Synchronicity: the science behind the significant coincidences
To see the world in a grain of sand, And heaven in a wild flower, Encompasses infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour.
-William Blake
Some clues about synchronicity or significant coincidences
We have all experienced coincidences of facts to which we do not usually give more importance than that of a striking curiosity .We are thinking about someone and, just at that moment, we receive a call from him; we remember a person we haven’t had in mind for a long time and we meet him later on the street, or a song plays on the radio that is very related to something that is happening at that very moment. Some people relate experiences that may seem even more amazing to us, such as dreaming of events that later occur or perceiving in the distance an accident or the death of someone close.
From an eminently rational perspective, these facts are a matter of chance , coincidences that should not be given more importance than they have. On the other hand, extraordinary facts are considered to be inventions of people who want to draw attention to or misinterpret objective facts.
However, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung saw, in the coincidences of highly improbable events, the expression of a phenomenon that deserved to be studied rigorously . In this sense he coined the term synchronicity, which he defined as the simultaneous presentation of two facts that are not linked by a relationship of cause and effect, but by their meaning.
What is synchronicity according to Jung?
The development of the concept of synchronicity arises from the collaboration between Carl Gustav Jung and Wolfgang Pauli , a Nobel Prize winner in physics and one of the fathers of quantum mechanics. It is therefore a concept in which approaches from physics and psychology converge. The collaboration of these authors was reflected in 1952 with the publication of the joint book Synchronicity as a principle of causal connections. In this book synchronicity is proposed as a key element for the understanding of the relationship between psyche and matter.
Jung describes three categories of synchronicity : in the first one, the coincidence between a mental content (a thought, a feeling, a dream) and an external event (you receive a call from someone you were thinking about) is presented. The second is the coincidence between an internal vision and an event that happens far away from there (dreaming of an accident or the death of a person that happens in reality). The third consists of having an image of something that later happens in the future. It is emphasized that the images on which synchronicity is based are not necessarily presented in a literal way but can be manifested in a symbolic way.
Rational thought does not accept this type of phenomena, so when developing the concept of synchronicity, Jung resorts to what is usually called oriental thought . This type of thinking is related to what we usually refer to when we talk about intuition.
Western vs. Eastern thinking
The rational, mechanistic and materialistic thinking on which the vision of the western world from the illustration is based, and which is the basis of our beliefs, presupposes the linearity of time and the causality of phenomena.
From this paradigm, science questions the cause of phenomena with the intention of controlling and predicting events . In its methodology it is essential to build models and abstractions based on statistical generalities. Isolated cases, those that are outside the norm, as is the case of synchronicities, are unapprehensible from a statistical approach, therefore they are not contemplated by science, nor by our system of beliefs built under the same logic and influence.
However, this has not been the predominant way of thinking in human history, nor is it still the case today in various cultural contexts. Jung considered that synchronicity was a phenomenon coherent with oriental cosmovisions, such as the Chinese one from which Taoism emerged or the cosmovisions of millenary India, which have a conception of time and space different from ours.
The oriental thought , in which it is also necessary to include many of the indigenous cosmovisions, considers that all the elements of the universe are linked forming a unit. Concrete reality, that is, what we observe, is considered an illusory manifestation of an underlying principle. Each element of the universe is considered to be a reflection of something higher that encompasses it. The universe is seen as a great organism in which each element that composes it is intrinsically interrelated and at the same time is a mirror of it. The individual is thus considered as a microcosm that reflects the dynamics of the macrocosm, of the entire universe .
From the logic of a universe seen as a totality, composed of interdependent elements, functioning under the influence of an underlying principle, when an event occurs the natural questioning would not be about its origin or cause, as we usually do, but about what other events can occur simultaneously.
From the Eastern perspective it is understood that every moment in the universe has a particular quality, with which r all the elements sound in a synchronous way . This kind of logic would be the basis of astrology or oracles. At the moment of an individual’s birth, the stars are in a certain position and symbolically there is a record of it in each person, which is conditioned by it.
In the same way, when consulting an oracle, tarot cards, turtle shell signals, etc., are not presented in a random way, but correspond to the particular moment and situation from which the questioning emerges; and because of this relationship, a symbolic meaning can be given to each of these facts. In this scheme, synchronicity would be that phenomenon that would allow us to understand the link between the questioning of the consultant and the composition of the elements of the oracle.
