Synchronicity Theorists Attack Giorgio Tsoukalos, New Atheists for Materialism

10/8/2014

I’m not in the mood to write today. Last night my furnace died, and I am (I hope understandably) a bit upset. The furnace was 35 years old, and unfortunately the repair costs would be more than 50% of the replacement costs for the whole unit and they’d only keep it running for another year or two. So, now I need a new furnace, and of course it’s a boiler so it’s the most expensive type. September was a bad enough month, with quarterly self-employment taxes and school taxes due two weeks ago on top of the normal monthly expenses, but adding this massive expense this month on top of all is a pretty big hit.

So, anyway, I’m not really into writing right now. Let me direct you briefly then to a dumb thing I read this morning while waiting for the furnace guy to come look at the furnace.

Yesterday I discussed some of the Christians who are upset about the ancient astronaut theory, so today it seems only fair to discuss some New Agers who are also upset about the ancient astronaut theory. We’ve had New Age disagreements over ancient astronauts repeatedly over the last half century, from those who believe the “aliens” were really a lost civilization (Graham Hancock, Andrew Collins, Colin Wilson, etc.) and from those who believe they actually represent a shamanic supernatural (Graham Hancock again, for example). So I read with interest the musings of two Edgar Award-winning authors who believe that the aliens should actually be understood in terms of a quasi-mystical synchronicity.

Trish and Rob MacGregor have each won an Edgar Award for their individual novels, and together they write nonfiction books on New Age mysteries like the Bermuda Triangle. In a blog post this morning, they attacked In Search of Aliens star Giorgio Tsoukalos and also the New Atheists for being too materialistic and not embracing synchronicity as an explanation for the unexplained.

For Georgio (sic), aliens are the answer to virtually every mystery, including the roots of our religion and sense of spirituality. So in Georgio’s world, spirit contact, which is the basis of shamanism and set off the development of religions, was really contact with flesh and blood aliens. That’s the doctrine of these shows.

The pair lament that “spooky” topics are relegated to late night radio and alternative media and hope that someday mainstream media will discuss the outré with seriousness.

After all, what’s more important than exploring the nature of reality and questions about life after death, especially when it’s done outside of the limiting beliefs of religious dogma…and, for that matter, outside of alien dogma.

Perhaps it would cheer me up to see a debate between an ancient astronaut theorist, a creationist, and a synchronicity-shamanic theorist about what the “beings” from beyond really are.

73 Comments

Scott Hamilton

10/8/2014 04:03:43 am

Sorry about your furnace. That sucks.

I'll never understand sychronicity proponents. They seem oddly blind to fact that coincidences are, by definition, psychological phenomena.

10/8/2014 04:30:10 am

Synchronicity is a fascinating topic in the history of ideas. I suspect it's not getting more attention than it should (from historians) because everyone who approaches it gets the crazy vibe.

I don't think it's quite right to say that coincidences of the kind synchronicity could ostensibly be involved with are "by definition" psychological phenomena. But it's not clear that they aren't either. And internet wackos ranting about it wouldn't understand these distinctions anyway.

Sorry about the furnace, Jason. I first read "fiancee", so (1) feel free to think that I'm a terrible person, (2) please understand that once I noticed my mistake I was too relieved on your beahlf to be properly sympathetic :)

Shane Sullivan

10/8/2014 06:59:03 am

Ah, but Scott, our psychological makeup is a byproduct of the same energies and materials as the coinciding events themselves, which means that not only are coincidences objectively real, but they're inextricably connected to us!

...Of course, by that model of synchronicity, literally everything in the universe is a meaningful coincidence, which makes the obvious ones seem a lot less meaningful.

Clint Knapp

10/8/2014 04:44:30 am

Times like these, it's best to remember the bright side. It could be thirteen below with two feet of snow on the ground and no hope of getting a new furnace delivered until the roads are cleared!

