Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli on "Synchronicity" and "Radioactivity"

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon-Zurich, 12 December 1950

I was very pleased to receive your long letter, not just because it made a lot of things clear but also because it provided me with more food for thought.

Re 2. In my last letter, I suggested that synchronicity should be defined in a narrower sense so as to comprise effects that only appear when there is a
small number of individual cases but disappear when there is a larger number; you, however, have now done the opposite by means of a definition of
synchronicity which, in a broader sense, comprises every acausal and-I should like to add-holistic system.

You do this so that the non-psychic among these systems-namely, the compiled facts of "statistical correspondence" in quantum physics-also come under the same general category.

What has so far prevented me from adopting the broader term is the fear that with the more generally defined term too much might get lost that is specific to psychic and half-psychic synchronicity.

In quantum physics, there are not just effects that appear with large numbers instead of with small ones, and not only is the term "meaning" not the right one here (which you have written about at great length) but also the concept of the (psychic or psychoid) archetype cannot be used so lightly in the acausalities of microphysics.

So if one wishes to use the more extensive definition of synchronicity, then one must deal with the question of which is the more general case that includes as a special case that of the archetype as ordering factor.

In quantum physics, the observer makes a conscious choice (which always implies a sacrifice) between mutually exclusive experimental setups.

Nature replies to this man-made setup in such a way that the result in the individual case cannot be predicted and cannot be influenced by observer; but when this type of experiment is conducted on several occasions there is a reproducible static regularity, which is in itself a holistic orderedness of nature.

The experimental setup forms a whole that cannot be divided up into parts without fundamentally changing and affecting the results so that in nuclear physics the definition of the term “phenomenon” which must also include the particulars of the whole experimental setup in which it occurs.

Thus, the more general question seems to me the one about the different types of holistic, acausal forms of orderedness in nature and the conditions surrounding their occurrence.

This can either be spontaneous or "induced" -i.e., the result of an experiment devised and conducted by human beings.

The latter is also what happens with mantic methods, but the result of the experiment cannot be predicted here (e.g., the throwing of a coin when consulting the oracle); it is just assumed that there is a "connection through equivalence" (meaning) between the result of the physical process and the psychic state of the person conducting the experiment.

In cases of non-psychic acausality, on the other hand, the statistical result as such is reproducible, which is why one can speak here of a "law of probability" instead of an "ordering lactor" (archetype).

Just as the mantic methods point to the archetypal element in the concept of number, the archetypal element in quantum physics is to be found in the (mathematical) concept of probability-i.e., in the actual correspondence between the expected result, worked out with the aid of this concept, and the empirically measured frequencies.

In connection with this, it should be noted that the specialized field "Fundamentals of Mathematics" is in a state of great confusion at the moment as a result of a large-scale undertaking to deal with these question, an endeavor that failed because it was one-sided and divorced from nature.

In this field of research into the fundamentals of mathematics, the "basis of mathematical probability calculus" marks a particular low point.

After reading an article on this subject in a journal, I was dismayed at the difference, of opinion, and later I heard that, whenever possible, experts avoid discussing this subject on the grounds that they now they will not be able to agree!

A psychological approach would be both appropriate and very useful here.

It seems to me absolutely essential that when you talk about physical discontinuities in chap. IV, you should indicate clearly the distinctions of terminology between the non-psychic acausal ordering systems on the one
hand and the half-psychic and psychic synchronicities on the other.

In your letter, you actually promised that you would do this.

Bearing this in mind, I have once again carefully weighed up the pros and cons of the narrower and broader definitions of ‘synchronicity.”

Pure logic gives us a free hand to choose either definition.

In such a cae, the deciding factor is intuition, pointing the way to the future as it does, but his is psychology and the branch of psychology that I am particularly interested in-namely the scientific formation of concepts.

With me, the intuitive function has such a strong tendency toward the apprehension of holistic structures that despite all arguments to the contrary, I find myself leaning toward your broader definition: Given the impossibility of a direct application of the term “archetype” in microphysics, I am more inclined to believe that the present term “archetype” is inadequate rather than that your broader definition is in itself inappropriate.

For since your essay in Eranos Jahrbuch for 1946 [see Letter 37, n.1.], it seems to me that the term "archetype" is going through a phase of great change at the moment, and my intuition leads me to suspect that more changes are in the offing.

What is of consequence here is that several other important changes can be applied in both psychology and physics without that having been specifically so intended: similarity. acausality. ordering. Correspondence, pairs of opposites, and wholeness.

If the decision is now made to adopt the broader interpretation of the counter-principle to causality, then I have no doubt that your new formula of the "world picture quaternio" (p, 4 of your letter [46, par, 5]), which
corresponds to my earlier wishes anyway, is exactly the proper expression.

If you extended chap, IV along these lines, it would be very different and in some respects more than simply a "resume"; it would be a glimpse into the future of natural philosophy.

Re 3. I was a little surprised at the note of resignation in your letter in the way you commented on your sentences referring to radioactivity and field, for there seems to be no objective reason for such resignation.

But in my explanation of my own point of view, I myself must also become psychological, otherwise I shall fail to deal with all the essentials; I am happy to swap roles and expose myself to the full brunt of your criticism.

As regards the "dreamlikeness" of your physical concepts, or your ideas in general, it seems to me that they are only accurate to a certain degree, when you say in your letter that they are based on the absence of abstract-mathematical character and on their "concreteness.”

I know a lot of people (such as chemists and radiologists) who approach physics from the experimental angle, and they all assure me that they have to imagine the physical conceptions "graphically," since the mathematical-formula apparatus is not accessible to them.

With none of them would I speak of the "dreamlikeness” of their concepts but would rather call their images "concretist.”

The "graphicness" of your physical concepts is much more along the lines of an introverted view, which, as part of the picture, involves psychic ground" processes in the subject, which are to be found alongside the conscious use of physical concepts.

It is this, in my opinion, that defines the dreamlike nature of your concepts, which brings out analogies and
differences.

These "background" processes are not usually perceived, but I believe that they are always present in the unconscious.

I myself know them very well from physical" dreams, and that is why I feel that your “physical” concepts are not only interesting but also accessible to meaningful and rational interpretation if they are simply treated as dream symbols.

This is where I want to bring in my idea of a neutral language (which you were kind enough to quote), this language being interpretable both psychologically and physically, so as thus to obtain the "psychological correspondence" of the physical concepts.

In the case of field and radioactivity, which [as I remarked in my last letter] are not compared with each other by physicists in general, you seem to have particular problems, owing to the fact that a difference in the physical
concepts stands in contrast to a similarity in their psychological correspondence.

But I believe this problem is not a serious one and is based on the fact that a crucial element is missing in your statements in the letter on the subject of the psychological correspondence to radioactivity.

In actual fact, the psychological correspondences to field and radioactivity also seem to differ from each other.

Expressed in the neutral language, what the two have in common is the idea of a conveyance of connections between spatial [and maybe temporal], distantly visible manifestations by means of an invisible reality.

Here both visible and invisible are to be understood in the sense of everyday life.

Both electromagnetic fields and the rays emitted by radioactive substances are invisible; it is only their mechanical or chemical effects on material bodies that are visible.

