We thought we had posted this synchronicity, but apparently only put it in the book. It’s one of the most famous and involves everyone’s favorite weird guy, Edgar Allan Poe. It’s a great example of a synchronicity manifested through creativity.
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In Poe’s unfinished sea adventure novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, he seems to have tapped into the future. The tale includes a scenario about three men and a sixteen-year-old boy who are drifting at sea in a lifeboat after being shipwrecked. Desperate, on the brink of starvation, they decide to draw lots to determine which of them will be killed and eaten. The cabin boy, Richard Parker, picks the dreaded short straw and is promptly stabbed and consumed.
On July 25, 1884, forty-seven years after Poe stopped working on the novel, a 17-year-old cabin boy named Richard Parker was killed and eaten in a similar incident. Young Richard Parker was on his first voyage on the high seas, boarding the Mignonette in Southampton, England bound for Australia. But when the ship reached the South Atlantic, it was pummeled by a hurricane and sank. The survivors, who had boarded a lifeboat, had few provisions and after 19 days became desperate. The men discussed drawing lots to choose a victim who would be eaten by the others, but settled on Parker, who had become delirious from drinking seawater. The remaining crew survived on Richard’s carcass for another thirty-five days until they were rescued by the S.S. Montezuma, aptly named after the cannibal king of the Aztecs.
The eerie connection between fiction and real life was revealed on May 4, 1974 when twelve-year-old Nigel Parker, who was related to Richard Parker, submitted the story to the Sunday Times of London, which was conducting a contest to find the best coincidence. The Richard Parker story not only won, but was called one the best ‘coincidences’ ever recorded by author Arthur Koestler, who had sponsored the contest. Astonishingly, the Richard Parker synchronicities have continued and a cousin of Nigel Parker, Craig Hamilton-Parker, has a web site documenting them.
UPDATE
Craig Hamilton-Parker, cousin of Nigel Parker, maintains a web site on Richard Parker, as mentioned above, and includes many additional synchronicities. Here’s a sampling.
For instance, Nigel’s father, Keith, thought that the Richard Parker story would make an interesting theme for a radio play and began to write a synopsis. At that time, to supplement his income as a writer, he reviewed books for Macmillan Publishing. The first book to arrive after he began work on the play was The Sinking of the Mignonette. A few weeks later, he was asked to review a collection of short plays, called The Raft. It was a comedy for children with nothing sinister about it, except for the cover illustrations, which showed three men on a raft, who seemed to threaten a young boy. The illustration seemed out of keeping with the tone of the stories. But even more bizarre, The Raft was written by someone named Richard Parker.
In the summer of 1993, Hamilton-Parker explains on the website, his parents took in three Spanish language students. One evening over supper, the elder Hamilton-Parker told the students about Richard Parker. The television was on in the background and conversation at the table stopped when the moderator of a local program began talking about the same story. “Dad broke the silence by saying how weird coincidences always occur whenever Richard’s tale is mentioned.”
He then told the students about the Poe story. Hamilton-Parker recalls that one of the girls cried out, “Look what I bought today!” She reached into her bag and pulled out a copy of a Poe book containing The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. “I bought that book, too!” said another of the girls. Both had gone shopping that day and independently bought the same book.
The website includes other stories as well, including a section of letters. As Rob was perusing the stories, he was surprised to find one that he’d written in an e-mail in 2005. In it, he told Hamilton-Parker that he’d ‘solved’ the Richard Parker enigma in a novel, Romancing the Raven, in which Poe temporarily time-traveled to the future where he heard the story about the real Richard Parker.
Thanks for the link, Aleksandar, we'll check it out!
And here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_Grams you can see the tiger (I think) above Benicio del Toro's head. This is how I found you three days ago. There is the novel Carigradski drum (Road to Constantinople)in Serbian about (so-called) coincidences. It mentions a wolf and a tiger. This is why I have noticed those details in 21 Grams. So, while I was watching Knowing, after the scene with wolves I thought: Oh, no, this is too much.
Search in Google 21 grams hey wolf.
21 Grams: loved that movie. Don't recall that scene, Aleksandar, but now I'll have to go back and see the movie again!
I think there is a scene in 21 Grams (non-linear story, discussions about coincidences) when prisoners call the "truck driver" Wolf. I think there is also a scene with a picture of a tiger on a wall.
Thanks for the tip, Aleksandar!
This web page appears at the moment on the first position if one looks in Google for synchronicity, wolf, tiger (things mentioned in the movie Knowing- note that main characters are Koestlers).
I think the only story that comes anywhere close to this uncanny Poe tale is the one about Richard Bach that we post on March 18.
Very cool. I always like what you come up with. Poe is one of my favorites, but he gives me the creeps.
I'm beg to think Poe was psychic – and to answer a question Nancy asked a ways back, the parker story def qualifies as precognitive!
– Trish
oh my gosh!!! nancy is so right – just better and better – like cold cold ice tea in the hot louisiana summer!!!
makes you wonder what else poe knew – great great post!
gotta go now – off to amazon for romancing….[uh, the book, that is] 🙂
This story just seems to get better and better. Thanks for sharing the update.
I used that quote in the front of my novel – Romancing the Raven, which includes Poe as a character.
Here's another good one from THE Unknown Poe:
"It is by no means irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream."
Hm, is talking about a future life?
how fascinating the quote of poe's above – i've not heard/read it before! very very mystifying! thanks for putting it out for us –
I didn't mean that Yann naming a tiger in his novel was synchronistic to the Poe connection, because he was working with a knowledge about the coincidences. I just wondered if naming his tiger that was paying a literary tribute as well as revealing to the reader the irony in such a name as it relates to his story.
Of all the writers we were forced to study in school, I have to say Poe is still one of my favorites. He is simply, creepy-cool. His life and his work hold endless fascination for me. Thank you for such a concise, well-researched post.
Also, Thank you for stopping by and honoring me with your visit.
In SHADOW – A PARABLE, Poe addresses readers of the distant future and seems to tell us that his stories contain such fascinating psychic connections.
He wrote: "Ye who read are still among the living, but I who write shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things shall happen, and many secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass away, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be some to disbelieve, and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron."
This is one of the most amazing story's I've ever heard.
I have passed this story on to a few friends and it usually results in a stunned reaction.
In addition, "RICHARD PARKER" anagrams into
"Parch Ark Rider"
https://www.anagramgenius.com/archive/richard-parker.html
had to come back by to see if any new comments – this is one of my all time favorite stories!
Yes, that was the name of the tiger, and I believe I read that author Yann Martel knew about the incredible synchronicity involving that name. So it was more of a salute than another synchronicity.
Rob
Isn't Richard Parker also the name of the tiger in the novel "The Life of Pi"? I don't have the book handy at the moment, but if its the case, it puts that novel into even more insightful brilliance.
This is a good one to give to skeptics when they say 'prove it.' They can't deny that the two strikingly similar events took place, the fiction prededing the real life event. They can only dismiss it as a coincidence, but you can bet they're going to puzzle on that one. BTW, both boats held four survivors, including the young cabin boys: Richard Parker.
wow..never heard of this one!! Poe must have tapped into the future…or is it the future tapped into Poe hummmmmmm
oh my goodness!!! every time i think one can't be topped, you all top it! incredible story – and a must-check-out-web site –
Wow, this is amazing! Do you think this is precongnition?