Carl Jung | Synchronicity | audiobook

Numbers possess an archetypal character and are as much found or discovered as invented; they are not mere conceptual constructs imposed by the human intellect but autonomous entities with inherent quality and structure that can condition consciousness rather than being conditioned by it.

“I must confess that I inclin to the view that numbers were as much found as invented and that in consequence they possess a relative autonomy analogous to that of the archetypes they would then have in common with the latter the quality of being pre-existent to Consciousness”

Certain phenomena of simultaneity and synchronicity are bound up with archetypes, and the extraordinary spatial orientation of animals (such as the Palo worm whose sexual products appear on the sea surface the day before the last quarter of the moon in October and November) suggests psychic relativity of space and time in nature beyond human consciousness.

“Certain phenomena of simultaneity or synchronicity seem to be bound up with the archetypes the extraordinary spatial orientation of animals may also point to the psychic relativity of space and time the puzzling time orientation of the Palo Worm for instance whose tail segments loaded with sexual products always appear on the surface of the sea the day before the last quarter of the moon in October and November might be mentioned in this connection.”

Johannes Kepler argued that a geometrical principle underlying the physical world strongly ties the lower world to the heavens and unifies them, with all forms governed from above through the soul's innate reason enabling it to apprehend instantaneously the geometry in celestial rays, and nature selects birth days and hours that correspond to astrological constellations through an Earth-soul animat telluris.

“Johannes Kepler thought in much the same way he says in his terus intervenience 16:10 this viz a geometrical principle underlying the physical world is also according to the doctrine of Aristotle the strongest tie that links the lower world to the heavens and unifies it therewith so that all its forms are governed from on high...thirdly another marvelous thing is that the nature which receives this carum also induces a certain correspondence in constellation Abus cestus in its relatives when a mother is great with child and the natural time of delivery is near nature selects for the birth a day day and hour which correspond on account of the Heavens to the Nativity of the mother's brother or father.”

Schopenhauer believed that the simultaneity of causally unconnected events (chance) can be understood through a geographical analogy where meridians represent causal chains and parallels represent meaningful cross-connections between events, with all events standing in both causal and subjective connections simultaneously.

“I should like to draw attention to A Treatise of schophow on the apparent design in the fate of the individual which originally stood Godfather to the Views I am now developing. It deals with the simultaneity of the causally unconnected which we call Chance. Schopenhauer illustrates this simultaneity by a geographical analogy where the parallels represent the cross connection between the meridians which are thought of as causal chains.”

Albertus Magnus and Avicenna wrote that a power to alter things indwells in the human soul and subordinates other things to her, particularly when she is swept into great excess of love, hate, or passion; the emotion can bind things magically and alter them in the way the soul wants, and this magical effect occurs because the soul's emotionality is the chief cause of synchronistic phenomena.

“As regards the role which affects play in the occurrence of synchronistic events I should perhaps mention that this is by no means a new idea but was already known to avisena and albertus Magnus speaking of magic albertus Magnus writes I discovered an instructive account of magic in avisa's Liber sexus naturalium which says that a certain power to alter things indwells in the human soul...particularly when she is swept into a great excess of Love or hate or the like.”

I have coined the term 'synchronicity' to designate a hypothetical factor equal in rank to causality as a principle of explanation, defined as a psychically conditioned relativity of space and time, based on Rhine's demonstrated space-time elasticity in relation to the psyche

“because of this quality of simultaneity I have picked on the term synchronicity to designate a hypothetical Factor equal in rank to causality as a principle of explanation in my essay the spirit of psychology I Define synchronicity as a psychically conditioned relativity of space and time”

Medieval European philosophy, particularly through Pico della Mirandola, Paracelsus, and Agrippa von Nettesheim, postulated the theory of correspondence or sympathy of all things, wherein the human being was understood as a microcosm containing the structure of the macrocosm; every detail of the human being corresponds to details of heaven and earth; this correspondence was not causal but meaningful; individual human souls are related to each other and to the divine through this sympathetic correspondence independent of distance or material causality.

“The great principle extends to the extremest part and from the extremest part it returns to the great principle to the one nature being and not being the universal principle is found even in the smallest particle which therefore corresponds to the whole”

Unique or rare events leave no demonstrable traces except fragmentary memories; a single witness is insufficient to establish their credibility, requiring consensus omnium (consensus of all) or multiple reliable observations to verify such events.