In finding the psychological interpretation of the neutrally formulated idea, one must take into account the fact that illustrative concepts are always based on causal interpretation, even when acausal connections are meant.

Invisible reality can thus be the collective unconscious, visible manifestations can also be conscious concepts [they are "visible" to the subject conceiving], and the causal connection "conveyed" can be a synchronistic one.

As we now move on to the concept of radioactivity, we are struck forcibly by the process of chemical transmutation of the radioactive nucleus as the feature that distinguishes radioactivity from the {static} field theory.

The nucleus is the center of the atom; the radioactive rays generally produce new radioactive centers where they encounter matter.

So let us test the following expression for "radioactivity" in the neutral language: A process of transmutation of an active center, ultimately leading to a stable state, is accompanied by self-duplicating {"multiplying"} and expanding phenomena, associated with further transmutations that are brought about through an invisible reality.

And now one does not have to look far for the psychological interpretation of this neutral expression.

The ‘active nucleus,” familiar to me as a dream symbol, has a close relationship to the lapis of the alchemists, and thus in your terminology is a symbol of the “Self.”

The transformation process as a psychic process is still the same today as that represented in the alchemical opus and consists of the transition of the “Self” into a more conscious state.

This process (at certain stages at least) is accompanied by the “multiplication” – i.e., by multiple outward manifestation of an archetype (this being the “invisible reality”), which again is the same as the “breaking of barriers through contingency” or “transgressivity” of the archetype type that you talk about in your letter.
The transformation process is the missing item in your letter when you talk of the psychological correspondence to radioactivity.

The psychic process is the same as with the alchemists, but in the physical process of radioactivity not only has the transmutation of the chemical element become reality, but acausality has now appeared on the scene in our conscious scientific ideas.

This symbolism, in contrast to that of the alchemists, seems to be more differentiated and more highly developed.

Whether or not you delete or elucidate the sentences on pages 9 and 10 of your work is a purely technical
question; an explanation might become too long-winded.·

Re 4. What you say about the "relativity of mass' and the PK experiments still seems to me very obscure, but perhaps that is all we can say about it at the moment, given the current level of our knowledge.

With the prefigured image of the test person, I actually did not mean a conscious conception but an unconscious prefigured image, operating from the unconscious.

As to your "quick" question about the positive result of the Rhine experiments when large numbers of dice are involved, I cannot come up with an answer.

I am very happy about this correspondence, for I now have the feeling that there is a real exchange of views on both sides about all these borderline problems.

Enclosed please find McConnell's work.

Please let me know when you need your manuscript back.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely, W P. ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 63-67


Dear Professor, 23 January 1951

I am particularly indebted to you for having given me new heart.

When I enter the sphere of physical or mathematical thinking sensu strictiori, I lose all understanding of what the term synchronicity means; I feel as though I am groping my way through dense fog.

This feeling is obviously due to the fact that I do not understand the mathematical or physical implications of the word, which you certainly do.

I could imagine that, for similar reasons, the psychological aspect seems unclear to you.

As regards the narrower and broader meaning of the term synchronicity, which you have explained so clearly, it seems to me as “synchronicity” in the narrower sense is characterized not just by the aspect of the archetypal situation but also by acausality.

The archetype certainly characterizes the psychic and half-psychic: “Synchronicity” cases, but I wonder whether the "anomaly" of the so-called causal law-namely, acausality-is not a more general characteristic and "super ordinated" condition than the archetypal basis that can be traced in psychic and half-psychic “Synchronicity” cases.

The latter can only be ascertained as present through introspection but remains hidden to the outsider as long as I do not inform him of my observation.

If I keep my observations to myself, the former can only ascertain an acausal "so-ness” ["So-sein"]. especially in those cases where the archetypal tertium comparationis is not obvious (as in the case of the scarab, for example).

Like the time when I was working on the psychology of "Das Wandlungssymbol in der Messe [Transformation Symbol in the Mass) ," approaching it from the angle of alchemy, it happened that a serpent tried to swallow a fish that was too large for it and consequently choked.

Fish is the other Eucharistic food, and in this case it is seized not by the person but by the chthonic spirit, the mercurial serpent.

(Fish = Christ. Serpent = Christ and the feminine darkness principle.)

At the time, I was the observer on the outside whho could only see the coincidence but not the common archytypal basis; i.e., I did not understand how the serpent corresponded to the Mass.

But I did feel very strongly that the case was one of meaningful coincidence-i.e., not just an irrelevant “so-ness” situation.

In this case, the only distinguishing feature is the presence of acausality, and in such situations and similar ones it is precisely this that has given me the idea of acausality is the more general definition, whereas the archetype is a characteristic that can be perceived occasionally where, almost by chance, an insight is possible.

Now if there are “nontransparent” cases of synchronicity even in the psychic sphere, then they are even likelier in the half-psychic or physical sphere.

In other words, what should emerge is that the general case is the acausal “so-ness” one, whereas “Synchronicity” is the causus particularis of a transparent “so-ness” situation.

But I can tum the argument around and say: Introspection teaches me that the archetype is characteristic of “Synchronicity” i.e., I is that special case of acausality in which the archetype can be perceived as the (transcendental) basis.

This perception is possible because the acausal case occurs (by chance) in the psychic sphere, where something can be perceived from inside through introspection; in the half-psychic, this is less possible and not at all in the
physical one.

With the merely psychoid (transcendental) nature of the archetype, its purely physical occurrence is by no means precluded.

It can thus be both the basis of the purely psychic and half-psychic synchronicity as well as physical acausality in general.

The old precept of the croatio continua and the correspondentia was applied to nature as a whole and Dot just
the psyche.

I fully agree with you that the synchronicity of the psychic sphere must be conceptually separated from the discontinuities of microphysics.

But this leaves open the question of whether one should subsume the facts of psychic “Synchronicity” i.e., the archetypal characteristic-to a general causality or subsume the latter to the universal validity of the archetype.

In the latter case, this would give rise to a Platonic world-picture with a mundus archetypus as its model: In the former, the I would appear with its archetypal characteristic as a psychic "anomaly" of general causality, just as acausality would need to be its physical anomaly.

Your idea that the probability concept in mathematics corresponds to the archetype was most illuminating.

In fact, the archetype represents nothing else but the probability of psychic events.

To a certain extent, it is the symbolically anticipated result of a psychic statistic.

This can probably be best seen in the tendency of the archetype to keep producing and confirming itself (cf. the reinstatement of a Goddess in Christian Olympus).

I am, of course, very pleased that you have indicated your inclination to consider seriously the extension of the “Synchronicity” theory.

Under these circumstances, you are fully justified in demanding a new interpretation of the term archetype.

It seems to me that the way to achieve this is via the analogy archetype-probability.

In physical terms, probability corresponds to the so-called law of nature; psychically, it corresponds to the archetype.

Law and archetype are both modi and abstract ideal cases that occur only in modified form in empirical reality.

My definition of the archetype as “pattern of behavior” accords with this interpretation.

But whereas in the sciences the law appears exclusively as abstraction derived from experience, in psychology
we encounter an a priori existing image, already complete as far as can be judged; this image occurs spontaneously, in dreams, for example, and possesses an autonomous numinosity, as if Someone had stated in advance with great authority: "What is coming now is of great significance."

