Synchronicity

[anemos]

According to Wikipedia (sorry...it does at least appear to be referenced), Jung did think meaningfulness was important:

Jung coined the word to describe what he called "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events." Jung variously described synchronicity as an "acausal connecting principle", "meaningful coincidence" and "acausal parallelism".​

lisa,

some more on his idea in his own words ( from the glossary of the Memories-Dreams-Reflections book )


Synchronicity. A term coined by Jung to designate the meaningful
coincidence or equivalence (a) of a psychic and a physical state or
event which have no causal relationship to one another. Such synchronistic
phenomena occur, for instance, when an inwardly perceived
event (dream, vision, premonition, etc.) is seen to have a
correspondence in external reality: the inner image of premonition
has "come true"; (fc) of similar or identical thoughts, dreams, etc.
oc- curring at the same time in different places. Neither the one nor
the other coincidence can be explained by causality, but seems to
be con- nected primarily with activated archetypal processes in the
uncon- scious.

C. G. JUNG: "My preoccupation with the psychology of unconscious
processes long ago compelled me to look about for another
principle of explanation, because the causality principle seemed to
me in- adequate to explain certain remarkable phenomena of the
psychology of the unconscious. Thus I found that there are psychic
parallelisms which cannot be related to each other causally, but
which must be connected through another principle, namely the
contingency of events. This connection of events seemed to me
essentially given by the fact of their relative simultaneity, hence the
term 'synchronistic/ It seems, indeed, as though time, far from being
an abstraction, is a concrete continuum which contains qualities or
basic conditions that manifest themselves simultaneously in
different places through paral- lelisms that cannot be explained
causally, as, for example, in cases of the simultaneous occurrence
of identical thoughts, symbols, or psychic states." ("Richard
Wilhelm: In Memoriam," CW 15, par. 81, mod.)

"I chose this term because the simultaneous occurrence of two
meaningfully but not causally connected events seemed to me an
essential criterion. I am therefore using the general concept of synchronicity
in the special sense of a coincidence in time of two or
more causally unrelated events which have the same or a similar
meaning, in contrast to 'synchronism/ which simply means the
simultaneous oc- currence of two events."
( The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, CW 8, p. 441 )

"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.
. . , 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.... 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." ( Ibid., pp. 518 f . )

 

[Liselle]

Just when we were looking for examples, a synchronicity appeared (I think).

Yesterday I vented to Yi about what I condsider to be a societal problem. It gave me a couple of perfectly good readings which addressed the issue pretty well (as best Yi can, not having the power to actually do anything), and I put the matter aside and stopped thinking about it.

Then, a few minutes ago as I was browsing Twitter, I saw a tweet from a major newspaper, linking to an article they had published which addressed the matter in considerable depth. I learned about an idea which has apparently been circulating (somewhat) for many decades, but which I had never once heard of.

 

[sooo]

You got connected to the UWW (Universal Wide Web)

But seriously, just talking about it opens up our ports unconsciously to it.

And it doesn't matter what anyone else may think of it, so long as it connects with you, the subject.

 

[dharmamom]

My life is full of meaningful coincidence. Incidents from whatever source have parallels in my life. Nothing is alone, and everything seems to be of one piece. I think your life is as rich in meaningful coincidence as mine. Maybe you aren't paying attention to them.

Happens to me too. I live plunged in a universe of synchronicity. I think of someone and I stumble upon them or they call. I think of an event, and I open the page on a newspaper that mentions this or the tv talks about this.
Two prosaic examples that happened to me only this week: I was trying hard to remember the name of a good Italian prosecco I tasted once at a friend's, and a bottle of this prosecco was lying on the street at the bus-stop two days ago. I was wondering what year the Six-Day War began, and I found a newspaper on the street opened on a page where this event was discussed. And we all agree the Six-Day War is not a current affair.
And with the Yi, it always strikes on the right answer whenever I pose a question. Last example that comes to mind, my son has been bullied repeatedly by a boy in school. Of course, that was before his Double Dragon of a mother intervened and settled the affair. Anyway, I consulted the Yi those days, and in the changing trigram, which in Plum Blossom represents the situation, I got K'an. According to Da Liu's "I Ching numerology," K'an represents middle son (the boy is middle son), color black (the boy is black-skinned, can't call him African-American, rather African-Swiss I suppose), Pig (the boy is Pig in the Chinese Horoscope) and Rat (the boy was born on day of the Rat, again referring to Chinese astrology). It also defined the person involved as dangerous, cunning, deceitful... which he is.
I think everything is interrelated and that in some deep level we are all interconnected. I haven't figured out the whys and wheretofores, and as a buddhist, I'd rather concentrate in enjoying the present moment, carpe diem, than striving for answers. As Rilke stated, "till you find the answers, enjoy the questions."

 

[Liselle]

Finally remembered my email has a "Deleted" folder where it puts things:

Originally posted by trojan:

Ah you mean this poem

Originally posted by pocossin:

57 (double Wind)

Ninety two and full of pain
Hannah Sutton died two weeks
Before the storm of her name
Shook pine cones and hidden
birds' nests from the trees.

Life will be no longer seasoned
By her wit. One day she offered
Me a cat. "I can't," I said.
"I have bitties." Hannah smiled,
"Your bitties won't hurt my cat."

....and what's more Hannah Sutton is dead ....it's a kind of ....can't think of the right word.....an offering like a burial gift

 

[TygerChild]

One very strange thing is the way I keep bumping into my psychotherapist (now, that was). so many times, and in so many different contexts. don't know what to make of it.

Just think there must be some kind of psychic bond? good or bad, don't know. Time will tell I suppose?

 

[Trojina]

Ah bumping into people over and over again. I often have that.

It never seems to mean anything.

A woman recently said she hadn't seen me for a long time because "for several weeks you were around every street corner". Well from my POV it was her who was round every street corner.

And there have been others. Where ever I go there they are. One might think we had some sort of connection or a message for one another ? Nope !