Stefan Banach

The concept of Synchronicité was developed by Carl Gustav Jung. He proposed to name synchronicity the simultaneous occurrence of two events which did not present a report/ratio of causality, but whose association took a direction for the person who tested them. This concept is to be replaced among the other concepts of the theory known as of the analytical Psychologie.

The concept Jungien de Synchronicité

Definition of the concept

Carl Gustav Jung evoked the synchronicity as of the years 1930, but it is only tardily in its work, in the years 1940/1950 qu ' it will more precisely define it by devoting a whole work to him.

For Carl Gustav Jung the concept of synchronicity can only get along related to the other concepts of the analytical theory as private individuals: Prototype and Individuation and only within the framework of the theory of the analytical Psychology.

The synchronicity is not synchronism

In the Books of Psychology jungienne, n°28, 1st quarter 1981, we find on page 2 this definition of the " synchronicité".

Carl Gustav Jung: - " I thus employ here the general concept of synchronicity in the particular direction of temporal coincidence of two or several events without causal bond between them and having an identical or similar direction. The term is opposed to " synchronisme" who indicates the simple simultaneity of two events. The synchronicity thus means initially the simultaneity of a certain psychic state with one or more parallel events meaning compared to the state subjective of the moment, and - possibly - vice-versa."

An example of synchronicity, that each one could test is to receive a phone call of a person to which one was precisely thinking. Jung integrated this concept into its theory of psychic operation, with the direction where this occurrence surprising for the subject, made it go in another way of reflection, allowing has some to know a change of important state. One finds this phenomenon contrary i.e. towards a state of degradation when for example two people are annoyed and that one of them, has a serious accident thereafter. The subject which wished evil with the other can be then affected or very affected.

What is important for jung in the synchronicity it is not that two events occur at the same time (that it is synchronism), but the causal bond to which a direction is given by the subject to this occurrence. This new direction given, allows sometimes about being released, and to obtain more good being, it speaks same in " The man with discovered of sound âme" of Cure . This process it names it Individuation. Which it gives the following definition:

"The individuation has of another goal only to release it to Oneself, on the one hand false envelopes of the persona, and on the other hand suggestive force of the unconscious images. in Carl Gustav Jung in Dialectical of Ego and Unconscious the

Prototypes and synchronism

For example, he noticed much repetition, some is the old ones, the sex, the latitudes and the presence of certain invariants of the human heart: prototypes.

“It is often believed that the " term; archétype" indicate definite images or mythological reasons. But those are nothing other than conscious representations: it would be absurd to suppose that such variable representations can be transmitted in heritage. The prototype resides in the tendency to represent us such reasons, representation which can vary considerably in the details, without losing his fundamental design. ” in Carl Gustav Jung " The man and his symbols " , Robert Laffont, 1964 p 67.

He sought the expression of this tendency in the invidu (which he met in his private clinic) in other culture and near other spcecialists. For example when he discovered that Paul Radin, anthropologist had updated like him (but in another field: anthropology) a figure the Trickster for example. They published thereafter together.

Paul Skinflint, joint author of the work “the myth of the written Rascal”: He is hardly of as widespread myth in the whole world as that which one knows under the name of " myth of Fripon" we will occupy ourselves here. There are few myths of which we can affirm with as much insurance than they belong to the oldest modes of expression of humanity; few of other myths preserved their original contents in an so unchanged way. (...) It is manifest that we are here in the presence of a figure and of a topic, or various topics, endowed with a particular and durable charm and who exert a not very ordinary attraction force on humanity since the beginnings of the civilization.

The setting in direction of reality

“A synchronicity appears when our psychism is focused on an archetypal image in the external universe, which as a mirror returns us a kind of reflection of our concern in the form of a marked event of symbols so that we can use them. We are vis-a-vis a " hasard" meaning and creative.”

Carl Gustav Jung illustrated this concept for the famous example of the gold beetle: whereas one of its patients in analysis told him one of its dreams and pronounced the word beetle of gold, a gold beetle was crushed on the pane of its cabinet, disturbing them both. This " coincidence fortuite" was going to allow to start again the stagnant therapy of its patient.

