Synchronicity, Synergy, and Serendipity
How do we get answers from God, spiritual guidance or our “higher
self”? How can we feel or sense the spiritual in our lives? The answers
to these questions may be in the three “S” words the title. Of course
they represent only three of the myriad ways that we may recognize our
“Truths”. For this article, let’s investigate “synchronicity”. We’ll
look at the other two in subsequent presentations.
Synchronicity:
Coincidence of events that seem to be meaningfully related, conceived
in the theory of Carl Jung as an explanatory principle on the same order
as causality.
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
Carl Jung considered synchronicity to be in the same order of importance as the law of cause and effect.
When
an incredible number of related or repetitious incidents occur where
one might expect only random variety, that is synchronicity. Perhaps you
notice a parked car across the street from your house with the numbers
245 in its license plate. On the way to work you catch bus number 245,
and then you realize that the novel that you are reading has 245 pages.
As you answer the first phone call of your business day, the caller asks
to meet for an appointment at 2:45 pm. That is synchronicity. Do you
attach special significance to that appointment? That is up to you. I
think I would.
I am sure that we all have heard
stories of unexplainable coincidences that occurred as if ordered by
some strong fatalistic hand. One of my favorites is about Wolfgang
Pauli, a leading pioneer in theoretical quantum physics. Pauli had so
many unexplained failures of delicate experimental equipment occur in
his presence – electronic apparatus would malfunction when he was near
and then seemingly correct itself after he left the scene – that his
fellow physicists coined the phrase “the Pauli effect” to humorously
describe these temporary failures.
One day he
got a letter from a Professor J. Franck, an associate from the town of
Gottingen in Germany, telling him that at a certain time on a particular
day, there had been an unexplained failure of a delicate apparatus in
his experiments. He kidded Pauli that he would only have expected such a
failure if he, Pauli, was present. Pauli wrote back that he had been
visiting a fellow physicist, Nels Bohr, in Copenhagen and at the time of
the incident his returning train had actually been stopped in the
Gottingen railroad station only a few kilometers away.
Synchronicity
is the basis of all of the “arts of divination” from the turn of the
Taro cards, the throw of bones, runes, stick and sand in various
cultures and even the ominous telling from the Druid’s inspection of
animal or bird’s entrails. I know I stand the risk of losing a few of my
readers on that remark, but the very existence and persistence of these
forms of fortune telling over thousands of years should pique the
interest of an honestly open-minded enquirer.
Carl
Jung seemed to think that synchronicity was a manifestation of a
principle from a reality beyond that recognized by our physical senses.
If we accept that thought precedes matter, then perhaps it is not too
surprising that common threads exist between incidents and material
things in our lives. Assuming that our thought patterns emit a certain
vibration (for lack of a better term) that impresses upon “pre-physical
substance” that forms our physical experience, then it would only be
logical that a strong or prolonged attitude capable of producing a
specific result would have harmonic effects on normally insignificant
random little things about us. These side effects would then reflect the
main manifestation. Hence “coincidental” experiences or synchronicity.
In
the book “Synchronicity – Science, Myth and the Trickster” by Allan
Coombs and Mark Holland, the authors, observe that “there appears to be a
link between synchronicity and meditation: as the meditative state
deepens, synchronistic coincidents occur more frequently”. For an
explanation, they suggest that meditation is a neurologically balanced
state. They say that EEG patterns during meditation show a balancing of
the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Not only do the EEGs from
the two sides of the brain become similar in frequency, but also there
appears to be a correlation of the waves, as if they reflect each other
and perhaps produce an amplified transmitter that more strongly affects
our observed reality.
A teacher and dear friend
of mine used to say, “There is nothing that God cannot use to
communicate with us.” And so we find our answers to our meditative
questions in billboards, the appearance of birds or animals, chance
words from waiters and shopkeepers or evening dialogue from very bad
movies on TV. The trick is, of course, to be open and observant, and
ready to say to yourself “Aha, there is my answer!”
Try
it yourself. When in doubt of your next step in dealing with a
present-time situation (opportunity?) explore your choices and then let
go entirely. Proceed with your day with a light heart while staying
alert to your surroundings. Let go and let God. Be prepared to accept
from any event or media.
John Bell