I can almost sympathize with the MacGregors. There are times when I, too, would rather see the mainstream news talk about some burned-out space-cadet's vision of the angels that told her she's a Light Worker from the Pleiades than covering Twitter contests about who's the most attractive news anchor (actual thing, last night on ABC).

10/8/2014 05:08:37 am

Yeah, the MacGregors are kinda adorable. I almost don't feel like mocking them mercilessly.

Almost. :)

Paul Cargile

10/8/2014 06:46:32 am

Megyn Kelly.

10/8/2014 01:41:44 pm

Who the what now???

Shane Sullivan

10/8/2014 02:18:32 pm

"Who the what now???"
Most attractive news anchor.

10/8/2014 02:22:13 pm

Meh, not my type...

666

10/8/2014 05:29:22 am

>>> some of the Christians who are upset about the ancient astronaut theory,

Religious sectarianism between two rival faiths
The statement of a 100% neutralist

Drew

10/8/2014 05:37:49 am

You're in PA, right? Have you checked out Keystone HELP? We have a similar program here in MA (MassSave) and were able to get a no interest loan for a new boiler a few years back.

gabriel darke link

10/8/2014 06:12:52 am

I can't help but speculate whether charlatans who make millions off their unwitting followers ever have to worry about maintaining the heat in their houses.

Trish MacGregor link

10/8/2014 06:43:37 am

Actually, it was Carl Jung who coined and defined the term synchronicity and as far as I know, he wasn't a new age guy. In a nutshell: synchronicity is the coming together or inner and outer events in a way that can't be explained by cause and effect and is meaningful to the observer.

666

10/8/2014 02:58:37 pm

Carl Jung was borderline
He studied Alchemy
His wife Emma Jung wrote a book about The Holy Graiil
Jung corresponded with Joseph Banks Rhine, who first coined the term Extra Sensory Perception
That's New Age

Ray

10/9/2014 02:04:31 am

Carl Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and colleague of Freud's who broke away from Freudian psychoanalysis over the issue of the unconscious mind as a reservoir of repressed sexual trauma that causes all neuroses. Jung founded his own school of analytical psychology.

Jung believed in astrology, spiritualism, telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance and ESP. In addition to believing in a number of occult and paranormal notions, Jung contributed two new ones: synchronicity and the collective unconscious.

10/9/2014 03:40:37 am

666/Ray, you're responding to a post by Trish MacGregor. Does that make *you* New Age?

gibbs a williams Ph.D. link

1/20/2015 05:06:29 pm

Trisha et.al - I appreciate the fact that as a jungian adherent you apparently agree with his provocative and challenging conclusions: (1)
"I doubt whether an exclusively psychological approach can do justice to the phenomena in question " [ and extends his presumption that he is convinced there is nothing more of value to be said on this topic asserting] " ... that with occurrences like this" [ referring to his iconic
scarab coincidence deemed by him to be the most significant one in his life] " their 'inexplicability ' is not due to the fact that their cause is
unknown, but to the fact that a cause is not even thinkable in
intellectual terms." In this connection asserts three anti causal
arguments he believes are irrefutable. One concerns method, one
cocerns meaning, and the third concerns time. My fifty year research
of this most awesome and complex topic I believe successfully refutes
each of his so called irrefutable arguments. Whereas Jung treats the material as having answered all the important questions it is clear to
me that his analysis raises more qustions than provides absolute
answers. For example he does not adquately explain the meaning of
meaning nor how human beings generate meanings between
themselves ( inner reality) and the object world ( consensually
validated external realty co incidences, meaninful co incidences or just
any old pairing of inside and outside. He further assumes like Plato
there is a realm of transcendent absolute meaning by passing any
human interpretation. If one is a Platonist then his perspective ends all
further discussion. But if one were let's say an Aristotelian then
meaning making would be explained in solely naturalistic terms. There are many more such differences in defining organizing concepts such as the utility of conceptualizing a different view of causality whi h is the conventional linear cause and effect one typically advocated by science and Jung's contradictory notion of a'- causality. Such a third form of causality I refer to as psychodynamic, or synthetic causality that incorporates conventional causality but adds into the mix the whole realm of mixed feelings, intuitions, and bodily sensations I have dubbed as a new logic I refer to as exleriential logic. In so doing I have advanced a non magical non mystical wholly naturalistic theory of the nature of synchronicities. Unconvinced? Of course so if sufficiently curious and open minded read my work. Try it out for yourself. The proof is in the pudding. Let the chips fall where they may. Care to debate?

