I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path.
—THE DALAI LAMA
In the depth of winter in Moscow when I was four years old, my father bundled me up and carried me through snowy streets on our way home from the Organizatsiya Viz Immigratsii i Registratsii (otherwise known as OVIR, the Organization of Visas, Immigration, and Registration), his heart swelling with pride. He had just applied for visas for the whole family. We were going to America!
Little did we know that the Russian government would be in upheaval and soon Leonid Brezhnev, the then-current general secretary of the Communist Party, would fall ill and die. Each of the next two general secretaries would die within about a year of taking office. Soon Mikhail Gorbachev would replace them, restructuring the country with perestroika and granting us the new freedoms of glasnost. But by then we were well on our way to America, thanks to an amazing act of synchronicity.
For a while it looked like the Soviet government wouldn’t let us leave. The bureaucracy had always been cumbersome and prone to suspicion, but with so much regime change and death, the lumbering system nearly came to a halt. No matter how many times my parents made the trek to OVIR, for two and a half years there was no sign of our visas.
In late November 1981, my grandfather Yefim decided to ask my beloved grandmother Bronya for help. Since she had died ten years earlier, he thought she might have some influence on the other side. On Friday afternoon, when he replaced the flowers on her grave as usual, he explained the matter and left it in her hands. Standing at his side, my father heard his prayer. A week later, a letter from the government appeared in our mailbox. Our visas had been approved.
It was December of 1981. At the time, the Russian government did not allow anyone to immigrate directly to America, so we had to say we were immigrating to Israel. A Viennese organization, Rav Tov (translated as either “the Good Rabbi” or “Great Goodness”), helped people immigrate to America rather than Israel, which was in keeping with my parents’ original dream of one day moving to America. Once my parents received the call from OVIR that our visas were ready, we had thirty days to leave, but we wanted to get out as soon as possible lest they change their mind, so we left in ten.
Since my father didn’t yet speak fluent English, he sent Rav Tov a telegram with only three words: PLEASE MEET ME. The rest is history. Since January 1982, we have been living happily in America.
Carl Jung coined the term “synchronicity” to describe experiences like my grandfather’s answered prayer. Two seemingly unconnected events (e.g., my grandfather’s prayer, and then my family obtaining our visas) take on particular meaning for an individual experiencing them (i.e., “my grandmother must have helped us from the other side” or “God must have heard our prayers”).
By their very nature, synchronicities require our active participation. They are not something we just passively watch and by which we remain unaffected. On the contrary, we co-create the meaning and relevance we imbue on what could otherwise be dismissed as a random series of events.
Synchronicity may present itself as a meaningful coincidence, a feeling of déjà vu, a powerful dream, a strong intuition, an unexpected thought, or even a curious breakthrough after sending a request out into the afterlife. Most of us have experienced synchronicity in some way, shape, or form. Jung believed that these are not mere coincidences, but meaningful occurrences that reveal a deep underlying order in the universe.
In his book Synchronicity, Jung describes a famous story about a gold-green scarabaeid beetle appearing at his therapy office window at the exact moment that one of his patients was describing her dream of a golden scarab. He opened the window, caught the insect in midair, and presented it to his patient, saying, “Here is your scarab.” This beautifully illogical moment resulted in a breakthrough for this woman who had been blocking her own progress with a wall of logic.
Even though the synchronicity was a reflection of Jung’s patient’s inner landscape, it was simultaneously a synchronistic reflection of what was taking place within Jung. For Jung to be hearing a patient’s dream of a golden scarab and to have a golden scarab fly into his office was an externalized, synchronistic reflection of an important process that was happening inside of him. It is noteworthy that a synchronistic event can collectively reflect and be mutually shared by more than one person in both similar and singularly unique ways. For Jung and his patient, the shared synchronistic event was a living experience of being connected to something greater than oneself.1
A skeptic would argue that this was merely a coincidence, with no inherent meaning aside from that ascribed to it by Jung and his patient. In their search for meaning, Jung and his patient created a “magical” message of a meaning by combining a series of random events. Jung would say that what made this a synchronicity was not the co-occurrence of these two events, but precisely the subjective meaning ascribed to this co-occurrence. The relatives of that gold-green beetle were no doubt arriving at windows all over town without setting off any emotional breakthroughs in anybody else. It’s not the objective events themselves, but what we make of them that counts.
