Synchronicity

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 25 Jan 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

northsea	25 Jan 2002
Back during the summer of 1983, before my freshman year in college, me and a friend went to look at Rajneeshpuram (near Antelope, Oregon). (We saw Osho go by in a cadillac.) A Rajneesh man took us on a bus tour of their fields, and told us about their civil engineering/construction plans. He oft discussed the synchronicity in it. At the time, I only knew of the term 'synchronicity' from the then-charting Police music album Synchronicity, so I kinda thought it was funny. Now I know that synchronicity is something Carl Jung and Osho spoke of. Anyhow, what is it? My basic understanding is it involves noncausal relationships.

blue	25 Jan 2002
To the best of my understanding, at it’s most basic, synchronicity is a meaningful coincidence. The term was coined by C.G. Jung. He told a story about doing an analysis session with a client in which she described a dream she had about a scarab (Egyptian beetle). While she was talking a large beetle flew in the room and landed on Jung’s window sill. An other example is in scientific research and development. Often when a new theory is published or an invention is copyrighted it will later be discovered that others were working on the same project but completely independent of, and with out knowledge of the former. It seems that our thoughts, intentions and actions set up “possibilities” for like manifestations.

Marion	25 Jan 2002
I seem to remember that he called it an 'acausal connecting principle'. One key thing was (I think, sorry, a bit rusty here) was that there had to be no physical link, or 'effective agent' linking the two events. Also, the 'meaningful' part. The two events, which happen at the same time, must have a link in psychological meaning, like the example of the scarab above. He went on to describe a number of events that were coincidences, but not syncronicity because they were not liked by meaning. Synchronicity isn't even in my OED, and I sort of remember that he said that he coined the term. From my reading, I know that blue is correct, that frequently scientific discoveries are the prize for whoever gets there first, and often it turns out that more than one team has been working on them. That ideas seem to have *their time*. Not sure if this qualifies as syncronicity or not. Regards,

purplelady	25 Jan 2002
This is because the ideas, discoveries, inventions, exist in the collective unconscious , waiting for "their time".

The Synchronicity thread was originally posted on 25 Jan 2002 in the Spirituality board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Spirituality, or read more archived threads.