I think the lovely thing about this post is how quietly it delivers something hugely significant. That is, when we suddenly notice these meaningful coincidences, we are being allowed a glimpse of the hidden connective patterns by which nature actually unfolds.
It’s interesting to think of synchronicity not as a quirky psychological side effect, but as a deeper organizing principle that modern science tends to overlook. What feels strange or coincidental may be meaning expressing itself through pattern and resonance rather than linear cause.
Fascinating thank you - this is a subject very dear to me - synchronicity inadvertently became the focus of my thesis a DFA researching where I found my inspiration for creative writing. I will be reading again (and perhaps again). I’m reading your Blake book and look forward to hearing/seeing you in The Versed Community.
Thanks for this lovely article. Very thought- provoking.
I wonder if this extract from “An Adventure among the Rosicrucians” might be of interest? It seems to touch on a similar sense of the interconnection between outer and inner worlds.
It is said to be by HP Blavatsky, and I think it probably is, as it has her forthright, gripping style, and the wisdom is very profound, to my mind. Anyway, here it is:
“Man is the god and creator of his own little world, and therefore similar processes take place when a person, by the power of introspection, directs his mind thoughts towards his own centre of consciousness within his ‘heart.’
“Now this activity going towards the centre [centripetal] could never of itself have created an external world, because the external world belongs to the periphery, and it requires a centrifugal power to call it into existence.
The introspective activity of the Mind is a centripetal power, and could therefore not act from the centre towards the periphery. But you know that every action is followed by a reaction.
The centripetal power, finding resistance at the centre, returns and evolves a centrifugal activity, and this centrifugal power is called Imagination.
This Soul-energy is the medium between the centre and the periphery, between Spirit and Matter, between the Creator and His creations, between God and Nature, or whatever names you may choose to give to them.
The Soul-consciousness is the product of the centrifugal activity of the Mind, put into action by the centripetal activity of the Will.“
And another quotation from An Adventure, which almost seems to describe synchronicity:
“The obstacles which arise from the external world are intimately connected with those from the inner world, and cannot be separated; because external temptations create inward desires, and inward desires call for external means for gratification.“
Mark, thank you for this. It sparked a morning's inquiry that I'm still sitting with.
Your retrieval of Jung via Kastrup—synchronicity as the fundamental organising principle, with physical causality as a special, mathematically tractable case—opened a question: might consilience be how we distinguish meaningful from coincidental synchronicity? When independent lines of inquiry converge on the same pattern without coordination, is that not synchronicity becoming explicit to itself through multiple apertures?
This led me to Jean Boulton's work on path dependence in complexity theory, and to wonder whether two points on the same path feel synchronistic precisely because they reveal the path's coherence—the path that wasn't visible until you're on it.
And then to grace and providence: if synchronicity is fundamental, grace isn't intervention into an otherwise mechanical universe. It's the universe's native mode, which our habit of abstraction obscures.
I've been working on what I call Recognition Theory—exploring why knowing doesn't reliably produce change, and what happens when symbolic intelligence forgets it's embedded in regulatory patterns that precede it. Your piece suggests we may be circling the same territory from different angles.
I'd welcome the conversation if you're open to it.
As I see things, the emerging science of synchronicity is the great intellectual frontier of our time and Kastrup is playing an indispensable role in laying the philosophical groundwork for people to take this seriously. His book on Jung is excellent.
As you mentioned above, this phenomenon is connected with astrology, which is still largely regarded as a superstition or pseudoscience, but I really do see astrology as the royal road towards a more systematic understanding of synchronicity.
The archetypal astrologer Richard Tarnas is the key figure here, and I view his book 'Cosmos and Psyche' as standing in a similar relation to the theory of synchronicity as did Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species' to the theory of evolution. It's full of so many compelling examples that I struggle to see how any intellectually honest person could dismiss the correlations that Tarnas identifies. I'm frankly amazed that Tarnas is not more widely known by now, but I suppose that says a lot about the deeply entrenched resistance to these ideas from the hardcore materialists.
I would like to see a dialogue between analytic idealism and archetypal astrology. I think between these two we have the contours of the emerging worldview.
Thank you, Mark, for writing about these ideas is an intelligent and accessible way.
