathy or correspondentia, or to Leibniz’s pre-established harmony. Time in itself consists of nothing. It is only a modus cogitandi that is used to express and formulate the flux of things and events, just as space is nothing but a way of describing the existence of a body.
When nothing occurs in time, and when there is no boy in space, there is neither time nor space. Time is always and exclusively “qualified” by events as space is by the extension f bodies. But “qualitative time” is a tautology and means nothing, whereas synchronicity (not synchronism) expresses the parallelism and analogy between events in so far as they are non-causal. In contrast, “qualitative time” is an hypothesis that attempts to explain the parallelism of events in terms of causa et effectus. But since qualitative time is nothing but the flux of things, and is moreover just as much “nothing” as space, this hypothesis does not establish anything except the tautology: the flux of things and events is the cause of the flux of things, etc.
Synchronicity does not admit causality in the analogy between terrestrial events and astrological constellations (except for the deflection of solar protons and their possible effect on terrestrial events), and denies it particularly in all cases of nonsensory perception (ESP), especially precognition, since it is inconceivable that one could observe the effect in a nonexistent cause, or of a cause that does not exist.
What astrology can establish are the analogous events, but not that either series is the cause or effect of the other. (For instance, the same constellation may at one time signify a catastrophe and other time, in the same case, a cold in the head.) Nevertheless, astrology is not an entirely simple matter. There is that deflection of solar protons cause on the one hand by the conjunctions, oppositions, and quartile aspects, and on the other hand by the trine and sextile aspects, and their influence on the radio and many other things. I am not competent to judge how much importance should be attributed to this possible influence.
In any case, astrology occupies a unique and special position among the intuitive methods, and in explaining it there is reason to be dubious of both a causal theory and the exclusive validity of the synchronistic hypothesis.
5. I have observed many cases where a well-defined psychological phase, or an analogous event, was accompanied by a transit (particularly when Saturn and Uranus were effected).
6. My main criticisms of astrologers. If I were to venture an opinion in a domain with which I am only very superficially acquainted, I would say that the astrologer does not always consider his statement to be mere possibilities. The interpretation is sometimes too literal and not symbolic enough, also too personal. What the zodiac and the planets represent are not personal traits; they are impersonal and objective facts. Moreover, several “layers of meaning” should be taken into account in interpreting the Houses.
7. Obviously astrology has much to offer psychology, but what the latter can offer its elder sister is less evident. So far as I can judge, it would seem to me advantageous for astrology to take the existence of psychology into account, above all the psychology of the personality and of the unconscious. I am almost sure that something could be learnt from it symbolic method of interpretation; for that has to do with the interpretation of the archetypes (the gods) and their mutual relations, the common concern of both arts. The psychology of the unconscious is particularly concerned with archetypal symbolism.
Hoping you will find this answer satisfactory, I remain,
Yours sincerely, C.G. Jung
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2213
Synchronicity From Synchronized Chaos Gregory S. Duane (Submitted on 11 Jan 2011 (v1), last revised 20 Jun 2014 (this version, v4))
The synchronization of loosely coupled chaotic oscillators, a phenomenon investigated intensively for the last two decades, may realize the philosophical notion of synchronicity. Effectively unpredictable chaotic systems, coupled through only a few variables, commonly exhibit a predictable relationship that can be highly intermittent. We argue that the phenomenon closely resembles the notion of meaningful synchronicity put forward by Jung and Pauli if one identifies "meaningfulness" with internal synchronization, since the latter seems necessary for synchronizability with an external system. Jungian synchronization of mind and matter is realized if mind is analogized to a computer model, synchronizing with a sporadically observed system as in meteorological data assimilation. Internal synchronization provides a recipe for combining different models of the same objective process, a configuration that may also describe the functioning of conscious brains. In contrast to Pauli's view, recent developments suggest a materialist picture of semi-autonomous mind, existing alongside the observed world, with both exhibiting a synchronistic order. Basic physical synchronicity is manifest in the non-local quantum connections implied by Bell's theorem. The quantum world resides on a generalized synchronization "manifold", a view that provides a bridge between nonlocal realist interpretations and local realist interpretations that constrain observer choice .