Another powerful synchronicity occurred between Sigmund Freud, the preeminent founder of psychoanalysis, and Carl Jung, who was twenty-five years Freud’s junior and being groomed by Freud to take over the psychoanalytic society Freud founded. Despite Jung’s spiritual leanings, Freud strongly dissuaded Jung from publicly sharing his spiritual interests and theories, for fear that their subjective, unscientific nature would undermine the field of psychoanalysis. As Freud and Jung sat together in Freud’s library discussing this matter, Freud told Jung not to pursue his interest in the occult. Jung, understandably, felt patronized, angry, and misunderstood by Freud.
Suddenly, Jung and Freud heard a loud creak from out of nowhere, to which Jung replied, “This is an example of exactly what I’m talking about! Moreover, it’s going to happen again.” Then, suddenly, another loud creak occurred from out of nowhere, startling both Jung and Freud!
It was after this peculiar occurrence that Freud decided to withhold the leadership title he was planning to give Jung, leading Jung to feel abandoned and confused. This foreshadowed Jung’s nervous breakdown, during which time Jung wrote his famous The Red Book, an opportunity for him to individuate from Freud by integrating psychoanalytic tenets with the principles of spirituality.2
The scientist in Freud, however, had to understand what was causing the unexpected and mysterious noises in his library. So Freud decided to sit there until the noise occurred again, at which time he deduced that the heat in the library was drying out the oak bookshelves and causing them to creak!3
The coinciding of this fairly normal mechanical phenomenon with the precise moment (or two) of Freud and Jung’s disagreement is precisely what turned this coincidence into a meaningful synchronicity. From this perspective, there is nothing mystical or divine about the origin of synchronicity, although it nevertheless affirms a wondrous appreciation for the creative capacities of each person to order his or her own internal and external world.4
Earlier in the book, we talked about how our internal world can create our external reality. Was the heat-induced breakage of the wooden bookshelves an external manifestation of the breakage in the relationship between Freud and Jung?
Mysterious coincidences are intriguing. As human beings with a powerful need for meaning in our life, we are constantly looking for patterns and explanations. When something amazing, yet inexplicable, happens, we can’t help but wonder why. It’s in our nature.
For this stream-of-consciousness writing exercise, set your stopwatch to five minutes and write without stopping on the topic of Synchronicity. The Questions for Reflection are included as guideposts. As before, let your writing take you where it may.
1. Have you experienced synchronicity? Describe the event or situation.
2. How did you make sense of this experience?
3. Did this experience make you see the world differently? If so, how?
When my friend Don received his three-number locker combination for his medical school locker, he was intrigued to see that it was the date of his girlfriend’s birthday. For him, this sign was confirmation that he was with the right person at this point in his life. He took this synchronicity to mean that the Universe was in support of his relationship. Synchronistic moments like this can feel like grace, as they induce in us the feeling that we are right where we are supposed to be. So how do we know when to make subjective meaning of a synchronous experience or “sign” versus dismissing it as mere coincidence or randomness?
Mental and emotional stability is a necessary prerequisite for a healthy experience of synchronicity. Prior to connecting to something greater than oneself, it is important to first be stably grounded in the here and now. While working in the psychiatric emergency room at Bellevue Hospital, I saw many patients who had ended up there because they had given too much credence to signs. Many received what to them were clear and irrefutable signs that they are Jesus Christ or God or the Prophet Mohammed. Relying too heavily on signs without being stably grounded in the here and now can alienate us from reality and, in its most extreme forms, reflect a state of psychosis.
