A new episode of The Mystical Underground is live! “Sharon Hewitt Rawlette: The Source And Significance Of Coincidences”:
Join Trish and Rob for a conversation with…
Sharon Hewitt Rawlette, a writer and philosopher fascinated by coincidences, those strange, enigmatic experiences that are so often personally meaningful and yet push the boundaries of what we consider scientifically possible. Her May 2019 book “The Source and Significance of Coincidences” presents a wealth of evidence concerning the statistical significance of coincidences, their range of probable causes, and how we can best interpret their implications for our lives. She also writes about coincidences on her “Psychology Today” blog, “Mysteries of Consciousness,” and she has presented some of my most recent research at the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
In May 2020 she published a memoir, “The Supreme Victory of the Heart,” about her first encounters with meaningful coincidence, which happened in the difficult months after her French fiancĂ© told her about an old flame who had come back into his life. She has also written several personal essays on the topics of relationships, spirituality, and the environment, which have appeared in Salon, Orion, and other places. While she now lives back in the rural area of eastern Virginia where she grew up, she spent almost all of her 20s elsewhere: getting a Ph.D. in philosophy at New York University, falling in love in Paris, teaching philosophy at Brandeis University outside Boston, and living on a 200-year-old retired dairy farm in Brittany, France. All of these experiences have found their way into her writing, in one way or another.
Here’s a post I wrote about all of the coincidences I had while listening to your podcast with Sharon a few times over the last few days that you might want to tell Sharon about Trish –
https://brizdazz.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-source-and-significance-of.html
And you guys should really watch that movie on Amazon Prime that Anne produced starring Whitley, Shermer and her, too.
Will answer fully tomorrow!
I found it amusing that you mentioned a dream about having a past life in Iceland Trish, as I recently stumbled across a book about Icelandic Sagas which I’ve been wanting to read if it ever crossed my path in a “book angel” kind of way,.
And it did, and I wrote this post about it –
‘What is Consciousness and Who and What Are U/s?’
https://brizdazz.blogspot.com/2021/04/what-is-consciousness-and-who-and-what.html
Here’s a little “God/Trickster” synch of mine that has been playing itself out in my life over the last few years –
https://brizdazz.blogspot.com/2021/05/happy-mothers-day-2021.html?showComment=1620605472080#c2699914202729167986
I’m not a religious person, but I’m with Sharon that synchronicity is caused mainly by “God/The Unifying Force” for lack of a better word, not by individuals.
And if Christians want to blame a mythical Satan/Devil figure for all of the bad stuff in the world, then who made the Devil in most of those religious myths?
And I’m also with Sharon that Jung’s work has a long way to go and is no where near finished when it comes to “synchronicity” or coincidence.
You guys bring up the example of why “God” would let the Holocaust “happen” in that podcast, and being from a secular Jewish family background myself I have often pondered that question, because there for the grace of God go I (if I had have been born into Europe during the war into the same current family circumstances).
From a human POV it seems preposterous that a loving God would let that happen, but if you zoom out into the big picture of things, and if you believe in reincarnation and such, who is to say why we as souls come down here to live a life.
Maybe we are born to experience suffering and heartbreak, as well as joy and love?
How many times do you hear of people undergoing “past-life regressions” saying how they came down to experience incredible suffering such as a Holocaust?
Take the Jesus story as an example of an earthly incarnation that I never would want to live through if “The Father” asked me if I wanted to be born as “The Son” and go through all of that as my fate.
Just because we as human beings don’t like “bad things happening” doesn’t mean that they don’t happen for a reason that we as fearful human beings can’t understand from our POV.
Her book is fascinating, such an incredible resource.
I might have to get a copy once I get through my current reading list of books around my home that I feel compelled to get through ASAP.