Shane Sullivan

10/8/2014 07:20:28 am

Good luck with the furnace. I had mine go out in the middle of the night a few winters ago.

And, like EP, I also read "fiance" at first, and was happy to notice my mistake.

An Over-Educated Grunt

10/8/2014 07:28:54 am

35 years is a pretty good run for a piece of HVAC equiment of any kind!

Only Me

10/8/2014 07:35:06 am

Really sorry to hear about the furnace trouble. Still, like Grunt said, 35 years is a pretty good run. I hope your replacement gets a similar service life.

@EP and Shane

After rereading Jason's opening paragraph with "fiancé" in place of "furnace", I'm now having to reattach my butt with duct tape; I laughed it off!

10/8/2014 08:50:29 am

"reattach my butt"

You know what time it is! :P

RLewis

10/8/2014 08:27:43 am

Maybe you can convince H2 that your boiler is really an ancient alien spaceship and they'll pay you to make a documentary about it.

Mark link

10/8/2014 03:07:42 pm

I'd watch it.

10/8/2014 03:10:32 pm

It's like a steampunk Die Glocke! It's got your name all over it! :)

Cathleen Anderson

10/8/2014 09:48:16 am

I hope getting that furnace replaced goes well.

How are synchronicity and synergy different from each other?

Rob MacGregor link

10/8/2014 10:38:24 am

C'mon, guys. You're supposed to say that people who believe in synchronicity are suffering from apophenia--the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random, meaningless data. That's the debunker/skeptic catch term.
http://www.synchrosecrets.com/synchrosecrets/?p=19553

Only Me

10/8/2014 10:58:32 am

So, you want us to be mean to you. Then you can run back to your friends and colleagues and brag about how you were right. Does that about cover it?

If that's true, then it seems to me it's not about synchronicity. It's about you.

10/8/2014 11:01:27 am

(1) Not all of us are "debunkers/skeptics".

(2) Not all "debunkers/skeptics" think alike.

(3) I've studied synchronicity in as part of serious academic work. Like, I'm not just some shitty sci-fi writer who read a few pages of Jung. Do you really want to make people like me irritated enough to bother going through your website?

Ray

10/9/2014 01:40:44 am

No evidence has "ever been found for Carl Jung's idea of 'synchronicity'." Steven Strogatz

10/8/2014 11:12:01 am

Trish MacGregor: "Actually, it was Carl Jung who coined and defined the term synchronicity..."

Actually, Jung never "defined" synchronicity. He only offered some glosses since he was (by his own admission) merely putting down his preliminary gropings in the vicinity. He also explicitly stated that synchronicity may not be definable at all.

Cathleen Anderson: "How are synchronicity and synergy different from each other?"

Synergy is emergence of a whole that is greater than the parts. Synchronicity is a term Jung used to speak of meaningful connections that are unthinkable as either causal or due to mere chance. There is a lot of confusion surrounding the notion, largely stemming from the fact that people who like to talk about it the most are not very good at reading comprehension, but it is, believe it or not, not supposed to be anything supernatural. (I'm considering writing up something on Jung's use of the term for the reading pleasure of the gentle denizens of this blog.)