Letter dated May 26, 1954
1. The connections between astrology and psychology.
There are many instances of striking analogies between astrological constellations and psychological events or between the horoscope and the characterological disposition. It is even possible to predict to a certain extent the psychic effect of a transit.
For example [Astrological Symbols not included]…One may expect with a fair degree of probability that a given well-defined psychological situation will be accompanied by an analogous astrological configuration, Astrology, like the collective unconscious with which psychology is concerned, consists of symbolic configurations: the “planets” are the gods, symbols of the powers of the unconscious.
2. The modus operandi of Astrological Constellations. It seems to me that it is primarily a question of that parallelism or “sympathy” which I call synchronicity, an acausal connection expressing relationships That cannot be formulated in terms of causality, such as precognition, premonition, psychokinesis, and also what we call telepathy. Since causality is a “statistical truth,” there are exceptions of an acausal nature bordering on the category of synchronistic (not synchronous) events. They have to do with “qualitative time.”
3. Attitude to positions taken by astrologers [etc.]. The first experiences in life owe their specific (pathogenic) effect to environmental influences on the one hand, and on the other to psychic predisposition, i.e. to heredity, which seems to be expressed in a recognizable way in the horoscope. The latter apparently corresponds to a definite moment in the colloquy of the gods. That is to say the psychic archetypes.
4. Qualitative Time. This is a notion I used formerly but I have replaced it with the idea of synchronicity, which is analogous to sympathy or correspondentia, or to Leibniz’s pre-established harmony. Time in itself consists of nothing. It is only a modus cogitandi that is used to express and formulate the flux of things and events, just as space is nothing but a way of describing the existence of a body.
When nothing occurs in time, and when there is no boy in space, there is neither time nor space. Time is always and exclusively “qualified” by events as space is by the extension f bodies. But “qualitative time” is a tautology and means nothing, whereas synchronicity (not synchronism) expresses the parallelism and analogy between events in so far as they are non-causal. In contrast, “qualitative time” is an hypothesis that attempts to explain the parallelism of events in terms of causa et effectus. But since qualitative time is nothing but the flux of things, and is moreover just as much “nothing” as space, this hypothesis does not establish anything except the tautology: the flux of things and events is the cause of the flux of things, etc.
Synchronicity does not admit causality in the analogy between terrestrial events and astrological constellations (except for the deflection of solar protons and their possible effect on terrestrial events), and denies it particularly in all cases of nonsensory perception (ESP), especially precognition, since it is inconceivable that one could observe the effect in a nonexistent cause, or of a cause that does not exist.
What astrology can establish are the analogous events, but not that either series is the cause or effect of the other. (For instance, the same constellation may at one time signify a catastrophe and other time, in the same case, a cold in the head.) Nevertheless, astrology is not an entirely simple matter. There is that deflection of solar protons cause on the one hand by the conjunctions, oppositions, and quartile aspects, and on the other hand by the trine and sextile aspects, and their influence on the radio and many other things. I am not competent to judge how much importance should be attributed to this possible influence.
In any case, astrology occupies a unique and special position among the intuitive methods, and in explaining it there is reason to be dubious of both a causal theory and the exclusive validity of the synchronistic hypothesis.
5. I have observed many cases where a well-defined psychological phase, or an analogous event, was accompanied by a transit (particularly when Saturn and Uranus were effected).
6. My main criticisms of astrologers. If I were to venture an opinion in a domain with which I am only very superficially acquainted, I would say that the astrologer does not always consider his statement to be mere possibilities. The interpretation is sometimes too literal and not symbolic enough, also too personal. What the zodiac and the planets represent are not personal traits; they are impersonal and objective facts. Moreover, several “layers of meaning” should be taken into account in interpreting the Houses.
7. Obviously astrology has much to offer psychology, but what the latter can offer its elder sister is less evident. So far as I can judge, it would seem to me advantageous for astrology to take the existence of psychology into account, above all the psychology of the personality and of the unconscious. I am almost sure that something could be learnt from it symbolic method of interpretation; for that has to do with the interpretation of the archetypes (the gods) and their mutual relations, the common concern of both arts. The psychology of the unconscious is particularly concerned with archetypal symbolism.
Hoping you will find this answer satisfactory, I remain,
Yours sincerely, C.G. Jung