Introduction to Carl G. Jung's Principle of Synchronicity

by Remo F. Roth, PhD, CH-8810 Horgen-Zuerich, Switzerland  Thanks to Phyllis Luthi (jobshop@pacbell.net) for the help with the translation

In today's world we reduce all events to the Principle of Cause and Effect (causality) and ask, which cause belongs to which effect. Carl G. Jung, toward the end of his life, realized that there is another type of events. Such events are directed toward a goal, that is, they lead into an event which has no cause. Therefore, they correspond to a new creation. In religious language such "effects" without "cause" were considered as miracles. The Catholic Church calls the underlying principle the providence of God.

When one observes one's dreams over a longer period of time, one becomes aware that often outward events occur that are very similar to the content of one's dreams. It would seem that the inner world and the outer world coincide. Carl G. Jung had suggested that one should - instead of looking for a magical relationship, as they did in medieval times - try to find the common meaning of such relatively simultaneous inner and outer events. The principle that underlies this nexus he called synchronicity.

Jung cites in his letters [vol. 1, 1973, p. 395] an occurrence that is an impressive example of synchronicity: "For instance, I walk with a woman patient in a wood. She tells me about the first dream in her life that had made an everlasting impression upon her. She had seen a spectral fox coming down the stairs in her parental home. At this moment a real fox comes out of the trees not 40 yards away and walks quietly on the path ahead of us for several minutes. The animal behaves as if it were a partner in the human situation."

According to Jung it would be wrong and extremely dangerous, to see a causal relationship between the two occurrences and to say that one event was the cause of the other. That would be nothing other than a relapse to the magical-causal thinking of the middle ages. Instead of this we must accept that the two occurrences are not causally connected, but rather by a common meaning. This means that we have to extract the meaning of the symbol "fox" for the interpretation of this synchronicity. This would somehow purport, that the dreamer herself - symbolically speaking - should be lead much more by her "inner fox", meaning that she must recover the instinctive cleverness she had lost with her intellectual point of view.

When one has experienced a number of such synchroncitities (see also Carl G. Jung’s Scarab Synchronicity), one gains over time the impression that there is a wisdom within them, far beyond that of our conscious knowledge. Furthermore, they would indicate that the inner world, for example dreams out of the so-called unconscious, know something about the outward, but also that the outer, the animate or even the inanimate material world knows something about the inner. Carl G. Jung had therefore put forth the postulate that there has to be a world in which inner and outer world, psyche and matter are connected in an undifferentiated unity. This world was called the unus mundus in the Middle Ages [see also the UNUS MUNDUS forum]. Carl G. Jung and Wolfgang Pauli looked for this world and called it the unified psychophysical reality ("die psychophysische Einheitswirklichkeit") beyond the split in matter and psyche. One must consider this a potential world out of which causeless new creations can occur. Synchronistic events show the moment that this potential world will incarnate into the concrete.

In the above example it was in the moment of that the fox emerged in the forest that this moment came in which the stricken woman came out of her intellectualism and was able to recover her instinctive cleverness. Jung would probably have said something like the following to her: "You see, now the fox is also outside. Invite the symbol of instinctive cleverness into your world and you will be lead by it in your later life. Forget all of your ifs or buts, conquer all your intellectual blocks in this way and begin to trust your instinctive wisdom which will show you the right way." Through the experience and the interpretation of this synchronicity would the consciousness of the client abruptly transform and this impressive occurrence would lead to a new meaning to her future life.

Physically seen the principle of cause and effect leads finally into so-called Entropy, in other words the so called "heat death" of the universe. The differences in energy between various parts decrease until there is no more difference, energy no longer can flow, and life is extinguished.

Similar events one can observe in the psychic realm. People who have been bound too long to the causal paradigma begin to die in this life. Unconsciously they will become "living deads". Thus the Sufis, the mystics of Islam - say these words of wisdom: "Die before you die!" By this they mean that in such people a new conscious orientation should take place which effects so that the consciousness then would much more be connected to the principle of synchronicity instead to causality. This letting go of old tried and true, this giving up of the power principle, of "Where there's a will there's a way!" works like an elixier vitae. Such people begin a second life which falls under the principle of synchronicity. I call it Synchronicity Quest, which means that they begin to let theirselves be lead by coincidences and to take assistance from their dreams in order to learn to understand wherein the way of life further leads. In greatly critical moments synchronicities come to pass which show the real goal of life, which can not be found by will and causalistic thinking.