“where we are dealing with ephemeral events which leave no demonstrable traces behind them except fragmentary memories in people's minds then a single witness no longer suffices nor would several witnesses be enough to make a unique event appear absolutely credible”

Rhine's ESP experiments demonstrate that probability calculations for card-guessing yields an average of 6.5 hits for 25 cards (1.5 more than chance expectation of 5), with probability of such deviation of 1 out of 250,000, showing these results cannot be explained as mere chance

“the average result showed 6.5 hits for 25 cards which is 1.5 more than the chance probability of five hits the probability of there being a chance deviation of 1.5 from the number five works out at one out of 250,000”

Every conceivable kind of attempt has been made to explain away Rhine's ESP results which seem to border on the miraculous and frankly impossible, but all such attempts come to grief on the facts and the facts refuse so far to be argued out of existence

“every conceivable kind of attempt has been made to explain away these results which seem to border on the miraculous and frankly impossible but all such attempts come to grief on the facts and the facts refuse so far to be argued out of existence”

A young female patient of mine had a dream in which she was given a golden scarab, and while she was telling me this dream I heard a noise and found a living rose chafer beetle (scarab battelii) knocking against the window seeking to enter the room—an extraordinary case of meaningful synchronicity with the rebirth symbolism of the scarab

“a young woman I was treating had at a critical moment a dream in which she was given a golden Scarab while she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window suddenly I heard a noise behind me like a gentle tapping I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window pane from outside I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in it was the nearest analogy to a golden Scarab that one finds in our latitudes a scarab bayed beetle the common Rose chafer seonia orata”

The Western rationalist attitude is not the only possible epistemology and is in many ways a prejudice needing correction; the older Chinese civilization thought differently, and only through Heraclitus in Western philosophy (or in astrology, alchemy, and mantic procedures) do we find approaches comparable to the Chinese correspondence principle that the West has largely lost.

“We must remember that the rationalistic attitude of the West is not the only possible one and is not all embracing but is in many ways a Prejudice and a bias that ought perhaps to be corrected the very much older civilization of the Chinese has always thought differently from us in this respect and we have to go back to heraclitus if we want to find something similar in our civilization at least where philosophy is concerned only in astrology Alchemy and the Mantic procedures do we find no differences of principle between our attitude and the Chinese.”

Experiences of levitation and out-of-body perception during deep comas and syncope show that consciousness can continue functioning and perceiving external events accurately even when all conventional signs indicate complete unconsciousness and cerebral anemia

“a woman patient whose reliability and truthfulness I have no reason to doubt told me that her first birth was very difficult...she had the feeling that she was sinking through the bed into a bottomless void she saw the nurse hurri to the bedside and seize her hand...the next thing she was aware of was that without feeling her body in its position she was looking down from a point in the ceiling”

Jung defines synchronicity as a hypothetical factor equal in rank to causality as a principle of explanation, designating it as a 'psychically conditioned relativity of space and time'; Rhine's experiments show that space and time are elastic and can be reduced almost to the vanishing point, as though they were dependent on psychic conditions rather than existing independently, but were only postulated by the conscious mind in its need to describe bodies in motion.

“Because of this quality of simultaneity I have picked on the term synchronicity to designate a hypothetical Factor equal in rank to causality as a principle of explanation in my essay the spirit of psychology I Define synchronicity as a psychically conditioned relativity of space and time”

Jung presents a case where he had misread 'Erosus' as 'Ericus' in a classical text due to paramnesia, and one month later a patient whom he had not seen for a month, and who knew nothing of his studies, had a dream where she received a Latin hymn to a god called 'Ericus'—the dreamer's unconscious apparently read the actual classical text while Jung's unconscious made the identical misreading

“during the Christmas of 1918 I was much occupied with orphism and in particular with the orphic fragment in malalis where the primordial light is described as the trinitarian mate FS arpus I consistently read ericus instead of erosus as in the text actually both readings occur this misreading became fixed as a paramnesia and later I always remembered the name as ericus and only discovered 30 years afterward that males's text has Eric capus just at this time one of my patients whom I had not seen for a month and who knew nothing of my studies had a dream in which an unknown man handed her a piece of paper and on it was written a Latin hymn to A God Called Eric capus”

Synchronicity in the narrower sense (meaningful coincidence of psychic and physical events) is only a particular instance of general acausal orderedness, which includes constant and experimentally reproducible phenomena like natural number properties and quantum discontinuities

“synchronicity in the narrower sense is only a particular instance of General a causal orderedness that namely of the equivalence of psychic and physical processes”