The patient makes a setting in direction of reality falling under her history but also in the collective history which it is carrying even unconsciously.

The knowledge resulting from inconcient

For Carl Gustav Jung, which pay homage besides has Freud on the matter although by affirming its singularity, it exists unconscious. But this concept runs up against résitances, “psychology is science of more young people and because she endeavors to elucidate what occurs in the unconscious one, she encounters an extreme form of misoneism. ” in Carl Gustav Jung, " The man and his symbols " , Robert Laffont, 1964 p 31.

“… psychology is not only one personal fact. The unconscious one, which has its own laws and of the autonomous mechanisms, exerts on us an important influence, which one could compare with a cosmic disturbance. The unconscious one has the capacity to transport us or to wound us in the same way that a cosmic or weather catastrophe. ” in Carl Gustav Jung, " On the Interpretation of the dreams " , Albin Michel, 1998 p 218.

Carl Gustav Jung considers the existence of a " to know absolu" constituted by an unconscious collective trained prototypes. In that it falls under the discussions of traditional philosophy as one already finds it in the texts of Plato. For example, Plato in his work, Ménon, where Socrate makes in the case of discover that concepts such as diagonals preexist in the man, species a slave not having never received mathematical education. Ménon is one of the dialogs of Plato devoted to the doctrines of the Réminiscence.

An experiment " classique" can be easily reproduced with a child from whom one requests " if I give you a candy all the time then another candy what would do? ". The child very quickly considers a large candy heap then that would finish any never and incidentally that the prospect would be very pleasant but also that cannot arrive for truth. Thus in a central way it has in him the concept of infinite and includes/understands the limit of the human experiment vis-a-vis this concept. But which can have learned to him well all that? And yet it followed course on the concept of infinite neither on that of finitude what prevents it from giving a direction neither to reality, neither with the abstraction, nor with the experimentation.

Thus in the same way, the synchronicity within the framework of the clinic psychology is the experiment of a resonance between the psychism of the individual (unconscious, prototype) and reality, experiment which makes it possible to take another way, or to become more mature (individuation), which besides can only with difficulty be included/understood (since it is not only the intellectual plan which is concerned).

“The archetypic experiment is an experiment intense and upsetting. It is easy for us to speak also quietly about the prototypes, but to be really confronted with them is a very other business. The difference is the same one as between the fact of speaking about a lion and that about having to face it. To face a lion constitutes an intense and alarming experiment, which can mark the personality durably. ” in C.G. Jung " On the Interpretation of the dreams " , Albin Michel, 1998 p 120.

The postulate is that if one seeks to give direction has its acts, with its past, oneself, the man could not seek what he is unaware of, since he is unaware of then what he must seek, nor what he knows, since under no circumstances would it seek what he knows already.

Consequently, it is necessary that, some share, we already knew what we seek; it is not then any more a question of only knowing, but especially to remember and discover in us this knowledge.

All the work of Carl Gustav Jung tries to elucidate the mysteries of the way of individuation, which is not different for him, that the way of an authentic personal development, far from the masks and more close to the heart.

This personal development there, is not inevitably what we would have dreamed to be nor inevitably to yield has what the company would have liked that we are. It has that which psychology jungienne invites, a true dialog with oneself has.

To support the synchronicity

In the theory jungienne, the appearance of synchronicities can be favoured by intuition and by the dreams.

