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Years ago, long before we wrote our first book on synchronicity, we read a book on meaningful coincidence called, Synchronicity & You, Understanding the Role of Meaningful Coincidence in your Life,  by Frank Joseph. So it was interesting to come across an article by Joseph recently that, in part, provided a plethora of synchros related to the sinking of the Titanic.

Joseph refers to synchronicity as “fundamentally a form of guidance that enters into the personal lives of every human being. Even if we knowingly discard it, at least part of its influence enters our subconscious.”

Besides the fascinating examples Joseph provides, we were impressed and surprised to see that he confirms one of our convictions about meaningful coincidences that we wrote about in The 7 Secrets of Synchronicity.

He says: “…powerful historical events likewise produce extraordinary high levels of meaningful coincidence. In fact, the more dramatic, even traumatic, the event, the greater the intensity and sheer number that appear.”

In our book, Secret 7 was called, The Global.  “When synchronicities manifest themselves through global events, the universe seems to be addressing us as a collective.”

Joseph points to the Titantic disaster as an outstanding example of such a global event.

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“Hardly any other single occurrence in the 20th century generated such a large collection of impressive examples. So many, in fact, they embraced all 17 categories of synchronicity. The meaningful significance of particular numerals played its part in the Titanic disaster, too – in that classic bad-luck symbol, Number 13.

“That this traditionally unfortunate number was factually associated with the most infamous of unlucky ocean liners should come as no surprise. Two, separate examples serve to illustrate. A British journalist, W.T. Stead, demonstrated his contempt for superstition by deliberately concluding a story on the 13th of April, 1912. Further tempting fate, his narration described the discovery of an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus and the curse of violent death alleged to overtake anyone who verbally translated its inscription. The next day, R.M.S. Titanic met the disaster in which Stead perished.

“A fellow passenger who lightheartedly challenged the deadly number was from Youngstown, Ohio. George Wick had been traveling with his family through Europe for several months and booked homeward voyage on Titanic. While in transit to Cherbourg, where the doomed ship would make final docking before attempting her transatlantic crossing, he stopped at Paris. There he purchased a Grand Prix sweepstakes ticket, choosing Number 13 on purpose, just to prove to everyone that he was not superstitious. “Watch and see what it does for me!,” he exclaimed. Several days later, Wick went down with the vessel.

“Such warnings proliferated around the Titanic before she sailed. A White Star insignia crumbled to pieces in the hands of Mrs. Arthur Lewis while she was pinning it to her husband’s cap. He was just about to board R.M.S. Titanic, where he was a steward. At the time, she regarded the incident as a bad omen, although he dismissed her expressed anxiety as foolishness, until the ship foundered a few days later. Fortunately, Mr. Lewis survived.

“In another Titanic-related warning, Colonel John Weir, a mining engineer with a worldwide reputation, almost canceled his first class ticket because of distressful feelings about the voyage. Staying at London’s prestigious Waldorf Astoria, he awoke on the morning of April 10th to find that the water pitcher atop his dresser had unaccountably shattered, soaking his clothes. He seriously expressed his premonitory feelings to the hotel manager, who allayed the Colonel’s “superstitions” enough for him to reluctantly board the great ocean liner. While at sea, Weir told his secretary about the burst water pitcher, could not shake his sense of foreboding, and said he must get off Titanic at the next opportunity, when it docked in Queenstown, Ireland. Again dissuaded, he remained aboard, only to go down with the ship he intuited was doomed.

“As some measure of the magnitude of synchronous phenomena associated with the disaster, no less than 899 persons who initially booked passage for Titanic’s maiden voyage eventually refused to board her because of warnings they experienced in the forms of various omens, premonitions, dreams and precognitive events. An additional 4,066 would-be passengers either missed the boat or canceled their reservations, usually under apparently normal circumstances, but sometimes through unusual coincidences that prevented them from sailing.

“Blanche Marshall suffered a hysterical outbreak on April 10th, 1912, as she and her family watched the Titanic steam past the Isle of Wight from the roof of their home overlooking the River Solent. In a virtual panic, she said the liner would sink before it reached New York and railed against her husband, daughters and servants for being blind to her vision of masses of people drowning in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic.

