Last week, I received an email from Bernard Beitman, a visiting professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia who is writing a book on coincidences/synchronicities. He’s working on a chapter on “idea coincidences.” Here’s what he wrote in his book:
Some idea coincidences can be remarkable useful. We offered this statement to our research participants:
“In a desperate search for information, the information amazingly shows up.”
Eighteen percent said “often.” Less rarely than songs or unimportant ideas , intense focus on a specific need for information aids that information to show up in an “amazing”, unexpected way.”
Libraries provide excellent opportunities for much needed information to suddenly show up. The experience became common enough for author Arthur Koestler to name this coincidence category the library angel.
Sometimes the needed book falls off the shelf onto the floor or even into the seeker’s hands. Other times non-systematic searching yields results where systematic searching had failed. Koester quoted a report by Dame Rebecca West while checking up on a certain episode in the Nuremberg Nazi war crimes trials. To her dismay she found that the abstracts of the proceedings had been catalogued under arbitrary headings in multiple volumes stored on many shelves. After searching for hours she asked a librarian for help. As she did, she put her hand on one volume, took it out and carelessly opened it. She had found the right page. (Koestler, et al The Challenges of Chance, p. 162)”
The Internet, this huge storehouse of information, this library on steroids, provides increasingly more opportunities for library angels to perform their tricks.
Then Bernard asked if I had any good stories about the library angel and the Internet.
This happens to me so frequently with the Internet that I take it for granted. I can’t think of specific incidents, but I do recall a bookstore angel event that resonated for a number of years. Borders Books, back in the 1990s:
I was browsing the new age section, looking for something different to read. This was a dark period for me. We had just put my mother in an Alzheimer’s facility and my dad, who had Parkinson’s, had moved in with us. We also had a young daughter, worked out of our home, and felt pretty frazzled. At any rate, the perfect book literally fell at my feet – Carol Bowman’s Children’s Past Lives.
The book, which I read in a couple of days, was fantastic and I contacted Carol afterward. We subsequently became friends and I recommended her to my agent for her next book, Return from Heaven. The following year, we met in her hometown. By then, my dad read her book, too. He was never a believer in reincarnation and had no religious or spiritual beliefs about the continuation of the soul. He was impressed with her book and I think that’s when his worldview/belief system about the continuation of life began to change.
Skip ahead to 2005. My dad, now nearly 93, confined to a wheelchair, was in an assisted living facility in Georgia, where my sister was head of nursing. I had gone to visit him and had a DVD Carol sent me on the James Leinenger case, probably the most convincing case for reincarnation in the Western world. Carol had been on 20/20 with the Leinengers and they talked about the young boy’s fascination with airplanes, his knowledge of WWII planes, and his possible past life as a WWII pilot.
At the end of it, tears rolled down my dad’s cheeks. “That’s the most convincing thing I’ve ever heard about reincarnation.”
We talked about the Leinenger case for awhile afterward and I told him about my own past life memories – Edinburgh, Ecuador, Bolivia, various dreams and experiences I’d had that convinced me we live many lives. I explained that within five minutes of meeting Rob, I knew we would be married, that we’d been together many times before. It was one of those deep and thought-provoking discussions you have with a loved one that remains vivid in memory, a turning point for both of you.
Three or four months later, he passed on. I think the Leinenger story helped him to release his hold on life. And it all started with that library angel at Borders Books. If Carol;s book hadn’t fallen at my feet, I would not have had that DVD to share with him. It made the difference for him.
Bernard is looking for other library angel stories for his book. Anyone have one they would like to contribute?
One of my favorite experiences which helped me greatly was;
My youngest daughter at the time was about 3 and would misbehave terribly as the day went on. In the mornings she would be so sweet, but by midday she would be a devil child. hitting me, not wanting to be held, banging her head against me. I was exhausted and frustrated because I knew deep down that something was very wrong.
I meditated about it one day while she was napping and was told to go to a specific bookstore in the next town. My husband was home, so I leapt at the chance to go and went.
As I walked into the Bookstore, there on display was a book with the title “Is This Your Child?”, and there were 3 pictures of unhappy children’s faces and they all looked like my child at various times through the day. It was a thick book about allergies, specifically food allergies. I devoured it, then called a pediatric allergist and guess what? My child had several severe food allergies and so did my older daughter.
I changed their diets immediately and her behavior changed within 2 days!!
That book didn’t fall at my feet but it was practically handed to me!!
I’ve had these things happen all of my life and I love it!!
He can use this story if he would like.
Trish,
I got my copy of “Magical Mystery Tour” on DVD today,and have taken the screen shot in the credit section of the DVD set where your name appears.