The psychological point of view requires that causalism comparationis rest on psychoid factors called archetypes, which continually go beyond their causal frame of reference in what Jung calls 'transgressivity'

“A causalism comparationis rests on the psychoid factors I call archetypes these are definite that is to say they can be known and determined only approximately although associated with causal processes or carried by them they continually go beyond their frame of reference an infringement to which I would give the name transgressively”

We have absolutely no scientific means of proving the existence of objective meaning which is not just a psychic product, yet if we don't assume objective meaning we must either regress to magical causality or ascribe to the psyche powers far exceeding its empirical range

“we have absolutely no scientific means of proving the existence of an objective meaning which is not just a psychic product we are however driven to some such assumption unless we want to regress to a magical causality and ascribe to the psyche of power that far exceeds its empirical range of action”

The archetypes are contingent to causal determination, existing between causal processes without conforming to causal law, representing a special instance of randomness or that random state which runs through time in a way that fully conforms to law

“archetypal equivalences are contingent to causal determination that is to say they exist between them and the causal processes no relations that conform to law”

Causeless events must be regarded as creative acts—the continuous creation of a pattern that exists from all eternity, repeats itself sporadically, and is not derivable from any known antecedents

“we must regard them as creative acts as the continuous creation of a pattern that exists from all eternity repeats itself sporadically and is not derivable from any known antecedants”

Since dreams produced during sleep contain consciousness and meaningful symbolic content despite the sleeping cortex being less active, dreams may be produced not by the sleeping cortex but by the unsleeping sympathetic nervous system and are therefore transcerebal in nature

“whether in other words dreams are produced not so much by the activity of the sleeping cortex as by the unsleeping sympathetic system and are therefore of a transal nature outside the realm of psychophysical parallelism”

Space and time are not absolute properties of bodies in motion but are hypostatized concepts created by the discriminating activity of the conscious mind, making them essentially psychic in origin and allowing their relativization by psychic conditions

“in themselves space and time consist of nothing they are hypostatized Concepts born of the discriminating activity of the conscious mind and they form the indispensable coordinates for describing the behavior of Bodies in Motion they are therefore essentially psychic in origin”

Jung identifies the 'axiom of Maria the Jewess' or the 'rotundum' as expressing the ancient alchemical principle that 'out of the third comes the one as the fourth'—a principle stating that a transcendental unitary meaning emerges from three separate elements through their synthesis; this alchemical dilemma of three versus four (Trinity vs. Quaternary) extends through the entire Western symbolic tradition and appears in Jung's synchronicity theory where the fourth element (acausal orderedness/synchronicity) completes the previous triad of space, time, and causality.

“The socalled Axiom of Maria the Jews or copt out of the third comes the one as the fourth this cryptic observation confirms what I said above that in principle new points of view are not as a rule discovered in territory that is already known but in out of thee way places”

Schopenhauer believed the simultaneity of causally unconnected events (meaningful coincidences) could be explained through the concept of a single first cause (transcendental will or Primal Cause), which would act as a unified principle organizing all events; however, this explanation requires assuming absolute determinism of natural processes and a first cause, neither of which can be empirically proven, and if the first cause were actually a multiplicity rather than a unity, Schopenhauer's entire explanation collapses.

“Schopenhauer thought and wrote at a time when causality held Sovereign sway as a category a priority and had therefore to be dragged in to explain meaningful coincidences but as we have seen it can do this with some degree of probability only if we have recourse to the other equally arbitrary Assumption of the unity of the first cause”

The archetypes function as contingent factors that are neither causally determined nor entirely acausal, but rather operate as modalities without cause that possess functional significance as world-constituting factors mediating between the realm of pure chance and the realm of causal law.

“archetypal equivalences are contingent to causal determination that is to say they exist between them and the causal processes no relations that conform to law”

Jung experienced a synchronistic phenomenon himself in 1918: he was studying the Orphic fragment in Malalis describing primordial light as the trinitarian 'Arpus' and consistently misread 'Erosus' instead of the correct 'Ericapus'; this misreading became fixed as a paramnesia for 30 years; simultaneously, a female patient whom Jung had not seen for a month and who knew nothing of his studies had a dream in which an unknown man handed her a piece of paper with a Latin hymn to a god called 'Ericapus' written in a peculiar mixture of Latin, French, and Italian; the patient could write down the hymn upon waking, and remarkably her unconscious misread the name the opposite way from Jung's misreading (she read 'i' instead of 'e'), suggesting she was reading the original text rather than Jung's error, despite being about 50 miles away with no communication for a month.