This strikes me as being in sharp contrast to the a posteriori character of the law of nature.

If that were not so, one would have to assume that the image-for example, of radioactivity-had always been present and that the real discovery of radioactivity (in this case) would simply be this particular image becoming
conscious.

The way you deal with the image of the lapis raises the question for me of whether ultimately the symbols accompanying the lapis, such as the multiplicatio, do not indicate a transcendental basis common to both the physical and the psychic.

So although everything seems to indicate that radioactivity and its laws are something perceived a posteriori, it is nevertheless fundamentally impossible to prove that the law of nature is actually based on something toto coelo different from what we in psychology call archetype.

For in the end the law of nature, irrespective of its obviously empirical derivation, is always a psychic form as well, and nolens volens also has its origins in psychic premises.

Under these conditions, the analogy between the archetype and the constellation effects it radiates on the one hand, and the way the active nucleus affects its surroundings on the other, mean rather more than a simple metaphor, and the psychic transformation process would be, as you point out, the actual correspondence to radioactivity.

I shall now set about extending my manuscript along the lines of what we have agreed on and hope that I succeed in expressing myself clearly.

I shall close by once again expressing my thanks for the friendly and helpful interest you have shown,

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely, C.G.

~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 68-70

Carl Jung on "Synchronicity" and the Half-Life of Radium

Dear Professor, Bollingen 30 Nov 1950

Many thanks for your kind letter and for the time and trouble you have taken with my manuscript.

Your opinions are very important to me, not just in the material itself but also in the light of our different points of view.

Re 1. In reply to your question about any possible "negative" synchronistic effect, I can state that RHINE gives a series of examples in which the initially
positive number of hits is strikingly reversed.

I can well imagine that similar things happen in astrological-experiment setups.

But given the complexity of the situation, they are much more difficult to ascertain, for I am the test person whose interest would need to tum into resistance.

For this purpose, I would need to collect and work on a few hundred horoscopes i.e., until I was absolutely fed up with the whole thing.

Only then could one expect negative results.

Re 2 . What you so fittingly describe as “statistical correspondence" characterizes radioactivity, for example, but not, as you correctly say, synchronicity;
in the former case, the regularity of the half-life period can be ascertained only when there is a large number of individual cases, whereas in the latter the synchronistic effect is there only with a small number and disappears when there is a larger number.

There is in fact no connection between the phenomenon of the half-life period and synchronicity.

If I do bring the two together, then it is on the basis of another analogy which seems to me crucial: Synchronicity could be understood as an ordering system by means of which "similar" things coincide, without there being any apparent "cause."

I now wonder whether it is not so that every state of being that has no conceivable cause (and thus no potentially ascertainable one) falls into the category of synchronicity.

In other words, I see no reason why synchronicity should always just be a coincidence of two psychic states or a psychic state and a non-psychic event.

There may also possibly be coincidences of this kind between non psychic events.

One such case might be the phenomenon of the half-life period.

For the connection of psychic states to each other or to non-psychic events, I use the term "meaning" as a psychically appropriate paraphrasing of the term "similarity." In the coincidences of non-psychic events, one would naturally use the latter term.

[A quick question: could a possible factor here be the odd result in Rhine's dice experiment: which showed that with a small number of dice the results are
bad, whereas with a larger number [20-40] they are positive?

A purely synchronistic effect would be just as conceivable with a small number of dice as with a larger one.

But doesn't the positive result with a larger number indicate an additional synchronistic factor between the dice themselves?

Might there not be a similar harmony with a large number of radium atoms that would not be there with a smaller number?]

Insofar as for me synchronicity represents first and foremost a simple state of being, I am inclined to subsume any instance of causally non-conceivable
states of being into the category of synchronicity.

The psychic and half-psychic cases of synchronicity would be the one subcategory, the non psychic ones the other.

Insofar as physical discontinuities prove to be causally no further irreducible, they represent a "so-ness" ["So-sein"] or a unique ordering factor or a "creative act," just as well as any case of synchronicity.

I fully agree with you that these "effects" are on various levels, and conceptual distinctions should be made between them.

I just wanted to outline the general picture of synchronicity.

As for the world-picture quaternio, our differences of opinion seem to stem from the different nature of our approaches (which I referred to at the beginning).

The "dreamlike nature" of my physical concepts is based essentially on the fact that they are purely illustrative, whereas in your case they have an abstract-mathematical character.

Modem physics, having advanced into another world beyond conceivability, cannot dispense with the concept of a space-time continuum.

Insofar as psychology penetrates into the unconscious, it probably has no alternative but to acknowledge the "indistinctness” or the impossibility of distinguishing between time and space, as well as their psychic relativity.

The world of classical physics has not ceased to exist, and by the same token, the world of consciousness has not lost its validity against the unconscious.

Spatial and temporal definitions of measurement are different, even thugh they can both be applied to phenomena.

Meter and liter are, and will continue to be, incommensurable terms, and no schoolboy would ever say that a lesson lasts for 10 km.

And so space and time are also visual notions that are eternally separate and antithetical in a visual image of the world in spite of its background identity.

Equally, causality is a credible hypothesis because it can be constantly verified.

Nevertheless, the world abounds in “coincidences,” but this proves that it would virtually take laboratories to demonstrate effectively the necessary connection between cause and effect.

“Causality” is a psychologem (and originally a magic virtua) that formulates the connection between events and illustrates them as cause and effect.

Another (incommensurable) approach that does the same thing in a different way is synchronicity.

Both are identical in the higher sense of the term "connection" or "attachment."

But on an empirical and practical level (i.e., in the real world), they are incommensurable and antithetical, like space and time.

Your compromise proposal is most welcome, for it makes the bold attempt to transcend descriptivism and to extend the concrete world-picture by the one beneath the surface; in other words, it is not just on the surface
like my schema.

Your proposal really set my mind working, and I regard it as perfectly suitable for a more complete world-picture.

You have replaced the space-time connection by energy conservation and space-time continuum, and I would now like to propose that instead of "causality" we have "(relatively) constant connection through effect: and instead of synchronicity we have (relatively) constant connection through contingency, equivalence, or "meaning"-i.e., the following quaternio:

Whereas my original schema seems to formulate the world of consciousness quite adequately, this second one satisfies the- requirements of modem physics on the one hand and those of the psychology of the unconscious
on the other hand.

The mundus archetypus of the latter is characterized essentially through the contingence of the archetypes, which causes their indistinctness and also their inability to be localized.

(The archetypes are always “breaking barriers,” meaning that they disturb the sphere of influence of a definite causal agent by-thanks to the autonomy of their (noncausal) connections-assigning contingent factors to a specific causal process.)

Re 3-1 shall probably have to delete the sentence on p. 9 (and p. 10) on radioactivity and field, because I cannot explain it properly.

I would really need to have a good knowledge of physics, which is unfortunately not the case. I can only suggest that although ray energy and field voltage seem to be incommensurable in physical terms, they have, in psychological term an equivalence to the "breaking of barriers" by means of contingence with the archetypes, or they form their physical equivalence.

Perhaps I don't know enough about psychology either to be able to develop these ideas further.

