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   G.A. Williams’ Theory Making:  Synchronicity Challenged    (part I) 

The major problem of man is to have a clear idea of what he wants to do. Then to activate his will power. He needs imagination to know what to turn his will power to   therefore his awareness of relative values. In the classical occult sense consciousness raising means the slow evolution of individual man to reconcile the splits in himself – to control his will so to be able to take his place with others to move towards fulfillment of the grand plan which is working back to an experience of the union with God and ultimate self control.

                                                                                                           Colin Wilson ¹

                                           Do not follow where paths may lead,

                                            Go instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.

                                                                      Ralph Waldo Emerson ²

       A Shift from a Supernatural Perspective to a Naturalistic Point of View

The Colin Wilson quotation above both captures the essence and the essential difference in my experience and understanding of synchronicities. The essence of synchronicities is, I believe, that they are markers of a vital connection with one’s idiosyncratic creative process evolving over time. The creative process in this connection is a byproduct of systematic work on the self in identifying and reconciling fundamental splits perceived as problematic in internal reality. These fundamental splits are most noticeable in the areas of being, doing, and becoming.

In this view, synchronicities are intimately associated with an individual’s need to provide essential answers to ultimate questions such as who am I, what do I really want, how do I acquire such  knowledge, and how best do I put it to use? In short, synchronicities are associated with a strong desire to make significant changes in one’s life even to the point of fashioning wholesale transformations. But, while characteristically appearing to have mysterious, mystical, and magical origins,  I believe them instead, to be naturalistic byproducts of human beings  making important adaptations in their all too human struggles to both survive and  thrive.

What follows in the remainder of this chapter and in the one that follows is an account of how my theoretical perspective gradually shifted from an initial de facto concurrence with Jung’s position to a wholly psychodynamic non supernatural point of view.

It should be noted that at the time I recorded these particular synchronicities, and the sixteen others that will follow which were to become  initial  raw data of my research, I 

I found them to be truly remarkable in terms of the impact they initially had on me.

Looking back over them, from the perspective of decades later, I find most of them to be hardly worth noting. The significance of this observation is that for a person experiencing what for them is a coincidence  perceived as evoking little or no particular meaning; the same occurrence  for another person (or the same person at a different time) may be perceived as a pivotal life defining experience.

My Initial Interest in Meaningful Coincidences

                 As seen above, my earliest experiences of meaningful coincidences were accompanied by the awe response that Jung describes is a typical reaction to such odd occurrences. Jung further states that this state of awe – numinosity – signals the presence of what might be thought of as a spiritual force pervading all of  Reality.

I initially believed that it was entirely plausible that my meaningful coincidences were actual transmissions from a realm of spirituality that was transcendent [a priori] to my personal experience. Unknowingly, at the time, with respect to my attitudes about synchronicities, I was a de facto Jungian