I’m doing a new post on my blog and hope to have the photos up in maybe 1/2 hour or so.
The only slight difference in spelling between your name and the Trish on the DVD is,her name is spelled TRISH McGREGOR
and yours is spelled TRISH MacGREGOR.
Still,pretty good sync.
See ‘Wanderlust’
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1655460/
,you should be able to rent it now.
It also has Alan Alda as the founder of the Hippe farm that Rudd and Aniston stumble into.It’s quite a funny film in parts.
Daz, hi. Guess what..and this is confirned in my recent emails about the series of dreams I’ve been having the past several weeks. The first actor to appear in the initial dream was Noah Wyle, and my dream the next night starred Leo DiCaprio, whom you mentioned above in your comments!! SYNCHRO! I haven’t been able to decipher the messages that my Dream Helpers/ Higher Self are trying to get through to me, but I continue to have the same symbols night after night after night. Paul Rudd and especially Bill Pullman are both favorites of mine, but I’ve not seen either of them in anythng in quite a long time, so the dreams weren’t “pre-programmed” by my having seen them. I’m going to track your comments about the movies and see if anything jumps out at me. THANKS!!!!! Any intuitive nudge you might get would be deeply appreciated! Sometimes we’re looking so hard at something we simply don’t see it, and another set of eyes and another mind helps, always. Last time I saw Rudd was in THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION, and Pullman in LAKE PLACID and of course ID4. Also saw Pullman in WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING,
which somehow seems relevant but I don’t yet know how. Again, many thanks!
Gypsy, off-topic, want to tell you that your (real) first name is 11-11. Also, the word GYPSY is an 11. I was working on some pretty intense stuff all day in which you have a part, and learned this.
oh, details, please….. 😉
trish – i think i sent you one some time back – involving my grandson christopher and our trip to a BN bookstore in shreveport – cannot remember specifics of this story now for some reason [long day/another story] but i think you even did a post on it – anyway, will see if i can track it down on this end –
very neat post – and for me, too, these kinds of things happen so routinely that they don’t really “stand out” – just too common –
Thanks, Gypsy. I went back looking for the one we post from vicki at acoustic wave, but couldn’t find it. There are well over a thousand posts now and it’s tough to keep track of them, even with tag lines.
Lauren, I have the conviction that our lives are observed and assisted from other dimensions and realms, and that these watchfulm helpful entities very often put the information we need where it can be easily found. As a medium, of course this happens to me frequently. Unfortunately, I’m not always able to interpret the messages they send me through the synchronicities, but have developed my own particualr methods of attempting to discern the meanings. The most interesting aspect about their guidance is that I rarely ask them for it overtly. They just seem to KNOW, and VOILA! It manifests!
How interesting and true. And thanks to the comments here as well.
I’ve often had the experience, especially with the internet, of having information I needed come to me. Sometimes I even am not surprised any more, having faith in some kind of “invisible means of support”.
I do remember, in 2000, when I was working on descriptions of Goddesses for my book, receiving several emails out of the blue, from someone I didn’t know, that discussed eloquently the Goddess Saraswati, information I needed. I still have no idea who that person was who sent me those articles, or why, or even where they got my email from.
Hi Trish and Rob,
You’re welcome to pass on the story about my discovery of your book – The Seven Secrets of Synchronicity – which you posted about here last years.
Vicky
https://acousticwave-theblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/synchronicity.html
Thanks, Vicki! I’ll have to go back and find that one
I’ve believed for a long time that the answers (to everything) are out there waiting to be noticed – even for mundane things. Time and time again I have wanted to know the answer to something and it has appeared in a book, newspaper, the snatch of a conversation and so on. To me this is part of coincidence/synchronicity. It can bring about answers and is an example – in some instances – of us controlling synchronicity.
Before coming to the blog this morning, I emailed T & R about my pre-waking dream earlier today, which actually was a dream in two parts because after the first dream I came completely awake, got up, then went back to sleep and into the very same dream. There were two famous actors in the dreams, one is each, and both actors played the same “role”. (The actors were Bill Pullman and paul Rudd.) The synchroncity is personal and I won’t detail it here, but it was astonishing. Most of the powerful synchronicities come to me in this manner, especially when I’m searching for a resolution to a life-altering situation. Love this post, and comments.
I saw the movie ‘Wanderlust’
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1655460/
last week on DVD starring Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston,and I liked it so much that I will probably buy a DVD copy in the future.
I was only thinking while watching that movie that Paul Rudd is one of those actors who seems to star in some very good,thought provoking movies,like he is on some kind of spiritual mission…whether he is aware of it yet or not.