Re 4. The psychic "relativity of mass" is actually a logical outcome of the psychic relativity of time and space, insofar as mass cannot be defined without a concept of space and, when it is moved, not without a concept of time.

If these two concepts are elastic, then mass is undefinable-that is, psychically relative; one could just as well say that mass behaves arbitrarily-that it is contingent with the psychic state.

Nothing is known about any prefigured notions on the part of the test person.

My experience has shown that there aren't any.

If there were, they would only disturb the experiment in my View.

The concept of the relativity of mass does not actually explain anything and neither does the relativity of time and space.

It is simply a formulation.

There is no way of seeing how the term "relativity of mass” can be explained more precisely.

Within the randomness of the throwing of the dice, a "psychic” orderedness comes into being.

Is this modification based on whether the dice are heavier or lighter, or whether their speed is accelerated
or slowed down?

The boundaries of probability are overstepped by mass (i.e., the dice) in exactly the same way as the "knowledge" of the test person acquires improbability.

I seek the explanation for this in the singular nature of the archetype, which sometimes cancels out the constancy of the causal principle and assimilates a physical and a psychic process through contingency.

This synchronistic event can be described as a characteristic of the psyche or mass.

In the former case, the psyche would cast a spell on mass, and in the latter mass would bewitch the psyche.

It is thus more probable that both have the same characteristic, that both are basically contingent and, heedless of their own causal definitions, actually overlap.

A further possibility is that neither mass nor the psyche possesses such a characteristic but that a third factor is present to which it must be attributed, a factor that can be observed in the sphere of the psyche and can be observed from there-namely, the (psychoid) archetype which, thanks to its habitual indistinctness and “transgressivity,” assimilates into each other two incommensurable causal processes (in a so-called numinous moment), creates a joint field of tension (?) or makes them both “radioactive” (?).

I hope I have managed to make myself clear.

Once again, many thanks for your stimulating criticism.

Yours sincerely,

CGJ ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 59-63

Synchronous & Numinous Event Is Integrated with Meaning

Synchronous & Numinous Event Is Integrated with Meaning

Carl Jung's Aion as an Astrological Treatise or proof of a Synchronistic event.

Jung's book Aion (1951) can, depending on one's standpoint, be regarded either as an astrological treatise or as the proof of a synchronistic phenomenon of cosmic proportions.

It is, in part, an account of the meaningful coincidence of the Platonic month of Pisces-which started two thousand years ago with the birth of Christ and, as we have said, is now passing into the Platonic month of Aquarius-with the spiritual development of Christianity during this period.
The fish is an old symbol for Christ.

The parallelism between the cosmic event-the progression of the spring-point through the double sign of the Fishes-and the spiritual and historical events is exceedingly impressive.

The turn of the first millennium, just about the time when the spring-point reached the beginning of the second Fish, witnessed the rise of the heretical movements that compensated and also undermined Christianity-the Cathars, Waldenses, Albigenses, the Holy Ghost Movement of Joachim of Flora, and other sects.

Although the year 1000 did not mark the expected end of the world, it secretly initiated the "kingdom of the second Fish" -traditionally interpreted as the age of Antichrist-whose culmination, no one will deny, we are experiencing in the present century. ~Aniela Jaffe, Jung’s Last Years, Page 33

Carl Jung: Synchronicity is indeed a difficult and involved problem.

Prof. J. B. Rhine July 26, 1954
Parapsychological Laboratory
College Station
Durham, N. C.

Dear Professor Rhine,

Thank you for your kind letter!

Synchronicity is indeed a difficult and involved problem.

The translation of my book into English is finished and the printing must be on the way, so that you will have a chance to read it rather soon.

I must warn you though that in spite of all sorts of alterations I have made, it is still a difficult book that appeals chiefly to the thinking function as it consists in its main substance of the description of a point of view rather unfamiliar to our epoch.

Certain main points of my book have not been understood at all, but that is what I have always seen with my books: I just have to wait for about 10 or 20 years until certain readers appear understanding what my thought is.

That sounds most arrogant, and everybody is free to think that I am writing a particularly unclear and obscure style.

The writer himself has to suspend his own judgment.

As far as I can see, my book has not had any noticeable effect yet, with the exception of Prof. Bender's experiments.

I have seen him recently, and he told me that he pursues his experiments with success.

My best wishes to you; I always remember our rather noisy lunch at the Ambassador's.

We must give up at the outset 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 so far as all observations are ultimately based upon bodies in motion. (Jung, CW 9, para. 836) ~Carl Jung, Rhine-Jung Letters, Page 5

Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli on "Synchronicity" and "Radioactivity"

Dear Professor Jung, Zollikon-Zurich, 12 December 1950

I was very pleased to receive your long letter, not just because it made a lot of things clear but also because it provided me with more food for thought.

Re 2. In my last letter, I suggested that synchronicity should be defined in a narrower sense so as to comprise effects that only appear when there is a
small number of individual cases but disappear when there is a larger number; you, however, have now done the opposite by means of a definition of
synchronicity which, in a broader sense, comprises every acausal and-I should like to add-holistic system.

You do this so that the non-psychic among these systems-namely, the compiled facts of "statistical correspondence" in quantum physics-also come under the same general category.

What has so far prevented me from adopting the broader term is the fear that with the more generally defined term too much might get lost that is specific to psychic and half-psychic synchronicity.

In quantum physics, there are not just effects that appear with large numbers instead of with small ones, and not only is the term "meaning" not the right one here (which you have written about at great length) but also the concept of the (psychic or psychoid) archetype cannot be used so lightly in the acausalities of microphysics.

So if one wishes to use the more extensive definition of synchronicity, then one must deal with the question of which is the more general case that includes as a special case that of the archetype as ordering factor.

In quantum physics, the observer makes a conscious choice (which always implies a sacrifice) between mutually exclusive experimental setups.

Nature replies to this man-made setup in such a way that the result in the individual case cannot be predicted and cannot be influenced by observer; but when this type of experiment is conducted on several occasions there is a reproducible static regularity, which is in itself a holistic orderedness of nature.

The experimental setup forms a whole that cannot be divided up into parts without fundamentally changing and affecting the results so that in nuclear physics the definition of the term “phenomenon” which must also include the particulars of the whole experimental setup in which it occurs.

Thus, the more general question seems to me the one about the different types of holistic, acausal forms of orderedness in nature and the conditions surrounding their occurrence.

This can either be spontaneous or "induced" -i.e., the result of an experiment devised and conducted by human beings.

The latter is also what happens with mantic methods, but the result of the experiment cannot be predicted here (e.g., the throwing of a coin when consulting the oracle); it is just assumed that there is a "connection through equivalence" (meaning) between the result of the physical process and the psychic state of the person conducting the experiment.

In cases of non-psychic acausality, on the other hand, the statistical result as such is reproducible, which is why one can speak here of a "law of probability" instead of an "ordering lactor" (archetype).

Just as the mantic methods point to the archetypal element in the concept of number, the archetypal element in quantum physics is to be found in the (mathematical) concept of probability-i.e., in the actual correspondence between the expected result, worked out with the aid of this concept, and the empirically measured frequencies.

