Jungian synchronicity

After reading my post on the Fibonacci Series , my friend Matt responded that these coincidences I was experiencing were "purely Jungian synchronicity on perhaps a larger level." Not having read Jung since college, and not familiar with this synchronicity (notice: so very close to symmetry!) I did a few hours of web research.

Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who believed there was a link between the mind, the world of perception, and seemingly unconnected events. He believed that coincidence in life's events are meaningful, filled with signs and connected to the world as a whole. That it's all interrelated, that the universe has a sort of collective unconscious driven by our combined psychic energy.

The example often cited in the literature is a story in which a patient of Jung's was recounting a dream about being given a golden scarab (beetle). Just then appeared a flying beetle at the window which he let in and caught in the air. This coincidence was not lost on Jung.

Here is what I feel is a fair assessment of Jung and related theories, written in prose far greater than I am capable. But predictably, Jung's theory has been debunked to death, in many cases I think a bit too harshly.

Invoked often is apophenia as an explanation to conicidence. Apophenia is basically causality made up "in our minds." In other words, inventing connections between two events when there is none. In any event, I buy most of what Jung says, though let me play the devil's advocate a moment.

There are well over 6 million people on "God's Green Earth". Certainly, a measurable fraction of them encounter lots of daily oddities as I do; some must have extraordinary feats of coincidence. That given, probability predicts an equal number of people who rarely or never experience much coincidence; some who feel assigning a theory to causality to be sheer lunacy. Detractors state there is no scientific evidence for Jung's theories.

Yet a majority of Americans are devoutly religious. There is zero "evidence" that God exists. "Fact" is largely devoid in religion. But believers note their "calling" or a "feeling of a Higher power" inside of them. Loyalty to an unproven ideal. Faith.

I assert that Jung's theories are similar. Nope, I can't yet point to any facts to back me up. But there is a sense inside of me, that the world moves in patterns and that we are individually and collectively contributing. That's faith too.

I also posit this: that those who do not experience ironies just aren't aware of it, or are just ignorant. I think once you are enlightened to the possibilities, once enrolled, you will see them as well.

Just don't drink the Kool Aid.