“I was much occupied with orphism and in particular with the orphic fragment in malalis where the primordial light is described as the trinitarian mate FS arpus I consistently read ericus instead of erosus... just at this time one of my patients whom I had not seen for a month and who knew nothing of my studies had a dream in which an unknown man handed her a piece of paper and on it was written a Latin hymn to A God Called Eric capus”

Jung conducted a statistical study of 483 married couples (966 horoscopes) examining 50 possible astrological aspects (conjunctions and oppositions of Sun, Moon, and ascending/descending axis) to test whether the three classically traditional marriage aspects would appear more frequently in married pairs than in randomly paired unmarried pairs; the traditional aspects were Moon conjunction Sun, Moon conjunction Moon, and Moon conjunction ascending, believed in astrology since antiquity to characterize marriage.

“Marriage is a clear-cut fact although its psychological content shows every conceivable variation according to the astrological view it is precisely this fact of marriage that expresses itself markedly in the horoscopes the possibility that the individuals characterized by the horoscopes married one another so to say by accident will necessarily recede into the background”

Jung and his co-worker discovered unconscious deception in their astrological statistics: errors were found that exaggerated the results in a way favorable to astrology; Professor Feer initially calculated probability at 1 out of 1,500, but upon checking found an error; correcting it raised probability to 1 out of 1,500 (less improbable); but the errors all tended to favor astrology rather than statistical null hypothesis, suggesting what Jung describes as 'spontaneous synchronistic phenomena that draw the observer by hook or by crook into what is happening and occasionally make him an accessory to the deed'—showing that synchronistic arrangements unconsciously affect even the investigators themselves.

“Use had been made of unconscious deception on first working out the statistics I was put off the trail by a number of Errors which I fortunately discovered in time... the errors all tend to exaggerate the results in a way favorable to astrology”

Jung describes observations from deep syncope (unconsciousness) resulting from acute brain injury where, by all medical standards, consciousness should be completely extinguished; yet patients report experiencing levitation (feeling of rising into the air), changing sense of perspective (viewing their own body from above), and euphoric states; some patients retain awareness of surroundings composed of memory images rather than external perception; these phenomena suggest that consciousness or perceptual processes can continue independently of cerebral cortex function, possibly through the sympathetic nervous system.

“Contrary to all expectations a severe head injury is not always followed by a corresponding loss of consciousness to The Observer the wounded man seems apathetic in a trance and not conscious of anything subjectively however Consciousness is by no means extinguished... although the noise of battle for instance May suddenly give way to a solemn silence in this state there is sometimes a very distinct and impressive feeling or hallucination of levitation”

Von Frisch's observations of bee communication show that bees communicate the location and direction of food sources to their comrades through a specific dance, enabling even naive bees to fly directly to the source; this communication of objective information based on internal knowledge cannot be explained as conscious in bees (if we insist on determinism), yet it achieves the same informational result as human conscious intentional action; therefore, either bees must be conscious, or consciousness is not necessary for 'conscious-like' behavior, suggesting that the sympathetic nervous system in vertebrates (which parallels bee ganglia) might also produce or transmit psychic functions without cerebral cortex involvement.

“Bees not only tell their comrades by means of a peculiar sort of dance that they have found a feeding place but that they also indicate its direction and distance thus enabling the beginners to fly to it directly this kind of message is no different in principle from information conveyed by a human being”

Number is fundamentally mysterious and irreducible; as mathematical observation shows, when a group of objects is completely deprived of every single property or characteristic, a number still remains, suggesting that number is 'something irreducible'; the sequence of natural numbers contains the whole of mathematics and everything yet to be discovered; numbers have always possessed a numinous aura; all numbers from 1 to 9 are sacred, as are 10, 12, 13, 14, 28, 32, and 40; number is the predestined instrument for creating order out of chaos and apprehending an already existing but unknown orderedness.

“There is something peculiar one might even say mysterious about numbers they have never been entirely robbed of their numinous Aura if so a textbook of mathematics tells us a group of objects is deprived of every single one of its properties or characteristics there's still remains at the end its number which seems to indicate that number is something irreducible”

If the causal principle is only relatively valid, then there must remain a number of cases which do not show any causal connection, requiring us to sift events and separate the acausal ones from those that can be causally explained; acausal events may be expected most readily where a causal connection appears inconceivable.