In his book The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, social psychologist Milton Rokeach tells of three men institutionalized at the Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan in the 1960s. All of them believed they were Jesus Christ. Rokeach came up with an inspired intervention: he introduced them to one another. If a man who thought he was Jesus Christ met another Jesus Christ—and then another!—surely, the stark reality would convince him that he was not Jesus Christ at all. But the men and their psychoses outwitted Rokeach. Initially they argued over who was the most holy and nearly came to blows, but ultimately each one found his own explanation for the presence of two other Christs. (The other two were clearly mental patients, or dead, or animated by machines.) In the end, Rokeach wrote: “While I failed to cure the three Christs of their delusions, they had succeeded in curing me of mine—of my God-like delusion that I could change them…”5
As Bertrand Russell wrote in his book Power, “Every man would like to be God if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility.”6 It’s even said to be an occupational hazard for doctors. “What’s the difference between a doctor and God?” the old joke goes. “God doesn’t think he’s a doctor.”
Aside from mental and emotional stability, it’s important to note that those who embrace spirituality too suddenly may be prone to draw quick conclusions about perceived synchronicities. This is why engaging with spiritual knowledge and receiving spiritual guidance requires maturity, discernment, patience, practice, and discipline.
One of my young patients, Yehuda, had a genetic predisposition to bipolar disorder, which can sometimes present with delusions and psychosis. At an early age, he fervently embraced the study of Kabbalah. The more Yehuda studied, the more signs he began to receive. Billboards started speaking directly to him. Radio messages felt to him like personal directives from God. Before long, he was not eating or sleeping, but was staying up all night to study Kabbalah, enrapt in interpreting all the signs he was receiving.
When people spend the day looking for signs and making decisions based on special instructions given to them from invisible powers, it can be a dangerous form of externalizing one’s power.
Even those with mental and emotional stability can be prone to certain biases around synchronicity. These biases include confirmation bias, or the tendency to look for and find confirming evidence for what you already believe and ignore the disconfirming evidence. You remember the hits, you forget the misses. There is also hindsight bias, otherwise known as Monday-morning quarterbacking, in which one makes connections to explain things with perfect clarity—after they happen. And then there is self-justification bias, in which we convince ourselves, after the fact, that what we did was the best thing we could have done. We carefully screen subsequent data and filter out all contradictory information related to our decision, leaving only evidence in support of the choice we made.7
People’s perception that random events are signs meant especially for them is known in psychiatry as ideas of reference. Whereas synchronicity can provide a powerful sense of meaning, guidance, and connection for somebody who is generally mentally healthy and grounded in reality, ideas of reference can be maladaptive, destabilizing, and paranoia-inducing in individuals who are not mentally healthy at baseline.
As Western-trained doctors and therapists, we are taught to listen for ideas of reference and other versions of “magical thinking” as signs of psychopathology.8 Yet sometimes it’s surprisingly hard to know where to draw the line. Many magical beliefs have become so commonplace that we don’t think to question them. Where is the line between a psychotic patient and a religious leader, when both claim to be receiving signs from above? Generations of children have wondered, why is Santa imaginary but God isn’t?
The most widely reprinted editorial in any English-language newspaper appeared on September 21, 1897, in the New York Sun. This editorial, written by war correspondent Francis P. Church, was a response to a letter he received from a little girl named Virginia O’Hanlon:
Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
Addressing issues of hope, faith, and idealism, Church’s thoughtful response rose way above Virginia’s innocent question:
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age… They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little… as compared to the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capacity of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy… You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart… It is all real! Ah, Virginia, in all this world, there is nothing else real and abiding.9
As human beings, it may bother us on a deep level to think that things could happen for no particular reason at all. Dr. John Allen Paulos, professor of mathematics at Temple University and the author of Irreligion, says that a meaningless coincidence may make us feel a loss of control. By finding a reason or a pattern where none exists, we make a strange event logical and, therefore, less frightening. “Believing in fate, or even conspiracy, can sometimes be more comforting than facing the fact that sometimes things just happen.”
