Abstract

Synchronicity is a familiar term and human experience in Western culture. In this inquiry it is considered a meaningful coincidence, an unplanned moment when an inner psychic event acausally coincides with an outer physical event, and together these are meaningful to the percipient. This moment is part of a personally significant episode in a life story. The experience may have an extra-ordinary quality and play a role in personal development. ;The combination of physical, nonphysical, and acausal aspects are problematic in terms of identification and explanation, and existing approaches to describing the meaningful coincidence phenomenon as well as variations investigated thus far have limitations. This inquiry employs a hermeneutic phenomenology for more fully understanding seven stories of meaningful coincidences, two of which are the investigator's own. The stories are seen as instances of the phenomenon and the objects of inquiry. They are reduced to 24 qualities and features and synthesized in a textural-structural description. ;The inquiry is situated in the life story and reflections of the investigator as co-percipient in others' experiences through their stories. Greater understanding of ourselves and others is the promise of the research journey. One conclusion is that we can liberate diverse and wondrous worlds from this mirror-like phenomenon, which we create, experience, and appreciate. Meaningful coincidences in this renewed light become clearer as to what they are and how we experience them. Further lines of inquiry and several specific studies are suggested