Uncle Ron

10/8/2014 01:19:26 pm

If you do, please mention something about how the anthropic principle fits in. "If the universe wasn't the way it is, we wouldn't be here discussing the way it is" (basically), sounds like it negates synchronicity, at least at the largest scale. Which sort of gets us back to Scott's first comment, "coincidences are, by definition, psychological phenomena."

Does that make any sense?

Trish link

10/8/2014 02:22:49 pm

He defined it in his autobiography. He defined it in many of his writings. He gave numerous examples. One book that explains synchronicity very well is There Are No Accidents.

10/8/2014 02:27:59 pm

Trish, you need to distinguish between definitions, descriptions and expamples. If you don't understand the difference between the three, there really is no point trying to explain this to you.

I realize you're not used to expressing yourself precisely, but it doesn't mean that Jung hasn't (however, sketchy and otherwise confusing his discussion of synchronicity may be).

Titus pullo

10/8/2014 01:18:52 pm

Boiler? I thought that method was replaced by gas or oil 60 years ago. Radiative heat I'm guessing.

Don't know much about synchronicity but until proved otherwise there are only four forces known in the universe, how are events linked over large distances and time? Or us it just human perception? We see cause and effects constantly.

Jason Colavito link

10/8/2014 01:30:45 pm

It's a hot water heating system with radiators. My house was built in 1920, so it still uses the original 1920 column radiators, with decorative embossing. Their pretty, but very large.

10/8/2014 01:37:43 pm

Synchronicity is (explicitly) not a physical force (whatever else it's supposed to be).

Trish link

10/8/2014 05:06:49 pm

EP - I suggest that you read Jung's introduction to the Wilhelm edition of the I Ching, which he wrote in 1949 and where he clearly defined synchronicity for the first time, publicly. I realize the I Ching may be tough for you to stomach, but give it a try. Then read Jung's autobiography. Do your research before you make a statement that is simply not true.

10/8/2014 05:34:07 pm

Which statement of mine is "simply not true", exactly?

Also, LOL at you telling me to do my research.

10/8/2014 06:00:18 pm

OK, so... In the "Intro to The I Ching", Jung discusses synchronicity as conceived by (and I quote) "the Chinese mind". This is why he speaks of the criterion of synchronicity "in the I Ching" (as opposed to "in general" or "in actuality") being subjective ("the observer's opinion").

If you look at Jung's main works on synchronicity, you'll see that he does not restrict it to the I Ching model. In fact, he discusses it as one of the "forerunners of the idea of synchronicity". (The same is true of von Franz in her lectures on synchronicity, where she describes the I Ching divination technique as "rather absurd".)

When you speak of "Jung's autobiography", I suppose you mean "Memories, Dreams, Reflections". It has an entry on synchronicity in the Glossary, which, however, was written by Aniela Jaffe, and not Jung himself. It is far from authoritative or comprehensive. Moreover, it contains obvious errors, such as, for instance, is the claim that Jung "coined" the term.

Since you didn't recommend I read "Synchronicity" (i.e., the most obvious place to look), I suppose you haven't read it yourself. Or you assumed it was too hard for me, ignoring what I said in reply to Rob: "I've studied synchronicity in as part of serious academic work. Like, I'm not just some shitty sci-fi writer who read a few pages of Jung."

Ray

10/9/2014 01:21:45 am

Aleister Crowley and Stephen Skinner, devotees of the I-Ching
Another fringe discipline,

Ray

10/9/2014 02:02:18 am

Origin of synchronous
From Late Latin synchronus, from Greek sunkhronos : sun-, syn- + khronos, time.

Jason Colavito link

10/8/2014 01:34:25 pm

Thanks to everyone for your concern over my furnace. I spent all day getting estimates and going over options. The first company wanted to charge me an absurd amount of money, and the second company came in 35% lower for a better quality furnace. So on Friday I'm getting a new furnace installed, and then can have the joy of paying for it for the foreseeable future. Fun!