For Dr. Paulos, startling coincidences are indeed marvelous—not because an affectionate Universe is sending us an emoticon, but because of the little appreciated wonders of mathematics. He tells the story of a boy whose mother was tragically killed while he was still young. As family and friends gathered outside at the memorial service, the boy stepped up to the lectern to give a heartfelt eulogy. Just as he said the word “mother,” a sparrow flew down from the sky and landed on his head. People in the audience gasped. The boy gently took the bird in his hands, then set it free.10
As you can imagine, many of the friends and family who were there at that moment will remember it for the rest of their lives. “What are the odds of something like that happening?” they might ask. “One in a million.” Quite good, actually. Persi Diaconis, a Stanford statistician whose career has been devoted to the study of coincidence, points out that “the really unusual day would be one where nothing unusual happens.” There are 319 million people in this country. That means that in America alone a one-in-a-million coincidence happens 319 times every day.11
That being said, when remarkable coincidences do happen we are inevitably astounded. One of my favorite instances of synchronicity happened to my dear friend Yvette. A psychiatrist like myself, Yvette’s attitude toward synchronicity can be best described as skeptical, but open-minded. Whenever an interesting coincidence occurred in her life, Yvette would call to tell me and jokingly say, “It must be a sign!”
As Yvette was walking to work one day, a book flew through the air and landed on the sidewalk right in front of her. Yvette looked around. She could only guess that somebody had thrown the book out their window.
Not being one to pick up random books on New York City sidewalks, Yvette’s first inclination was to ignore it. Then she saw that book was Calling in “The One”: 7 Weeks to Attract the Love of Your Life by Katherine Woodward Thomas.
Many years ago, Yvette and I had referred to this rich book of timeless wisdom as our “Soulmate Bible.” Yvette had done the exercises in the book right before she met her soulmate, the man to whom she has been happily married for many years. How and why this book seemed to literally fall out of the sky and land at her feet, Yvette had no idea.
That same day, Yvette had a first-time appointment with a new patient. A spiritual young woman named Candace came to see Yvette because she felt like she was never going to find her life partner. At the end of their session, Yvette told Candace about the synchronicity that occurred on her way to work and offered Candace the book. Candace accepted. At her next session with Yvette, Candace said she had read the book and felt like it “changed her life.”
Although this is a sweet anecdote, it certainly does not provide irrefutable evidence of God or a greater overarching purpose to our existence. Yet if somebody is open to spiritual experiences and guidance from the Universe, experiences of this nature can create a sense of awe that makes them wonder if perhaps there is something greater out there after all.
In some cases, people turn to synchronicity after they’ve exhausted other avenues of trying to “make things happen.” Be it searching for a soulmate, a new job, or a home, American culture promotes grit, perseverance, and a never-say-die attitude in what is often cast as a dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest world. While this type of messaging and encouragement can be motivating for some, it eclipses the idea that there is something larger at work and that things come to fruition by a combination of our hard work and a divine hand orchestrating things.
The power of synchronicity was recently made evident in the life of one of my best friends from high school, Masum, who epitomized hard work and “making things happen.” With an interdisciplinary PhD from Harvard, Masum had published extensively on topics like education, social justice, feminism, and the arts. For the past twenty years, she had held several fascinating and prestigious jobs focusing on social justice through the arts.
At this point in her life, Masum was ready for a career transition but was not 100 percent sure what this transition would entail. She thought perhaps she would like to work in philanthropy. But a career transition proved more challenging than anticipated. Despite her impeccable credentials and extensive work experience, Masum could not find a job she loved. In searching for the right job, Masum did everything and more—hiring a job coach, retooling her résumé, optimizing her social media profiles, reflecting on her goals and skills, building networks in her field, and restrategizing continuously month after month when job postings and offers did not materialize.
Having known her a long time, I encouraged her to be open to synchronicity. I invited her to visualize leaders in her area of expertise approaching her with the perfect job for her, saying that they were looking for the right person to “carry the baton” and inquiring whether she might be that person. She had tried so many methods over the past year; why not try this for a month or so as an experiment? In trying so hard to find the right job, she had lost sight of the possibility that someone might approach her. Doing the visualization repeatedly would serve as a reminder that synchronicity was at play alongside her efforts.
About two weeks after she began her visualization, she received an e-mail from a literary agent in London. This woman had found Masum’s writing online and loved it! She was looking for the right person to write a book on feminism and the arts; would Masum be interested in being that person?
