The strange case of the Syracusan dekadrachm ― part seven

Five antiquaries look through magnifying

glasses at objects. Coloured lithograph after

L. Boilly, 1823. 

© Wellcome Trust

The first thing that must be said about strange coincidences in obtaining rare collectibles is that those who have such an interest frequent places where collectibles are offered for sale. Collectors go to shops, markets and auction rooms, and these days also do a lot of online shopping. The collector must also know what he or she is looking at. Already, the collector is far ahead of the general public in finding bargains.

Yet, amazing coincidences do happen where the odds against such seem overwhelming. When I bought my Syracusan dekadrachm, a couple of events were in close time proximity and I had wanted that particular die combination although only two of them were known to exist and both were in public collections.

An event that would have seemed highly unlikely before it happened is known as a "Black Swan". As I said before, rarities and even the unique are actually very common provided that we do not try to specify them before they happen. It is far easier to expect any bargain than to try and custom order one. I have also noticed that finding something frequently echoes a thought that I had about that same thing, but that thought was only rarely about being to obtain such. In fact, the thought I had when I saw the photograph of my favorite Syracuse dekadrachm was that I would not be able to get one because of their great rarity. Obviously, it was not a case of positive thinking.

The main defining quality of synchronicity is that a thought within the upper levels of the unconscious is paired with a meaningful event in one's life. When the thought and the event take place at the same time, Jung called it synchronicity, but he also said that the phenomenon was not always synchronous, and when there was some time between the psychic and material events, the incident was called "synchronistic". Randomness, too, can deliver such strange occurrences: many people will have noticed how frequently seen is an adjacent number set on winning lottery tickets. I don't usually pay too much heed to these synchronistic events, but in the case of the dekadrachm, the coincidental events were numerous and linked by certain psychic themes:

• The dekadrachm of Syracuse was a "Holy Grail" to many collectors of Greek coins, myself included.
• My father did not understand my interests and wanted me to get into the oil business, and this was reflected in the mental image of a boy being sold into slavery by his father for the same sort of coin.
• The dekadrachm type I picked as my favorite was exceedingly rare and yet I fairly quickly obtained it.
• A friend had brought the book on these coins when visiting me, but had no specific knowledge that they interested me.
• An auction cataloguer had misread the same book and thought that the author believed the type was a fake, and this made it possible for me to afford one.
• Suffering financial hardships after the death of my wife, I was able to sell the coin and "obtain my freedom" which "corrected" the significance of the mental image. (the unconscious has a distinct compensatory function).

Also, the person who purchased my dekadrachm was an oil millionaire and his intention is to leave his Greek coin collection to the museum at the same university as his education, there, was instrumental in his later wealth. Here's a life-lesson: if I had got into the oil business, I might  have been able to afford the same coin if its genuineness was known at the time (of course I might also have ended up dying in a well blow-out!). The same destination might be reached through a multitude of routes.

Jung called a set of such events a constellation, which is defined as, "activation of a psychic personal complex or an archetypal content." In On the Nature of the Psyche, he writes much on the existence of complementarity in psychology as well as in physics and concludes (para. 418):

"Since psyche and matter are contained in one and the same world, and moreover are in continuous contact with one another and ultimately rest on irrepresentable, transcendental factors, it is not only possible but fairly probable, even, that psyche and matter are two different aspects of one and the same thing. The synchronicity phenomena point, it seems to me, in this direction, for they show that the nonpsychic can behave like the psychic, and vice versa, without there being any causal connection between them. Our present knowledge does not allow us to do much more than compare the relation of the psychic to the material world with two cones, whose aspices, meeting in a point without extension ― a real zero-point ― touch and do not touch."

It was undoubtedly Jung's association with Wolfgang Pauli which developed, even if not originated, this line of thought and Jung and Pauli were not the only pair of people with shared interests in the psyche and matter. Later, the British physicist David Bohm discussed similar things with Jiddu Krishnamurti  and their relationship is studied. Bohm complements Jung's words with his own:

"We have got to see that thought is part of this reality and that we are not merely thinking about it, but that we are thinking it”. (On Creativity, p. 141)

Yet, I can find no information that David Bohm also studied Jung, and he seems to have come to his related ideas through a different route. Theoretical physics, more than any other science has crossed the "boundary" between science and religion, even though its significances are frequently misused by creationists.

The unconscious, as its name implies, can never be fully comprehended by the consciousness, yet the two act jointly and we can see much evidence of this through dream states, active imagination, and the synchronicity phenomenon and more. Furthermore, these connections can be utilized by a therapist to very successful ends. While we cannot have an exact and knowing connection with the contents of our unconscious, its "upper levels" can be shared and we can build theoretical models of how some of this works. The depths of the unconscious contains no language and no mental pictures. Below these, and below the archetypes (in which Jung connected alchemy with psychology in his monumental Mysterium Coniunctionis) he saw some connections with mathematics and geometry. At some point, moving "downwards", we come to a realm where the observer does not  appear to us to be present, but this is the fault of our limited perception and not, obviously, the lack any truth to the matter. Without an observer, we must have pure objectivity because the subject is not (consciously) present. As time and space are relative, and this is provable, the "zero-point" appears to us to have neither and we might see some sort of connection in this idea to Planck's Constant. Perhaps we might go even further and incorporate the ideas about synchronicity with the Greek ζωή (as infinite life). Who knows? Perhaps future theoretical physicists will be searching for a "life particle" rather than a "God particle".

On Monday, he problem of the "synchronistic" in synchronicity phenomena; How it is is resolved, and the connection between synchronicity and transdisciplinarity (which was also developed through knowledge taken from quantum physics). Have a great weekend!