By Steve K.

As an agnostic member of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), I have a tendency to question or rationalize so called ‘spiritual experiences’. However, this year I have experienced three ‘synchronicities’ that I find difficult to relate to in any other way. The most recent being a powerful experience which moved me greatly and relates to Steps Eight and Nine of AA’s Twelve Step Program.

All three experiences were preceded by internal emotional struggle with particular issues in my life, a surrender of my ego, and a humility and willingness to follow advice or guidance from others.

I inwardly admitted my powerlessness in relation to the difficulties I was experiencing, and I asked for help. I felt a complete willingness to do whatever was necessary and to do it with hope and faith.

At this point, in all three instances, events happened that resolved the difficulty, were an answer to my emotional struggle, or have led to significant movement within me. All three experiences seemed striking synchronicities – to me, at least. The last event was simply awe inspiring and difficult for me and, I would suggest, for anyone else to rationalize. It filled me with a sense of joy and gratitude, and in retrospect I can now understand that what I experienced was a feeling of forgiveness.

When talking about synchronicity as described by Carl Jung (1875 – 1961), I mean the occurrence of an inner or psychic experience and the seemingly meaningful coincidence of an outward physical event. The coincidence tends to engender feelings of awe and amazement, and what the German theologian Rudolf Otto (1869 – 1937) described as the ‘numinous’. The numinous is a profound subjective experience invoking overwhelming feelings (sometimes including fear) and a sense of the transcendent, sacred, or a greater reality.

It feels as if something beyond the self has communicated or connected with us and one feels humble in its presence. A ‘true synchronicity’ has these qualities and can have a transforming effect upon the person experiencing it. The hymn “Amazing Grace” comes to mind, with its expression of a spiritual awakening after a near death experience.

The experience of a profound synchronicity can inspire a change in outlook and feeling, not unlike the descriptions within the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous when describing the effects of a ‘spiritual experience’. For me, a true synchronicity that has had a profound impact on a person can be viewed as a spiritual experience.

Sceptical people will suggest that these so called meaningful coincidences are explainable in terms of probability and confirmation bias. I have often concluded these explanations myself in response to my own, and others’ experiences of synchronicity.

However, some of these experiences are very difficult or impossible to explain rationally and are well outside the realm of reasonable probability. They are a mysterious occurrence beyond our human comprehension. Jung defined a true synchronicity as an ‘acausal connecting principle’, meaning they are without an identifiable physical cause. He suggested they are a manifestation of a deeper ordered reality where mind and matter are interconnected or unified.

When people try to explain their spiritual experiences they often struggle to communicate them effectively. The ineffable quality of such experiences seems very common to them, and similarly, to the numinous experience often invoked by synchronicity . I think feelings of awe, wonder, and greater meaning and connection are very difficult to convey to others.

My experiences this year have had a significant effect upon me in terms of my openness to spirituality. I do feel changed in outlook and feeling in this respect. Have I undergone a spiritual conversion experience? I’m not sure, maybe to a degree and I’m still in the process of  having one. Am I still agnostic? I think so, as I still don’t know if God exists or not, but I now feel more willing to trust and believe in a power greater than myself; whatever that maybe.

This reminds me of the “promises” in the AA “Big Book”…..

“Are these extravagant promises?  We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.”   

p.84, 3rd edition.

In my case, it’s been very slowly; but hey, “it’s progress, not perfection” as we say in the Fellowship. I think my spiritual awakening has mainly been of the “educational variety” (1) and is ongoing at this time. If I look back to just a few years ago, I can now see great changes in relation to my attitudes and reactions, particularly in terms of recovery and spirituality.

I have transformed from a belligerent member of the AA fellowship with very little time or appreciation for the Twelve Step program, to someone who now embraces it and is willing to help others with its practice. In doing so, I continue to grow and develop as a human being, and in my spiritual awareness and practice. Maybe it’s never too late to “know a new freedom and a new happiness.” (2) I really hope so.

Definition of Synchronicity:

the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung.

“Synchronicity.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.

1. Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd edition, p.569.

2. Ibid, p.83.