New Approach to Synchronicity

Lance Storm is a Visiting Research Fellow, School of Psychology, University of Adelaide, Australia. He has over 20 years post-doctoral research experience as a theorist and designer of funded experiments in parapsychology. Storm has published in major journals including Psychological Bulletin, Journal of Parapsychology and Journal of Scientific Exploration. He is a full member of the AIPR, and Chief Editor of the Australian Journal of Parapsychology.

• Introduction. 1. Defining Synchronicity 2. Types of Synchronicity 3. The Map Is Not The Territory 4. The Extraordinary Case of Bishop James Pike 5. Synchronicity Writ Large. References. Appendix A. The Birthday Paradox. Appendix B. Experiments on Meaningful Coincidence. Appendix C. The I Ching and the Binary System—Comparisons. Appendix D: Nostradamus and His Critics.

"There has long been an uncomfortable association between psi and synchronicity. While Jung considered psi to be part of his wider conception of synchronicity (as acausal orderedness), there is little definitive support for this position in the literature surrounding psi. Much of this is due, Storm argues, to the influence of Dr. J. B. Rhine, who held very much a causal (in contrast to Jung's acausal) explanatory position for psi explanations. Storm, however, goes one further and gives a strong argument as to why psi should be subsumed under Jung's narrower conception of synchronicity, in other words meaningful coincidences, which Jung considered to be specific instances of acausal orderedness. Storm's proposition is certainly a refreshing addition to the literature on this fascinating subject."Laurence Browne, PhD, Honorary Research Fellow, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, and author of The Many Faces of Coincidence"This is another superb book from Lance Storm, in which he further elaborates on the advantages of reframing psi phenomena in terms of synchronicity: shifting focus from causes to meanings, avoiding the inflation of emphasising personal agency, facilitating understanding of non-ordinary states of consciousness, and above all making sense at last of the “psychological aberrations” that beset parapsychology. His argument is radical but is masterfully presented and could be profoundly fertilising for future work in the field."Roderick Main, Professor, University of Essex, and author of The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture