So what, exactly, is synchronicity? The term “synchronicity,” as it applies to psychology, was coined by Dr. Carl Gustav Jung in the 1920s.⁸⁵ [Editor’s Note: Superscripted numbers refer to endnotes found in the full text. Please see the book for these notes.] Jung was a Swiss psychologist who studied under the legendary pioneer Dr. Sigmund Freud and ultimately broke away from him over a basic difference of opinion. Dr. Freud’s perspective was much more conventional in the sense that he did not believe in Jung’s concept of a “collective unconscious” — a fundamental connectedness that we all share within the mind, such as in dreams.

The dictionary definition of synchronicity, as it applies to psychology, is “the simultaneous occurrence of causally unrelated events — and the belief that the simultaneity has meaning beyond mere coincidence.”⁸⁶ In plain language, “synchronicity” is a mysterious event in which two or more things happen at the same time that seem directly related to each other, even though this would normally appear to be impossible.

Jung had discussed this concept since the early 1920s, but he did not formalize his thoughts into a lecture until 1951.⁸⁷ Then, in 1952, Jung published his defining work, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, found in Volume 8 of his Collected Works.88 Jung believed that synchronicity was a key element of spiritual awakening. He felt that synchronicity shifted us out of egocentric thinking into a viewpoint where we see ourselves as far more interconnected with one another.