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“Synchronicity as a Principle of Acausal Relations” is the topic of Jung's essay. He advances no less than a common approach to the psychology of the unconscious and knowledge of nature as embodied in modern physics.
Descriptively, Synchronicity denotes the occurrence of two or more events which are meaningfully (sinngemäss), though not causally linked. These events may occur simultaneously or extend into the future and may or may not be separated by great distances. Synchronistic relations are admittedly inconceivable within the space-time-causality system of pure empiricism. They cannot be directly verified by statistical methods which are applicable only to large numbers, but not to isolated incommensurable phenomena out of the regular.
Undeniable examples of significantly coinciding happenings without any traceable causal nexus as encountered in common life situations or pychotherapeutic practice are elaborated upon andanalysed. Thevaluable, vast evidence of Rhine's ESP- and PK-experiments is appraised in their relation to the synchronicity phenomenon. The importance of Rhine's findings is not seen merely in the positive results beyond statistical expectation, but in consciousness-lowering and the unconscious-releasing effects of accompanying affective anticipations, hidden though the latter may be behind the apparent coolness of the experimental fačade.-Likewise, the critical evaluation of an astrological experiment demonstrates the existence of an anticipating, meaning-giving “psychoid factor.”
In delving into the essence of this factor, Jung focuses on his well known concept of the fathomless and ubiquitous collective unconscious with its primordial images, the archetypes, by means of which—biologically speaking—innate instincts of imagination are expressed. The archetypes, then, are the noumenal potencies of the unconscious. In the majority of spontaneous Synchronicity phenomena examined by Jung archetypes are recognized. There is, however, no conventional, log