How to Read Signs

Or: how to not lose your mind in a universe that talks back

I already posted a list of how to begin magically altering your life. If you haven’t read that, go do it now. This is one of several posts I’m going to make, breaking down that list. In this post, I’m going to talk about signs, synchronicities, and what to do if you start seeing them.

Synchronicity

The term synchronicity was coined by Carl Jung to describe strange, beautiful moments when reality seems to be talking back to you.

A synchronicity is basically a meaningful coincidence. It’s something happening that is a little too good to be true, even surreal. The easiest way to discern a synchronicity from a coincidence, is how it feels. A coincidence might make you go “huh, that’s weird” a synchronicity should feel a little weird. Typically, synchronicities are seen as a positive sign. It means you are on the right path, and that the work you are doing is working.

Examples of a synchronicity might be:

• Talking about someone and that person texting you

• Dreaming about an object or symbol and that thing appearing the next day

• Performing a ritual and something from that ritual appears soon after (a symbol, object, name, etc.)

• The same thing happening or occurring over and over again at meaningful steps in a process

Ways to verify or engage with a synchronicity can include:

• Using divination

• Talking about it with people (this should include at least one normal person, and never an AI which will just tell you some variation of “wow! You are so right!")

• Following the synch to see if more occur

• Simply saying thank you for the sign

When you first start doing magic, you will start to notice synchs, and it will be very exciting, and maybe even a bit scary. It is good to notice when this is happening, but I’m here to urge you to be normal about it.

There are two traps people fall into with synchronicities. One, is forcing connections where there is none. I call this the “Omg he texted me back” form of mysticism, because I’ve seen it lead people into relationships and scenarios that ended up being very harmful. Forcing yourself to see connections where none exist is a bullshit way of keeping your nervous system humming at a constant speed and pretending that’s a divine connection to the universe. A synchronicity does not have to be forced. It should be glaringly obvious that something weird is happening. If you find yourself forcing meaning onto an event, it’s probably a sign that it isn’t a sign, just a coincidence.

The remedy to this is to sit back and actually look at what is happening in your life, objectively. Ok, so your date showed up at an angel number time or something, but were they late? Were they mean to you? Did they talk down to you the whole time? Maybe that’s just an actual coincidence that you are purposely misreading for the plot, babe.

The other, more advanced, trap people fall into with synchronicities is more dangerous and looks like (and often is) genuine psychosis. In this trap, people will both conflate things that actually have nothing to do with each other, and seize on genuine connections and make a huge deal out of them. It’s tough because most magical and spiritual disciplines teach some level of “it’s all connected” and that’s really beautiful and cool, but there is a line between that and actually losing your mind.

Note: I did not say there is a fine line. I actually think this distinction is more clear than people want to admit, and it leads to people getting hurt. I’ve watched people be harmed by, and have myself been harmed by, people in the throes of spiritual psychosis, so forgive me if I’m unforgiving here. If you or someone you know is actually fucking up their whole life (draining bank accounts, stalking people, being violent, getting arrested, so on) that’s not god, honey.

The Chapel Perilous

Robert Anton Wilson described this state of being overwhelmed by magic The Chapel Perilous. In this state, you become paranoid, scared, and can’t distinguish between what is real or not. You cannot tell the difference between meaningful patterns, and connections your own mind is making up. Of this state he writes:

“Indeed, like the Ego, it is even possible to deny that it is there. And yet, even more like the Ego, once you are inside it, there doesn’t seem to be any way to ever get out again, until you suddenly discover that it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside thought. Everything you fear is waiting with slavering jaws in Chapel Perilous, but if you are armed with the wand of intuition, the cup of sympathy, the sword of reason and the pentacle of valor, you will find there (the legends say) the Medicine of Metals, the Elixir of Life, the Philosopher’s Stone, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness.” -Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger

The Chapel Perilous is a state all magical practitioners need to go though, but you cannot get stuck there. To get out, you need good intentions, reason, and a strong intuition. These are developed over time and practice.

I would add to this that you also need humility. What differentiates a meaningful sign from a coincidence? One definition might be how well you are able to detach from the idea that the universe can be known, quantified, and predicted entirely. Do you really think you can comprehend the mind of god? Come on.

I’m going to give you a word a lot of people need to hear in these spaces: discernment. You could also just say: common sense. You will not find a saint, spiritual leader, or genuine authority saying you should listen to every sign that comes your way. The mystic Saint Teresa of Avila put it well in her book, The Interior Castle, when she says that if signs that come our way are good, they don’t need us to act on them in order to make them good. The nature of signs will become revealed in time.

The thing is, synchronicities happen all the time, especially when you are engaged in magical or spiritual work, because the world is alive and filled with relationships between the more-than-human. That’s really awesome, but it’s also chill. You don’t have to make a big deal out of it.