Sunday, April 27, 2014

4/27/14 - Public Service Announcement

This isn't a synchronicity report. Nor is it to promote new writing. Rather, it's a public service announcement: that the phenomenon known as synchronicity is very, very real.

Not that I wasn't already convinced of this (many times over). It's just that, today, I read a book, There Are No Accidents by Robert H. Hopcke, and it independently reinforced everything I've experienced repeatedly for years now, in no uncertain terms. But, again, this post isn't a synchronicity report, despite the interesting and "random" means by which I came to read Mr. Hopcke's book. Instead, I would just like to remark on the stark similarity between it and the book I myself wrote on the subject (Synchronicity: One Man's Experience). The two describe explicitly similar phenomena, both in nature and in pattern, and even follow similar lines of reasoning in regards to what it all means. And, of course, I wrote my book last year, before ever learning that There Are No Accidents existed.

But that's all just coincidence, right? Because experts have agreed that such fantastic phenomena as synchronicity cannot exist.

Likewise, it was just a coincidence that the two books would cite not only remarkably similar phenomena, but near-exact incidents. The first chapter of my book details how, starting some years ago, I began repeatedly seeing the number 1111 and its variants, eventually in fascinating and highly unlikely ways (and numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands). For me, a typical "sighting" would be Just Happening to glance at a clock at 11:11, with a more notable version of this involving complicated logistics (such as driving past an electronic sign at the precise moment it changed to 11:11, or being distracted by a "random" noise and having my attention drawn to an 11:11-displaying clock, etc). As I recounted in my book, the phenomenon matured with my mounting skepticism toward it, until I was encountering 1111 in configurations and frequencies that I couldn't reasonably write off as chance (such as discovering a document on my computer that was created on November 11th, 2011, at 11:11 PM, so that it's time stamp read 11/11/11 11:11 -- with my chance discovery of the document Just Happening to coincide with the peak of the repeat-number phenomenon). Also, there are fun, multidimensional ones such as this email snapshot. Now, I quote from a case report in There Are No Accidents, written years ago by someone I've never met or heard of:
"'The number 11 began to surface after I began dating my ex-girlfriend in late 1992. It was then that she said to me, "I always look at the clock at 11:11" ... I immediately noticed, however, that this number didn't go away with our breakup. There were just too many strange and random encounters with 11 for me to simply label them coincidence ... I once came home in the evening and sat down in front of the TV, only to glance at the VCR which was recording a program, and noticed that it displayed 11:11 P.M. on channel 11 with the recording time being 11:11:11.'"
But, I repeat: all coincidence. Just like there are, in fact, accidents, apparently there are coincidences, too, including really, really, really-really-really unlikely ones.

Okay, enough with the sarcasm. The point of this post: yes, synchronicity is real, and I have been systematically stripped of any luxury of denying that fact.

End public service announcement.

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