“If the causal principle is only relatively valid then it follows that even though in the vast majority of cases an apparently chance series can be causally explained there must still remain a number of cases which do not show any causal connection”

On April 1, 1949, Jung observed an unusually high clustering of fish-related imagery and events within a 24-hour period: he noted an inscription about fish, a patient showed him impressive fish paintings she had made, he was shown embroidery with fish-like sea monsters, and another patient described a dream of a large fish swimming toward her and landing at her feet; Jung had been studying the fish symbol for months, and the suspicion that this was a meaningful coincidence (acausal connection) seemed very natural, though the clustering could statistically be explained by ordinary occurrence of fish references and coincidence.

“On April 1, 1949 today is Friday we have fish for lunch somebody happens to mention the custom of making an April fish of someone that same morning I made a note of an inscription which read EST homo totus medius pus AB IMO in the afternoon a former patient of mine whom I had not seen in months showed me some extremely impressive pictures of fish which she had painted in the meantime in the evening I was shown a piece of embroidery with fish-like sea monsters in it”

In Rhine's experiments, the subject's answer is not the result of observing the physical cards but a product of pure imagination of chance ideas which reveal the structure of that which produces them, namely the unconscious; the decisive factors in the unconscious psyche are the archetypes, which constitute the structure of the collective unconscious that is identical in all individuals and cannot be directly perceived.

“The subject's answer is not the result of his observing the physical cards it is a product of Pure Imagination of chance ideas which reveal the structure of that which produces them namely the unconscious here I will only point out that it is the decisive factors in the unconscious psyche the archetypes which constitute the structure of the collective unconscious”

Jung presents a case of a woman patient who nearly died during childbirth after 30 hours of labor, forceps delivery, and severe blood loss; when the nurse left the room, the patient felt herself sinking into bottomless void; she then experienced being above the ceiling looking down at her own pale body in the bed, the nurse taking her pulse, the doctor pacing anxiously, and her relatives crowding at the door; behind her she perceived a glorious park-like landscape with an Emerald-green meadow, flowering plants, and an iron gate, which she knew was the entrance to another world; she did not turn to look at the landscape directly, knowing she would be tempted to enter through the gate and thus leave life; she resolved to turn back and not die, then awoke to find she had been unconscious for half an hour.

“Without feeling her body in its position she was looking down from a point in the ceiling and could see everything going on in the room below her she saw herself lying in the bed deadly pale with closed eyes beside her stood the nurse the doctor paced up and down the room excitedly... she knew that behind her was a glorious park-like landscape shining in the brightest colors”

In a critical moment during Jung's treatment of a young woman patient, she dreamed of being given a golden Scarab; while she was telling him this dream, Jung heard a tapping noise at his closed window; he turned and saw a flying insect (a Rose chafer, the nearest analog to a golden Scarab in his latitude) knocking against the window pane; opening the window, he caught the creature in the air as it flew in; Jung states this was the nearest analogy to a golden Scarab and that such an event never happened to him before or since, and that the patient's dream remained unique in his experience.

“A young woman I was treating had at a critical moment a dream in which she was given a golden Scarab while she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window suddenly I heard a noise behind me like a gentle tapping I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window pane from outside I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in it was the nearest analogy to a golden Scarab that one finds in our latitudes a scarab bayed beetle the common Rose chafer”

Jung criticizes the exaggerated skepticism regarding ESP phenomena as unjustified, noting that such skepticism is based on ignorance; recent ESP experiments (such as those by S.G. Soal and K.M. Goldney) have probability values of 1 out of 1.35 billion—equivalent to the number of molecules in 250,000 tons of water; this degree of certainty exceeds that of most experiments in the natural sciences, yet the scientific establishment remains skeptical, which Jung attributes to specialism and the narrow horizon of specialist studies.

“We learn from GE Hutchinson that the ESP experiments conducted by SG soul and km goldney have a probability of one out of 1,35 this being equivalent to the number of molecules in 250,000 tons of water there are relatively few experiments in the field of the Natural Sciences whose results come anywhere near so high a degree of certainty”

Emotional affects and strong psychological states (fear, expectation, excitement) are the primary conditions enabling synchronistic phenomena; without emotional intensity constellating an archetype, meaningful coincidences do not reliably occur.

“affectivity however rests to a large extent on the instincts whose formal aspect is the archetype there is yet another psychological analogy between my two cases and the Ry experiments though it is not quite so obvious these apparently quite different situations have as their common characteristic an element of impossibility”

The statistical method, while useful for establishing regular repeatable events, systematically excludes and obscures exceptional and rare phenomena; thus statistics cannot serve as the sole criterion for truth in nature since exceptional cases and exceptions to the rule are as important as regularities.