Intuition

The Intuition would enable us to move towards events in charge of direction. Under the control surface of mental, the best way towards which a being tends is the shortest way, most effective, least risky for this being, in short most logical. Under the control surface of the intuition, the best way towards which a being tends is the way charged with direction. While following its intuition, the being goes towards the synchronicity. The intuition can then be used in two ways:

Starting from an intention. It is then necessary to formulate an intention, to release taken and listen to its Intuition: The follow-up of the intuition could be a subsequent stage with another is that of the formulation of an intention, of a wish. In many cases, this first stage is often unconscious. Here an example, listed in the book of Erik Pigani which illustrates these assumptions:
:
Lise, auteure of songs, tell a particularly significant experiment. Whereas it was still coed, it decides to invest all its economies to open a bar with songs in Quebec. For the inauguration, she would like to make come from the journalists, but all answer him that she must create an event while making sponsor her bar by a personality. The singer Felix Leclerc, for example. it Formula One an intention: to contact Felix Leclerc Then, she seeks to contact this one, in vain. " It was terrible. I needed really his presence for the opening, tells Lise. Without him, not of press. But I did not discourage myself, I relied on the life, knowing that it often brings answers to our fundamental needs. it releases taken and even opens the evening, the young woman tests the desire for making a turn in the car, continues Erik Pigani. However, it is the winter, it grows dark and cold. It thus rolls. it follows its intuition Suddenly, in front of it a car makes a yaw and is card-indexed in a snowdrift. Read stops, the driver leaves its vehicle… " and which believe you was in front of it? For those which would not have guessed it, it was about Felix Leclerc, of course. " Fifteen days later, reports the journalist, the singer made the opening of the bar of Dye stick. " There are several examples like celui-là.
Starting from a question: it is then necessary to raise a question, to release taken and listen to its intuition. One can use the principle of synchronicity also to obtain a council or a lighting help by putting the clear and honest question with the intention to know the answer, while releasing taken and while opening with his environment: by listening to its intuition

Dreams

According to the analysts jungiens, the Rêve S are an interesting matter.

They provide images and scenarios which can be interesting to study to try to update a direction at the messages and the oneiric combinations of our unconscious. To give attention to the dreams, it is to encourage its mental to pay attention to the details of its existence, and that helps to integrate the unconscious messages into its lived conscious.

Jung, helped of the physicist Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, will look further into work of Kammerer, by defining the concept of synchronicity and by describing the bonds that there is with the processes of the unconscious one.

Pauli & Carl Gustav Jung dialogued during many years. Pauli followed in the Thirties an analytical cure with one of the pupils of Jung, cleans of which the series of dreams was studied by Jung itself in Psychologie and Alchimie .

Examples of not-causal relations

These examples are given only to illustrate the existence of such relations.

first is given by the professor Bruno Marchal in his Calculabilité thesis, physics and cognition, without this one quoting the concept of synchronicity there, but watch an example of causal relation not (in spite of appearances, it is true):

When in a cartoon a paving stone comes to strike a pane, the drawn pane flies (in general) in glares. It is not of course there about a causal relation (the drawing of the paving stone not being in oneself not the causes breaking of the pane, this “pane” existing itself besides only in representation in our spirit), not more than it is not about a fortuitous relation (except special effect sought by the scenario writer), one indeed would be very astonished to see the pane breaking one moment before or one moment after the arrival of the paving stone. There is here an idea rather close to the synchronicity .

the exact formulation of Bruno Marchal is in this thesis: " In a cartoon a movement (apparent) of a projectile (apparent) sent (apparently) on a pane (connect) is not not the cause of the bursting (apparent) of the pane (connect) " .

Another example of not-causal relation is the Implication in Logique. P => Q does not suppose a relation of succession between P and Q, but which one always has either non-P or Q .

In sciences

The not-reproducible character of the examples of synchronicity makes that the concept did not have particular fruitfulness in the scientific discipline. One cannot regard it today as scientifically validated.

Psychoanalyze

The concept of synchronicity, proposed by Jung is used in therapy by the psychoanalysts of the current jungien (analytical Psychologie). The other schools of psychoanalysis (freudienne, lacannienne, etc) do not recognize relevance with this concept.

Transpersonnelles psychotherapies

The current of the transpersonnelle Psychology, born in the years 1970 in California, near to the concerns of the current Old New original, is marked by the important influence of Jung and attaches a great importance to the synchronicity.