“While neither Mrs. Marshall nor anyone she knew sailed aboard the Titanic, she was prevented from boarding another doomed liner just three years later by similar precognition. In 1915, her husband had booked tickets for their return trip to England from America aboard the Lusitania. She thought nothing of it until she saw the May 1st date of the tickets. Convinced the ship would be torpedoed and sunk on that passage, Blanche convinced him to change their booking. Interestingly, she felt safe traveling on Lusitania at any other time. It was only the prospect of the May 1st crossing that alarmed her. True to her sense of foreboding, the vessel was torpedoed and sunk with heavy loss of life on the same voyage she refused to take.

“A sub-category of “Premonitions” is synchronous literature. Published in 1892, From the Old World to the New described the sinking of an ocean liner after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic. The “fictional” name of its captain, E.J. Smith, likewise belonged to the man who commanded R.M.S. Titanic, twenty years later. Interestingly, the author of From the Old World to the New, W.T. Stead, lost his own life on board the same ship.

“While Titanic was being readied for her maiden voyage, the May issue of Popular Magazine was coming off the presses with the story of Admiral, an 800 foot-long ocean liner crossing the North Atlantic through calm seas at 22 1/2 knots. She strikes an iceberg and sinks, leaving the survivors among her thousand passengers to be rescued by a steamer. Similarities to the real-life tragedy convinced readers the story was based on Titanic’s particulars. But author Mayn Clew Garnett was said to have received the details for his novelette in a dream he had while sailing on the Titanic’s sister ship, Olympic. While he may have been influenced by physical parallels noticed during his passage aboard the virtually look-a-like vessel, Garnett’s selection of 43 north latitude for Admiral’s collision with the iceberg was virtually the same position at which Titanic met her identical fate.

“Literature is not alone among the arts which figure into synchronous events. More in black humour than conscious precognition, a crewman and his wife made recordings for each other, the husband singing “Only To See Her Face Again” to her “True Til Death,” on April 7, 1912, prior to his service about the world’s greatest ocean liner. Three days later, he sailed on the Titanic, never to return.

“Animal interaction in human experience forms its own, distinct category of synchronicity, and was not missing in the fate of R.M.S. Titanic. The age-old sailor’s belief that rats leave ships long before any apparent danger of sinking was exemplified aboard R.M.S. Titanic, when two crewmen in a forward boiler room saw panic-stricken rodents scampering aft, away from the starboard bow. Next day, an iceberg struck that very spot. Both men escaped the disaster with their lives, because the rats’ sudden appearance had made them uneasy enough to station themselves, as often as possible, in the immediate vicinity of the lifeboats.

“Another incident of animal synchronicity associated with Titanic concerns Bess, a thorough-bred horse belonging to Isadore Straus, the co-founder of Macy’s Department Store. The same night he and his wife were killed in the sinking, six-year-old Bess suddenly died of causes the veterinarian was unable to determine.

“Tactile sensations comprise a sub-heading of “Death” in synchronicity. The unaccountable perfume of flowers associated with someone close and recently deceased is not uncommon. Another example belongs to May de Witt Hopkins, who experienced the fragrance of roses in her London home one day after R.M.S. Titanic sank. Although word of the disaster had spread by that time, names of those on board were not yet published. But with the flowery scent filling her room from no apparent source, Hopkins suddenly felt that someone she knew was trying to make her aware of his or her death. She later learned that a friend, who was, unbeknownst to her, a passenger on the ship, had indeed perished when it went down. Interestingly, her own mother, during the late 19th century, had been similarly alerted to the death of a loved one by a mysterious, flowery odour.

““Inanimate Objects,” like the White Star insignia that fatefully disintegrated in the hands of Mrs. Lewis, comprise a wide-ranging group of synchronous experiences. The Managing Director of the White Star Line, Joseph Bruce Ismay, survived the Titanic, but thereafter resigned his post, because he was publicly, although unfairly, blamed for the tragedy. He spent the next 25 years of his life in virtual seclusion, dying on October 17, 1937. That same Sunday afternoon, a framed, oval mirror that hung in Ismay’s office during his tenure at the White Star Line suddenly crashed from its hook, scattering broken pieces across the floor.