“the statistically significant statement only concerns regularly occurring events and if considered as axiomatic it simply abolishes all exceptions to the rule it produces a merely average picture of natural events but not a true picture of the world as it is yet the exceptions and my results are exceptions and most improbable ones at that are just as important as the rules”

A patient's wife reported that at the deaths of her mother and grandmother a number of birds gathered outside the windows of the death chamber, and when her husband developed heart symptoms and subsequently died in the street, a whole flock of birds alighted on their house at the moment of crisis

“the wife of one of my patients a man in his 50s once told me in conversation that at the deaths of her mother and her grandmother a number of birds gathered outside the windows of the death chamber when her husband's treatment was nearing its end his Neurosis having been removed he developed some apparently quite innocuous symptoms which seemed to me however to be those of heart disease after examining him told me in writing that he could find no cause for anxiety on the way back from this consultation with the medical report in his pocket my patient collapsed in the street as he was brought home dying his wife was already in a great state of anxiety because soon after her husband had gone to the doctor a whole flock of birds alighted on their house”

Emotional factor plays an important role in synchronistic phenomena, as shown in Rhine's experiments where the first series generally produces the best results which then quickly fall off, but when it is possible to arouse a new interest the results improve again, demonstrating that affectivity and emotional engagement determine whether synchronistic results occur.

“With Ry the first series of experiments generally produced the best results which then quickly fell off but when it was possible to arouse a new interest in the essentially rather boring exper experiment the results improved again it follows from this that the emotional Factor plays an important role affectivity however rests to a large extent on the instincts whose formal aspect is the archetype.”

The I Ching (Book of Changes) is the oldest known method for grasping a situation as a whole through the interplay of yin and yang, based on a triadic principle yielding 64 mutations, each corresponding to a psychic situation, and represents an experimental basis for testing the hypothesis that the same living reality expresses itself in both psychic states and physical processes as equivalences of meaning.

“The I Ching which we can well call the experimental basis of classical Chinese philosophy is one of the oldest known methods for grasping a situation as a whole and thus placing the details against a cosmic background the interplay of yin and yang this grasping of the whole is obviously the aim of science as well...in the I Ching the coins fall just as happens to suit them an unknown question is followed by an unintelligible answer thus far the conditions for a total reaction are positively ideal.”

An acquaintance of mine dreamed the sudden death of a friend in America with characteristic details, and the dream occurred approximately one hour before the actual death occurred (when the dreamer was in Europe), demonstrating precognitive synchronicity occurring before the event

“an acquaintance of mine saw and experienced in a dream the sudden death of a friend with all the characteristic details the dreamer was in Europe at the time and the friend in America the death was confirmed next morning by Telegram and 10 days later a letter confirmed the details comparison of European Time with American time showed that the death occurred at least an hour before the dream the dreamer had gone to bed late and not slept until about 1:00 the dream occurred at approximately 2: in the morning”

The astrological experiment showed that unconscious biases and calculation errors in Jung's analysis all tended to exaggerate results in favor of astrology, demonstrating the synchronistic involvement of the observer's psyche in affecting experimental outcomes

“the errors all tend to exaggerate the results in a way favorable to astrology and add most suspiciously to the impression of an artificial or fraudulent arrangement of the facts which was so mortifying to those concerned that they would probably have preferred to keep silent about it”

The I Ching and other Mantic procedures create favorable conditions for meaningful coincidences by allowing nature to express itself in its wholeness rather than imposing experimental restrictions, making them potentially superior to laboratory methods for studying synchronicity

“the result of our experiment tallies with our experience of Mantic procedure one has the impression that these methods and others like them create favorable conditions for the occurrence of meaningful coincidences”

Since ESP experiments show results independent of space and time with no energy transmission possible, especially in time experiments where future events could not causally affect the present, energy-based explanations are completely impossible and acausal explanation becomes necessary

“all explanations in terms of energy which amounts to saying that events of this kind cannot be considered from the point of view of causality for causality presupposes the existence of space and time”

In the Babylonian afterlife souls wore a feather dress, and in ancient Egypt the ba or soul was thought of as a bird, suggesting that the birds in the modern death case represent archetypal symbolism of the soul and may have expressed an unconscious premonition of death