Literature and paranormal

The synchronicity arouses a certain interest in the current which often approaches the topic of the capacities " psi" : Telepathy, the Premonition S, mediumnity, etc The best-seller of James Redfield " the Prophecy of the Andes " and its many continuations is based entirely on the assumption that the synchronicities and coincidences open new spiritual ways and represent a lighting of the destiny. The same applies to the novel the Alchemist, of Paulo Coelho. The observation of the synchronicities is a practice which became common these last years to a certain number of people who are on a way or a spiritual way of conscientisation and stress the attention in the daily life.

Artistic field

In 1983, the rock group The Police left an album entitled Synchronicity; whose song éponyme said: " Effect without because/Sub-atomic laws/scientific pause/Synchronicity"

Critics of the concept

Causality vs. acausality

Causality belongs to the known natural laws, gold, the synchronicity is, by definition, acausale. Its real existence is thus questioned, at least according to a deterministic vision only of the world.

The astrophysicist Hubert Reeves qualifies " risquée" the exploration of the acausality since a “event is known as acausal until one discovered its cause. I.e. its membership in the world of the causes and the effects. ” He concludes then: “The history of sciences it is, ultimately, the list of the causal relations successively discovered between objects apparently without relation. ”

Synchronicity, pseudo-scientist object

A bad use of the statistics

An improbable event statistically has, by definition, only very few chances to occur. But if one analyzes a broad quantity of improbable events, there are all the chances that it can occur one of them (insofar as the quantity of events is inversely proportional to the probability of each event). Coincidences acausales are they also strongly improbable, but because same of the variety and the quantity of these coincidences, the probability that one of it at least occurs is very strong. By extension, it is strongly improbable that never does not appear one of these coincidences .

Richard Feynman quotes one moment when it had a presentiment which his/her grandmother had just died. At this time, the telephone sounds, and it was a call of his/her parents. It enquiert immediately of the health of his/her grandmother: it is that this one went very well. However which thinks of counting the number of coincidences not carried out?

Not-hoped coincidences

Within the framework of the synchronicity, skew is double since the improbable events are not awaited. It is not a question to await a given event but a sign . The reliability of the result thus depends only on the interpretation on the experimenter , which is not acceptable within a scientific framework. Moreover, it is not a question any more of awaiting a strongly improbable event, but of drawing well an event which occurred (a coincidence in the case of the synchronicity) and to note that it was indeed completely improbable. The whole of acceptable coincidences and acausales is extrement broad vis-a-vis the probability of each coincidence. It is thus very probable that one of these events occurs.

Si you will see a gigantic number of places and regard as a proof all it on what you fall, you are sure to discover direction there or there is not pas.

of it -- John Ruscio

to *Voir Paradox of Hempel

In psychology, the process tending to regard as personal choices dictated by a rational attitude what is often the result of coincidence is called the Rationalization . The process to recognize symbols or reasons in random data or without particular direction is called Apophénie .

Umberto Eco scoffed this propensity in the search of coincidences in one at its novels:

Il opened very large and theatrically the leaves, invited us to come to see and showed us, with far, with the angle of the lane and the avenues, a small kiosk of wood where the lottery tickets of Merano were probably sold. “Sirs, says it, I invite you to go to measure this kiosk. You will see that the length of the éventaire is of 149 centimetres, i.e. a hundred-billionth of the distance Ground-Sun. The posterior height divided by the width of the opening makes 176: 56 = 3,14. The former height is of 19 decimetres, i.e. equal to the number of years of the Greek lunar cycle. The sum heights of the two former edges and the two posterior edges makes 190 X 2 + 176 X 2 = 732, which is the date of the victory of Poitiers. The thickness of the éventaire is of 3,10 centimetres and the width of the framing of the opening of 8,8 centimetres. By replacing the integers by the corresponding alphabetical letter, we will have C10H8, who is the formula of naphthaline.

-- Umberto Eco

an illustration interesting probabilistic phenomenon surprising for human psychology is given by the Paradoxe of the birthdays.

On the preliminary need for the spirit: Chinese Room

On waitings of an observer: Theorem of Bayes, Theorem of Cox-Jaynes -->

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