Can Synchronicity be Invoked? Synchronistic Inquiry and the Nature of Meaning

This paper examines synchronicity, the concept first proposed by Carl Jung, of an “acausal connecting principle” (Jung, 1952), or, a meaningful coincidence linking inner and outer events, from three distinct angles. First, it reviews the theoretical framework for synchronicity, and specifically explores the nature of meaning as an arbiter of synchronicity. The paper then asks whether, considering the co-determined nature of meaning, synchronicity can possibly be consciously invoked. Drawing upon anecdotal examples from personal experience, the outlines of a possible research process, personal synchronistic inquiry, are proposed. Finally, this paper presents a personal attempt to implement the research protocol outlined above in the form of a case study, and briefly examines the themes emergent in the data therein. As itself an expression of synchronistic inquiry, such emergent themes include the nature of time, apocalypticism, sexuality, and messianic consciousness