Synchronicities,
a resonance with the unconscious
NOVEMBER 6, 2020 (updated on March 18, 2024)
Table of contents
The first article in this series was about the historical aspect of synchronicity, a term coined by Carl Jung. Here I propose to explore another theme dear to this psychoanalyst: the unconscious. But first, I would like to come back to the characteristics of synchronicity.
Historically, the notion of acausality comes at the top of the list of the elements defining synchronicities. As Jung explains: ” (…) the principle of causality (…) seemed insufficient to shed light on certain remarkable phenomena of unconscious psychology. Indeed, I discovered the existence of parallel psychological phenomena between which it is absolutely impossible to establish a causal relationship but which must be in another order of connections.” [1]
In fact, synchronistic events escape not only the principle of causality but also statistical probabilities and reproducibility. Thus, these rare and unique events escape the very basis of our conception of natural laws, the consensus on which we base our reality, and, ultimately, our science. To the notion of causality as defined by classical determinism, Jung substituted by necessity a principle of similarity of sense.
Sense, cause and information
From acausality…
Therefore, considering synchronicities seems to invite us to change our conception of the world. In other words, the challenge is huge because the omnipotence of causality is so deeply rooted in us that it seems unthinkable that events without a cause could occur. For all that, should think of synchronicities lead us to consider that we live in a universe where sense finally supersedes cause?
There are two ways of looking at this. Either the synchronistic events have a cause, but since this cause is inaccessible, they can only be distinguished by sense. This interpretation favours an information theory, where the absence of a cause would simply amount to an absence of information [2].
Either these events really have no cause. But as the astrophysicist Hubert Reeves explains, it is risky to talk about acausality because:
“An event is said to be acausal until its cause is discovered. In other words, it belongs to the world of cause and effect. (…) The history of science is, ultimately, the list of causal relations discovered successively between apparently unrelated objects.”
HUBERT REEVES [3]
Si l’on se tourne vers les enseignements hermétiques, l’acausalité s’éloigne encore un peu plus… D’après le principe de cause et d’effet « Toute Cause a son Effet ; tout Effet a sa Cause ; tout arrive conformément à la Loi ; le hasard n’est qu’un nom donné à la Loi méconnue ; il y a de nombreux plans de causalité, mais rien n’échappe à la Loi. »
...to the unconscious
This is one of the lessons I can learn from my experience, even though it will probably never be part of the history of science! Indeed, it illustrates the precautions to be taken with acausality. Thus, if the stop of the second hemorrhage had no cause for the medical team, it had a very real cause for me: Madeleine’s intervention and the related synchronicities. An intervention which itself had a cause, to which only we had access at that time: my choice to live. And to say the least, that choice was a senseful one! In the end, the only difference between the medical team and me was the additional information available to me. This brings us back to information theory, in which there is no longer a choice between cause and sense, since the two are not mutually exclusive.
However, appearances are deceiving. Indeed, if one adopts the perspective of a daily life governed by the law of causality and which may appear to be devoid of sense, any acausal and senseful event will be considered to be in opposition to the norm. But even if our law of causality did not apply to this event, would no law of causality be applicable? Let me explain: our law of causality has been established on the basis of events to which our conscience has access. Events that have reached our field of consciousness. And it can only apply to these events. So I’m talking about a causality that would bring into play another level of consciousness than the one from which we interact with reality. A causality that would involve the unconscious.
Synchronicities: an expression of the unconscious
Changing perspective
Including the field of unconscious in the causality equation does not mean that the principle of causality can no longer be applied. This simply means that we cannot observe its implementation within the scope available to us. For if only the effect is accessible, how can a relationship between effect and cause be established?
On the other hand, at the level of the information field of the universe, what would prevent a law of causality from being at work? A law that we would only see applied to the very narrow filter of our field of consciousness?
If this were the case, it would mean that the principle of causality would act all the time and on all levels, but that we would only be able to observe its action on manifest events. That is to say, events that have reached our individual or collective field of consciousness. In this scenario, for the vast majority of us, causality would always take precedence over sense in our interpretation of the world. This is because the level of consciousness from which we interpret the world is mental. It is linear, mechanical, based on the past / present / future sequence and therefore on causality. In other words, this scenario would be very similar to the reality we know! Why, then, dwell on it?
Because it considerably broadens our perspective. Causality, within the mental framework in which we apply it, excludes the field of unconscious. However, the fact that, despite everything, synchronicities do manifest themselves should make us consider taking it into account. We have to consider it because synchronicities do not bring any kind of information: they reveal information that resonates with the field of the conscious mind. That’s why they make sense.
