Carl Jung on Synchronicity

The following was posted by Psyche’s Call with Donna May on Facebook. I’ve used the entire quote and without edit. Any copyedit errors belong to the origin, not to me. (Thank you ever so much.) Obviously adding to our other posts on the same subject.

[Sadly “Synchronicity” is all too often tossed about describing events which do not adhere to the actual meaning of synchronistic events as used within Depth Psychology.]

Synchronicity:

A phenomenon where an event in the outside world coincides meaningfully with a psychological state of mind.

Synchronicity . . . consists of two factors: a) An unconscious image comes into consciousness either directly (i.e., literally) or indirectly (symbolized or suggested) in the form of a dream, idea, or premonition. b) An objective situation coincides with this content. The one is as puzzling as the other.[“Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle,” ibid., par. 858.]

Jung associated synchronistic experiences with the relativity of space and time and a degree of unconsciousness.

The very diverse and confusing aspects of these phenomena are, so far as I can see at present, completely explicable on the assumption of a psychically relative space-time continuum. As soon as a psychic content crosses the threshold of consciousness, the synchronistic marginal phenomena disappear, time and space resume their accustomed sway, and consciousness is once more isolated in its subjectivity. . . . Conversely, synchronistic phenomena can be evoked by putting the subject into an unconscious state.[“On the Nature of the Psyche,” CW 8, par. 440.]

Synchronicity was defined by Jung as an “acausal connecting principle,” an essentially mysterious connection between the personal psyche and the material world, based on the fact that at bottom they are only different forms of energy.

It is not only possible but fairly probable, even, that psyche and matter are two different aspects of one and the same thing. The synchronicity phenomena point, it seems to me, in this direction, for they show that the nonpsychic can behave like the psychic, and vice versa, without there being any causal connection between them.[Ibid., par. 418.]

In a vain attempt to recover the original posted photo I’ve rather messed things up. Somewhat. (The details are irrelevant.) In the end the original was unrecoverable so now we have the above. I don’t know why this seems relevant but it does. So in the spirit of Jung’s unconscious-studies, I’ve stayed the course.

At first glance I thought this was Ophelia floating face down in a pond. Upon second glance I thought no, it’s something transparent floating there. Then I happed upon the thought of a rock, as solid as anything possible and yet translucent. Or not.

And that’s the way things are.