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| An art piece I have always liked, by an unknown and, I believe, late artist. This, at least, will live. |
By Dan Hagen
Is the universe connected on some dimensional level of which
we’re ordinarily unaware?
The psychologist and philosopher Carl Jung thought so, and
termed the phenomenon “synchronicity.” By that he meant an acausal principle
that somehow links events having a similar meaning by their coincidence in time
rather than sequentially — “meaningful coincidences,” in other words.
I have experienced enough of them in my life to wonder if
Jung might have just been on to something, bizarre as it seems to rationalists.
Consider the way a two-dimensional being on a flat plane would
perceive a three-dimensional cone being pushed through its dimension. As an
expanding circle, right? What if the intrusion of higher-dimensional phenomena
were to produce analogous effects for three-dimensional beings like us? What
would we perceive?
Years ago, I began keeping a list of synchronistic
experiences I’ve had. I offer some of them now as food for thought.
•••
Some students of synchronicity have claimed that instances
are experienced more frequently when you travel. One of the most striking
examples in my experience happened while I was making a rare visit to
Washington, D.C., to attend a journalism seminar in January 1998.
As soon as I got into my hotel room, I called one of my
oldest and best friends, First Amendment attorney Bob Corn-Revere, and told him
that he’d find me in Room 326.
“That should be easy to remember,” Bob said. “Section 326 is
the part of the Communications Act that deals with media freedom.”
“That’s interesting, Bob,” I said, thinking it wasn’t.
We made plans and said goodbye, and I switched on the hotel
TV as I unpacked. James Bond fan that I am, I stopped channel-surfing when I
spotted the 1983 film “Never Say Never Again” starring the original 007, Sean
Connery.
At that moment, Bond was introducing CIA agent Felix Leiter
to a beautiful female companion whom he called, “Agent 326.”
Okay, okay, I thought. Clearly the universe was shouting the
number “326” at me.
The only trouble was, of course, that I had no idea what it
meant.
I was later amused to learn that Secret Agent 326 is the
hero of Fritz Lang’s famous silent film “Spies.”
By the way, another strange coincidence on that trip
concerned the fact that while I was in D.C., President Bill Clinton was not 40
miles from my home in central Illinois. Air Force One literally became stuck in
the mud there, in Champaign, IL, just as the “mud” of the Monica Lewinsky
scandal was breaking.
•••
On the afternoon of Wednesday, March 27, 2006, I went to
Midgard Comics in Charleston and checked my subscription bag. I noticed that
next to mine was a bag for someone named “Adam Hall” — the famous pen name for
my great friend and mentor, novelist Elleston Trevor.
•••
At about 1:30 p.m. Aug. 9, 2004, I was at the Elizabeth
Titus Memorial Library in Sullivan, reading an article in a national news
magazine about dreaming. I started to nod off for a moment, and while
half-dreaming, thought about Dr. Glen Gabbard, a psychoanalyst I know. Reading
on in the article, I came across a quote from Gabbard himself.
•••
At 7:20 a.m. Feb. 15, 2005, I bought a light jazz tape at
Wal-Mart and listened to the first song, ‘Let’s Fall in Love,’ wondering what
the lyrics were. As I switched off the tape, I heard the radio playing a
feature profile of Harold Arlen on NPR’s Morning Edition. The story detailed
how he came to write ‘Let’s Fall in Love,’ and included a singer performing the
lyrics.
•••
At 5:40 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 15, 2005, I was walking my
Dalmatian in the winter dark and thinking about my just-published synchronicity
column and the trickster motif. At that moment, a streetlight directly over our
heads went off. I stopped and was reminded of the Jack Lemmon character in
“Bell, Book and Candle,” a warlock who did that trick. We continued down the
street and, a minute later, the light came back on.
At 9:30 a.m. that same morning, I was pulling into the
McDonald’s drive-up in Sullivan and still thinking about the trickster motif. I
had to wait on a Honda Accord that had pulled in just ahead of me, and noted that,
staring at me from the back of the car, were decals of Felix the Cat and the
Joker — both trickster characters.
•••
At 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2006, I pulled into the
BP service station in Charleston intending to buy exactly $8.25 worth of regular
gasoline so that, with my three newspapers, the bill would come to exactly $10.
I filled the tank, but could only get $8.24 worth of gas — the last penny
wouldn’t go in. Inside, the attendant told me that I had gotten the last ounce
of regular gas in the place. A tanker truck was just pulling in to refill them.
•••
On the evening of Feb. 22, 2003, I bought and read “The Hero
Within” by Carol S. Pearson, a book which discusses psychological archetypes,
synchronicity and the necessary confrontation of the conscious self with the
Jungian Shadow, or repressed negative self. I napped briefly, and awoke just as
an old Ed Sullivan rerun was beginning a performance of “Me and My Shadow”
featuring a white soft-shoe dancer and his black “shadow.”
•••
On July 15-17, 2004, I read about the Thunderbird, Indian
mythological shapeshifter who grants power in dreams, in a Sullivan High
library book during school board meeting. Next day at the film “I, Robot,” I
saw a trailer for the film “The Thunderbirds.” My friend Karen Binder highly
recommended Neil Gaiman’s novel “American Gods” to me that day, so I bought the
book and discovered that the Thunderbird is a character in it.
•••
On Wednesday, March 28, 2007, at 7:25 a.m., while walking
our Dalmatian, I was thinking about "Marlowe," a private eye movie I
had just seen and the cult of the
tough guy, which I admire. I was also wondering to what
extent it's all bullshit. Just then, I glanced at a white pickup truck owned by
a guy with whom I'd had
a run-in (after our Dalmatian had left him a small present).
The brand of the tool box in the back of his pickup was "Tough Guy
II."
•••
On Sunday, Jan. 8, 2006, at 3:50 p.m., I was attending the
film “Munich” with Mary Maddox when I spotted, in the row in front of me, a
young man I recognized from somewhere, After thinking about it a few minutes, I
realized that I had seen him in a graduation poster at my friend Paul Beals’
Big Picture office. One of the photos in the poster showed him wearing a cheese
hat on his head. I didn’t mention the incident to anyone.
The next morning, I told Paul that I had seen someone I
recognized at the movies. Before I could tell him anything else, Paul told me
confidently that it was the boy with the cheese on his head, wasn’t it? He said
he had seen the picture quite clearly in my mind.
•••
What does it all mean? Anything? Nothing? I don’t know, but
it does seem that you can sometimes hear the faint laughter of a cosmic
trickster somewhere in the background.
Here’s what I’ve gathered of the apparent “rules” of
synchronicity — and sometimes serendipity — from research.
1. Pay close attention to people you run into by accident.
Listen to what they tell you, or say what pops into your mind. You may have a
message for them, or they for you, or both.
2. The more you notice meaningful coincidences, the more
they multiply.
3. If you are having a particular problem, decide to turn it
over to synchronicity. That means letting it go completely.
4. Always trust even when outward appearances seem bleak.
That's when something is happening behind the scenes.
5. Anger and frustration stops synchronicity.
6. Travel increases instances of synchronicity.
It's real as the number 108
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