In connection with this, it should be noted that the specialized field "Fundamentals of Mathematics" is in a state of great confusion at the moment as a result of a large-scale undertaking to deal with these question, an endeavor that failed because it was one-sided and divorced from nature.

In this field of research into the fundamentals of mathematics, the "basis of mathematical probability calculus" marks a particular low point.

After reading an article on this subject in a journal, I was dismayed at the difference, of opinion, and later I heard that, whenever possible, experts avoid discussing this subject on the grounds that they now they will not be able to agree!

A psychological approach would be both appropriate and very useful here.

It seems to me absolutely essential that when you talk about physical discontinuities in chap. IV, you should indicate clearly the distinctions of terminology between the non-psychic acausal ordering systems on the one
hand and the half-psychic and psychic synchronicities on the other.

In your letter, you actually promised that you would do this.

Bearing this in mind, I have once again carefully weighed up the pros and cons of the narrower and broader definitions of ‘synchronicity.”

Pure logic gives us a free hand to choose either definition.

In such a cae, the deciding factor is intuition, pointing the way to the future as it does, but his is psychology and the branch of psychology that I am particularly interested in-namely the scientific formation of concepts.

With me, the intuitive function has such a strong tendency toward the apprehension of holistic structures that despite all arguments to the contrary, I find myself leaning toward your broader definition: Given the impossibility of a direct application of the term “archetype” in microphysics, I am more inclined to believe that the present term “archetype” is inadequate rather than that your broader definition is in itself inappropriate.

For since your essay in Eranos Jahrbuch for 1946 [see Letter 37, n.1.], it seems to me that the term "archetype" is going through a phase of great change at the moment, and my intuition leads me to suspect that more changes are in the offing.

What is of consequence here is that several other important changes can be applied in both psychology and physics without that having been specifically so intended: similarity. acausality. ordering. Correspondence, pairs of opposites, and wholeness.

If the decision is now made to adopt the broader interpretation of the counter-principle to causality, then I have no doubt that your new formula of the "world picture quaternio" (p, 4 of your letter [46, par, 5]), which
corresponds to my earlier wishes anyway, is exactly the proper expression.

If you extended chap, IV along these lines, it would be very different and in some respects more than simply a "resume"; it would be a glimpse into the future of natural philosophy.

Re 3. I was a little surprised at the note of resignation in your letter in the way you commented on your sentences referring to radioactivity and field, for there seems to be no objective reason for such resignation.

But in my explanation of my own point of view, I myself must also become psychological, otherwise I shall fail to deal with all the essentials; I am happy to swap roles and expose myself to the full brunt of your criticism.

As regards the "dreamlikeness" of your physical concepts, or your ideas in general, it seems to me that they are only accurate to a certain degree, when you say in your letter that they are based on the absence of abstract-mathematical character and on their "concreteness.”

I know a lot of people (such as chemists and radiologists) who approach physics from the experimental angle, and they all assure me that they have to imagine the physical conceptions "graphically," since the mathematical-formula apparatus is not accessible to them.

With none of them would I speak of the "dreamlikeness” of their concepts but would rather call their images "concretist.”

The "graphicness" of your physical concepts is much more along the lines of an introverted view, which, as part of the picture, involves psychic ground" processes in the subject, which are to be found alongside the conscious use of physical concepts.

It is this, in my opinion, that defines the dreamlike nature of your concepts, which brings out analogies and
differences.

These "background" processes are not usually perceived, but I believe that they are always present in the unconscious.

I myself know them very well from physical" dreams, and that is why I feel that your “physical” concepts are not only interesting but also accessible to meaningful and rational interpretation if they are simply treated as dream symbols.

This is where I want to bring in my idea of a neutral language (which you were kind enough to quote), this language being interpretable both psychologically and physically, so as thus to obtain the "psychological correspondence" of the physical concepts.

In the case of field and radioactivity, which [as I remarked in my last letter] are not compared with each other by physicists in general, you seem to have particular problems, owing to the fact that a difference in the physical
concepts stands in contrast to a similarity in their psychological correspondence.

But I believe this problem is not a serious one and is based on the fact that a crucial element is missing in your statements in the letter on the subject of the psychological correspondence to radioactivity.

In actual fact, the psychological correspondences to field and radioactivity also seem to differ from each other.

Expressed in the neutral language, what the two have in common is the idea of a conveyance of connections between spatial [and maybe temporal], distantly visible manifestations by means of an invisible reality.

Here both visible and invisible are to be understood in the sense of everyday life.

Both electromagnetic fields and the rays emitted by radioactive substances are invisible; it is only their mechanical or chemical effects on material bodies that are visible.

In finding the psychological interpretation of the neutrally formulated idea, one must take into account the fact that illustrative concepts are always based on causal interpretation, even when acausal connections are meant.

Invisible reality can thus be the collective unconscious, visible manifestations can also be conscious concepts [they are "visible" to the subject conceiving], and the causal connection "conveyed" can be a synchronistic one.

As we now move on to the concept of radioactivity, we are struck forcibly by the process of chemical transmutation of the radioactive nucleus as the feature that distinguishes radioactivity from the {static} field theory.

The nucleus is the center of the atom; the radioactive rays generally produce new radioactive centers where they encounter matter.

So let us test the following expression for "radioactivity" in the neutral language: A process of transmutation of an active center, ultimately leading to a stable state, is accompanied by self-duplicating {"multiplying"} and expanding phenomena, associated with further transmutations that are brought about through an invisible reality.

And now one does not have to look far for the psychological interpretation of this neutral expression.

The ‘active nucleus,” familiar to me as a dream symbol, has a close relationship to the lapis of the alchemists, and thus in your terminology is a symbol of the “Self.”

The transformation process as a psychic process is still the same today as that represented in the alchemical opus and consists of the transition of the “Self” into a more conscious state.

This process (at certain stages at least) is accompanied by the “multiplication” – i.e., by multiple outward manifestation of an archetype (this being the “invisible reality”), which again is the same as the “breaking of barriers through contingency” or “transgressivity” of the archetype type that you talk about in your letter.
The transformation process is the missing item in your letter when you talk of the psychological correspondence to radioactivity.

The psychic process is the same as with the alchemists, but in the physical process of radioactivity not only has the transmutation of the chemical element become reality, but acausality has now appeared on the scene in our conscious scientific ideas.

This symbolism, in contrast to that of the alchemists, seems to be more differentiated and more highly developed.

Whether or not you delete or elucidate the sentences on pages 9 and 10 of your work is a purely technical
question; an explanation might become too long-winded.·

Re 4. What you say about the "relativity of mass' and the PK experiments still seems to me very obscure, but perhaps that is all we can say about it at the moment, given the current level of our knowledge.

With the prefigured image of the test person, I actually did not mean a conscious conception but an unconscious prefigured image, operating from the unconscious.

As to your "quick" question about the positive result of the Rhine experiments when large numbers of dice are involved, I cannot come up with an answer.

I am very happy about this correspondence, for I now have the feeling that there is a real exchange of views on both sides about all these borderline problems.

Enclosed please find McConnell's work.

Please let me know when you need your manuscript back.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely, W P. ~Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype, Pages 63-67


Dear Professor, 23 January 1951

I am particularly indebted to you for having given me new heart.