“if one considers however that in the Babylonian Hades the souls wore a feather dress and that in ancient Egypt the be or Soul was thought of as a bird it is not too far fetch to suppose that there may be some archetypal symbolism at work”

The ancient Hermetic principle 'Out of the three comes the one as the fourth' (axiom of Maria the Jewess) cryptically expresses what Jung discovered in his own research: that a fourth principle (synchronicity) must be added to complete the classical triad of space, time, and causality

“the socalled Axiom of Maria the Jews or copt out of the third comes the one as the fourth this cryptic observation confirms what I said above that in principle new points of view are not as a rule discovered in territory that is already known”

Unique or rare events cannot be studied empirically through the experimental method because the experiment imposes limiting conditions on nature and excludes rare events from account, yet their existence follows logically from the premise of statistical truth

“the experimental method of inquiry aims at establishing regular events which can be repeated consequently unique or rare events are ruled out of account”

Synchronistic phenomena are found with some degree of regularity and frequency in intuitive magical procedures (I Ching, geomancy, astrology) where they are subjectively convincing but extremely difficult to verify objectively and cannot be statistically evaluated

“synchronistic phenomena are found to occur experimentally with some degree of regularity and frequency in the intuitive magical procedures where they are subjectively convincing but are extremely difficult to verify objectively and cannot be statistically evaluated at least at present”

The probability calculation reveals that the three classical lunar conjunctions appearing with maximum frequency in three separate batches has an improbability that would only occur once in 2,500,000 cases, making the result so remarkable it looks like deliberate arrangement, yet it is statistically within limits that allow it to be explained as accidental.

“if we take the third batch as well The Coincidence of the three classical Moon aspects has a probability of one out of 62,500 th000 the first proportion is significant even when taken by itself for it shows that the coincidence is a very improbable one but the coincidence with the third lunar conjunction is so remarkable that it looks like a deliberate arrangement in favor of astrology”

In Jung's second case, a patient's wife reported that at the deaths of her mother and grandmother, birds gathered outside the death chamber windows; later, when her husband (a man in his 50s) was nearing the end of treatment for neurosis and developed heart symptoms, Jung sent him to a specialist who found no cause for concern; on the way home with the medical report, the patient collapsed dying in the street; his wife, alarmed soon after her husband left for the doctor's appointment, observed a whole flock of birds alighting on their house, remembered the similar incidents preceding her relatives' deaths, and feared the worst; her husband died shortly after.

“The wife of one of my patients a man in his 50s once told me in conversation that at the deaths of her mother and her grandmother a number of birds gathered outside the windows of the death chamber... soon after her husband had gone to the doctor a whole flock of birds alighted on their house she naturally remembered the similar incidents that had happened at the death of her own relatives and feared the worst”

Synchronistic events rest on the simultaneous occurrence of two different psychic states: one is the normal, probable, causally explicable state; the other is the critical experience that cannot be derived causally from the first; in cases of sudden death or precognition, the critical experience cannot be immediately recognized as ESP but can only be verified as such afterward; the key characteristic is that an unexpected psychic content (directly or indirectly connected with some objective external event) coincides with the ordinary psychic state.

“Synchronistic events rest on the simultaneous occurrence of two different psychic States one of them is the normal probable State I.E the one that is causally explicable and the other the critical EXP experience is the one that cannot be derived causally from the first”

J.W. Dunn reported a dream in spring 1902 while serving in the Boer War in which he stood on a volcanic mountain (island he had dreamed about before) threatened by catastrophic volcanic eruption; he tried to save 4,000 inhabitants and get French officials to mobilize rescue shipping; the dream developed typical nightmare motifs of hurrying and not arriving on time with the words '4,000 people will be killed' hovering in his mind; the actual volcanic disaster in Martinique occurred only when the newspaper reporting it was already en route to him; when reading the article, he misread 40,000 as 4,000, and this mistake became fixed as a paramnesia so he always remembered it as 4,000 instead of the actual 40,000; only 15 years later copying out the article did he discover his mistake; his unconscious had made the same misreading as his conscious mind.

