The Rhine-Jung letters: distinguishing parapsychological from synchronistic events - J.B. Rhine; Carl Jung

Jung also had doubts about classifying the parapsychological as a type of synchronicity because of the lack of archetypal meaning in laboratory parapsychology. For example, he writes (1978c):

Meaningful coincidences--which are to be distinguished from meaningless

chance groupings--therefore seem to rest on an archetypal foundation. As

least all the cases in my experience--and there is a large number of

them--show this characteristic ... Although anyone with my experience in this

field can easily recognize their archetypal character, he will find it

difficult to link them up with the psychic conditions in Rhine's experiments,

because the latter contain no direct evidence of a constellation of the

archetype. Nor is the emotional situation the same as in my examples.

Nevertheless, it must be remembered that with Rhine the first series of

experiments generally produced the best results, which then quickly fell off.

But when it was possible to arouse a new interest in the essentially rather

boring experiment, the results improved again. It follows from this that the

emotional factor plays an important role. Affectivity, however, rests to a

large extent on the instincts, whose formal aspect is the archetype. (para.

846)

In the two paragraphs that follow this quotation, Jung points out that synchronistic and parapsychological phenomena are similar in that both have an air of impossibility about them. Despite this parallel, and the role of emotional affect in both types of phenomena, Jung is concerned because synchronicity rests on "an archetypal foundation" and Rhine's experiments "contain no direct evidence of a constellation of the archetype."

Given Jung's concern, and that he could have made many of our arguments for distinguishing synchronistic from parapsychological phenomena, it is reasonable to ask why he did not do so. We suggest that Jung failed to distinguish them because he wanted the support of Rhine's experiments for his new concept of synchronicity. It is evident from the first paragraph of Jung's synchronicity essay that he approached the controversial subject with trepidation. We also quote a letter from Jung to Rhine in our concluding section that describes Jung's strong desire for "coherent material collected along certain scientific lines." Thus, we suggest that conflation of synchronicity with laboratory parapsychological phenomena served Jung's desire for legitimacy--a concern shared by many readers of this journal.

We stress that our distinction between the parapsychological and synchronicity in no way diminishes the importance of parapsychology. Yes, the parapsychological may not be intimately connected to the archetypal meaning propelling our individuation. Yet these meticulous laboratory studies of parapsychological phenomena with all their consistency and repeatability (their scientific causality) have more potential to revolutionize science and our entire worldview than the sporadic and unpredictable synchronicity phenomena. For all their numinosity, synchronicity experiences are, by their very nature, resistant to the kind of careful empirical investigation required for them to be integrated into our modern scientific understanding. While synchronicity speaks directly to the evolution of our subjective being, the exacting laboratory studies of the parapsychological speak more directly to our objective understanding of nature.