Synchronicity: A Wink from the Cosmos?

“Synchronicity: A Wink from the Cosmos?”

by Meg Lundstrom

“Earl
was trying to track down an out-of-print book called “The Adventures of
Marco Polo.” He scoured two used book stores in New York City, had no
success, and caught a taxi to a third. The cab driver was unusually
chatty, and during their conversation, Earl glanced at his license on
the dashboard. His name? Marco Polo!

Art was sitting at
his computer typing an e-mail missive when his cat Coal jumped from his
lap onto the keyboard. Before Art’s startled eyes, as the cat shifted
from key to key, its paws tapped out the word emerson on the screen. “To
make it even weirder, I’ve been studying Ralph Waldo Emerson intently
for the past year, and the study has taken on a very symbolic meaning to
me,” he says, still in shock. “My wife was sitting next to me at the
computer, and if I’m sent away for being crazy, she has to go, too!”

The
uncanny coincidence. The unlikely conjunction of events. The startling
serendipity. Who hasn’t had it happen in their life? You think of
someone for the first time in years, and run into them a few hours
later. An unusual phrase you’d never heard before jumps out at you three
times in the same day. On a back street in a foreign country, you bump
into a college roommate. A book falls off the shelf at the bookstore and
it’s exactly what you need.

Is it only, as skeptics
suggest, selective perception and the law of averages playing itself
out? Or is it, as Carl Jung believed, a glimpse into the underlying
order of the universe? He coined the term synchronicity to describe what
he called the “acausal connecting principle” that links mind and
matter. He said this underlying connectedness manifests itself through
meaningful coincidences that cannot be explained by cause and effect.
Such synchronicities occur, he theorized, when a strong need arises in
the psyche of an individual. He described three types that he had
observed: the coinciding of a thought or feeling with an outside event; a
dream, vision or premonition of something that then happens in the
future; and a dream or vision that coincides with an event occurring at a
distance. No one has come up with a definition that has superceded his,
although there has been debate on whether events linked to precognition
and clairvoyance should be included as synchronicity.

Some
scientists see a theoretical grounding for synchronicity in quantum
physics, fractal geometry, and chaos theory. They are finding that the
isolation and separation of objects from each other is more apparent
than real; at deeper levels, everything — atoms, cells, molecules,
plants, animals, people — participates in a sensitive, flowing web of
information. Physicists have shown, for example, that if two photons are
separated, no matter by how far, a change in one creates a simultaneous
change in the other.

Whatever its cause, the appeal of
synchronicity runs deep. “People love mysterious things, and
synchronicity is like magic happening to them,” says Carolyn North,
author of “Synchronicity: The Anatomy of Coincidence” (Regent Press).
“It gives us a sense of hope, a sense that something bigger is happening
out there than what we can see, which is especially important in times
like this when there’s so many reasons for despair.”

The
more pragmatic a person, the greater a surprise a synchronistic
incident is – even mild ones of the sort that happen to most people
sooner or later. For example, Bruce, a corporate lawyer, was stunned the
day that, just as he was getting ready to dial his father, he picked up
the phone and heard his father’s voice on the other end – calling him.
“I said, `Holy smokes!’ We were both dumbfounded!” he recalls. For a
moment in time, synchronicity shattered their assumptions of
cause-and-effect reality. Some people, however, would shrug and call
this intuition. How are the two different?

At first
blush, synchronicity and intuition seem to be separate phenomena.
Synchronicity happens “out there”: against the odds, something in the
Universe seems to swing into place to answer an inner need we have.
Intuition happens “in here”: it’s an inner knowing, an ability to tune
into knowledge in a nonrational, nonlinear way. We know something but we
don’t know how we know it.

Yet the boundaries get
fuzzy very quickly. Jung’s definition of synchronicity clearly
incorporates precognition and clairvoyance, which, by some people’s
definition, are also types of intuition: they are certainly inner
knowing. For example, here’s a mind-boggling synchronicity story that’s
just as mind-boggling when viewed as an intuition story. Pam’s father
was chopping down a tree for firewood when it suddenly fell on him,
crushing the left side of his face almost beyond recognition and
shattering his back. Against all odds, he shoved the tree off of himself
and walked a mile for help. Pam flew to Ithaca, New York, to be with
him. It wasn’t until weeks later, when she had returned to New York
City, that she picked up the tablet she had been taking notes on in
class at the time the accident had happened. She had been idly doodling
in the margins — and her drawings included a face with the left half
shaded in black and a person’s back with two Xs on the spine, marking
the same vertebrae that her father had broken.

