Several of my difficulties in understanding the supposed “psychological relativity” of time and space had to do with the weird nature of the collective unconsciousness, as Jung conceives of it. Let’s catch up with some of that.
In the synchronicities essay Jung refers us to his earlier article on "Der Geist der Psychologie." He states that there he has “presented synchronicity as a psychically conditioned relativity of space and time”. What does that even mean?
What is the difference between mysticism and empiricism?
What is the difference between mysticism and a belief in magic?
In the final round of the 2010 Masters golf tournament, two commentators were surprised, for a brief moment, about a mysteriously unsuccessful putting stroke. And then the replay revealed what really had happened.
Part of the job, when researching an interesting phenomenon, is to build up a phenomenological pool: collect typical examples, interesting special cases, and fringe phenomena that may or may not be relevant in conjunction with our focus of interest. With synchronicities, there is an additional category in that pool to which we might pay some attention.
It is a bitter truth that a single sentence, spoken rashly and without really meaning it, can destroy the whole of your life as you have envisaged to live it.
In the literature on synchronicities, that phenomenon is usually defined as a coincidence of two or more events which invokes a “sense of meaningfulness”, and where the events in question — crucially for the point I want to focus on — are not causally linked. In one respect, that last clause is a sensible requirement. For if there were a causal link between those events, that would suffice as...
There is an often overlooked connection between the impression of something as meaningful — a “sense of meaning” — and a willingness to give up one’s own freedom of action and choice. Is that an ingredient in synchronicities, too? (After all, the feeling of meaningfulness is a necessary ingredient in the phenomenon as such.) 1. In his analysis of the history of advertising, Tim Wu explains the...
In Jung’s examples of synchronicities, at least three ingredients seem necessary - all of them rather subjective in nature: first, there is a perceived connection between two events; secondly, a subjectively felt need for an explanation of that connection; and thirdly, an inability to construe the connection as a causal relationship.
Leif Frenzel is a writer and independent researcher. He has a background in philosophy, literature, music, and information technology. His recent interest is Jungian psychology, especially synchronicities and the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious.