In the 1920’s the legendary psychologist and co-founder of Psychoanalysis, Carl Jung, proposed that the Universe didn’t operate solely along the lines of cause-and-effect, but rather, that there was a secondary operating principle that he referred to as Synchronicity in his first official text on the topic, published in 1952[1].
Jung claimed that the Universe was interconnected and that events in one place could produce psychophysical effects in people. He called these effects, “meaningful coincidences” because while they appeared coincidental to outside observers, they had significance for the person experiencing them.
In a nutshell, Jung believed that whatever forces were acting on the Universe at any given moment, also acted on everyone and everything in it at that same moment. As a result, apparent coincidences could hold important meaning for individuals looking for answers to particular life issues because they reflected the “intent” and direction of the Universe at that moment.
Synchronicity
The notion that Synchronicity could actually exist has been ridiculed for years, and yet as early as the 1930’s Einstein was troubled by the fact that certain events in particle physics appeared to happen simultaneously and faster than the speed of light (a theoretical impossibility) would allow for. Einstein called this spooky science and predicted that as yet unknown confounding variables were causing the apparent synchronous connection of the events.
Over the years, these confounding factors were teased out of the equation, but the effect appeared resistant to being attributed to these factors alone. In a clever experiment, just published in Nature, Dr. Ronald Hanson and his team have proven that even after isolating all loopholes, the counterintuitive notion of events happening to linked particles at precisely the same instant despite a large intervening distance appears to be not only possible but also common.
This is a huge breakthrough. The idea that everything in the Universe is immediately linked has major implications for both physics and psychology, not to mention metaphysics, religion, and ethics.
By Steve Courmanopoulos, Ph.D.
[1] Jung, Carl G. (1993) [1952]. Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle. Bollingen, Switzerland: Bollingen Foundation. ISBN 978-0-691-01794-5. Since included in his Collected Works volume 8.