“Two weeks after Titanic was lost, a large wooden crate left unclaimed at Pier 61, in New York harbour, was opened by port authorities. They were surprised to see that it contained a meticulously detailed model of the sunken vessel. It had originally been sent to the US for promotional purposes on behalf of the White Star Line and was supposed to be returned to the London offices on the doomed ship’s return voyage. But the 30 foot-long representation was accurate in more particulars than anyone could explain. Although it presented a full compliment of 20 davits, there were only a dozen miniature lifeboats. Moreover, the bow was partially ruined and a long crack appeared from the keel toward the upper deck, mimicking the actual damage sustained by Titanic.

“As might be expected, “Dreams” are an important category of synchronicity. While traveling in Europe during the spring of 1912, a New York lawyer, Isaac C. Frauenthal, dreamt of being aboard a large ship which collided with some floating object and began to sink. His was a long, vivid nightmare, in which he clearly recalled the sights and sounds of calamity. Several nights later, the identical psycho-drama repeated itself, and he told his brother and sister-in-law that it must be a warning against their up-coming voyage on R.M.S. Titanic.

“But they laughed at his dream and convinced him to go through with their return trip to America aboard the doomed White Star liner. All three survived the sinking foretold in Isaac’s recurring nightmare.

“Perhaps the most inexplicable aspects of synchronicity are those more infrequent instances of “Parallel Lives.” When Lucien P. Smith narrowly escaped death during the terrible fire on Viking Princess, in 1966, it was his second, major disaster at sea. A survivor of the Titanic, he was in his mother’s womb when that ship sank, just as Mrs. Astor, also aboard, was pregnant with her son, John Jacob. Both children were born eight months after the sinking, in which their fathers perished. Their mothers died in the same year, 1940.

“Individual lives and major conflicts are events sometimes so powerful they echo beyond their own time and appear to replay themselves in the future. Such an extraordinary case of parallel history began to unfold when William C. Reeves went aboard the tramp steamer, Titanian, as an ordinary seaman, departing Scotland for New York on April 13, 1935. Ten days later, at 2300 hours, he was ordered into the foc’s’le head to stand watch.

“Although the sea was calm, the darkness was moonless and impenetrable. Reeves began to feel increasingly uneasy, not only because of the very poor visibility conditions he now faced as ship’s look-out. He thought, too, of the premonitory novel he had been reading in his cabin, Morgan Robertson’s Futility. Reeves was unable to keep his mind from drifting back to a dramatic moment in the book when Titan’s look-out missed seeing an iceberg in time to avoid disaster. Also, he could not help but notice the ironic similarity of his ship’s name, Titanian, and Robertson’s Titan with Titanic.

“As his sense of irony deepened into anxiety, he realized that the time was now 23:35, just five minutes before the hour Titanic struck the iceberg. Reeves knew that penalties were severe for raising a false alarm, the darkness ahead showed no sign of danger, and for some moments he hesitated to act. But at last his feelings of imminent collision overwhelmed him and he ordered the bridge to stop engines, “Iceberg ahead!”

“No sooner had the ship’s speed dropped off, than she smashed into several large fragments of ice, which twisted her bow and disabled her propeller. Slowing to full stop, Titanian’s crew were astonished to behold an enormous iceberg looming directly ahead out of the darkness. The floating mountain appeared at 23:40, the same hour of Titanic’s collision.

“Doubtless, had the Titanian not stopped in time, she would have followed her predecessor to the bottom. An SOS sent to Cape Race, Newfoundland, brought rescue to the stranded crew.

“The multiple synchronicities of this parallel event – the similar ships’ names, Reeves’ powerful premonition, his reading of Robertson’s book, precisely the same hour for meeting with a deadly iceberg – far out-strip all considerations on behalf of mere chance. Instead, they clearly define the operative principle of meaningful coincidence as a legitimate phenomenon.”