Experience shows that such synchronicities work negentropically, meaning that they build new psychic energy fields out of which further new life possibilities emerge. People grow in this manner and those who take their dreams and synchronicities seriously have a chance to lead a life filled with a new and deeper meaning. Thereby they have simultaneously overcome the paradigma of causality while entering into a new age of synchronicity which appears on the horizon of the new millennium.

Biography of Eugen Bleuler

Eugen Bleuler, one of the most influential psychologists of his time, made difficulties for himself by being attracted to both the theories of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Wilhelm Max Wundt (1832-1920), striving to unify somehow the teachings of the two, despite the fact that the differences were much greater than what united them. Bleuler is best known today for his introduction of the term schizophrenia – in 1908 - to describe the disorder previously known as dementia praecox, from the Latin meaning prematurely out of one's mind, a name given by Emil Kraepelin; and for his study of schizophrenics.

He tended to oppose the view that schizophrenia is caused by an irreversible brain damage, but did not believe in the possibility of a healing. Bleuler emphasised the associative disturbances, not the demens. His work for this group of diseases went so far that he even learned to understand and interpret these patients way of expressing themselves.

Bleuler attended the universities of Zürich, Bern, and Munich, becoming a licensed physician in 1881. He was conferred doctor of medicine in 1883, and from 1881 to 1883 was assistant physician in Waldau near Bern. In 1884 he travelled to France and England, in the winter term of 1884/1885 worked in the laboratory with Johann Bernhard Aloys von Gudden (1824-1886) in Munich. In 1885 he became assistant physician in Burghölzli near Zürich, and subsequently, from 1886 to 1898 was director of the nursing home – Pflegeanstalt – Rheinau near Zürich.

In 1898 Bleuler was appointed professor psychiatry at the University of Zürich and director of the University Psychiatric Hospital, the Burghölzli Asylum, where he served from 1898 to 1927. He first advanced the term schizophrenia in 1908 in a paper based on a study of 647 Burghölzli patients and then expanded on his work in Dementia Praecox oder Gruppe der Schizophrenien; 1911. (Dementia Praecox; or the Group of Schizophrenias, 1950). Characterized by Zilboorg (1941) as "the classic work of twentieth century psychiatry.”

Bleuler explains the title of his famous monograph in the following manner:

The older form [dementia praecox] is a product of a time when not only the very concept of dementia, but, also that of precocity, was applicable to all cases at hand. But it hardly fits our contemporary ideas of the scope of this disease-entity. Today we include patients whom we would neither call "demented" nor exclusively victims of deterioration early in life. (1911, p 7).

I call dementia praecox "schizophrenia" because (as I hope to demonstrate) the "splitting" of the different psychic functions is one of its most important characteristics. For the sake of convenience, I use the word in the singular although it is apparent that the group includes several diseases. (1911, p 8).

Bleuler concluded that the disease was not one of dementia, a condition involving organic deterioration of the brain, but one that consisted of a disharmonious state of mind in which contradictory tendencies exist together. He showed that Kraepelin’s dementia praecox should include all the schizophrenic disorders. He argued that schizophrenia was not invariably incurable, and did not always progress to full dementia - all conclusions at odds with the accepted wisdom of his time.

Bleuler is credited with the introduction of two concepts fundamental to the analysis of schizophrenia: autism, denoting the loss of contact with reality, frequently through indulgence in bizarre fantasy, and ambivalence, denoting the coexistence of mutually exclusive contradictions within the psyche.

Bleuler was one of the first psychiatrists to apply psychoanalytical methods in his research. He was an early proponent of the theories of Sigmund Freud, and he attempted to show how the various mechanisms Freud had found in neurotic patients could also be recognised in psychotic patients. Bleuler challenged the prevailing belief that psychosis was the result of organic brain damage, insisting instead that it could have psychological causes.