When I enter the sphere of physical or mathematical thinking sensu strictiori, I lose all understanding of what the term synchronicity means; I feel as though I am groping my way through dense fog.

This feeling is obviously due to the fact that I do not understand the mathematical or physical implications of the word, which you certainly do.

I could imagine that, for similar reasons, the psychological aspect seems unclear to you.

As regards the narrower and broader meaning of the term synchronicity, which you have explained so clearly, it seems to me as “synchronicity” in the narrower sense is characterized not just by the aspect of the archetypal situation but also by acausality.

The archetype certainly characterizes the psychic and half-psychic: “Synchronicity” cases, but I wonder whether the "anomaly" of the so-called causal law-namely, acausality-is not a more general characteristic and "super ordinated" condition than the archetypal basis that can be traced in psychic and half-psychic “Synchronicity” cases.

The latter can only be ascertained as present through introspection but remains hidden to the outsider as long as I do not inform him of my observation.

If I keep my observations to myself, the former can only ascertain an acausal "so-ness” ["So-sein"]. especially in those cases where the archetypal tertium comparationis is not obvious (as in the case of the scarab, for example).

Like the time when I was working on the psychology of "Das Wandlungssymbol in der Messe [Transformation Symbol in the Mass) ," approaching it from the angle of alchemy, it happened that a serpent tried to swallow a fish that was too large for it and consequently choked.

Fish is the other Eucharistic food, and in this case it is seized not by the person but by the chthonic spirit, the mercurial serpent.

(Fish = Christ. Serpent = Christ and the feminine darkness principle.)

At the time, I was the observer on the outside whho could only see the coincidence but not the common archytypal basis; i.e., I did not understand how the serpent corresponded to the Mass.

But I did feel very strongly that the case was one of meaningful coincidence-i.e., not just an irrelevant “so-ness” situation.

In this case, the only distinguishing feature is the presence of acausality, and in such situations and similar ones it is precisely this that has given me the idea of acausality is the more general definition, whereas the archetype is a characteristic that can be perceived occasionally where, almost by chance, an insight is possible.

Now if there are “nontransparent” cases of synchronicity even in the psychic sphere, then they are even likelier in the half-psychic or physical sphere.

In other words, what should emerge is that the general case is the acausal “so-ness” one, whereas “Synchronicity” is the causus particularis of a transparent “so-ness” situation.

But I can tum the argument around and say: Introspection teaches me that the archetype is characteristic of “Synchronicity” i.e., I is that special case of acausality in which the archetype can be perceived as the (transcendental) basis.

This perception is possible because the acausal case occurs (by chance) in the psychic sphere, where something can be perceived from inside through introspection; in the half-psychic, this is less possible and not at all in the
physical one.

With the merely psychoid (transcendental) nature of the archetype, its purely physical occurrence is by no means precluded.

It can thus be both the basis of the purely psychic and half-psychic synchronicity as well as physical acausality in general.

The old precept of the croatio continua and the correspondentia was applied to nature as a whole and Dot just
the psyche.

I fully agree with you that the synchronicity of the psychic sphere must be conceptually separated from the discontinuities of microphysics.

But this leaves open the question of whether one should subsume the facts of psychic “Synchronicity” i.e., the archetypal characteristic-to a general causality or subsume the latter to the universal validity of the archetype.

In the latter case, this would give rise to a Platonic world-picture with a mundus archetypus as its model: In the former, the I would appear with its archetypal characteristic as a psychic "anomaly" of general causality, just as acausality would need to be its physical anomaly.

Your idea that the probability concept in mathematics corresponds to the archetype was most illuminating.

In fact, the archetype represents nothing else but the probability of psychic events.

To a certain extent, it is the symbolically anticipated result of a psychic statistic.

This can probably be best seen in the tendency of the archetype to keep producing and confirming itself (cf. the reinstatement of a Goddess in Christian Olympus).

I am, of course, very pleased that you have indicated your inclination to consider seriously the extension of the “Synchronicity” theory.

Under these circumstances, you are fully justified in demanding a new interpretation of the term archetype.

It seems to me that the way to achieve this is via the analogy archetype-probability.

In physical terms, probability corresponds to the so-called law of nature; psychically, it corresponds to the archetype.

Law and archetype are both modi and abstract ideal cases that occur only in modified form in empirical reality.

My definition of the archetype as “pattern of behavior” accords with this interpretation.

But whereas in the sciences the law appears exclusively as abstraction derived from experience, in psychology
we encounter an a priori existing image, already complete as far as can be judged; this image occurs spontaneously, in dreams, for example, and possesses an autonomous numinosity, as if Someone had stated in advance with great authority: "What is coming now is of great significance."

This strikes me as being in sharp contrast to the a posteriori character of the law of nature.

If that were not so, one would have to assume that the image-for example, of radioactivity-had always been present and that the real discovery of radioactivity (in this case) would simply be this particular image becoming
conscious.

The way you deal with the image of the lapis raises the question for me of whether ultimately the symbols accompanying the lapis, such as the multiplicatio, do not indicate a transcendental basis common to both the physical and the psychic.

So although everything seems to indicate that radioactivity and its laws are something perceived a posteriori, it is nevertheless fundamentally impossible to prove that the law of nature is actually based on something toto coelo different from what we in psychology call archetype.

For in the end the law of nature, irrespective of its obviously empirical derivation, is always a psychic form as well, and nolens volens also has its origins in psychic premises.

Under these conditions, the analogy between the archetype and the constellation effects it radiates on the one hand, and the way the active nucleus affects its surroundings on the other, mean rather more than a simple metaphor, and the psychic transformation process would be, as you point out, the actual correspondence to radioactivity.

I shall now set about extending my manuscript along the lines of what we have agreed on and hope that I succeed in expressing myself clearly.

I shall close by once again expressing my thanks for the friendly and helpful interest you have shown,

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely, C.G.

~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 68-70

Carl Jung on "Synchronicity" and the Half-Life of Radium

Dear Professor, Bollingen 30 Nov 1950

Many thanks for your kind letter and for the time and trouble you have taken with my manuscript.

Your opinions are very important to me, not just in the material itself but also in the light of our different points of view.

Re 1. In reply to your question about any possible "negative" synchronistic effect, I can state that RHINE gives a series of examples in which the initially
positive number of hits is strikingly reversed.

I can well imagine that similar things happen in astrological-experiment setups.

But given the complexity of the situation, they are much more difficult to ascertain, for I am the test person whose interest would need to tum into resistance.

For this purpose, I would need to collect and work on a few hundred horoscopes i.e., until I was absolutely fed up with the whole thing.

Only then could one expect negative results.

Re 2 . What you so fittingly describe as “statistical correspondence" characterizes radioactivity, for example, but not, as you correctly say, synchronicity;
in the former case, the regularity of the half-life period can be ascertained only when there is a large number of individual cases, whereas in the latter the synchronistic effect is there only with a small number and disappears when there is a larger number.

There is in fact no connection between the phenomenon of the half-life period and synchronicity.

If I do bring the two together, then it is on the basis of another analogy which seems to me crucial: Synchronicity could be understood as an ordering system by means of which "similar" things coincide, without there being any apparent "cause."