Only Me

10/8/2014 01:38:11 pm

Hey, at least you can keep your buns warm when winter hits! I wouldn't even want to know how miserable you'd be without heat.

10/8/2014 01:41:09 pm

This post is even better/worse (depending on how terrible you are) if you misread "furnace" as "fiancee" :)

An Over-Educated Grunt

10/9/2014 01:40:25 am

Your furnace is a more interesting problem than the people who see Jesus in their toast, so yeah, definitely rather discuss it than get into an endless round of debates about synchronicity. The good news is: new furnace. The bad news is: it's unlikely you'll get 35 years out of it, especially if you sell the house in a decade and discover they've revised the IBC while you weren't looking and have to bring everything up to code in ways you weren't expecting.

Ray

10/9/2014 01:43:54 am

You can post messages unchallenged here now
Jason Colavito has blocked 666s ISP
That's got to be great news for those who posters who believe in the Kensington Runestone. As well as for other reasons.

10/9/2014 04:38:55 am

Jason "Ray-Ban" Colavito! :D

Only Me

10/9/2014 05:44:10 am

@Ray

challenge- a confrontation; a dare/ a bid to overcome something

troll- (to post inflammatory material so as) to attempt to lure others into combative argument for purposes of personal entertainment and/or gratuitous disruption, especially in an online community or discussion [from late 20th c.]/ by extension, to incite anger (including outside of an internet context); to provoke, harass or annoy

Knowing the difference would have precluded a whole lot of headaches. That's why there is a comments policy, while breeched more often than it should be (and I'm as guilty of that as anyone), that will be enforced. Recognizing that would have also precluded a lot of the turmoil.

An Over-Educated Grunt

10/9/2014 05:54:31 am

Or, you know, we could collectively just say "good riddance" and quit poking the damn beehive.

10/9/2014 09:15:52 am

Screw you, I'll poke whatever I like!

...

OH GOD! MY GROIN! OH THE AGONY!

Rob MacGregor

10/10/2014 01:52:06 am

But the furnace failing is synchronicity - at least from my subjective view. Posting about the furnace and synchronicity together suggests a connection at a deeper level of consciousness, ie, a concern that the materialistic worldview is cooling off, if not dying a slow death as more and more people accept both science and seemingly non-scientific views, such as life after death, past lives, precognition, telepathy, remote viewing, and horror of horrors, astrology.

10/10/2014 04:22:44 am

Does anyone else hate it when semi-educated people use long words they think sound fancy without bothering to properly grasp their meanings? Or is it just me?

Only Me

10/10/2014 06:32:58 am

"Posting about the furnace and synchronicity together suggests a connection at a deeper level of consciousness"

I'm raising the bullshit flag. Speaking for myself, I'd prefer a deeper level of intelligent thought.

10/10/2014 07:32:47 am

Synchronicity is one of those things, like the Copenhagen Interpretation and Anti-Stratfordianism, that is a reliable counter-indicator of capacity for what you'd like to see, Only Me :)

Only Me

10/10/2014 08:57:50 am

Thanks, EP. Hadn't heard of either until now.

I'll give the Anti-Stratfordians credit for one thing: instead of "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", like other fringe believers, they hold the opposite to be true.

Ray

10/9/2014 02:07:07 am

This is all I'm posting on this Blog.
Feel free to block my ISP
:)

Tinfoil Hat

10/9/2014 09:55:32 am

You will not unfortunately get 35 yrs of good service out of the new boiler. The quality of today's components(re: China) are so poor many of the valves will start failing 5-7 yrs out. I had mine replaced after 30 yrs of service and was shocked to start seeing parts fail after that 5 yr mark.

