Synchronicity in my writing

The second meta-theme that is interwoven in the tale of the Maharajagar is synchronicity.

Synchronicity is a widely misunderstood phenomenon and a very often abused term to describe a one time lucky coincidence or event.

Karl Jung defined synchronicity as following; “A meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved. When coincidences pile up in this way, one cannot help being impressed by them – for the greater the number of terms in such a series, or the more unusual its character, the more improbable it becomes.” He  believed life was not a series of random events but rather an expression of a deeper order, which he and Pauli referred to as Unus mundus. The traditional notions of causality were incapable of explaining some of the more improbable forms of coincidence. Where it is plain, felt Jung, that no causal connection can be demonstrated between two events, but where a meaningful relationship nevertheless exists between them, a wholly different type of principle is likely to be operating. Jung called this principle “synchronicity.”

In my writing the principle of a Unus Mundus has been replaced by a cosmically horizon, and the degree of our understanding of the way it functions, determines the level of influence we can exercise.

This deeper order led to the insights that a person was both embedded in a universal wholeness and that the realization of this was more than just an intellectual exercise, but also had elements of a spiritual awakening. From the religious perspective, synchronicity shares similar characteristics of an “intervention of grace”. Jung also believed that in a person’s life, synchronicity served a role similar to that of dreams, with the purpose of shifting a person’s egocentric conscious thinking to greater wholeness.

To my knowledge, the novelist who has made the best use of the phenomenon synchronicity was Thomas Pynchon in Gravity’s Rainbow, in which he presented a correlation between the love life of the character Tyrone Slothrop and the location of V2 missile bombings. It’s a 300.000 words behemoth and countless souls never survived it to the last page. There exits a lifeline for those who struggle with the welter of historical references, scientific data, cultural fragments, anthropological research, jokes, and puns around which Pynchon wove his story: A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon’s Novel, 2nd Edition Paperback – November 1, 2006 by Steven Weisenburger. Professor Kathryn Hume has commented,”Pynchon creates a world in which some subatomic characteristics of reality are dealt with at the level of everyday life.”

In my writing, the synchronicity manifests itself mostly in the similarities of challenges my five main protagonists have to face. These five personages are forming a Qi-tet, which means; a group of people brought together by the Qi (in traditional Chinese culture, an active principle forming part of any living thing). When one of them has to face a challenge or dilemma, the other ones encounter soon into their own lives a problem with a similar blueprint.