I now wonder whether it is not so that every state of being that has no conceivable cause (and thus no potentially ascertainable one) falls into the category of synchronicity.

In other words, I see no reason why synchronicity should always just be a coincidence of two psychic states or a psychic state and a non-psychic event.

There may also possibly be coincidences of this kind between non psychic events.

One such case might be the phenomenon of the half-life period.

For the connection of psychic states to each other or to non-psychic events, I use the term "meaning" as a psychically appropriate paraphrasing of the term "similarity." In the coincidences of non-psychic events, one would naturally use the latter term.

[A quick question: could a possible factor here be the odd result in Rhine's dice experiment: which showed that with a small number of dice the results are
bad, whereas with a larger number [20-40] they are positive?

A purely synchronistic effect would be just as conceivable with a small number of dice as with a larger one.

But doesn't the positive result with a larger number indicate an additional synchronistic factor between the dice themselves?

Might there not be a similar harmony with a large number of radium atoms that would not be there with a smaller number?]

Insofar as for me synchronicity represents first and foremost a simple state of being, I am inclined to subsume any instance of causally non-conceivable
states of being into the category of synchronicity.

The psychic and half-psychic cases of synchronicity would be the one subcategory, the non psychic ones the other.

Insofar as physical discontinuities prove to be causally no further irreducible, they represent a "so-ness" ["So-sein"] or a unique ordering factor or a "creative act," just as well as any case of synchronicity.

I fully agree with you that these "effects" are on various levels, and conceptual distinctions should be made between them.

I just wanted to outline the general picture of synchronicity.

As for the world-picture quaternio, our differences of opinion seem to stem from the different nature of our approaches (which I referred to at the beginning).

The "dreamlike nature" of my physical concepts is based essentially on the fact that they are purely illustrative, whereas in your case they have an abstract-mathematical character.

Modem physics, having advanced into another world beyond conceivability, cannot dispense with the concept of a space-time continuum.

Insofar as psychology penetrates into the unconscious, it probably has no alternative but to acknowledge the "indistinctness” or the impossibility of distinguishing between time and space, as well as their psychic relativity.

The world of classical physics has not ceased to exist, and by the same token, the world of consciousness has not lost its validity against the unconscious.

Spatial and temporal definitions of measurement are different, even thugh they can both be applied to phenomena.

Meter and liter are, and will continue to be, incommensurable terms, and no schoolboy would ever say that a lesson lasts for 10 km.

And so space and time are also visual notions that are eternally separate and antithetical in a visual image of the world in spite of its background identity.

Equally, causality is a credible hypothesis because it can be constantly verified.

Nevertheless, the world abounds in “coincidences,” but this proves that it would virtually take laboratories to demonstrate effectively the necessary connection between cause and effect.

“Causality” is a psychologem (and originally a magic virtua) that formulates the connection between events and illustrates them as cause and effect.

Another (incommensurable) approach that does the same thing in a different way is synchronicity.

Both are identical in the higher sense of the term "connection" or "attachment."

But on an empirical and practical level (i.e., in the real world), they are incommensurable and antithetical, like space and time.

Your compromise proposal is most welcome, for it makes the bold attempt to transcend descriptivism and to extend the concrete world-picture by the one beneath the surface; in other words, it is not just on the surface
like my schema.

Your proposal really set my mind working, and I regard it as perfectly suitable for a more complete world-picture.

You have replaced the space-time connection by energy conservation and space-time continuum, and I would now like to propose that instead of "causality" we have "(relatively) constant connection through effect: and instead of synchronicity we have (relatively) constant connection through contingency, equivalence, or "meaning"-i.e., the following quaternio:

Whereas my original schema seems to formulate the world of consciousness quite adequately, this second one satisfies the- requirements of modem physics on the one hand and those of the psychology of the unconscious
on the other hand.

The mundus archetypus of the latter is characterized essentially through the contingence of the archetypes, which causes their indistinctness and also their inability to be localized.

(The archetypes are always “breaking barriers,” meaning that they disturb the sphere of influence of a definite causal agent by-thanks to the autonomy of their (noncausal) connections-assigning contingent factors to a specific causal process.)

Re 3-1 shall probably have to delete the sentence on p. 9 (and p. 10) on radioactivity and field, because I cannot explain it properly.

I would really need to have a good knowledge of physics, which is unfortunately not the case. I can only suggest that although ray energy and field voltage seem to be incommensurable in physical terms, they have, in psychological term an equivalence to the "breaking of barriers" by means of contingence with the archetypes, or they form their physical equivalence.

Perhaps I don't know enough about psychology either to be able to develop these ideas further.

Re 4. The psychic "relativity of mass" is actually a logical outcome of the psychic relativity of time and space, insofar as mass cannot be defined without a concept of space and, when it is moved, not without a concept of time.

If these two concepts are elastic, then mass is undefinable-that is, psychically relative; one could just as well say that mass behaves arbitrarily-that it is contingent with the psychic state.

Nothing is known about any prefigured notions on the part of the test person.

My experience has shown that there aren't any.

If there were, they would only disturb the experiment in my View.

The concept of the relativity of mass does not actually explain anything and neither does the relativity of time and space.

It is simply a formulation.

There is no way of seeing how the term "relativity of mass” can be explained more precisely.

Within the randomness of the throwing of the dice, a "psychic” orderedness comes into being.

Is this modification based on whether the dice are heavier or lighter, or whether their speed is accelerated
or slowed down?

The boundaries of probability are overstepped by mass (i.e., the dice) in exactly the same way as the "knowledge" of the test person acquires improbability.

I seek the explanation for this in the singular nature of the archetype, which sometimes cancels out the constancy of the causal principle and assimilates a physical and a psychic process through contingency.

This synchronistic event can be described as a characteristic of the psyche or mass.

In the former case, the psyche would cast a spell on mass, and in the latter mass would bewitch the psyche.

It is thus more probable that both have the same characteristic, that both are basically contingent and, heedless of their own causal definitions, actually overlap.

A further possibility is that neither mass nor the psyche possesses such a characteristic but that a third factor is present to which it must be attributed, a factor that can be observed in the sphere of the psyche and can be observed from there-namely, the (psychoid) archetype which, thanks to its habitual indistinctness and “transgressivity,” assimilates into each other two incommensurable causal processes (in a so-called numinous moment), creates a joint field of tension (?) or makes them both “radioactive” (?).

I hope I have managed to make myself clear.

Once again, many thanks for your stimulating criticism.

Yours sincerely,

CGJ ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 59-63

Carl Jung on “Synchronicity” – Anthology.

We should be particularly watchful when synchronous events occur for a numen is then in sight. In a certain mood one notices that the crows fly towards the left. When an archetypal event approaches the sphere of consciousness, it also manifests itself in the outer life. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 51

Synchronous events are widely accepted in Chinese philosophy and are the basis of astrology. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 51.
When someone is under a grave threat, and the archetypes are constellated, synchronistic situations can arise -- events that are independent of him, existing in the outside world. ~ Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 51.

My further writing led me to the archetype of the God-man and to the phenomenon of synchronicity which adheres to the archetype. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 479-481.

This means that when we observe statistically we eliminate the synchronicity phenomenon, and conversely, when we establish synchronicity we must abandon the statistical method. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 546-548.