Bleuler's works also concern studies of hypnotism, subcortical aphasia, osteomalacy, moral idiocy (based on a study of the national assemblies of the major European powers 1897-1923), the physiology of ventricology, etc in various journals. He was the publisher of Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische Forschung.

Bleuler’s textbook, Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie, published in 1916, went through countless new editions and has, like the Bleuler Psycho-syndrome, prevented his name from falling into oblivion.

During the early 1900s Bleuler's assistant was Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), and the two were early members with Freud in the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society.

His son, Manfred Bleuler, continued his work with respect to familial (hereditary) aspects, early intra-familial environment and personalities, long term outcome, and therapeutic interventions.

«Senility often becomes a disease only as a result of the sudden cessation of the ordinary attractions of life.»

Anima and Animus

When animus and anima meet, the animus draws his sword of power and the anima ejects her poison of illusion and seduction. The outcome need not always be negative, since the two are equally likely to fall in love (a special instance of love at first sight).Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.338.30 

Modern Man in Search of a Soul

A provocative and enlightening look at spiritual unease and its contribution to the void in modern civilization   Considered by many to be one of the most important books in the field of psychology, Modern Man in Search of a Soul is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of Carl Gustav Jung. In this book, Jung examines some of the most contested and crucial areas in the field of analytical psychology, including dream analysis, the primitive unconscious, and the relationship between psychology and religion. Additionally, Jung looks at the differences between his theories and those of Sigmund Freud, providing a valuable basis for anyone interested in the fundamentals of psychoanalysis.

What is Synchronicity?

The term synchronicity is coined by Jung to express a concept that belongs to him. It is about acausal connection of two or more psycho-physic phenomena. This concept was inspired to him by a patient's case that was in situation of impasse in treatment. Her exaggerate rationalism (animus inflation) was holding her back from assimilating unconscious materials. One night, the patient dreamt a golden scarab - cetonia aurata. The next day, during the psychotherapy session, a real insect this time, hit against the Jung's cabinet window. Jung caught it and discovered surprisingly that it was a golden scarab; a very rare presence for that climate. Cetonia Aurata or the Colden Scarab So, the idea is all about coincidence: in this case, between the scarab dreamt by the patient and its appearance in reality, in the psychotherapy cabinet. But this coincidence is not senseless, a simple coincidence. By using the amplification method, Jung associates in connection with the scarab and comes to the concept of death and rebirth from the esoteric philosophy of antiquity, a process that, in a symbolic way, the patient should experience for a renewal and vitalization of her unilateral personality, the cause of the neurosis she was suffering from. Thus, a significant coincidence of physical and psychological phenomena that are acausal connected. Jung's book on synchronicity Behind all these phenomena Jung places the archetype or the constellation of an archetype, which, in his view, is a process that engages equally objective manifestations, in the physical world, and subjective ones, in the psychological universe. Jung writes a book on synchronicity together with Nobel laureate W. Pauli, a book we invite you to read (learn more). Synchronicity, as an explicative theory, applies to phenomena from the area of parapsychology, prevision and premonition, to I Ching (specific method of consulting the Oracle of Changes), to astrology and many other borderline fields. It is also present in psychotherapy, as we have already shown. Several psychoanalysts noted certain strange coincidences in which their patients received information about them by extra-sensorial ways, information that was not accessible to the general public.

Tiempo y Espacio

“…El Inconciente no tiene tiempo.No hay problemas acerca del Tiempo en él. Parte de nuestra Psiqué no está en el tiempo ni en el espacio. Estos son solo una ilusión,Tiempo y Espacio, y así en cierta parte de nuestra Psiqué el tiempo no cuenta para nada ”...

C.G.Jung C.W. vol XV111 parag 684  

Quote

“El individuo que no tiene puesta su esperanza en Dios no puede resistir por sus propios medios los ataques físicos y morales del mundo. Para lograrlo necesita la evidencia de la experiencia interna y trascendente, que es la única que puede protegerle de ser absorbido irremediablemente por la masa. Una mera comprensión intelectual o hasta ética [...] carece del empuje de la convicción religiosa, ya que es meramente racional”. The Undiscovered Self, página 34.