The woeful lack of original content on the blog is still being caused by a long and miserable bout of bronchitis, as well as a number of bizarre incidents such as my car being impounded by the police. I am currently writing something that will be up next week, forces of nature and the state allowing, but to fill the gap is an article from Robert Guffey, taken from
Fortean Times but actually an extract from his book,
Cryptoscatology.
The article looks at synchronicity which is something that perpetually fascinates me; especially the nature of 'meaningless' coincidences which often proliferate in my life.
Cryptoscatology
Robert Guffey explores the hidden links between Charles Fort and Andre Breton, visionaries at the margins of consensus reality whose subversive synchronistic and surreal practice resonates to this day
By Robert Guffey
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March 2012
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FT286
In 1919, a “meaningful coincidence” occurred: Charles Fort published The Book of the Damned and the surrealist André Breton (right) founded an anti-literary review titled Littérature. The work of both men would eventually inspire large groups of artists, philosophers, and other strange people to follow in their respective footsteps. In Breton’s case, this is exactly the result he had been striving toward. Fort, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to note that both men – one in Europe, the other in America – were eagerly exploring the hidden realm of dreams, unexplained phenomena, and what the Swiss psychologist Jung would call “meaningful coincidences”.
It is well known that the surrealists were heavily influenced by psychology, particularly the work of Freud. Later, they would also draw upon the findings of Freud’s student Jung, whose theories concerning synchronicity dovetailed with their own mystical outlook on life. Jung developed the term “synchronicity” after noticing that both he and his patients had experienced an uncanny number of coincidences that clearly went beyond the mere forces of chance (see FT171:42–47; 264:40–45). For example, Jung once related the eerie incident of having suddenly woken up in the middle of the night convinced that someone had just entered his hotel room, only to find himself alone in the dark. He was certain he had been roused forth by “a feeling of dull pain as if something had struck his forehead and the back of his skull”, and yet there was no evidence of physical harm anywhere on his body. The mystery deepened the very next day when he discovered that not only had a patient of his shot himself through the forehead, but that the bullet had “lodged at the back wall of the skull”. Inevitably, the time of the tragedy coincided with Jung’s fearful experience from the night before (1).
