There is a school of thought that interprets magical devices in fairy tales, not as depicting magic, but as a kind of futuristic technology. One might think the same about magical mirrors. But although the analogy is certainly suggestive, I think it leads us in the wrong direction.
This post has a more personal character than most of the others. I hope it will clarify how I approach Jung’s work on synchronicities, which is at the center of this blog: my strategy in reading and interpreting it, as well as my attitude towards it, an attitude that is deeply admiring, but critical at the same time (as is probably evident from my postings already). 1. I admire, to begin with...
Two different senses of ‘synchronistic phenomena’ are operative in Jung’s work. In a narrow sense, there are what I call ‘synchronicities’ on this blog: occasions where two or more events coincide although there is a low probability for them to do so, and where at the same time there is a pronounced sense of a ‘meaningful connection’ between them. That sense of meaning is often perceived only by...
When we become aware of a new phenomenon, it usually happens this way: you notice an occurrence, and then another one, and so on; soon you realize that it is a pattern; you give it a name; finally you collect instances and begin to investigate them: formulating explanations, making predictions, putting it all together in a theory of that phenomenon. Something like this presumably happened with...
The stated intent of Jung's synchronicities essay is somewhat at odds with the actual project that text carries out.
When we try to understand the synchronicities essay, and related writings from Jung’s late period, we face a deep-seated complication: Jung himself thought of his project along the lines of a misleading analogy...
There is an air of mysticism about claims, often found in Jungian psychology, that the unconscious ‘arranges’ things in the external world. How can something psychological, something that is — so to speak — merely ‘in my head’, have real influence over physical objects and other people? Is that just a figure of speech, or should it be taken seriously? And if the latter — how? Let’s clear this up!
By synchronicities we do not mean any old instance of an unlikely event, i.e. one that has a very small probability of occurring. That is necessary, but not sufficient. An event (or circumstance) qualifies as a synchronicity only if it is ‘meaningful’, if it invokes in a subject a sense and feeling of some deeper significance.
Leif Frenzel is a writer and independent researcher. He has a background in philosophy, literature, music, and information technology.