Despite meditating regularly on something just like this happening, Masum could not believe it. She was absolutely stunned to encounter a job offer in this way after thousands of hours of combing through job postings, crafting and submitting applications, and meetings over coffee for networking.
In shifting her internal core belief from “everything I achieve only comes about through hard work” to “the Universe has my back and will position me in the right job that is going to use my talents for the greatest good,” Masum was offered an unexpected new job opportunity. By surrendering to something greater than herself, Masum embraced a spiritual principle that would serve her for the rest of her life. This spiritual principle is beautifully encapsulated in the words of author and educator Anita Moorjani:
I’m at my strongest when I’m able to let go, when I suspend my beliefs as well as disbeliefs, and leave myself open to all possibilities. That also seems to be when I’m able to experience the most internal clarity and synchronicities.
—ANITA MOORJANI
In this exercise, we will harness the power of prayer and surrender by turning some of our worries over to something greater than ourselves, whether to God, a Higher Power, the Universe, Mother Nature, or whatever resonates most with you.
For this exercise, you will need either a stack of Post-it sticky notes or a piece of paper. If you’re using the latter, cut the piece of paper into four rectangles. On each Post-it or rectangle, write down one worry you presently have. Aim to write four worries in total.
You may have worries about your relationship, finances, health, friendships, family, and/or spiritual life. You may worry that you will fail an upcoming exam, be stuck in a lifetime of debt, never find your life partner, among many other things.
Once you have four worries written down, take one of them at a time and say the following simple prayer. I use the word “Universe” below, but please fill in whatever your title is for something greater than yourself:
I surrender this worry over to you. Please resolve this worry in the right way in the right time for the greatest good of all involved.
Once you have surrendered your worries over to something greater than yourself, tear up the piece of paper or Post-it note and put it in the nearest garbage can. Now repeat this process with each of your pieces of paper, one at a time.
For the next week, stop worrying about the four things you have just surrendered. You have given the Universe a clear directive through your prayers to help you with what pains you most, and to show you that the ineffable “something greater than yourself” has your back. If you need proof that help is on the way, ask for proof. The Universe can respond to your directives, but only if you ask clearly and succinctly. Once you’ve asked, begin looking for positive signs and synchronicities in your life indicating that a resolution is on its way.
Make a note in your calendar or planner to revisit this exercise in exactly one week. Now go through each of your four worries and answer the following questions in your journal:
1. Have you received any help, guidance, clarity, or insight this week in resolving these concerns?
2. How did the help, guidance, clarity, or insight manifest in your life?
With our consuming desire to make sense of things, God is a handy stand-in for those moments when we don’t have a clue. As Dr. Paulos points out in his book Irreligion, there are also a lot of people who believe “God exists simply because He says He does in a much extolled tome that He allegedly inspired.”12
Yet sometimes, the strange synchronicities of life make us wonder: Is there perhaps something more than coincidences, like special signs of reassurance sent from on high? Filmmaker Woody Allen joked, “If only God would give me a clear sign. Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.”
Like answered prayers, surrendering to synchronicity often brings people the same kind of reassurance that Someone or Something—be it the Universe, God, a loving energy, divinity, Mother Nature—is present in their lives.
One of my patients, Manuel, told me of two instances in his life where he had felt so depressed and hopeless that he contemplated ending his life. Those were the only two times in his life that he had prayed. Both times he felt “lifted” out of his suicidal state shortly thereafter. Manuel concluded that these experiences were evidence of a Higher Power.
When Barbara, another of my patients, prayed for a change in herself, it had an almost instantaneous result. After an argument with her mother one day, she became so overcome with anger that she was unable to focus on anything else for weeks. Recognizing how destructive this negative emotion was, Barbara prayed to God to give her the strength and compassion to forgive her mother. Minutes later, she felt her anger finally lift.
Were these cases of divine intervention? Or had Manuel and Barbara finally harnessed their personal power by the very act of prayer and the intention of lifting themselves out of depression and forgiveness, respectively?