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Interestingly, W.T. Stead is involved in two of the Titanic synchros, though Joseph didn’t mention the oddity. Thinking it was an error, I looked up the book with the Titanic-like saga, From the Old World to the New, and indeed, W.T. Stead is the author. He tested his own fate, and boarded the Titanic on its maiden voyage, and went down with the ship.

Frank is the editor in chief of Ancient American magazine and the author of numerous books including The Destruction of Atlantis, The Lost Civilization of Lemuria, Survivors of Atlantis, The Lost Treasure of King Juba, Atlantis in Wisconsin, The Lost Pyramids of Rock Lake and Last of the Red Devils. He lives in Minnesota.

Twenty years ago, I was involved with The Four Winds Society, an organization that leads workshops in shamanism and sponsors tours to Peru and the Amazon, and also the American Southwest to Chaco Canyon and Canyon de Chelly. I wrote a couple of magazine articles and went on a four-day vision quest with a group to the canyons. It was a somewhat grueling trip, hiking all day and doing ceremonies late into the night. (Trish had decided that she would follow her quest in the comfort of home, and when she heard about the details she figured she’d made the right decision.)

Yet, living under such strenuous conditions, holding fire ceremonies and climbing rocks late at night for meditations puts one in a frame of mind where…things happen. I clearly recall a meditation in Canyon de Chelly on a chilly night in which I saw three Indians wearing bandanas and walking along a perilous trail along the side of a cliff.

Suddenly, the third one turned, stared right at me, then propelled himself across the canyon right at me. That’s when I snapped out of the meditation. Later, when I spoke about what happened as we were seated in the big tent, Alberto, our shamanic guide, shook his head. “That Indian was giving you a gift, an initiation into power, but you backed off.“ Hm, just like Indiana Jones, searching, but then backing away when he gets close to non-physical power.

A couple of years later, Alberto brought several Qero Indian shamans to South Florida for workshops and despacho ceremonies. Trish and I went to one in West Palm Beach at a Unity church. It was quite a scene with an audience of more than a hundred watching colorfully garbed Queros – the survivors of the Incas – sitting in a circle on stage preparing for the despacho ceremony and chewing coca leaves next to a 12-foot tall decorated Christmas tree. Then, one after another, audience members approached the lead shaman, who conducted transmissions of energy. Trish recalls feeling an energetic surge from the despacho. In the aftermath, I wrote Prophecy Rock, which I’ve always felt was somehow enhanced from that ceremony.

Over the years, I’ve included some shamanic meditations in the course I teach, but in the last month I’ve intensified my personal shamanic work meditating early in the morning for up to an hour and a half. Mostly, I use recordings made by shamanic practitioner Sandra Ingram.

This morning, I took a half-hour journey to the underworld, a place close to nature, an abode of nature spirits, a place to contact a power animal or guiding spirit, a place to seek healing. However, this time nothing happened. No visions, no voices, nothing that related to the healing quest I’ve pursuing related to a condition I’ve been dealing with since February.

After the meditation, I went into the kitchen and opened a newspaper. I turned a few pages and came upon an article about a Qero shaman who is holding workshops and despachos in South Florida over the coming days. I went to the web site of the sponsoring group and found out that Don Flores would be in Palm Beach County Saturday and Sunday. Later that morning we signed up for the despacho Saturday night and I made an appointment for a one-hour healing with Don Flores on Sunday.

So a meditation that seemed lacking abruptly transitioned into a synchronistic discovery in the morning newspaper. I mean, how often are there articles on shamanism in the daily paper? Almost never. Then, more specifically, I discovered a Qero shaman was coming here, as if in response to my meditations.

We’ll see where this leads and no doubt will report back.

Since the bombing at the Boston Marathon on Monday, the news cycle has been a frenetic madness of twist and turns with dead ends, flawed and erroneous reporting, heroics, tragedies, and synchros.

In a shootout last night in Watertown, Massachusetts, a suburb not far from Boston, suspect number 1, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed. His younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, apparently escaped but was wounded in the shootout. He was found this evening, April 19, hiding in a boat in someone’s backyard. And here’s the first synchro: he was granted citizenship on on Sept. 11, 2010, the anniversary of the Twin Towers terrorist attack, and will be tried as a terrorist in federal court.

He has been living in the U.S for ten years and he and his Chechen brother were granted asylum in 2002. By all accounts, Dzhokhar was a “nice” guy, fully acclimated into the community where he lived. He attended Dartmouth College, worked out frequently in the Dartmouth gym, hung out with friends, had a Twitter account that he logged in to after the bombings at the marathon. His last tweet was something to the effect that he was a “stress-free kind of guy.”

In fact, if you listen to the accounts of classmates and people he knew him, you have to wonder if the cops got the wrong guy. Yet, he and his brother carjacked a Mercedes SUV shortly before the shootout on the  Thursday night, April 18, and told the driver they were the ones responsible for  the Boston Marathon bombings. They held the driver for half an hour, had him withdraw $800 from three different banks, and finally released him, unharmed,  at a gas station.

Among the brothers’ marathon victims were  Patrick and Jessica Downes, newlyweds who were runners and were on the sidelines watching the marathon when the bombs went off. They both lost a leg below the knee. That’s them in the picture above. In less than two days, more than $500,000 has been raised for them to meet their medical expenses.

Two brothers each lost a leg in the blast. They were both roofers.  So what is it in us, we humans, that creates these parallel experiences? And what was it in these two Chechen brothers, refugees who had been granted asylum, one of whom was immersed in American culture, that caused them to do what they did?

And didn’t they have a backup plan? As young men, how could they not know that in this technological age there are witnesses to everything? Images from  a security camera on top of the Lord & Taylor building are what the FBI released and are what apparently did them in.

The younger brother, in custody this evening, was supposedly seen on the Dartmouth campus on Wednesday, two days after the bombing. Really? You pull off something like these bombings and don’t flee the country? You’re that arrogant, that sure that you haven’t been captured on a security camera somewhere along the 26.2 mile route?

And yes, that’s the other synchro. The 26. The route is 26.2 miles, more than 26,000 runners ran in the race,  there were 26 victims in the Sandy Hook massacre. The dead brother was 26. If this were a dream, what would it be telling us?

We recently opened a page above on our blog that called Planetary Empaths that deals with reports of physical symptoms that seem to foretell major catastrophes and disasters, both natural and man-made. Several people have already posted on the page. Connie Cannon and Debra Page both had e-mailed us days before the Boston Marathon bombings about their symptoms and they were certain something big was coming.

While it’s difficult to pinpoint the nature and location of such events, Nirissa Pillay, a South African woman recorded a dream very close to the time of the Boston tragedy that seems linked to it. She contacted Australian futurist Marcus Anthony with her story and he forwarded it to us after making a short video related to it. So this story has quickly gone around the world.

Here’s Nirissa’s dream.

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“I dreamed, I was at an event, near a stadium, crowds of people were not in the stadium but outside. Then I heard a bomb go off, people started running and screaming, then I heard another bomb go off. I found myself in a hotel asking the person at the reception if he knew what number my room was because I could not recall. He said it’s no 141, repeatedly.

This morning I open my inbox and my husband has forwarded me an email about the Boston Marathon bombing, 2 bombs, 141 (or close) casualties, sporting event, people running into hotels, also one of the bombs went off across from a hotel.

“I am perplexed as to the accuracy of information regarding this event and my dream. I live in South Africa, we are 6 hours ahead of Boston. This event took place while I was asleep last night.

“I have always been skeptical of everything and suddenly the concept of universal intelligence has become a reality. I’m shaken. I felt I needed to reach out and ask someone with knowledge surrounding this for maybe, some guidance on this, please.”

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The 141 figure is about 30 shy of the total number of casualties. But the similarities of her dream and the actual event are remarkable. Marcus’ video offers some interesting thoughts on such clairvoyant and precognitive dreams, and is definitely worth watching.

The bombing may actually have already happened when Nirissa was sleeping. I asked her if she might’ve picked up the information subconsciously, possibly from a TV playing in the background. Here’s what she said:

“We have not had our satellite fixed for over a month now. We chose not to fix it because it didn’t bother us much to not be able to watch TV. So it’s been mainly talking, books and board games for a while. So the answer to that question is, ‘no’- there was no other physical source of information available to me while I was sleeping.”

