In his article “On Synchronicity,” Carl Jung observes that synchronicity is enhanced by affect. Addressing the work of J. B. Rhine on telepathy and other synchronistic psychic powers, he states that “the psychic factor that modifies or even eliminates the principles underlying the physicist’s picture of the world is connected with the affective state of the subject.” (Jung, CW, volume VIII, p 524.) Jung notes that when a psychic task is new and challenging, there is more affect and hence more synchronistic phenomena. But after the task has become routine and boring, the synchronistic abilities tend to decrease or disappear.

Albertus Magnus, the great seer and wizard of the fifteenth century, knew this too. He said that “a certain power to alter things indwells in the human soul and subordinates the other things to her, particularly when she is swept into a great excess of love or hate or the like.” (Quoted by Jung, CW, Volume VIII, p 448.)

People also speak of sexual magic, whereby the great passion of sex is used to influence reality. All these folks are saying the same thing, that when there are strong feelings or passion within an individual or between individuals, magical and synchronistic phenomena are much more likely to occur.

We had a medicine group here in Boulder once. We called ourselves Synchronicity. We had all met at a Leary workshop and had decided to continue as a tripping group. In our beginnings, we were all open, and synchronistic phenomena did abound. We were all inside each other’s heads constantly, and startling and meaningful things did happen to all of us almost daily.

But then several of us began to pull away from the group, as they got in touch with events and feelings from their past that were too scary to share with the group. They kept their strong feelings to themselves, no longer sharing their real selves with the group, and magic and synchronicity stayed away, became only a name.