An inaccessible causal plane
Synchronicities give us fleeting access to the field of the unconscious. Precisely, they open consciousness to a resonance with unconscious. From then on, they can fit into the framework of Nassim Haramein‘s theory of the connected universe. That is to say, in the continuous feedback of information between matter and vacuum, between what reaches consciousness and what remains in the field of the unconscious. In turn, the unalterable link between these two fields should lead us to another vision of things. In order to realize that an unconscious cause can have a conscious effect and that a conscious cause can have an unconscious effect.
Nassim Haramein shows that the quantum vacuum – consciousness or energy – is the source of matter. Which teaches us two things. Firstly, there is no separation between vacuum energy and matter. And secondly, there is a causal relationship between the two: without the quantum vacuum, there is no matter. This means that there is a plane of causality that is inaccessible to us, unlike the one that manifests itself at the level of matter itself, the one we experience on a daily basis and on which we base our law of causality. And not only is this causal plane inaccessible to us, but it involves an imperceptible delay to us on our scale between cause and effect. Why? Because the exchange of information between vacuum and matter is at the speed of light!
Synchronicities: an expression of presence
Why is synchronicity so fascinating after all? Because it seems to cancel time by absorbing all our attention in the present moment. It’s spontaneous, unexpected, obvious. It calls us to the unpredictable, it invites us to detach ourselves from the known. Synchronicity is a breakthrough in the thought process, an opportunity to become aware that there is an order of things that escapes us. An unconscious order of things.
Synchronicity is an expression of presence. During a synchronicity, only the senseful event exists. It fills space and time, making it worthless. Timelessness takes its place as a valourer of the temporal dimension, the only one in which synchronicity can be revealed.
To live in synchronicity is to be totally in sync with the time of the life around us. It’s not being late, not being early, not in the past, not in the future, but in the present moment. It is to be in the natural flow of life rather than in the illusion of what is constructed by the mind. It is to be at the center of ourselves and to experience directly what emanates from it. It’s being on a different evolutionary path. A path where the field of application of causality is no longer simply in the domain of the conscious, but also in that of the unconscious.
Synchronicities: an expression of the resonance principle
From the standard model...
Synchronicity gives a glimpse of the connection that exists between all things in the universe, whether conscious or unconscious. It turns out to be in favour of an information theory. It is the expression of a one, senseful world, where events, people and circumstances converge in the present moment. And from this, by resonance effect, a sense results.
Then why isn’t there a science of synchronicity? Clearly, the standard physics framework is not suitable for the study of these non-reproducible events. They’re completely out of it field of investigation. For as the philosopher Michel Bitbol explains:
“The physicist neglects what varies from one moment to another or from one person to another, and only retains what repeats itself (…) he orders this by formal laws and makes part of the world predictable. It pushes sense back into a domain of ideal, mathematical structure (…) The singularity of our lives has no place in [the] thinking [of the physicist] because it escapes it by construction. This is not a defect but a choice of method.”
MICHEL BITBOL [4]
… to the connected universe
But if for the philosopher “the sciences have neither enough to justify nor to discredit synchronicity as a gift of sense that is important for our existence” [5], I see an exception: the physics of Nassim Haramein. It explains and includes synchronicities without even trying to do so. Based on the existence of a universal information field and the resonance principle. Within this field – which is similar to Jung’s collective unconscious – everything is connected, information circulates thanks to a feedback dynamic. They resonate with each other. Not to mention the science of synchronicities, the physicist proposes a model in which they naturally have their place.
In the next article, I invite you to explore the concrete dimension of synchronicities through several examples drawn from my experience.
Key points
- There is a plane of causality that is inaccessible to us: the field of the unconscious.
- Synchronicities are an expression of the unconscious. They reveal information that resonates with the field of consciousness. That’s why they’re as unlikely as they make sense.
- In contrast to standard physics, the unified field theory is suitable for the study of synchronicities because it is based on the resonance of the universal information field.
Notes & references
[1] JUNG Carl Gustav, Ma vie : souvenirs, rêves et pensées, Paris : Gallimard, Collection Folio, 1991, p. 463, free translation
[2] About the relations between causality and information, you can consult the article Reality and quantum physics.
[3] REEVES Hubert. (1990). Incursion dans le monde acausal, In : La Synchronicité, l’âme et la science, H. Reeves, M.Cazenave, P. Solié et al., Editions Séveyrat, p.11, free translation
[4] BITBOL Michel, Synchronicité – Rencontre autour du temps présent, free translation
[5] Ibid.
On the same theme