If we
eliminate Jung’s two psi-related definitions and just focus on the
coinciding of inner and outer events in a way that defies causal
explanation, there can still be an overlapping, because the inner event
can be an intuitive hit. In practice, synchronicity and intuition
sometimes seem so intertwined that it’s hard to tell where one leaves
off and the other begins.

Shelley was sitting at Notre
Dame in Paris giving her sore feet a rest. The shoes she had worn from
the States had turned out to be painful, and her limited budget didn’t
allow her to buy another pair. Suddenly she felt an inner prompting, and
she got up, walked out of the church, and turned left. Following her
promptings, she made several other turns to arrive at a square. There,
on top of a trash can, sat a pair of brand new black boots with no signs
of wear — in exactly her size. “It was perfect,” she said. “If they
had been inside the trash can, I wouldn’t have pulled them out. If they
had been worn before, I wouldn’t have put them on. And they were so
stylish I never could have afforded them myself!” So is this an
intuition story or a synchronicity story? Intuition got her to the
boots. Synchronicity provided her with precisely what she needed: she
was virtually handed the boots by the Universe.

Some
synchronicities are not the delivery of objects but of insights:
something in the outer world crystallizes or confirms an inner process.
Those synchronicities can “feel” much like intuition: it’s sudden
information perceived by the psyche and experienced as true. “They’re
both messages, but one is internal and one external,” says John Graham, a
former foreign officer who with his wife, Ann Medlock, runs the Giraffe
Project, an intrepid organization in Langley, Washington, that
recognizes people who stick their necks out for the common good. The
organization lives hand to mouth on donations, but John intuitively
knows when a big check is in the morning mail, and the amount is often
synchronistically the exact amount they need to pay a pressing bill.
“Synchronicity and intuition are saying the same thing, it’s just as if
one were speaking French and the other Spanish,” he says.

David
Spangler, an author, teacher, and former guiding light of Findhorn,
believes the two have many underlying similarities. “Intuition is
another form of synchronicity: When I intuit something, there’s no
apparent cause-and-effect relationship between my knowledge and how I
got the knowledge,” he says. “Likewise, synchronicity is precipitated
intuition: we know of a connection not inwardly but outwardly, through
action and perception. In both cases, the pattern carries the same
message: we live in a world more intricately and holistically organized
than we may ever have previously supposed.”

Ultimately,
it seems that our perception of the two is based on how we experience
the boundary between our inner and outer environments. The more we feel a
part of all around us, the more we engage in a dance of energy and
input from all sides. At that point, it doesn’t matter, except as a
point of passing interest, where the information comes from: it just
comes.

Yet, until we live at that exalted level of
consciousness, we can make good use of the interplay between the two.
For example, some people develop their intuition using synchronicity as a
tool. They follow an inner urge or message and watch for the results:
if a meaningful coincidence results, it is a sign to them that they’re
on the right track and that they can trust that voice in the future. For
instance, Kathleen was driving toward the mountains for a hike when she
made a split-second decision to go to a pottery studio instead. “I
don’t know why — it just felt right,” she says. She had thought about
stopping there before but had never gotten around to it. Just as she
walked in the door, a woman was putting the finishing touches on a large
ceramic pot. “It’s a drum,” she told Kathleen, “But I don’t know
anything about putting a skin on it.” “I’ve make drums!” exclaimed
Kathleen. “I know where to get the skins!” They quickly agreed to
collaborate; in exchange, the woman will give her lessons. “It confirmed
my intution,” says Kathleen, “and let me know that pottery is something
I should definitely pursue.”

Conversely, some people
make active use of intuitive skills to garner useful coincidences. Ray
Simon, a Massachusetts writer, is constantly scanning the environment
for oddities; he runs quick intuitive checks on them and follows where
they lead him, often with fortuitous outcomes. For example, he was at a
library looking up material on Alfred North Whitehead. A computer search
listed 12 references, the third of which was blank. He pulled up the
information on the third, found out that it actually referred to a book
on Sartre, and so went to the shelves to find it. “These things are
annoying to follow,” he says with a laugh. “Your reasonable mind wants
to do things that make sense.” Next to that book was a different one on
Sartre, a comic book that laid out his philosophy in a whimsical format.
“I needed that information because I write computer manuals, and it’s
an ongoing battle to stay light,” he says. “That book enriched my life
and expanded my thinking about what could be done.”

There’s
something about turning one’s choices over to intuition that seems to
avail oneself to synchronicity,” says Allan Combs, Ph.D., a psychology
professor at the University of North Carolina at Asheville who
co-authored “Synchronicity: Science, Myth and the Trickster” (Marlowe).
“In practice, that can mean moving from moment to moment when making
decisions, even small decisions – especially small decisions! If you
expect the unexpected, synchronicity will emerge.”

