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Who Writes on SynchroMysticism and Synchronicity?

Beside the seemingly ever-present Loren Coleman, and the  other individuals previously highlighted (so far: Jay Dyer, Carl Jung, and Jake Kotze), where else can interested readers turn for more examples and more information?

Here, we will list two (well, three) other others.

The first additional commentator of interest is the comic-book artist and author, Christopher Knowles. He is otherwise known for insightful books such as Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes (with Joseph Michael Linsner, Newburyport, MA: Red Wheel Weiser, 2007),  The Complete X-Files: Behind the Series, the Myths, and the Movies (with Matt Hurwitz, Insight Editions, 2008), and The Secret History of Rock ‘n’ Roll: The mysterious roots of modern music (Berkeley, CA: Viva Editions, 2010).

Knowles’s weblog, The Secret Sun, is replete with references to SynchroMysticism and synchronicity, as a simple Google search will reveal. One particular post, “Credit Where Credit is Due,” eloquently makes one point that this author has been at pains to disclose: namely, the relevant areas of inquiry derive from the input and thought of many key people.

It is perhaps quite true to say that Carl Jung, more than anyone else, deserves recognition for initiating these studies. However, as Jung himself makes clear, innumerable, pertinent pieces of background came to him by way of reflections upon ancient alchemy (among other sources).

In addition to the above-mentioned post, which is ought to be given a careful read by interested students, Knowles has countless others that should both entertain visitors to his blog, as well as enlighten those wishing to contend with (if not quite get a handle on) SynchroMysticism.

A second fascinating analyst is the curious S. K. Bain, whose Most Dangerous Book in the World: 9/11 as Mass Ritual (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2012) contains a foreword by Peter Levenda (on whom more in a future writing). In Bain’s telling, the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, on September 11, 2001, were (in the words of the publisher’s able summary) an “occult-driven… Global Luciferian MegaRitual …a psychological warfare campaign built upon a deadly foundation of black magick and high technology.” It’s quite a SynchroMystical ride.

Something of a companion volume followed. In “Sherwood Kent’s” Most Dangerous: A True Story (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2016) one descends into a nightmarish tale abounding in disturbing and lurid instances of synchronicity.

Stay tuned.

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SynchroMysticism Defined: Jake Kotze

SynchroMystic guru Loren Coleman credited author and filmmaker Jake Kotze with having coined the term “synchromysticism.” Coleman wrote:

The word “synchromysticism” was first coined by Jake Kotze in August 2006, on his website-at-the-time, Brave New World Order.* Kotze defined the concept as: “The art of realizing meaningful coincidence in the seemingly mundane with mystical or esoteric significance.” (Source.)

Let us mine some of the depths in this quotation.

One thing to notice is that the qualifier “meaningful” appears to do quite a bit of work. After all, on one definition of the word, “coincidence” merely marks out temporal correspondence.

Many of these correspondences are indeed mundane (both in the sense of being commonplace or worldly, and in the sense of being run-of-the-mill or, in a word, dull). For instance, as I type this, there is a song playing in the background, the air conditioner just kicked on, two Mourning doves are walking around outside, and so on.

Presumably, however, no one is tempted by the notion that there is any remarkable (i.e., meaningful) relationship between any of the scattered goings on that I just listed. For, at any given time, innumerable events are occurring simultaneously. The vast majority of these events with be nothing to write home about – whether individually or considered together.

What the synchromystic looks for, then, is not merely events that are temporally related, but events that are temporally associated in particular, “meaningful” ways.

Candidate events may have uninspired, “exoteric” (or outward and easily comprehended) meanings on the surface. But the synchromystic is the person who may notice esoteric significance lying under the uninteresting appearances.  (Or, at least, this is one way that person sympathetic to the project may understand it. Less sympathetic individuals may be tempted to the opinion that the synchromystic is “reading-into” events or engaging in wishful thinking or self-delusion.)

Kotze was a contributor to The Sync Book, published in 2011. He seems to take a monistic view of reality. On this sort of perspective, which appears (among other places) in some streams of Hinduism, all things are, ultimately “one.” Sameness is the fundamental property of existence, while difference is explained as illusion (maya).

Within this broad framework, synchronicity (that is, significant coincidence or simultaneity of “connected” events) is taken to be to a psychological phenomenon in which the percipient catches a glimpse of the “true,” undifferentiated nature of things.

Kotze’s view, while interesting, is far from the only view. In other posts, we will explore the views of other, influential thinkers from the famed Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung and Hungarian-British journalist Arthur Koestler, to lesser-known figures like the oraculist James Shelby Downard, and on to more contemporary commentators including the aforementioned cryptozoologist, Loren Coleman.

Stay tuned.

* Kotze’s weblog title is a composite of two phrases. Firstly, it is a reference to the so-called “New World Order.” Arguably, this phrase has at least two different interpretations. For more on the imperialistic interpretation, see books by Noam Chomsky and Henry Kissinger. For those with more conspiratorial turns of mind, see the “illuminist” interpretation propounded by persons like Mark Dice and A. Ralph Epperson. Secondly, Kotze’s phrase hearkens back to Aldous Huxley’s classic, 1932 novel, Brave New World. Huxley’s book, along with George Orwell’s dystopian nightmare, 1984, are practically required reading.