I also asked Nirissa if she had gone on-line before going to bed Tuesday. She responded that she couldn’t remember, then added this: “I am 100% certain, I didn’t have any knowledge about the actual event, until the email from my husband.”

So it’s more dream clairvoyance or remote viewing than precognition. Either way, it fits as a synchronicity.

Yesterday, we did two radio interviews – one with Anne Strieber, the second with Whitley Strieber. The links to those interviews should be posted in the next few days. Each interview took a distinctly different slant.  Anne,  who read the 200,000 plus letters Strieber received after Communion was published, focused on the abductees in our book. Whitley’s focus was primarily chapter 8 from our book, entitled, What’s Coming, about presidents and UFOs and what the government knows – or not.

Whitley referred a number of times to “social engineering.” The term is synonymous with the massive disinformation campaign that has existed since Roswell – more than fifty years – the deceptions, outright lies, and the ways experiencers are ridiculed, humiliated, and the corrosive ways in which people’s reputations are destroyed.  Fear is a powerful weapon- the Bush administration used it quite effectively. Fear is why many abductees don’t want their real names used when they talk about what they experienced. The fears range from what their families and friends might think, to being harassed or spied upon online, to getting fired from their jobs. Or worse.

That term, social engineering, stuck with me after the interview. It followed me into Rob’s meditation class this evening. And I think Whitley is right, particularly in the era in which we live now. We are constantly “socially engineered.” Our beliefs about what is real  and possible are sculpted by movies, TV shows, radio shows, novels and books, Facebook, Twitter, blogs,  24/7 news… You get the idea. We are constantly bombarded.

After 9-11 happened, for instance, we were bombarded with opinions and news about why we simply had to invade Afghanistan – and then Iraq. We were told that waterboarding isn’t torture. We were told things that many of us, intuitively, knew were wrong.

After Communion was published in 1987, Whitley  was first embraced – and then rejected and reviled by people who claimed the book was fiction, that he had written it to make money.  The accusation reveals a side to human nature that is ugly – envy.  He made a ton of dough, why can’t I?  It also reveals fear – fear that the story is true  and if it’s true, what does it mean about the nature of the world in which we live? He pointed out that on many UFO message boards, he is blasted as a fraud, a liar, and worse.

I went to one of those boards and yes, the comments are scathing. But many of those comments are made by people who never read Communion or any of his other books. If you have actually read Communion – or Strieber’s subsequent books – it’s impossible to miss the thoughtful, questioning intellect that he brings to this topic.  It’s impossible to miss the profound impact his experiences had on his life. His story resonates.

When I read my first Jane Roberts/Seth book back in the 70s, I was a social worker. I mentioned Seth Speaks to one of my co-workers and she burst out laughing. “The book was channeled?”  A shake of the hands. “Woo-woo stuff, Trish. Ridiculous.”

“Have you read the book?” I asked.

“Well, no. I don’t read stuff like that. Jane Roberts is doing it  for money.”

Sound familiar?

Any time that a new, cutting edge idea is put forth into the collective, it threatens the status quo and those people who cling to that status quo,  whose lives are defined by it, are the loudest protestors, the most vociferous critics. Look back through recent history. At one time, it was illegal for a white person and a black person to marry, for blacks and women to vote;  now it’s illegal in most states for gays to marry and the Republicans are trying to rule what women do with their bodies.

In one of the Amazon reviews for our book, the reader took issue with our taking a vial of holy water to a psychic in Cassadaga. With a mere touch of the vial, the psychic is able to spin off astounding detail about the situation of the owner. She provides a detailed analysis which matches almost point by point the scenario that is vexing the “experiencer.” All this is well and good – but it can’t help but make me think – with psychics of such astounding clarity of vision out there – why then can’t they turn their penetrating powers on some of the other UFO mysteries that the authors are concerned about?

Why, for example, can’t these obviously marvelously gifted psychics get to the bottom of the Disclosure issue? Why can’t they ferret out details of what the government knows, or who knows that, and provide at least decent clues to investigative journalists — to help them gain some traction on the government cover-up issue? But they never seem to apply their amazing powers in this way.