The symbolic dimension in synchronicity
Jung highlights how in Oriental thought numbers are given, in addition to their quantitative function, a qualitative and symbolic dimension . To exemplify this, he tells a short story from the Chinese tradition about the history of a kingdom that had to decide whether or not to go to war. As there was no consensus, the council of wise men took a vote; the result was 3 in favour and 5 against. However, the king decided to go to war because 3 was the number of unanimity. Numbers, like synchronicity, are considered to be intermediaries between the everyday world and the spiritual world.
The concept that there is a unifying principle in the universe, a strange force that is the origin and engine of everything, and that provides harmony and structure in chaos, has been present in various philosophies and world views. This unifying principle has been called Tao, Logos, Sense and with similar characteristics is the foundation of the main Eastern religions such as Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen. Although it has been given different names, all these descriptions maintain that reality, that is, the concrete and observable elements, as well as our dual abstractions, are the external manifestation of the One. The history of the universe and of humanity would be a display of the different aspects of this unifying principle.
It is also considered that the different cycles and rhythms present in nature are an expression of this underlying principle . For the oriental thought, time does not pass in a linear way but in a circular one, the image of the spiral, like the one of the snail’s shell. Thus, time has been considered as an expression of the eternal cycles of birth, death and regeneration. These cycles are present in nature, in the history of peoples and in individuals.
Many of the models and conceptions of Eastern mysticism that have accompanied humanity for thousands of years began to have resonances and parallels with the descriptions of the composition and dynamics of matter given by the physicists who were the forerunners of quantum mechanics around 1920. Jung became aware of those parallels and saw it as an opportunity to give solidity to his observations and intuitions about synchronicity . Therefore, he decided to delve deeper into those studies, exchanging correspondence, ideas and findings with several of the pioneering physicists of quantum mechanics, among them Albert Einstein and Wolfang Pauli.
Quantum Physics, Eastern Thinking and Synchronicity
quantum mechanics is that branch of physics that deals with describing the behavior of subatomic particles, that is, the smallest parts of which the universe is composed.
A bewilderment similar to that which we can experience when we experience a powerful synchronicity, that is, that our rational and structured point of view is shaken, was what physicists experienced at the beginning of the last century, when they began to discover the strange, or even magical, way in which subatomic matter behaves.
Albert Einstein himself, who with his theory of relativity revolutionized science and was a precursor of quantum physics, dedicated the last 20 years of his life to trying to highlight the inconsistencies of quantum theory, since it seemed incredible to him that the world worked in such a singular way . Later studies showed that, at a subatomic level, the world behaves in a largely unpredictable and paradoxical way, strongly questioning our common sense.
Experimentally, it has been verified that if one of the particles is affected, the other one is altered in a synchronous way. If, as it seems, all the elements that make up the universe, including ourselves, are the consequence of a great explosion of a very dense mass, it can be inferred that at a subatomic level we continue to maintain a link with the entire universe.
Similarities with Eastern thought
The relationship between quantum physics and eastern cosmology is a complex and controversial issue.
It is well known that subatomic particles can behave sometimes as waves and sometimes as particles. Perhaps most surprising to our Cartesian mentality are the experimental results in which it is evident that an atom can be in one place and not in another, or be in two places at once. Also, that it can spin in one direction and at the same time in the opposite direction. All this reminds us of the world of mystery that both Jung and the mystics speak of when they refer to the unifying principle and its manifestations.
The physicist David Bohm postulates that an implicit order, underlying the unfolding order, works in the universe reproducing the differences that Buddhism makes between the illusory world of Maya and the unifying principle . Physicists also describe that a large part of the constitution of matter that we observe is empty, this being one of the aspects that the Tao alludes to.
Synchronicity, fractals and Unus Mundus
Spontaneously, nature forms certain geometric configurations that are present in the shape of leaves, the spirals of snails, in caves, in the shape of bones, hurricanes. This kind of configuration patterns, also known as fractals, are sometimes considered as a manifestation in matter, of this underlying principle. Fractals or archetypal geometric forms are also present in some works of art and architecture.