Now, here's my advice if you aren't the only person in your home(and I assume so since you speak of school taxes): it's an expensive option but one I never regretted purchasing but do yourself a favor and look at adding the water heater option to your boiler. You will never run out of hot water ever again. No more verbally thrashing your teenager after they spent an hour in the shower and used up all the hot water. Go ahead and run the dishwasher, run the washing machine and fill up both bathtubs in the house ;)

10/9/2014 02:53:44 pm

I think it is fitting to offer the following quote to the MacGregors as food for thought:

"Unexpectedly... American hippies, and recently a few hippie circles in Europe, have rediscovered the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes, and often use its oracular technique. Thus a new generation is growing up which is familiar with the principle of synchronicity on the practical level. Perhaps a few individuals of this generation will later on take an interest in scientific work which will bring this principle into our picture of the world. In any case in my experience it has been easy to discuss the problem of synchronicity in the circles of these young people without arousing emotional resistance, which still happens when the subject is raised with most scientists of the older generation." (Marie-Louise von Franz, "C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time")

She was obvioulsy too optimistic about that demographic's capacity to engage with the material in a deeper way than merely having low emotional resistance... Fortunately, given the material, nothing of value's been lost...

Shane Sullivan

10/10/2014 08:48:32 am

I'd very much like to read any write-up you'd put together about synchronicity.

I started out with what I thought was a descent grasp of it, but I feel like I'm getting further away from it the more I read. It seems fully reliant on both acausality and the objective existence of archetypes, neither of which is universally accepted... that, coupled with the fact that Jung's descriptions of it read as somewhat hazy and perhaps a little inconsistent, make it tough for me to conceptualize. Obviously I'm not alone on that.

10/10/2014 11:28:28 am

One must begin by deciding what, precisely is one investigating:

(1) the sources and development of Jung's notion of synchronicity and the use he made of it in his research,

(2) the evolution of the notion as it took on a life of its own outside of Jung's (or Jungians') work, or

(3) whether any notion along roughly the same lines is coherent or theoretically useful.

When you say:

"It seems fully reliant on both acausality and the objective existence of archetypes, neither of which is universally accepted."

it sounds like you're interested in something closer to (3) than to (1). On the other hand, when you say:

"Jung's descriptions of it read as somewhat hazy and perhaps a little inconsistent, mak[ing] it tough for me to conceptualize"

it sounds like you're interested in something closer to (1) than to (3).

By the way, I don't think it is "fully reliant" on archetypes even in Jung's own vision of it, at least not conceptually. And I'm not quite sure what you mean by "acausality".

Shane Sullivan

10/10/2014 04:22:50 pm

Well, I'd like to know (3), but that would require an understanding of (1), or at least a thorough understanding of what Jung's notion of synchronicity actually was. For instance, if he didn't intend for it to be entirely subjective, then what "meaning" was a coincidence supposed to have? I feel like I should know that before moving forward. =P

(2) I assumed would mostly be the domain of pseudoscientists and crystal-wavers, so I never really gave it much thought.

As for acausality, I meant a lack of causality in the quantum mechanical sense, but more specifically that it has any observable presence in macrophysics. Regardless of whether the former is factual as defined by the Copenhagen Interpretation, as far as I know, the latter is certainly unproven. If that's not important to synchronicity, at least as justification for it, blame Roderick Main for misleading me.

10/10/2014 04:35:35 pm

In order to cleanse your psyche of the taint of Main, let me quote some testimony from Michael Fordham, who helped Jung with his big synchronicity paper and was a co-editor of Jung's collected works (so he knows a thing or two about this stuff!).

"I thought CG did not understand statistics... if Jung had wanted to show that his conjunctions were not caused then his experiment makes sense i.e. statistics can tell us whether a cause is improbable. Then he could have taken this as evidence that the meaningful conjunctions were an example of synchronicity. But he did not think like that because in a muddled way he was trying to make the subject respectable."

"There was a statistician who asserted that the whole experiment was nonsense and wanted the article suppressed since, supported by Jung’s authority, it would be taken by many to support false ideas. As editor I did a lot of work on the article filling in details of Jung’s exposition. They demonstrated more clearly that the data were not significant."

