Six degrees of separation: you’ve heard the term, right? It originated in 1929 with Frigyes Karinthy, a Hungarian author and playwright, who used the idea in his short story, Chains. The term was popularized in 1990 by a play of the same name written by John Guare. The play later became a movie (see that very young Will Smith up there in that image?)
At any rate, the idea is that each of us is a mere six steps away from everyone else on the planet. I suspect, though, that with the Internet and social media outlets, that six degrees has shrunk considerably. Tonight, in fact, I became sure of it.
Carol Bowman and I have been friends ever since her first book, Children’s Past Lives, literally fell at my feet while I was browsing the aisles of a now defunct Borders Books. We talk frequently and during a conversation tonight, I was telling her about our proposal for Aliens in the Backyard and that we had cited her as a hypnosis expert in a chapter on abductees and hypnotic regressions.
“Me? Trish, past life regressions are completely different than regressing an abductee. You want to talk to the guy from Temple University.”
“You mean David Jacobs?”
“Yes, he’s the expert. He has done thousands of regressions on abductees.”
“I’d love to talk to him, if I knew how to contact him.”
“I’ve got his email address.”
Okay, I have to pick myself off the floor. “How?”
“Well, a totally random thing.”
Random? Ha.
Last year, Carol and a couple of friends attended a MUFON conference in Philadelphia. That evening, she and her husband went to a Fab Faux Concert, in memory of the Beatles, at the Keswick Center in Philly. At some point, she headed for the ladies’ room. “Where the line was incredibly long. I got to talking with the woman behind me, and mentioned I should’ve taken a nap before coming to the concert, that I’d been on my feet all day.”
“Where were you?” the woman asked Carol.
“At a MUFON conference.”
The woman looked surprised. “I’m an abductee. I’ve been working with David Jacobs, from Temple University, for years.”
They exchanged email addresses, and the woman said she would be sure to tell Jacobs about Carol’s books on children’s past lives. In a subsequent email exchange, the woman gave Carol Jacobs’ email address.
So. Let’s do the math: me – Carol – woman- Jacobs. Two people, then, separate me from Jacobs. It’s the kind of synchro I love. If Carol hadn’t gotten in line at the ladies room in Keswick Theater that night in October 2011, if anyone else had been in front of or behind her, if I hadn’t mentioned the proposal in which we cite has as an expert in hypnotic regression, I wouldn’t be writing this post. I wouldn’t have Jacobs’ email address.
Pretty cool.
Great post.
What a cool story, Trish! I am sure these things are manipulated by your overachieving guardian angels. Or something. I sure do enjoy hearing about these stories; they make me feel all warm and supported by unseen forces. (smiling with appreciation here)
Overachieving guardian angels: love it.
Orchestrated by the fragments of that Great Universal Conductor that is alive and well in each of our consciousnesses, considering that we are all so connected to each other by invisible tenuous threads aptly named Synchronicity?
Makes you think, doesn’t it? If that woman hadn’t have been in the queue at that precise moment … surely that can’t have been orchestrated in advance, or could it have been?
Then it always comes down to orchestrated by who or what?
Yet another lesser degree of separation with Jacobs: he and I corresponded on several occasions, via snailmail, a few years ago after I had read his book SECRET LIFE. Some of our communications focused on the startling resemblance between (apparent) hybrid children and human children who have the disease Progeria. But whatever….this is yet another, or LESS, if you will, degree of separation re you and Jacobs!!!
It is a small world indeed,and getting smaller.
My oldest son worked for a Borders store in Australia,until it closed down,BTW.
So the stores closed down worldwide?!
Very cool.
If you recall I also know Carol from going to a workshop she had before she had published any books, so there is another degree of sep. with us and Carol!
I hope that you will share your experience with David Jacobs.
I remember you’re telling us that, Mom!