How Does Synchronicity Work? — Jung’s Unknown Woman, part 2
In my previous article I discussed Jung’s famous example of synchronicity, a female patient of his and a scarab beetle. For convenience I’ll repeat it here:
“A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer, which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since, and that the dream of the patient has remained unique in my experience”.
Jung comments that the woman had been a very difficult case, essentially because her mind was “steeped in Cartesian philosophy”, by which he means scientific materialism. “Evidently something quite irrational was needed which was beyond my powers to produce”. So, when the scarab came in through the window, this was enough to blow her mind, and “the process of transformation could at last begin to move”.
If we assume that such occurrences are not merely random coincidences, then we have to ask, as I did, “what kind of universe are we living in that is capable of producing such an extraordinary event? Presumably this can only be explained by some kind of supernatural intelligence and will”.
Jack Preston King responded — he and I usually think along similar lines: “An alternate explanation might be that neither Jung’s nor your experience¹ would be at all unexpected IN A DREAM, and so what synchronicities demonstrate is that our waking and dreaming states are of the same substance (constructions of the imagination). While it is most striking to us that the beetle appeared at the window exactly when needed to convey a message, the same is also true of the window, Jung’s office, Jung himself, the events that led the woman to keep that appointment. If the event had been a dream, no one would question that dreaming mind had constructed every element in the scene, not just the beetle. Waking life is no different. We are surprised by synchronicities only because we aren’t aware of the constructed nature of waking experience” (all italics mine).
I responded, “interesting, but constructions of WHOSE imagination?”. He replied, laconically and cryptically, “exactly!”
I thought that Jack's reply was fascinating, especially his idea that we would not find anything, including synchronicities, bizarre in a dream, and that in general we aren't aware of the constructed nature of waking experience. This can be interpreted as a critique of modern Western civilisation and its rational, 'scientific' worldview, which would deny any meaningfulness in synchronicistic coincidences, and which believes, mistakenly, that physical reality is based on the laws of physics and chemistry.
This 'enlightened' understanding is in complete contrast to that of indigenous, traditional peoples, who see the universe as an interconnected web, but whose 'illusions' modern science thinks it has moved beyond. As Dery Dyer explains: “Whenever synchronicities happen to modern people, we tend to feel that something rare and uncomfortably paranormal is taking place. But synchronicities are a natural part of native consciousness, occurring all the time”. (This is presumably because, like Jack, they see the whole of physical reality as part of the same dream.) “Being able to see and interpret the messages offered by the living universe opens the door to other dimensions, readily accessible to traditional people but off-limits most of the time to handicapped modern brains”².
Jack says that his is an alternative explanation, but are the two really so different? My understanding is that the universe is a living organism, as Dyer says, thus a giant superorganism, whose brain/mind is quite capable of thinking apparently disconnected events simultaneously into existence. This viewpoint could be described as animism, something that I believe Jack also subscribes to. He focuses more upon the dreamlike nature of the physical world, which is presumably brought into existence by a supernatural being of some kind, usually called God. Whether that being can be said to be in some sense asleep, as we are when we dream, is an interesting question.
It's worth noting that Australian Aborigines say that all of manifest reality is an expression of something they call the Dreamtime. Jack's response also reminded me of the well known story about the ancient Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu , who one night dreamed that he was a butterfly. This seemed very real, and he was certain that he was a butterfly. Then he awoke, realised that he had been dreaming, and that he was really Chuang Tzu. But then the thought occurred to him, was he dreaming that he was a butterfly, or was a butterfly dreaming that it was him?
By coincidence, a new book by Bernardo Kastrup, one of my favourite authors on all matters scientific and philosophical, has just been published, Decoding Jung's Metaphysics³. It was on order as I was writing the previous article, and it has now arrived. It was Carl Jung who coined the term synchronicity in relation to meaningful coincidence, so it is not surprising that there is a chapter about it in the book.
As is well known, Jung refrained from metaphysical speculation in his published works, because he wanted to be perceived as a scientific psychologist, dealing only with what can be observed. His metaphysical beliefs are therefore never stated directly, and can only be inferred from what he writes. Thus Kastrup attempts in this book to get beyond Jung's words, and unravel the implications, hence its title.
Here are some quotes which use the same language as Jack:
- “the physical world organizes itself also according to archetypally determined relationships of meaning, like dreams do...”
- Jung refers to the work of Wilhelm von Scholz (on lost or stolen objects coming back to their owners), saying that he “suspects that these (meaningfully coincidental) happenings are arranged as if they were the dream of a 'greater and more comprehensive consciousness, which is unknowable' ”⁴.
- “our physical, waking reality is amenable to symbolic interpretation, just as our dreams are”.
On the other hand, an unknowable, more comprehensive consciousness sounds close to my supernatural divine mind. Kastrup further states that Jung “seems to regard the whole universe as a supraordinate cosmic mind”. I think that both Jack and I can agree.
A further quote supporting this joint viewpoint is that Jung's thinking “abolishes the separation between world and psyche. Indeed, synchronicity suggests – if it doesn't outright imply – a unity between psyche and physics”. As Jack said, the beetle, the window, Jung's office, Jung himself, and the woman keeping the appointment, are all part of the same dream.
However we understand synchronicity, the important point to note is that it cannot be fitted into the worldview of scientific materialism. We would be better off returning to the worldview of ancient peoples, whether the Hindu and Buddhist sages of India, or the indigenous peoples from all over the world. Having said that, the abolition of the distinction between world and psyche is part of the quantum physics revolution, which shows that science is making some progress. That is a subject I'll soon be turning to in a new series of articles.
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I hope you have enjoyed this article. I have written in the past about other topics, including spirituality, metaphysics, psychology, science, Christianity, politics and astrology. All these articles are on Medium, but the simplest way to see a guide to them is to visit my website (click here and here).
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Footnotes:
1. In the article I had also described a synchronistic event from my own life.
2. The Return of Collective Intelligence: Ancient Wisdom for a World out of Balance, Bear & Company, 2020, p 42, p 41
3. iFF Books, 2021, all quotes chapter 4
4. Synchronicity, an Acausal Connecting Principle, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972, p22