Intuition,
researchers have found, flourishes in a person who is open, receptive
and nonjudgmental. Synchronicity has had little research — it defies
laboratory tests, of course — but people who have studied the topic
report a phenomena which Alan Vaughan, author of “Incredible
Coincidence: The Baffling World of Synchronicity” (Ballantine) calls
“the synchronicity of synchronicity.” Just having an active interest in
the matter seems to make synchronicities happen more often – in part, of
course, because we notice them more.

Likewise,
synchronicity too seems to be dampened by cynicism and doubt. Although
some synchronistic events, like some intuitive hits, cannot be easily
ignored, others are of a subtler nature – almost dreamlike in their
metaphorical patterns – and it takes practice both to notice and decode
them.

In her book “The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity
and the Self” (HarperCollins) Jean Shinoda Bolen writes about being at a
dinner party with friends when one woman raised a question:
Occasionally, when she closed her eyes, frightening demonic images would
appear. Should she confront them? examine them? immediately turn her
attention elsewhere? As they discussed the matter, a skunk started
scratching at a sliding glass door in front of them, trying to get
inside.The hosts had never seen a skunk in the area, and after
discussing how odd it was to see one trying to approach people, they
joked about how unlikely it was that anyone would open a door to one. It
was only later that Jean and her husband realized that the skunk
provided a synchronistic answer to their question: Just as a skunk would
stink up a living space, allowing demonic images in would do the same
to one’s inner space.

Says North: “If your belief
system is such that intuition and synchronicity are real and
significant, you will notice them. If your belief system is that they’re
hogwash, you won’t.”

Belief systems also dictate what
people attribute the workings of synchronicity to. When it occurs, they
may thank their luck, or fate, or destiny, or karma, or a miracle, or
angels, for example. “Synchronicity happens when God wishes to remain
anonymous,” goes one saying. Carrie and Dan view as divinely inspired
the string of happy coincidences that have allowed them to adopt and
raise eleven disabled children on Dan’s salary as a school cafeteria
worker. One month, hit with several emergencies, they had no money to
pay rent – until lightning struck, hitting two of their trees. When the
insurance adjuster came by, he wrote out a check so they could have them
taken down, but he said to Carrie with a smile, “If I were you, I
wouldn’t bother taking those trees down – you’re only going to lose a
branch.” The check exactly covered their rent. Said Carrie: “We thanked
God. We walk in his shadow.”

As was true with Carrie
and Dan, synchronicity seems to appear often at times of personal crises
and at such passage points as births and deaths. Sunbathing on a
Caribbean beach with her friend Sandy, Mary found herself thinking sadly
about Beth, a mutual friend of theirs who had died unexpectedly two
weeks earlier. Softly, she started humming “Amazing Grace.” When she
finished, Sandy said, “That’s so strange. I was just thinking about
Beth, and `Amazing Grace’ was her favorite song.” Mary was stunned: she
had never associated the song with Beth. They later learned that at the
exact time Mary had been humming, Beth’s family had been holding a
private memorial for her.

“Synchronicity seems to
happen when you’re intensely caught up in something that’s very deep –
for instance, falling in makes it pop all over the place,” says Combs.
“A lot of activities that tap into the deep mystery of life – things
like meditation, contemplative prayer – also seem to stir it up.”

Synchronicities
are sometimes regarded as signs, and some people consciously use them
to make decisions in life. In the novel “The Celestine Prophecy,” a
bestseller which thrust synchronicity into the public consciousness,
James Redfield says that all coincidences are significant because they
point the way to an unfolding of our personal destiny.

MaryAnn
had moved to London to live with her boyfriend, only to discover that
she hated the city and that he had a nasty streak. One morning at 6
a.m., after a tearful fight with him, she fled the house and was out
walking the dank, grey streets, feeling completely miserable. Suddenly a
dead bird fell out of the sky and landed at her feet with a plop. “That
did it,” she says. “It was a sign from the Universe and it was
shouting, ‘Go home!’ And I did.”

Often synchronicities
are simply a lark, a wink from the cosmos. Rebecca, a screenwriter, was
researching the life of a mysterious woman, a famous writer’s lover who
had died tragically at a young age. Driving to Boston to view the
writer’s archives, Rebecca on a whim stopped off at the sprawling
cemetery in the woman’s home town, and quickly chanced upon her
gravestone. On top of it was sitting a rabbit, its pink nose quivering.
At the sight of Rebecca, it started skittering around in circles. In
Boston a few hours later, she was reading through the writer’s diaries
when in the margin of a page, she came upon a few lines of curlicue,
schoolgirlish handwriting, which she recognized as being the young
woman’s. The words? “Thank God for the rabbits and their funny little
habits.”