Basically, LOL

10/10/2014 05:03:07 pm

More to the point:

(a) Jung wanted to ground his idea in respectable empirical science, even though it's not one of the sort that even requires such grounding. (A common mistake even among first-rate thinkers. Nietzsche and Marx were guilty of the same thing.) After hanging out with some great physicists (Einstein, Pauli) Jung thought that acausal connections were admissible in physics. (As opposed to other places. *Everyone* agrees that acausal connections are admissible in logic and mathematics, for example.)

(b) Jung was no fool. He did not wish to say that, say, your dream of your ex turning into a sagull and a seagull flying into you on your way to see your ex the next day are causally linked by physical forces, let alone by anything magical. At the same time, he believed that roots of significance are found in the psychical realm that is *not* subjective. Archetypes, collective unconscious, etc., are universal (or at least emerge from a universal source), hence objective, hence scientifically respectable.

(c) Jung did not wish to reduce the physical to the psychical, or vice versa. At the same time, he wished to keep them parts of a unified reality.

(d) He didn't have enough specialized knowledge of physics, mathematics, philosophy, etc., to see that he was part confused, part reinventing the wheel. (Some of the most sensible parts of his discussion of synchronicity remind of one Kant's transcendental categories, though he doesn't seem to be aware of it).

(e) The idea that significance (or meaningfulness) acquired by coincidences need not be explicable (solely) in causal or physical terms is not, on its own, crazy. In fact, I'm sympathetic to it for entirely un-Jungian reasons. It's not like he's talking about miracles, or violations of physical laws. He is talking, and this is the part he never seems to have articulated successfully, about how there may be objective facts of the matter about the nature of psychological significance some ostensibly physically random coincidences acquire.

10/10/2014 05:18:57 pm

(f) There really was no need to drag statistics or physics into it. All it did was give fuel to the quantum woo crowd and mainstream attention to psychical research. Jung's ideas do not stand or fall with quantum mechanics or any interpretation thereof.

(g) When MacGregors and other ignoramuses say things like

"When we are alert to the coincidences in our lives, we experience them more frequently - and they take on greater significance. And once we recognize synchronicities as meaningful, they open us to new information, new possibilities."

they show that they have not understood Jung at all. Synchronistic coincidences derive part of their significance precisely from being infrequent. The more frequent they are, and here Jung's confusion about statistics comes in, the less likely they are to be seen as random and hence more likely to be explained in causal terms. Anyone who associates it with karma and "what was meant to be" is getting things backwards, and is in fact reverting to thinking in terms of magical causation, which is precisely what Jung was trying to avoid. Moreover, you cannot you cannot "recognize synchronicities as meaningful", since there is no synchronicity without such recognition (even though there is meaningfulness without it, which is something many Jungians don't get).

Shane Sullivan

10/11/2014 09:10:49 am

First of all, thanks for taking the time to explain all that. I still have a question though:

"It's not like he's talking about miracles, or violations of physical laws. He is talking, and this is the part he never seems to have articulated successfully, about how there may be objective facts of the matter about the nature of psychological significance some ostensibly physically random coincidences acquire."

Did he ever explain what those objective facts might have been? I assume it was outside of the fact that even purely psychological significance is objectively real, even if it only lives inside our heads.

10/11/2014 10:09:21 am

Those facts are supposed to be covered by his (fantastic and false) theories of archetypes, collective unconscious, etc.

Shane Sullivan

10/11/2014 11:18:49 am

Ohhh, okay, I get it now. So, while it doesn't "fully rely" on archetypes in specific, his notion of synchronicity did bank on at least some permutation of his outdated theories.

Thanks again.

10/11/2014 11:42:37 am

No, it wasn't "banking" on it. Consider an analogy: Someone may think that there is such a thing as human rights *and* that the reason there are human rights is because God gave us these rights. However, what this person thinks human rights actually are (e.g., whether education is a human right) need not in any way depend on God.

Something like that is the case with Jung. Synchronicity is a part of his general system, but doesn't really stand or fall with the rest of the system.

Shane Sullivan

10/11/2014 12:54:05 pm

I think I may have misrepresented myself. I only meant that those things were essential to the full vision of the nature of synchronicity that Carl Jung had in non-hypothetical history, because it involved them. I'm aware that he could have developed misgivings about archetypes and collective unconscious, and abandoned those theories, and synchronicity still would have worked just fine. Likewise, he didn't really need them in order to come up with synchronicity in the first place.

To revisit your analogy, if that person didn't believe in God, he might still believe in the very same human rights, but his greater holistic view of the subject would (obviously) not be quite the same. That's all I'm sayin'.

gibbs a williams Ph.D link

1/20/2015 05:44:14 pm

Shane et.al if you are curiuos to look at my non jungian wholly naturalistic theory on the nature of synchronicities I invite you to look at my web site www.gibbsonline.com. press the theories tab on the left and scroll down to my papers on this awesome and challenging topic. My 50 year research is contained in a too expensive book (90.00) but might be bought by your local library. Its title is DEMYSTFYINGSMEANINGFUL COINCIDENCES (Synchronicities): The
Evolving Self, The Personal Unconscious, and The Creative Self. In short I conclude synchronicities are coincidences that have special meaning to the experiencer. They are often expericed as if they are coded messages from some transcendent realm of reality. Hence Jungs occult/mystical/ and explicitly religious or spiritual imprimatur. But thats Jungs projection. For jung the messages originate from a connection with the so called [unproven] realm of the collective unconscious and passively 'channeled' to the exoeriencer. For him they are indicators of major shifts of consciousness from lets say materialism to spiritualism,. My research suggests that for at least my sample synchronicities are the endof a psychological process that begins with a person quintessetially stuck with what initially experincedas a problem that defies solution. If the attitude to this problem with no apparent solution is a dedication to struggle with struggle to persist to find a solution then the quest iniates what I refer toas a psychological scavenger hunt. What is looked for on this hunt are clues which tae the form of pieces of a multi layered jig saw puzzle. As each piece is gathered like so o ving a puzzle it is fitted into the borders. As the pices are joined together they eventually form a re cognizeable pattern. The whole pattern is experinced as a synchronicity. But because it is in coded form it has to be interpreted as if is a waking dream. The interpretaion of a xynchronicity is indeed an important message to the recdver. But is origins are not transcedent to the self rather they are messages whose source is that of the personal unconscious of the sender.
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10/10/2014 01:04:27 pm

Rob MacGregor co-authored, with his daughter Megan, "Star Power: Astrology for Teens"

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Power-Astrology-Robert-MacGregor/dp/1564146804

Here's how it opens:

"If you’re a teen and reading this in 2003, then you were born between 1985-1993... your parents’ teen years didn’t include personal computers, Nintendo, PlayStations, fax machines, or PalmPilots. Because of this, your brain is wired differently than your parents’ brains. Your needs and desires, likes and dislikes, and interests and passions probably don’t bear any resemblance to those of your parents when they were your age."

I think I need to go huddle in the shower and cry for a while.

gibbs a williams Ph.D link

1/20/2015 06:02:03 pm

Jason and curious others on this thread

This thread by far is the most intelligent one I have read on this complex and challenging topic. I can assert this because of my 50 researching this material. I hope I can induce you to re read this thread and note my three responses to different contributors, I furher hope I can induce you to become acquainted with my original work. I feel as if I am baying in the wilderness, synchronicities are quite important, However while I believe they often do function as coded messages I discount their origin as a connection with the so called unproven collective unconscious Jung's realm of archetypal absolute knowledge. Nor do I think statistics nor quantum entanglement concepts shed any light on the subject. I do believe that fousing on the creative contributions of ones personal unconscious is the key to understanding the nature of these often awesome and perplexing events.