The archetypal configurations , besides being considered a manifestation of synchronicity, that is, a link between the physical and the psychic world, can be an element that affects the aesthetic pleasure generated by both nature and art. Not few people have experienced that the contemplation of nature, of a painting, or a sculpture, listening to a certain melody has provided them with more than just aesthetic pleasure, and has given them a sudden non-rational understanding of the interconnection of themselves with the rest of the elements of the universe.
This type of experience can also be considered as an expression of synchronicity, when our daily physical world is linked for instants with a transcendent and mysterious reality.
Jung uses the term Unus Mundus from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus to refer to this unifying principle that is also somehow present in his concept of collective unconscious . The collective unconscious can be understood as that “soul of the world” from which the symbolic patterns present in the mythologies of all peoples emerge, and which, like fractals, tend to configure not forms but typical modes of action. The so-called archetypes of the collective unconscious. Synchronicity for Jung can be a manifestation of a constellation archetype, a way in which the collective soul influences our life, promoting some experience, some perspective.
For Jung, synchronistic phenomena were related to moments of great affection. That is why, he says, they usually occur in moments of transition such as death, falling in love, travel, situations in which we are in contradiction in ourselves or in a disjunctive before a fundamental decision. They can also be catalyzed by exalted affectivity in a psychotherapy, and in altered states of consciousness, generated by natural or chemical elements.
Some people are usually more likely to experience synchronicities or to be aware of them, but sometimes they appear in sceptical and predominantly rational people, opening up their perspective and sensitivity to a symbolic dimension of life .
For Jung, synchronicities could also be part of collective life, as when scientists without any exchange of information make discoveries simultaneously, the most recognized case being the almost parallel postulation of the theory of evolution by Darwin and Wallace.
Synchronicity and the “power of the mind”: the rainmaker
Positive thinking and visualizations (through imagination) can be effective in achieving concrete goals in some people . However, neither quantum physics nor synchronicity are in themselves scientific arguments in favour of what is usually described as “the power of the mind to create realities”, “to believe is to create” and things like that, which have more to do with childlike omnipotent thinking than with science. The power of prayer and good energies, on the other hand, still remain in the respectable realm of belief and faith.
The quantum physics has evidenced the participation of the subject in the physical reality observed at a micro physical level, and an interaction of the physical and psychic environment, but from this it does not follow that this incidence can be manipulated by the subjects to obtain manifestations in reality. In the microphysical realm quantum logic works, but in our observable world Newtonian physics continues to work and the large dimensions are conducted through the logic of Einstein’s relativity. These logics are related but cannot be extrapolated. Physics is still in search of a unified theory that integrates and accounts for the different domains.
On the other hand, synchronicity, as well as Tao, refers to complex, paradoxical phenomena, impossible to reduce to phrases and recipes of personal growth manual . In any case, they move away from the logics of control, mastery, enterprise and progress with which visualizations are usually related to the achievement of objectives. The logic of synchronicity is closer to letting it happen, to resonating and flowing with this underlying principle, and is usually expressed in a better way through poetic and literary images.
The following story from the Chinese tradition was Jung’s favourite to convey the essence of synchronicity and Tao.
The Rainmaker
In a certain Chinese village it had not rained for several weeks, so they looked for a rainmaker . When the old man arrived, he went directly to the house that had been prepared for him and stayed there without performing any ceremony until the third day the rains came. When asked how he had done this, he explained that upon arriving in the village, he had noticed the absence of a state of harmony, so that the cycles of nature were not working in a convenient way.
As this state of disharmony had affected him as well, he retreated to reestablish his balance, and when this balance was restored according to the natural pattern, the rain fell.
Bibliographic references:
- Bolen, Jean Shinoda. The Tao of psychology. Barcelona: Kairós, 2005.
- Capra, Fritjof The Tao of Physics Málaga: Sirio, 1995.
- Franz, Marie-Luise von On Divination and Synchronicity: The Psychology of Significant Coincidence Barcelona: Paidós, 1999.
- Jung, C. G. The interpretation of nature and the psyche: synchronicity as a principle of acausal connection Barcelona: Edicones Paidós, 1991.
- Peat, F. David. Synchronicity: bridge between mind and matter. Barcelona: Kairós, 1989