He is in an upcoming movie called “The End of the World”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1245492/
where he stars as himself and the plot is –
“While attending a party at James Franco’s house, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel and many other celebrities are faced with the apocalypse. ”
Rudd also played Mr. Earth in “Sesame Street: Being Green”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1522134/
“During Sesame Street’s first Earth-a-Thon (hosted by Mr. Earth), Abby Cadabby accidentally turns Elmo from red to green. ”
Interesting.
Being October,I find it interesting that Rudd was also in
“Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113253/
But I guess when I really took notice of him as an actor was his appearance in “The 40 Year Old Virgin”.
One movie I just saw he starred in that I didn’t know about before was
“The Great Gatsby”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210719/
,a movie that was made for TV.
I’ve seen the Robert Redford movie and I can’t wait for the new movie coming out starring Leonardo DiCaprio,but I didn’t know about this version before.
And Pullman’s new movie “Celestina”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1582197/
looks interesting too.
“A modern day fairy tale, where a young pregnant woman, who exists in a world where time does not move around her, embarks on a quest to find the father of her child.”
I liked Pullman in David Lynch’s “Lost Highway”,although many people may not like that film.
Interesting combination of actors to dream about Connie.
Celestina…intriguing premise. Heard about end of the world Onto my list it goes. Great links, all of these, Daz. Thanks. My movie list, like my book lists, just keeps growing. I need a lifetime just to read and watch movies!
I don’t know whether I have anything worth printing in a book, but James Leinenger’s book was among my purchases the day that I ran across a book that was going to change my life in a big way,even though I didn’t end up buying it that day,it played on my mind until I bought it on line;
https://brizdazz.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/twelfth-insight.html
The odd thing was that Redfield and his book changed my life dramatically,and yet I didn’t really like his book and I’ve never met him,but the only reason I ever went to the Byron Bay Writer’s Festival was because he was going to be there,but cancelled when I had made all my arrangements to attend.
It was a life changing weekend for me,and I have James to thank for it all.
So how weird is that ?
James played a huge part in my life by basically playing no part at all.
The book was a dud,and he didn’t show at the BBWF,but that played a huge part in leading me to other authors and books that I never would have come across otherwise.
My syncs went out of control after seeing James book in the bookstore that day.
And I really liked James Leinenger’s book,too.
Fascinating, Daz. These things play our in interesting ways in your life!
Great post. I have absolutely found this to be true. It almost never fails.
I’ve had two that stand out, both involving Mormons.
The first one, I was a young sailor stationed in La Maddalena, Sardinia when I met two Mormon missionaries in 1994 (my third and final year in Italy). I started meeting with them and was seriously contemplating joining. The barracks complex I lived in had a small library. It was adequate for me, because it had more books than I had time to read and since I like a lot of subjects, I could always find a book that interested me, even if the library was about the size of a typical high school library. One day, in the freebie box, I found a book called “Secret Ceremonies” by Deborah Laake, which I had heard about but the library did not have. I have no idea where it came from, but I took it and read it, learning a lot about the LDS religion that the missionaries wouldn’t tell me about. I ended up not joining, because the religion did not pass my logic test.
However, three years later, I went to BYU (as a non-member) for my college education. In 1998 or 1999, I was really struggling with some of the doctrines that were taught in classes, particularly the view on race. In one religion class, I was stunned to hear that an African American Mormon told a class (full of white Mormon students) that he agreed with the LDS ban on black males holding the priesthood because his race wasn’t ready for it. His comments troubled me, so I wondered more about the history behind the racial ban. I happened to be in the library (which is huge) and in the room with all the magazines and chairs you can sit on while you read the various magazines, I noticed a book sitting flat on a shelf and I thought that was strange, so I walked up to it to see if it was misplaced. When I picked up the book and looked at the title, I was shocked to see that it was a book about the history of black Mormons, explaining how the policy came to be. I was stunned. I did not even have to go looking for it in that huge library!
At BYU, I had a lot of strange little coincidences. I don’t know if its because the school has 30,000 students with a spiritual focus (even if one disagrees with some or many of what Mormons believe, there was still a spiritual view among students that many other universities probably don’t have) or what, but I grew a lot in my spiritual understanding during my lonely and difficult BYU years. I left without joining the LDS church, but have come to appreciate what I learned several years late about the Universal Law of Attraction.
Library angel, though. Wow. I like that! In fact, my favorite scene in “Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones” is when Obi-wan goes to the Jedi Library to look for information (I hope the akashic library looks like that!). Sometimes, if I feel intimidated by the amount of books or other media in the library, I will focus on what I need to find and follow my vibes to locate it.
thanks for the excellent examples! Also some clarity about LDS from the inside.
Great examples, Nicholas!