“JW Dunn mentions a particularly in destructive dream he had in the spring of 1902... the dream did not take place at the moment of the actual catastrophe but only when the paper was already on its way to him with the news while reading it he misread 40,000 as 4,000 the mistake became fixed as a paramnesia”

The causal principle is only relatively valid and presupposes the existence of one or more other factors which would be necessary for complete explanation of natural processes, meaning the connection between cause and effect is not the only possible principle of explanation

“if the connection between cause and effect turns out to be only statistically valid and only relatively true then the causal principle is only of relative use for explaining natural processes and therefore presupposes the existence of one or more other factors which would be necessary for an explanation”

In the world of chance and coincidence, where events seem causally unconnected, acausal events must be expected most readily where a causal connection appears inconceivable upon closer reflection

“a causal events may be expected most readily where on closer reflection a causal connection appear appears to be inconceivable”

I prefer the hypothesis that synchronistic phenomena connect through transcendental meaning rather than magical causality because it does not conflict with the empirical concept of causality and constitutes a principle generous enough to obliges us not to correct but at least to add to our number of explanatory principles

“I prefer the latter hypothesis because it does not like the first conflict with the empirical concept of causality and can count as a principle Su generous that obliges us not indeed to correct the principles of natural explanation as hitherto understood but at least to add to their number”

The astrological experiment examined 50 possible aspects of sun, moon, and rising sign in 483 marriage horoscope pairs (966 individual horoscopes) to test whether traditional astrological correspondences appeared with statistically meaningful frequency

“I have only to add here that of the conjunctions and oppositions those of Mars and Venus are far less important than the rest as will readily be appreciated as large scale studies are lacking I decided to investigate the empirical basis of astrology using a large number of horoscopes of married pairs just to see what kind of figures would turn up”

The tram ticket bearing the same number as a theater ticket purchased immediately afterward, followed by that same number appearing again in a telephone call the same evening, represents such an improbable causal connection that it is more reasonable to posit an acausal principle of meaningful coincidence.

“when for instance I am faced with the fact that my tram ticket Bears the same number as the theater ticket which I buy immediately afterwards and I receive that same evening a telephone call during which the same number is mentioned again as a telephone number then a causal connection between them seems to me improbable in the extreme”

The example of receiving the same number three times in one evening (tram ticket bearing same number as theater ticket, with same number mentioned again in a telephone call) demonstrates a meaningful coincidence where causal connection between the events seems improbable in the extreme

“when for instance I am faced with the fact that my tram ticket Bears the same number as the theater ticket which I buy immediately afterwards and I receive that same evening a telephone call during which the same number is mentioned again as a telephone number then a causal connection between them seems to me improbable in the extreme”

In the third batch of 83 additional marriages, the maximum frequency for lunar aspects dropped to 5.6%, showing regression toward chance, yet the three most classical lunar aspects (moon-sun, moon-moon, moon-rising) still appeared as maxima with combined probability of 1 in 2.5 million

“the third batch of 83 the average amounts to only 5.6% in the original batches of 180 and 220 the Maxima still lie with the same aspects but in the last batch of 83 the Maxima lie with different aspects”

Jung was advised by Professor Marcus Fürst of Basel to calculate the probability of the maximal astrological numbers using the Poisson distribution; Fürst found an error in his original calculation and corrected the probability from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 1,500, and upon later re-checking found a further error where he had been deceived by a factor of five, reducing the improbability though not enough to describe the results as probable.

“In so much as I am not very well up in the higher mathematics and had therefore to rely on the help of a professional I asked Professor Marcus FS of Basil to calculate the probability of my maximal numbers this he very kindly did and using the pan distribution he arrived at a probability of approximately one out of 10,000 later on checking the calculation he found an error whose correction raised the probability to one out of 1,500 from this it is clear that Although our best results Moon conjunction sun and moon conjunction moon are fairly improbable in practice they are theoretically so probable that there is little justification for regarding the immediate results of our statistics as anything more than chance.”

On April 1, 1949, Jung experienced six references to the fish symbol within 24 hours: a mention of April Fool's fish custom, an inscription reading 'homo totus medius pus ab imo', a patient showing fish paintings she had made, an embroidery with fish-like sea monsters, and a patient recounting a dream of a large fish landing at her feet, despite Jung working on fish symbolism and only one person knowing this.

“On April 1 1949 today is Friday we have fish for lunch somebody happens to mention the custom of making an April fish of someone that same morning I made a note of an inscription which read EST homo totus medius pus AB IMO in the afternoon a former patient of mine whom I had not seen in months showed me some extremely impressive pictures of fish which she had painted in the meantime in the evening I was shown a piece of embroidery with fish-like sea monsters in it on the morning of April 2nd another patient whom I had not seen for many years told me a dream in which she stood on the shore of a lake and saw a large fish that swam straight towards her and landed at her feet I was at this time engaged on a study of the fish symbol in history only one of the persons mentioned here knew anything about it.”