Through our minds, we can make the banal into something magical and, likewise, something magical into something banal. Through our minds, we create our reality and thereby co-create the unfolding of our lives.
Although powerful experiences of synchronicity can make us feel connected to something greater than ourselves, at times our prayers may appear to go unanswered. I can personally attest that I experienced many unanswered prayers in the midst of my soulmate search. When I met Scott toward the end of my psychiatry residency, I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was my soulmate. He felt so uncannily familiar. I was immediately drawn to him without knowing why. Since I had never had an experience like it before, I assumed it must be meaningful.
Once I cast Scott as my soulmate in my mind, he became the perfect person onto whom I could project all my hopes, wishes, and dreams. It was easy to do, because I didn’t really know him.
As soon as we started dating, I fell hard and fast. He was everything I’d hoped for: charming and attentive, brilliant and interesting, masculine yet sensitive. Daydreams about our wedding, our children, and our long happy life together started sneaking into my mind.
The pivotal moment came when I learned that he was dating not one, but several other women! It was abundantly clear that Scott had no interest in committing to me or anyone else. It was a blow. The wise thing to do would have been to accept the evidence that this man was not for me and move on. But I had never been good at taking “no” for an answer. That same determined, persistent part of me that would will my way through life when the going got tough rose to the occasion now. Not knowing what to do but determined to change the course of events, I closed my eyes to the facts and prayed with all my might.
A few days later, I had the craziest experience in an ice cream store. Just as I was leaving the store with a scoop of lemon sorbet, a young woman I had never seen before came up to me with her young child. “I’m a psychic,” she said. “Can I give you a message?”
Seeing no harm in it, I said, “Sure.”
“You met your soulmate the other day. His name is Scott. God wants you to know that he has heard your prayers. Everything will work out for you.” With that, she left the ice cream store, never to be seen again.
I was dumbfounded. What in the world just happened? Who was this woman? And how did she know Scott’s name?
There was only one answer I wanted to entertain. “God must have heard my prayers and taken time out of His busy day to send this psychic to the ice cream store to reassure me that things will work out with Scott.” Whatever cognitive bias I used to convince myself of this, I left the ice cream store that day with a big smile on my face.
But things did not work out with Scott. For a long time afterward, I tried to make sense of this strange experience.
When I look back at things now, I realize that the psychic never actually said “things will work out with Scott.” She merely said that things would work out. And ultimately they have, very much so. But I can’t say I didn’t feel somehow duped or abandoned by God at what I perceived to be an uncanny promise, delivered through a mysterious psychic, which never came to pass.
Only when I finally took off my rose-colored glasses was I able to see that I had been head over heels in love—not with Scott, but with my own projections and fantasies about him. With the benefit of hindsight, I know now that I was enjoying a wonderful romantic relationship… with myself.
In fact, I realize now that I had been praying for the wrong thing all along. As Wayne Dyer wrote, “Rather than praying to God or a saint for a miracle, pray for the miracle of an inner awakening, which will never leave you.” In retrospect, what I should have been praying for was “the greatest good for all involved” or “the ability to grow and change in such a way as to have a truly fulfilling relationship with the right person at the right time,” and not just “please make it work with Scott!”
The mysteries of synchronicity—answered prayers, rightfully unanswered prayers, books landing at our feet, locker combinations that remind us of someone we love, immediate dispensations of compassion by request—often lead us to see the world we live in a little differently. We have the choice of whether to view all of these life experiences as random coincidences or as expressions of what Carl Jung called the unus mundus, which is Latin for “the one world,” or the profound interconnectedness of all things.13
Revealing its designs through events in the outer world as interpreted through our inner mental landscape, the unus mundus actualizes itself in time through synchronistic clues encoded within the fabric of experience itself. In this way, synchronicities have the potential to transform us, awaken us and alter us from within. Rich in meaning, a synchronistic event can affect and deepen our state of awareness and perception. The inherently revelatory nature of synchronicity underlies the realization that we are playing an active, participatory, and hence, co-creative role in the unfolding of our lives, and therefore the world. In this way, synchronicities can and do expand our consciousness.