I think the lovely thing about this post is how quietly it delivers something hugely significant. That is, when we suddenly notice these meaningful coincidences, we are being allowed a glimpse of the hidden connective patterns by which nature actually unfolds.
It’s interesting to think of synchronicity not as a quirky psychological side effect, but as a deeper organizing principle that modern science tends to overlook. What feels strange or coincidental may be meaning expressing itself through pattern and resonance rather than linear cause.
Fascinating thank you - this is a subject very dear to me - synchronicity inadvertently became the focus of my thesis a DFA researching where I found my inspiration for creative writing. I will be reading again (and perhaps again). I’m reading your Blake book and look forward to hearing/seeing you in The Versed Community.
Thanks for this lovely article. Very thought- provoking.
I wonder if this extract from “An Adventure among the Rosicrucians” might be of interest? It seems to touch on a similar sense of the interconnection between outer and inner worlds.
It is said to be by HP Blavatsky, and I think it probably is, as it has her forthright, gripping style, and the wisdom is very profound, to my mind. Anyway, here it is:
“Man is the god and creator of his own little world, and therefore similar processes take place when a person, by the power of introspection, directs his mind thoughts towards his own centre of consciousness within his ‘heart.’
“Now this activity going towards the centre [centripetal] could never of itself have created an external world, because the external world belongs to the periphery, and it requires a centrifugal power to call it into existence.
The introspective activity of the Mind is a centripetal power, and could therefore not act from the centre towards the periphery. But you know that every action is followed by a reaction.
The centripetal power, finding resistance at the centre, returns and evolves a centrifugal activity, and this centrifugal power is called Imagination.
This Soul-energy is the medium between the centre and the periphery, between Spirit and Matter, between the Creator and His creations, between God and Nature, or whatever names you may choose to give to them.
The Soul-consciousness is the product of the centrifugal activity of the Mind, put into action by the centripetal activity of the Will.“
And another quotation from An Adventure, which almost seems to describe synchronicity:
“The obstacles which arise from the external world are intimately connected with those from the inner world, and cannot be separated; because external temptations create inward desires, and inward desires call for external means for gratification.“
Mark, thank you for this. It sparked a morning's inquiry that I'm still sitting with.
Your retrieval of Jung via Kastrup—synchronicity as the fundamental organising principle, with physical causality as a special, mathematically tractable case—opened a question: might consilience be how we distinguish meaningful from coincidental synchronicity? When independent lines of inquiry converge on the same pattern without coordination, is that not synchronicity becoming explicit to itself through multiple apertures?
This led me to Jean Boulton's work on path dependence in complexity theory, and to wonder whether two points on the same path feel synchronistic precisely because they reveal the path's coherence—the path that wasn't visible until you're on it.
And then to grace and providence: if synchronicity is fundamental, grace isn't intervention into an otherwise mechanical universe. It's the universe's native mode, which our habit of abstraction obscures.
I've been working on what I call Recognition Theory—exploring why knowing doesn't reliably produce change, and what happens when symbolic intelligence forgets it's embedded in regulatory patterns that precede it. Your piece suggests we may be circling the same territory from different angles.
I'd welcome the conversation if you're open to it.
The pattern that connects all things, as Bateson says.
Difference is the difference that makes a difference.
Aristotle really did get shafted by Galileo and Descartes and Hume.
As I see things, the emerging science of synchronicity is the great intellectual frontier of our time and Kastrup is playing an indispensable role in laying the philosophical groundwork for people to take this seriously. His book on Jung is excellent.
As you mentioned above, this phenomenon is connected with astrology, which is still largely regarded as a superstition or pseudoscience, but I really do see astrology as the royal road towards a more systematic understanding of synchronicity.
The archetypal astrologer Richard Tarnas is the key figure here, and I view his book 'Cosmos and Psyche' as standing in a similar relation to the theory of synchronicity as did Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species' to the theory of evolution. It's full of so many compelling examples that I struggle to see how any intellectually honest person could dismiss the correlations that Tarnas identifies. I'm frankly amazed that Tarnas is not more widely known by now, but I suppose that says a lot about the deeply entrenched resistance to these ideas from the hardcore materialists.
I would like to see a dialogue between analytic idealism and archetypal astrology. I think between these two we have the contours of the emerging worldview.
Thank you, Mark, for writing about these ideas is an intelligent and accessible way.