Along with the Tao Te Ching, Carl Jung's writings on Synchronicity have been major influences on my thought and understanding of experience. In his lectures, Jung equated Tao and Synchronicity as two names for the same phenomena. The intertwining fabric of these two concepts helped me understand both. Added emphasis appears in red, and my reactions are enclosed in a box: (Note 156)

It might seem appropriate to begin my exposition by defining the concept with which it deals. But I would rather approach the subject the other way and first give you a brief description of the facts which the concept of synchronicity is intended to cover. As its etymology shows, this term has something to do with time or, to be more accurate, with a kind of simultaneity. Instead of simultaneity we could also use the concept of a meaningful coincidence of two or more events, where something other than the probability of chance is involved. . . .

The greatest challenge of my intellectual life has been to acknowledge meaningfully related events that were not causally linked. My cause and effect rational mind still has trouble with the reality of this fundamental facet of human experience. But evidence for their existence piled up as experiences accumulated that could not be dismissed with the simple pejorative "Oh that's just a coincidence."

I have therefore directed my attention to certain observations and experiences which . . . have to do with spontaneous, meaningful coincidences of so high a degree of improbability as to appear flatly unbelievable. I shall therefore describe to you only one case of this kind, simply to give an example characteristic of a whole category of phenomena. It makes no difference . . . whether you dispose of it with an ad hoc explanation. . . . The causal explanation, the only possible one from the standpoint of natural science, breaks down owing to the psychic relativization of space and time, which together form the indispensable premises for the cause and effect relationship.

Over and over, I diligently offered explanations for these meaningful coincidences. However because a psychic component was involved, these attempts were futile since cause and effect required an absolute relationship between time, space and the phenomena which was absent for these psychic events.

My example concerns a young woman patient who, in spite of efforts made on both sides, proved to be psychologically inaccessible. The difficulty lay in the fact that she always knew better about everything. Her excellent education had provided her with a weapon ideally suited to this purpose, namely a highly polished Cartesian rationalism with an impeccably "geometrical" idea of reality. After several fruitless attempts to sweeten her rationalism with a somewhat more human understanding, I had to confine myself to the hope that something unexpected and irrational would turn up, something that would burst the intellectual retort into which she had sealed herself.

My difficulty with these experiences was that I too "knew better about everything." To enter the magical moment, I had to loosen my rational grip on reality. This was difficult since I was brain washed for years and worked in a field that worshiped "knowing better." I told my students "the truth" so they could parrot it back on examinations. My academic colleagues and I were sealed into an intellectual retort with our analyses frozen into habit view of intuition.

Well, I was sitting opposite her one day, with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She had had an impressive dream the night before, in which someone had given her a golden scarab - a costly piece of jewellery. While she was still telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window. I turned round and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against the window pane from outside in the obvious effort to get into the dark room. This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was a scarabaeid beetle, . . . whose gold green colour most nearly resembles that of a golden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with the words, "Here is your scarab." This experience punctured the desired hole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intellectual resistance. . . .

To break out of the intellectual retort, I had to find my "scarab." What event in the stream of coincidences would finally be the straw that broke the camel's back? It was the drip, drip of the Chinese water torture that wore my resistance down. So I could not single out one event as the defining moment. One series of synchronistic events was the circumstances surrounding my meeting and living with a new companion. Those divine flashes screamed for attention.

All the phenomena I have mentioned can be grouped under three categories:

  1. The coincidence of a psychic state in the observer with a simultaneous, objective, external event that corresponds to the psychic state or content (e.g., the scarab), where there is no evidence of a causal connection between the psychic state and the external event, and where, considering the psychic relativity of space and time, such a connection is not even conceivable.
  2. The coincidence of a psychic state with a corresponding (more or less simultaneous) external event taking place outside the observer's field of perception, i.e., at a distance, and only verifiable afterward.
  3. The coincidence of a psychic state with a corresponding, not yet existent future event that is distant in time and can likewise only be verified afterward. . . .
The first category was easiest to recognize. For example both having the same thought and saying the same thing at the same time. On reflection after the fact, the others made themselves known. Walking across campus knowing that she was coming down the stairs ahead out of my sight. An image of shoes at the doorway that heralded the end of the relationship months before. This sign was unambiguous and persistent, but I dismissed it as fear of abandonment.

Our survey of this wide field of experience would be incomplete if we failed to take into account the so called mantic methods. Manticism lays claim, if not actually to producing synchronistic events, then at least to making them serve its ends. An example of this is the oracle method of the I Ching, which Dr. Hellmut WiIhelm has described in detail. The I Ching presupposes that there is a synchronistic correspondence between the psychic state of the questioner and the answering hexagram. The hexagram is formed either by the random division of the 49 yarrow stalks or by the equally random throw of three coins. The result of this method is, incontestably, very interesting. . . .

