Synchonicity and Astrology
Statisticians argue that the concept of synchronicity may be dismissed by pure random theory. Given enough combinations, they propose, sets of circumstances can and will arise within a given period of time so as to seem uncannily related.
Having studied statistics for two years at university, I can both understand and accept their point of view. However, like many other people, I live my life based more on what my heart tells me, rather than what logic or my intellect interprets as truth. The reason for this is that my intuition has seldom let me down in the past, while logic is something that often tends to get adjusted somewhat the more we find out about the world around us. Even Einstein joked that he didn't mind setting the same questions every year at the university where he lectured, because the answers changed so much.
Astrology is a good example of this. Logic tells us there is no way it can work, there is little or no scientific reason as to why it should work. But after reading a few books about it, our intuition might begin to alert us, "Hold on a minute, there seems to be something in this...". And as a result, we get introduced to a whole world of knowledge that would otherwise have been denied to us due to the sometimes restricting chains of logic. But naturally, I agree, we have to keep a tight rein on our sense of intuition and not let it run away with us.
So for a bit of fun with our intuition, let's have a look at the even more delicate subject of synchronicity.
Synchronicity is related to time. Two or more events must occur within a fairly short period of time to appear to have some form of relationship. That relationship is most often unintelligible, but because there is a time criteria, synchronicity could have something to do with the "fourth dimension". It could be a third-dimensional glimpse of the next dimension.
The fourth dimension is the whole life of a third dimensional object or being, like ourselves, from its beginning to end. It is your whole life viewed at once. The "now" we live in is merely a "time slice" of our fourth-dimensional existence.
Please forgive this rather unscientific approach but we'll try and make some progress.
How Synchronicity might relate to the next dimension.
If you were a one-dimensional being, you would be able to see the next dimension up (a 2-D surface, or plane), but only as a line at any given time.
Likewise, if you were a two-dimensional being, you would also be able to view the next dimension up (our 3-D world), but only as a 2-D plane (surface) at any given time.
For example, imagine if you dipped a 3-dimensional object, like a tree, into a pond of water. A 2-dimensional being existing on the surface of the pond would be able to see the tree, but only as a series of separate, infinitely thin wooden lines. Each wooden line would represent one of the branches of the tree at the point where it passed through the surface of the water.
However, from its 2-D viewpoint, it would not be able to establish any logical link between the lines it could see.
In this manner, it is conceivable that, as three-dimensional beings, we might occasionally get to view a "snapshot" of a higher-dimensional phenomenon, even though there might not be a logical relationship between the objects or events in our snapshot. But, intuitively, we might know, with little doubt, that a definite relationship exists. Not only could we know, but we could act on that knowledge to deduce a valid outcome in our third-dimension world.
Why I didn't automatically ascribe this phenomenon to the immediately higher dimension, that belonging to time, is because synchronous events do not usually occur at exactly the same moment. If they did, we could look to the fourth dimension for the answer. A time-line perpendicular to our third dimensional existence could be seen as related to simultaneous events, possibly even causal. But because synchronous events tend to occur within a limited time frame, it is possible that they are fifth, or even sixth dimensional shapes/aberrations, like ripples, intersecting our 3-D worldly events (perhaps akin to a universal manifestation of the the Kaluza-Klein hypothesis in physics). If we were to slice through the 2-D being's surface world with an infinitely thin razor blade (a cross-section of the third dimension), we could not create a ripple in their world. We could only create a ripple in their world with an object with a 2-D width greater than zero. Therefore it is likely that synchronicity is related to at least a 4-D "shape", a phenomenon related to a time-frame (rather than time-slice) and possibly even the domain of the next dimension up, that of concurrent time periods, the fifth dimension, where archetypal aberrations/waves/scalars/shapes, for want of a better word, cross-sect or influence multiple fourth-dimensional continua at roughly the same time and play out as what we perceive to be synchronous events.
To put it another way, on a smaller scale we would be able to influence a two dimensional world from our perspective. We could throw a pebble into a pond, and hypothetical two-dimensional beings living on the surface would perceive the effect as ripples (compression/decompression effects) in their lives. It would appear to them as a "bunching-up" of areas on their surface, i.e. in their continuum/reality, and play out as "concentrated" sets of events. It goes without saying that a third-dimensional object (shape) can influence a lower dimension. Given that higher dimensional objects or shapes can influence the nature of lower dimensions, we have yet to consider the scenario that this object could impinge on their lower-dimensional world from any direction. The pebble could strike the surface of the pond from any angle yet still cause the ripples that they are familiar with. The whole point of this loose-fitting waffle is that synchronicity could be the influence of time-spanning phenomena as yet unrecognizable and undecipherable by us.
