Synchronicity

Astrology in my understanding is based on an acausal (in a strictly materialistic-scientific sense), yet synchronous connection between macrocosmic and microcosmic planes (See introductory article "Why Astrology").

The following quotes have been collected by Dr. Michael Picard, PhD. for the weekly "Cafe Philosophy" gatherings in Victoria BC.

Please visit his website under http://philosophy-shop.com/

I selected quotes relevant to the astrology theme.

"A term coined by Carl Jung to denote meaningful coincidence. Events bound by synchronicity are connected by similarity, by meaning, by resonance, rather than by causality. Synchronicity is an acausal connecting principle. Since it goes beyond causation, it goes beyond time and space, and is not limited by such relations."

Quotes on Syncronicity:

The First Insight Theory: Mysterious coincidences cause the reconsideration of the inherent mystery that surrounds our individual lives on this planet.

James Redfield. 1993. The Celestine Prophecy

They demonstrate the unity of psyche and matter, forcing us to transcend our rational, scientific, materialistic attitudes.

Mansfield, 1995. Synchronicity, Science, and Soul-making.

Synchronistic events offer us perceptions that may be useful in our psychological and spiritual growth and may reveal to us, through intuitive knowledge, that our lives have meaning.

Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD, The Tao of Psychology, p.7

The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it Intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don't know how or why.

Albert Einstein

Coincidences are spiritual puns.

G.K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

Chance favors the prepared mind.

Louis Pasteur

There is no such thing as chance; and what seem to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.

Friedrich Schiller (1759 - 1805)

Did blind chance know that there was light and what was its refraction, and fit the eyes of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it? These and other suchlike considerations, always have, and always will prevail with mankind, to believe that there is a Being who made all things, who has all things in his power, and who is therefore to be feared.

Isaac Newton

The entire universe is a great theater of mirrors, a set of hieroglyphs to decipher; everything is a sign, everything harbors and manifests mystery. The principles of contradiction, of excluded middle, and of linear causality are supplanted by those of resolution, of included middle, and of synchronicity. ~

Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Psychology II

And some quotes by the man himself, Carl G. Jung:

Synchronicity reveals the meaningful connections between the subjective and objective world.

Carl G. Jung (1875 – 1961)

Synchronistic events provide an immediate religious experience as a direct encounter with the compensatory patterning of events in nature as a whole, both inwardly and outwardly.

C. G. Jung

The connection between cause and effect turns out to be only statistically valid and only relatively true. ... I define synchronicity as a psychically conditioned relativity of time and space. ~ C. G. Jung

Though synchronistic phenomena occur in time and space they manifest a remarkable independence of both these indispensable determinants of physical existence and hence do not conform to the law of causality. ~ C. G. Jung, Collected Works

By far the greatest number of spontaneous synchronistic phenomena that I have had occasion to observe and analyze can easily be shown to have a direct connection with an archetype. ~ C. G. Jung, Synchronicity, An Acausal Principle

Synchronicity…means a ‘meaningful coincidence’ of outer and inner events that are not themselves causally connected. The emphasis lies on the word ‘meaningful’. ~ Marie Louise von Franz, ‘The Process of Individuation’ Man and His Symbols (Carl G. Jung)

Synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers. ~ C. G. Jung, I Ching or The Book of Changes (Richard Wilhelm, translator)

The characteristic feature of…synchronistic occurrences is meaningful coincidence, and as such I have defined the synchronistic principle. This principle suggests that there is an inter-connection or unity of causally unrelated events, and thus postulates a unitary aspect of being which can very well be described as the ‘unus mundus’ [one world]. ~ C. G. Jung, Collected Works

Since psyche and matter are contained in one and the same world, and moreover are in continuous contact with one another and ultimately rest on irreprehensible, transcendental factors, it is not only possible but fairly probable, even, that psyche and matter are two different aspects of one and the same thing. The synchronicity phenomena point, it seems to me, in this direction, for they show that the nonpsychic can behave like the psychic, and vice versa, without there being any causal connection between them. ~ Carl Jung, On the Nature of the Psyche, Collected Works

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

C. G. Jung

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

C. G. Jung

Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

C. G. Jung, "On the Psychology of the Unconciousness", 1917

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

C. G. Jung, "Memories, Dreams, Reflections", 1962

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

C. G. Jung

It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are themselves.

C. G. Jung

In studying the history of the human mind one is impressed again and again by the fact that the growth of the mind is the widening of the range of consciousness, and that each step forward has been a most painful and laborious achievement. One could almost say that nothing is more hateful to man than to give up even a particle of his unconsciousness. Ask those who have tried to introduce a new idea!

C. G. Jung

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination?

C. G. Jung

There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.

C. G. Jung

I could not say I believe. I know! I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something that people call God.

C. G. Jung

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

C. G. Jung

Religion is a defense against the experience of God.

C. G. Jung