I do not remember when I acquired a copy of Wilhelm's I Ching, but its influence on my sense of meaningful coincidence was seminal. Each time I consulted the oracle on a puzzling issue, it provided a concrete lesson in synchronicity. I demonstrated the I Ching to students as an example of synchronistic experience. After each cast a reading, explored the lines and discussed the results with a partner, even the most skeptical were willing to entertain the possibility of non causal phenomena. It was as if I had handed them their "scarab."

Causality is the way we explain the link between two successive events. Synchronicity designates the parallelism of time and meaning between psychic and psycho physical events, which scientific knowledge so far has been unable to reduce to a common principle. The term explains nothing, it simply formulates the occurrence of meaningful coincidences which, in themselves, are chance happenings, but are so improbable that we must assume them to be based on some kind of principle, or on some property of the empirical world. . . .

In the rational world view, concepts are used to explain things. But in the world view of the intuitive, terms are used to recognize recurring phenomena that capture sufficient general attention to require a label to discuss them. Students looked for an explanation of their I Ching experience, but I could not explain - they just were! That was not satisfying for the rational mind that needed an explanation.

Equally frustrating was the need to repeat the reading. Why would they not get the same result if they did the randomization procedure once again? Here again explanations fell flat. The idea was that the constellation of psycho physical factors changed from moment to moment. Two readings would never be the same in the way that two moments in time would never be the same.

I had to come to terms with the realization that learning about the intuitive came only from direct experience or not at all. They were unexplainable, nonrepeatable phenomena that had to be taken at face value - no more, no less. (The preceding excerpts were taken from the Appendix, while those that follow came from the fourth concluding chapter of the work.)

I do not regard these statements as in any way a final proof of my views, but simply as a conclusion from empirical premises which I would like to submit to the consideration of my reader. From the material before us I can derive no other hypothesis that would adequately explain the facts. I am only too conscious that synchronicity is a highly abstract and "irrepresentable" quantity. It ascribes to the moving body a certain psychoid property which, like space, time, and causality, forms a criterion of its behaviour. . . .

This was a new dimension that had to be added to my world view. As a child, I had lived in a matrix of synchronicity but did not have the mental capacity to reflect on those experiences. The imposition of the space, time framework on childhood experience and the implied fabric of causality was the objective of socialization. If I did so and so, this and that would happen, and I would have to deal with the consequences. What I had to learn was hardly conducive to remaining connected to the synchronistic matrix of life.

If that is so, then we must ask ourselves whether the relation of soul and body can be considered from this angle, that is to say whether the coordination of psychic and physical processes in a living organism can be understood as a synchronistic phenomenon rather than as a causal relation. . . . The assumption of a causal relation between psyche and physis leads on the other hand to conclusions which it is difficult to square with experience: either there are physical processes which cause psychic happenings or there is a preexistent psyche which organizes matter. In the first case it is hard to see how chemical processes can ever produce psychic processes, and in the second case one wonders how an immaterial psyche could ever set matter in motion. . . .

The confrontation between the M-1 and M-3 world views had reared its head again. What was the primary stuff of the universe: matter or mind? Did matter give rise to mind or mind give rise to matter? By this time, I was more frequently casting my lot with the M-3 view that mind was the primary substance of the universe.

The synchronicity principle possesses properties that may help to clear up the body soul problem. Above all it is the fact of causeless order, or rather, of meaningful orderedness, that may throw light on psycho physical parallelism. The "absolute knowledge" which is characteristic of synchronistic phenomena, a knowledge not mediated by the sense organs, supports the hypothesis of a self subsistent meaning, or even expresses its existence. Such a form of existence can only be transcendental, since, as the knowledge of future or spatially distant events shows, it is contained in a psychically relative space and time, that is to say in an irrepresentable space time continuum. . . .

In contrast to artificial intelligence research, here was language from the science of psyche that helped make sense out of meaningful but puzzling experiences. Those writing programs to play computer chess did not have a clue how to replicate the experience of the I Ching. But "self subsistent meaning" was an anchor for intuition in the large as a source for a reading's insight. Transcendent soul was at the heart of The Intuitive Self.

One is as much impressed by the disharmony of things as one is surprised by their occasional harmony. In contrast to the idea of a preestablished harmony, the synchronistic factor merely stipulates the existence of an intellectually necessary principle which could be added as a fourth to the recognized triad of space, time, and causality. . . . But unlike causality, . . . synchronicity is a phenomenon that seems to be primarily connected with psychic conditions, that is to say with processes in the unconscious. Synchronistic phenomena are found to occur - experimentally - with some degree of regularity and frequency in the intuitive "magical" procedures, where they are subjectively convincing but are extremely difficult to verify objectively and cannot be statistically evaluated. . . .

When it came to excavating subterranean lore and bringing it to the light of consciousness, synchronicity offered a way to recognize meaning for which there was no cause and effect explanation. Why did certain metaphorical symbols such as Shiva Nataraj repeat themselves in my life? Why was the "women in the church" always seated at the far end of the back right pew with me at the other end? To understand these messages, I had to give up my obsession with cause and effect to sink into the implicit meaning which was always present when I quietly listened to the voice of the universe.

Synchronicity is not a philosophical view but an empirical concept which postulates an intellectually necessary principle. This cannot be called either materialism or metaphysics. No serious investigator would assert that the nature of what is observed to exist, and of that which observes, namely the psyche, are known and recognized quantities. If the latest conclusions of science are coming nearer and nearer to a unitary idea of being, characterized by space and time on the one hand and by causality and synchronicity on the other, that has nothing to do with materialism. Rather it seems to show that there is some possibility of getting rid of the incommensurability between the observed and the observer. . . .

Space, time, and causality, the triad of classical physics, would then be supplemented by the synchronicity factor and become a tetrad, a quaternio which makes possible a whole judgment. . . .

quaternio of synchronicity

When I harmonized with synchronicities in my life, I was at one with what I "observed." But since the observer made judgments and initiated will to intervene, I had to step away into the witness to connect with the unity of observer and observed. When the action oriented observer commanded the scene, I fantasized about synchronicities anticipated in a psychic reading. Were the synchronicity to present itself, involvement of the observer insured it would not be recognized. I am still learning how to live from the witness in harmony with the revelation of the moment.

The question now arises whether our definition of synchronicity with reference to the equivalence of psychic and physical processes is capable of expansion, or rather, requires expansion. This requirement seems to force itself on us when we consider the above, wider conception of synchronicity as an "acausal orderedness." Into this category come all "acts of creation," a priori factors such as the properties of natural numbers, the discontinuities of modern physics, etc. Consequently we would have to include constant and experimentally reproducible phenomena within the scope of our expanded concept, though this does not seem to accord with the nature of the phenomena included in synchronicity narrowly understood. . . .

To expand my sense of intuition to encompass creativity, I had to embrace the larger notion of acausal order in all its forms. This step was crucial since I did not subscribe to the popular view that creativity was distinct from intuitive knowing. To create was to intuit. When the creation was drawn from experience and training, it was more properly called innovation. But when I connected with intuition in the large, by definition the result was creative.

In this way we also avoid multiplying our principles of explanation illegitimately, for the archetype is the introspectively recognizable form of a prior psychic orderedness. If an external synchronistic process now associates itself with it, it falls into the same basic pattern - in other words, it too is "ordered." This form of orderedness differs from that of the properties of natural numbers or the discontinuities of physics in that the latter have existed from eternity and occur regularly, whereas the forms of psychic orderedness are acts of creation in time. That, incidentally, is precisely why I have stressed the element of time as being characteristic of these phenomena and called them synchronistic. . . .

As other threads have developed in more detail, metaphor and archetypes have been singularly important in the unfolding of The Intuitive Self. The appearance of and engagement with these images represented an ongoing creative process of soul discovery leading to the core. Images from beyond my experience drew me toward the larger truth for which they were the harbingers. I participated in the revelation of The Intuitive Self by yielding to the message of the images and allowing them to inform my life.

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 occur. 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. . . .

By complementing my causal view with the acausal intuitive perspective, I gradually moved from doing to being in the world. My rational persona planned and controlled for life while my intuitive persona envisioned and participated in life. The haunting refrain, "the way to do is to be," from the Tao Te Ching synchronistically presented itself over and over again. This encouraged me to gradually relinquish my rational attack mode in favor of a planning and control that flowed from my vision of and participation in life.

Meaningful coincidences are thinkable as pure chance. But the more they multiply and the greater and more exact the correspondence is, the more their probability sinks and their unthinkability increases, until they can no longer be regarded as pure chance but, for lack of a causal explanation, have to be thought of as meaningful arrangements. As I have already said, however, their "inexplicability" is not due to the fact that the cause is unknown, but to the fact that a cause is not even thinkable in intellectual terms. . . .

My daily prayer petitions the gods to help me relax into the magical meaningful moments that comprise life: "Lord Jesus Buddha - thy will be done." For fleeting seconds, I am aware that every moment is pregnant with the fullness of the universe. But when I am busy making it right, they slip by unnoticed.

BACK