The basis for synchronicity could well be planetary. Astrology itself seems to be based on some form of synchronicity. In the past, when a chillingly synchronous set of events has happened in my own life (triple synchronistic happenings within a short period of time), I noticed that often a particular planetary aspect was in operation, for example, Mars was exactly rising on the ascendant of the daily horary chart.
The best part, for now, is that (like astrology), we do not need to understand how it works in order to use it. All we need to do is to be able to recognize it and relate it to other events occurring at approximately the same time in our currently relevant reality. I use it for horse-racing, with about as much effectiveness as following form, and I'm pretty good at following form after studying it for many years of my life. It is truly amazing to see how well it works when it does, and it can help you to either find some really good outsiders or give you more confidence when banking a horse with a good form line.
It is well known that the current positions (transits) of the planets in relation to their "different-time" positions at our birth influence us. Our birth chart reflects a moment in time at which a new individual fourth-dimensional time-line began. We cannot deduce the relationship between the two from our third-dimensional point of view, yet millions of astrologers know there is a very perceptible relationship. When Venus forms an aspect to one of our natal planets, we cannot help but notice how suddenly people, objects, phenomena and events of beauty are attracted to us, effortlessly, as if by magnet. We experience a "bunching up", or compression, of Venus related concepts.
Even more abstract is the idea of transits to our progressed (day-for-a-year) planets. If you are 30 years old, a planet's position today influences the position of the planets where they were when you were 30 days old. This alone is a good indication that astrology is not based on gravity or electromagnetic fields. The best description we can currently give to this relationship is that it is "symbolic", but even then we know this definition is lacking, because these transit aspects to progressed planets seem to cause or be related to very real events that occur in our lives. This is an example of the kind of "shapes" I am talking about, the ability for the positions of planets at this moment to "reach across" time and demonstrate a relationship with the positions of planets any amount of time ago.
Finally, just to show us how little we know about this all, consider converse progressions. These are the positions of planets before births and events occur, on a day-for-a-year basis. For example, the positions of the planets 30 days before you were born affect your life when you are 30 years old. So much for science's bold claim that "nearly everything" has been discovered, when science is hardly even aware that there is a massive engine driving everything.
Anyway, enough theory and rambling. Who knows what the hell is going on, nobody I've ever heard about. All we need to know and take from this is that we can use synchronicity for pattern recognition. We hardly have to know how a car's engine works in order to drive a car and get somewhere.
Technology might one day help us to understand more about synchronicity. Imagine a world where electronic concept-recognition systems are able to communicate with each other simultaneously around the globe. Synchronous words, phrases or events occurring in a magnitude beyond the realm of coincidence might be more easily identified and defined, and early-warning systems, derived by studying previous patterns and outcomes, could be activated.
Some interesting research has been made in this area regarding the use of assimilative internet bot technology, as well applications of the Wordnet project developed by Princeton university.
Synchronicity seems to have already been used for thousands of years by mankind in many forms of divination, from the tarot, runes, i-Ching through to interpretations of the "random fall" of anything from bones to tea-leaves.
Everything reflects everything. The microcosm reflects what is going on in the macrocosm, and vice versa. As below, so above. By looking at the small picture, we get an idea of what is going on in the big picture.
Although wide open to error, there's nothing rocket science about it. All of these tools are derived from pure observation and intuition. Long before scientists were telling everyone that the world was flat, people were lying under the stars at night, noticing things like when the red planet (Mars) joined up with the yellow planet (Saturn), there was violence, fighting, or they were attacked. Or when the bright "evening star" (Venus), joined its fellow bright planet, Jupiter, it was a time of peace.
It didn't take them too long to start keeping track of this, passing down the knowledge, and astrology was born, whilst the scientists were still groping around in the dark looking for meaning. In a similar manner, people looked at other seemingly random things, and noted that certain shapes indicated certain types of phenomena, and all these other "pseudo-scientific" fields were born. This evolutive gleaning of knowledge, gained from many generations of people studying their environments, is a good example of how intuition, properly used, can knock the shit out of logic.