4/27/13: 'Cosmic Trigger,' Part Two

First, the context: last fall, I read the book Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson. This triggered (no pun intended) several remarkable synchronicities, detailed in this post.

Now, the latest: the synchronicities involving this book did not stop there.

For starters, there turned out to be several subsequent synchronicities related somehow to Cosmic Trigger in the week after 11/15/12, when I made the original post on it. The first were some striking similarities between it and the next sequential book I read, Neuromancer, where there were various concepts shared between the two (floating space colonies, amongst others) even though the books couldn't have been more different and were bought separately and read in completely random order. Also, there was the classic: I learned a new term in Cosmic Trigger, having never seen it before in my life, and then read the exact same term in Neuromancer (when the books were bought and read randomly, etc, etc). Similarly, I was introduced to a Zen proverb in Cosmic Trigger ("There is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is"), having never before seen it in my life, etc, etc -- and then, in the second sequential book I read after Cosmic Trigger (11/22/63 by Stephen King), it contained the precise same proverb, this happening within the space of a week.

However, as notable as these recurrences were, they were nothing compared to the latest.

This new wave started last month, when I decided to eBay a bunch of books I'd bought and didn't see myself reading again. One of these was Cosmic Trigger. It took a month and several re-listings to sell, but sell it did, earlier this week. When I fetched the book to ship off, I looked at the cover artwork, and in doing so noticed the Sirius constellation there (because Sirius, and the author's real-life synchronicities surrounding it, is an integral part of the book). Except, I didn't just notice it, but Noticed it, in a loud, distinct way, as if the cover were blank but for it. I've come to associate this phenomenon with things I'll soon be seeing again.

I wasn't wrong: just an hour later, I encountered Sirius again.

It came in the form of another book, Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins. I had started reading Frog Pajamas just the evening before I went to ship off Cosmic Trigger and noticed the Sirius constellation on its cover, so I was only several pages in when I sat down to read Frog Pajamas the afternoon in question. On just the second page I read, there it was: Sirius, mentioned for the first time in the book. And, not only did Frog Pajamas refer to Sirius, but it referred to the mystery surrounding the African Bozo tribe's unexplained knowledge of Sirius -- when this was also mentioned in Cosmic Trigger. This was notable in itself, considering that 1) I read this section of Frog Pajamas just an hour after packing up Cosmic Trigger and Noticing its Sirius constellation, and 2) I'd been sitting on Cosmic Trigger for nearly five months before deciding to sell it, and, similarly, been sitting on Frog Pajamas for over a month after I bought it. Yet, these two completely unrelated occurrences coincided within the space of an hour.

Of course, these two books were bought randomly and read randomly, etc, etc. Likewise, I had no prior idea what Frog Pajamas was about, and had never heard of the book until I bought it randomly at Goodwill because it was a Tom Robbins, and the book had no external indicator of anything regarding Sirius or Cosmic Trigger. Etc, etc.

But, still, it was not over. Far from it.

As I read more of Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas, I would find that Sirius was a central theme of the book -- exactly like Cosmic Trigger, the book I packed up just an hour before I came to Frog Pajamas' first Sirius reference. As it were, I actually sold Cosmic Trigger on the very day I started reading Frog Pajamas; I just wasn't able to ship it that day, therefore having to wait until the next, therefore enabling me to see the Sirius constellation just before I got to Frog Pajamas' first Sirius reference, etc, etc, E T C.

Seeing this, I thought: At this rate, the damn book's going to mention Robert Anton Wilson [Cosmic Trigger's author] by name.

The next day, Frog Pajamas mentioned Robert Anton Wilson by name.

I laughed madly when I saw it, feeling like a combination Nostradamus and Woody Allen. Not only did Frog Pajamas literally, explicitly name Robert Anton Wilson, it also mentioned Timothy Leary and a couple other people who were featured in Cosmic Trigger.

There's more, actually. But do I really need to say any more?

8/30/13: Robert Anton Wilson and Carl Jung

On the morning in question, I was working on a new book. The book was about synchronicity.

When I finished writing for the morning, I ended with this sentence: "This would introduce me to the work of prominent psychologist Carl G. Jung, who coined the term “synchronicity.”"

Immediately after finishing with my writing, I felt strongly Compelled to go to Twitter and make a daily tweet, even though I ritually do this only in the evening. Upon going to Twitter.com, however, I was stopped by a new tweet from @Robert_A_Wilson, on my followers list: "Carl Jung got me interested in synchronicity, or maybe synchronicity led me to Carl Jung."

Between my writing of Jung and synchronicity, then reading of them, mere minutes had elapsed. This got my attention. Then, realizing the humor inherent in the incident, I laughed.

11/15/12: Book Synchronicity

Ah, the classic book synchronicity. It's a repeating phenomenon, I've learned, often involving two random books read back-to-back -- yet containing the precise same things.

The books, this time, were The New Alchemists by Dirk Hanson, and Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson, read in that order (arbitrarily, out of a pool of over a dozen recently-bought books). The formats and subject matters of these books could not have been more different, one being a clinical retrospective on the burgeoning computer industry, the other a personal memoir of drug trips, bizarre "coincidences," and their possible implications. Yet, they contained several parallels.

1) Both detailed the life and career of Nikola Tesla, sometimes in overlap.

2) Both quoted Timothy Leary.

3) Both mentioned Thomas Edison.

4) And last, but far from least: the books both outlined RCA's Spectra-70 computer, even mentioning, specifically, how it was discontinued. (To my knowledge, I did not know of the Spectra computer beforehand, or that RCA had ever dabbled in the trade.)

I bought the books on two separate occasions, several hundred miles apart, without prior knowledge of either's existence. Then, I Just Happened to read them back-to-back.

(Also, as implied, this is not my first such experience, nor is it the tenth.)

(Furthermore, it bears mentioning that, just hours before reading the part of Cosmic Trigger in which the Spectra-70 was mentioned, I had the thought of, I need a significant synchronicity, since I haven't blogged of one for so long. This, too, is not the first such time I've had such ask-and-ye-shall-receive.)

(And, more: In The New Alchemists, one chapter detailed how computers were, at the time, being groomed for speech recognition (the book was written in 1981). On the very same day I read this, literally hours apart, I received an old newspaper clipping from my father, completely randomly -- which detailed how computers were being groomed for speech recognition (the paper was from 1984). I had not discussed anything from the book with my father, nor has he ever given me clippings from decades-old newspapers before.)

(Did I mention that Cosmic Trigger was primarily about just such synchronicities?)