The statistical method of science stands in a relationship of complementarity to synchronicity. This means that when we observe statistically we eliminate the synchronicity phenomena and. . . when we establish synchronicity we must abandon the statistical method. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 548.
Synchronicity states that a certain psychic event is paralleled by some external non-psychic event and that there is no causal connection between them. It is a parallelism of meaning. ~C.G. Jung Speaking, Page 387.

Synchronicity means the simultaneous occurrence of a psychic state with one or more external events, which appear as meaningful parallels to the momentary subjective state. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Page 441.

Just as a causality describes the sequence of events, so synchronicity to the Chinese mind, deals with the coincidence of events. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Page 593.

The method like all divinatory or intuitive techniques is based on an acausal or synchronistic connective principle. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Page 452.

The main difficulty with synchronicity (and also with ESP) is that one thinks of it as being produced by the subject, while I think it is rather in the nature of objective events. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 181.

The coincidence of the Fibonacci numbers (or sectio aurea) with plant growth is a sort of analogy with synchronicity inasmuch as the latter consists in the coincidence of a psychic process with an external physical event of the same character or meaning. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 287-289.

Where an archetype prevails, we can expect synchronistic phenomena, i.e., acausal correspondences, which consist in a parallel arrangement of facts in time. The arrangement is not the effect of a cause. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 43-47.

Concerning the omniscience it is important to know that Adam already was equipped with supernatural knowledge according to Jewish and Christian tradition, all the more so Christ. I think that the great split in those days was by no means a mistake but a very important collective fact of synchronistic correspondence with the then new aeon of Pisces. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 163-174

An American pupil of mine, Dr. Progoff (New York), has tried to adapt and to explain synchronicity to the average reader but he landed his ship on the rocks because he could not free his mind from the deep-rooted belief in the Sanctissima Trinitas of the axiomata time, space, and causality. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 215-216.

I have got stuck, on the one hand, in the acausality (or "synchronicity") of certain phenomena of unconscious provenance and, on the other hand, in the qualitative statements of numbers, for here I set foot on territories where I cannot advance without the help and understanding of the other disciplines. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 351-352.

The principle of synchronicity represents the essential particularity of a non-statistical world, where facts are not measured by numbers but by their psychological significance. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 373-375

I think you are correct in assuming that synchronicity, though in practice a relatively rare phenomenon, is an all-pervading factor or principle in the universe, i.e., in the Unus Mundus, where there is no incommensurability between so-called matter and so-called psyche. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 398-400

With regard to the horoscope I have serious doubts whether it can be understood as a purely synchronistic phenomenon, for there are unquestionable causal connections between the planetary aspects and the powerful effects of proton radiation, though we are still very much in the dark as to what its physiological effects might be. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 420-421

If you give the "synchronistic arrangement" the smallest possible play, the play of chance is obviously restricted and the synchronistic "effect" thereby hindered. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 414-416

I have often found that synchronistic experiences were interpreted by schizophrenics as delusions. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 409-410.

The schizophrenic's interpretation [of Synchronicity] is morbidly narrow because it is mostly restricted to the intentions of other people and to his own ego-importance. The normal interpretation, so far as this is possible at all, is based on the philosophic premise of the sympathy of all things, or something of that kind. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 409-410.

On the other hand, it is obvious to me that synchronicity is the indispensable counterpart to causality and to that extent could be considered compensatory. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 425-426

The archetype, then, is a modality that represents visual forms, and synchronicity is another modality representing events. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449

With regard to the dynamic processes of the unconscious, he can also determine that the further characteristic of synchronicity exists; in other words, that archetypes have something to do with synchronicity. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449

In so far as both modalities, archetype and synchronicity, belong primarily to the realm of the psychic, we are justified in concluding that they are psychic phenomena. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449

So your question concerning the "freedom" of the unconscious is easily answered: the freedom appears in the non-predictability of synchronistic phenomena. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449

Synchronicity is not a name that characterizes an "organizing principle," but, like the word "archetype," it characterizes a modality. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449

It [Synchronicity] is not meant as anything substantive, for what the psyche is, or what matter is, eludes our understanding. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449

The 'absolute knowledge' which is characteristic of synchronistic phenomena, a knowledge not mediated by the sense organs, supports the hypothesis of a self-subsistent meaning, or even expresses its existence. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449

In so far, however, as synchronistic events include not only psychic but also physical forms of manifestation, the conclusion is justified that both modalities transcend the realm of the psychic and somehow also belong to the physical realm. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449

It is legitimate to ask yourself what it is that carries the qualities of the archetypal and synchronistic, and to pose the question, for instance, of the intrinsic nature of the psyche or of matter. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449

In some cases of psychotherapeutic treatment, contact with the sphere of the archetypes can produce the kind of constellation that underlies synchronicity. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 498-500

In this chaos of chance, synchronistic phenomena were probably at work, operating both with and against the known laws of nature to produce, in archetypal moments, syntheses which appear to us miraculous. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 493-496

Since the laws of probability give no ground for assuming that higher syntheses such as the psyche could arise by chance alone, there is nothing for it but to postulate a latent meaning in order to explain not only the synchronistic phenomena but also the higher syntheses. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 493-496

I should not wonder at all if synchronistic phenomena would manifest in the form of physiological effects. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 576-577
The “absolute knowledge” which is characteristic of synchronistic phenomena, a knowledge not mediated by the sense organs, supports the hypothesis of a self-subsistent meaning, or even expresses its existence. ~Carl Jung, CW, Para 948.

It may be said in passing that Chinese science is based on the principle of synchronicity, or parallelism in time, which is naturally regarded by us as superstition. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 178

The essential thing about these [Synchronistic] phenomena is that an objective event coincides meaningfully with a psychic process; that is to say, a physical event and an endopsychic one have a common meaning. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 27.

He [Jung] said this work with the physicist on synchronicity was the last of such writing he would do; it required tremendous concentration and took too much out of him. ~E.A. Bennet, Meetings with Jung, Page 62

I asked him [Jung] again about the carving of the face of Mercury on the stone at the side of the Tower. He said, ‘I got terribly stuck when I was working on synchronicity, in the part about statistics. Then I saw that face in the stone and put my papers away and got my tools and carved it. It was the impish Mercury. ~E.A. Bennet, Meetings with Jung, Page 298

… number and synchronicity… were… always brought into connection with one another,… both possess numinosity and mystery as their common characteristics. Number has invariably been used to characterize some numinous object, and all numbers from 1 to 9 are ‘sacred,’ just as 10, 12, 13, 14, 28, 32, and 40 have a special significance. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 870.

In order to give our judgment.. on the character of wholeness, we must supplement our time-conditioned thinking by the principle of correspondence [between outer and inner events], or as I have called it, synchronicity." C.G. Jung, Aion, para 409

When I enter the sphere of physical or mathematical thinking sensu strictiori, I lose all understanding of what the term synchronicity means; I feel as though I am groping my way through dense fog. ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Page 68.

In my view, the discussion of Matter must have a scientific basis. That is why I pressed for [Answer to Job] and[Synchronicity]to be published at the same time. ~Carl Jung, Atom and Archetype, Pages 97-101