The Emotional Power and Intellectual Challenge of Synchronicities

The Emotional Power and  Intellectual  

       Challenge of Synchronicities

 “Every branch of physical science must consist of three things: the series of facts which are the objects of science, the ideas which represent these facts, and the words by which these facts are expressed…. And, as ideas are preserved and communicated by means of words, it necessarily follows that we cannot improve the language of any science without at the time improving the science itself; neither can we, on the other hand, improve a science without improving the language or nomenclature which belongs to it.”      

                                                                        Elements of Chemistry                                                             Antoine Lavoisier, 

Meaningful coincidences (synchronicities) are normally experienced as extraordinary events  in the flow of time, contrasted with the more ordinary occurrences of mundane daily living.  They are commonly referred to as small miracles, god’s gift to human beings, coded messages from a transcendent realm of divinity, and the likes. Because they are normally felt to be emotionally powerful, while at the same time seemingly intellectually inexplicable, it is a subject that is increasingly compelling to growing numbers of inquisitive individuals.

I am relatively certain that the great majority of readers of this book would respond affirmatively if I were to ask them if they ever had what they considered to be an especially meaningful coincidence. Results of multiple surveys asking this question in workshops given on this subject resulted in a finding of approximately ninety five percent of those reporting having had one or more synchronicities in their lives. To make sure we are focusing on the same material, what follows is one of the most striking coincidences I have ever heard. I call it the “Freddy Green” synchronicity.

An attractive, articulate, sensitive, middle-aged woman was engaged to be married in New York City on New Year’s Eve. Her finance, a musician, was scheduled to meet her after playing a gig. She was of course shocked beyond belief when he failed to show up at the agreed upon time. She was later mortified to find out that he had had a heart attack and died. Years later, this woman, who was then living in California, was rushed to a hospital  suffering from a life threatening asthmatic attack.  Gasping for breath she panicked. Feeling as alone, frightened, and vulnerable as she had ever felt in her life, she wished that her beloved Freddy Green had been both alive and with her. At the very moment she had this unexpected  memory of her deceased fiancé of many years she heard an announcement over a loud speaker on a wall in her hospital room requesting: “Freddy! Please go to the green room.” The woman was so startled and amazed by the profoundly meaningful six words she had just heard that she attributed her subsequent excitement to enabling her to breathe normally probably saving her life.

There are a number of responses one might have either in experiencing this type of occurrence from the inside out, as the receiver of such a coincidence, or, from the outside in, as an observer of these coincidental happenings. These responses range from simply “bathing,” so to speak in the feelings of awe typically associated with these fascinating events, to analyzing how they happen and assessing what they mean.

One need only type the key words: coincidence, synchronicities, Jung, and psychotherapy into a search engine of a computer (accessing the internet) to obtain thousands of associated references. These references fall into one or more of the following five classifications: (l) describing the phenomena; (2) focusing on the typical emotional responses of awe and the  uncanny (referred to as numinosity by Jung); (3) exploring philosophical, psychological, occult, spiritual, and scientific implications evoked by this “numinous” emotional response; (4) proposing and exploring alternative theoretical explanations to account for the production of these anomalous events; and, (5) providing concepts utilized in the service of determining how best to decode the apparent embedded “messages” in the service of enhancing the quality of being  and doing  of the receiver of a given synchronicity. 

Given the near avalanche of material on this subject, why, the reader might ask, is there a need for yet another book on the nature and use of meaningful coincidences—(synchronicities). One might reasonably think that with so much material, the subject matter has been thoroughly explored. My answer—based on my lengthy investigation of these fascinating events—is that this is quite simply not true .

A careful examination of the accumulated research investigating meaningful coincidences indicates that most of it has been conducted by Jung, and his followers. I would estimate that the percentage of a Jungian (psychodynamic/supernatural) perspective to all others is approximately ninety five percent to five percent. As the reader may have surmised, a major objective of this book is to both understand how this impressive tilt came about and to attempt to redress this notable imbalance by presenting and exploring the key ideas comprising the five percent minority (naturalistic) point of view.