This reviewer actually provided his email address with the review, so I wrote him and said that the next time we were in Cassadaga, I would ask this psychic about disclosure and what the government knows or doesn’t. Not surprisingly, the man never responded. I should have told him that the psychic didn’t go in that direction because in my head, those weren’t the questions I brought her. The vial was my focus.

Critics and skeptics abound. It’s much easier to criticize and ridicule whatever terrifies you than it is to embrace it, research it, wade through it and try to figure it out. That’s what Strieber has done for the last thirty years. The idea that he would perpetrate a lie for three decades is patently absurd. On a strictly rational level, what would be the point? He’s a successful novelist, his books have been turned into movies, it’s not like he needs to write about encounters to survive. He writes about this stuff because he needs to understand what the hell happened to him. And really, the bottom line for any writer is exactly that.  Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, writers write to figure stuff out. They write to figure out their personal lives, their emotional lives, their passions. They write because it’s how they are wired.

Years ago, a PhD cousin asked me why I didn’t write literary fiction. I honestly didn’t know what to say to her. I write about what fascinates me, intrigues me, puzzles me. I write to clarify my own world.

And so does Strieber.

The Boston Marathon has been around for 117 years.  Runners from all over the world congregate to run 26.2 miles. This year, there were more than 26,000 (26,839 to be exact) runners. The marathon is one of Boston’s biggest annual events. It ends near Copley Square, not far from the landmark Prudential Center and the Boston Public Library. It is held on Patriots Day, which commemorates the first battles of the American Revolution, at Concord and Lexington in 1775.

Fours hours into this year’s race,  close to the finish line, a bomb exploded. It apparently contained shrapnel and BBs and was placed low to the ground,  so as the bomb detonated, many people sustained serious leg injuries. The first explosion occurred on the north side of Boylston Street, just before the photo bridge that marks the finish line. A second bomb exploded ten to twenty seconds later, several blocks away along the marathon route.

From an article on the Huffington Post: “Roupen Bastajian, a state trooper from Smithfield, R.I., had just finished the race when he heard the blasts. ‘I started running toward the blast. And there were people all over the floor,’ he said. ‘We started grabbing tourniquets and started tying legs. A lot of people amputated. … At least 25 to 30 people have at least one leg missing, or an ankle missing, or two legs missing.’”

The marathon honored the victims of Newton, Connecticut, with a special mile marker in Monday’s race.

As of tonight, three people are dead, including an 8-year-old boy, and more than a hundred were wounded. Hospitals in the area are reporting injuries predominately to the lower extremities.

One of the oldest and most historic cities in this country was thrown into pandemonium, air space over Boston was closed, and alert levels in other cities were raised. The situation was described repeatedly as “fluid” – i.e, no one really knew what was going on, whether there would be more explosions, whether this was a terrorist attack or the work of a single deranged individual. This tragedy, of course, quickly became a global mass event. And as with any mass event, there are a number of synchronicities:

1) Today is April 15, tax day in the U.S.  The American Revolution started in Boston, with the Boston Tea Party, which protested a tax on tea.  In Massachusetts, it was a holiday – Patriot’s Day, a commemoration of the first battles in that revolution.

2) The marathon route is 26.2 miles. There were 26 victims in the Sandy Hook massacre. There were more than 26,000 runners in today’s marathon.  Boston Athletic Association president Joanne Flaminio apparently noted the connection with the number of victims at Sandy Hook and called it a “special significance.”

3) Then there’re the types of injuries, mostly to lower extremities. Unless you are South Africa’s Blade Runner, you need legs and feet and ankles to run the marathon. Some of the victims have had their legs amputated.

It’s impossible to classify this synchro without integrating the loss of life, suffering, and trauma of the victims and their families and loved ones. It seems to be addressing the accessibility of guns and the raw materials for bomb-making. But perhaps the message is something else entirely.  Sometimes, it takes months or yearsfor the full message to be understood. And sometimes, the message is never grasped.

The Boston Marathon has always been a joyous event, where thousands of spectators line the route and cheer the runners, give them cups of water, and generally act as cheerleaders. It’s a community of runners and their supporters. One news anchor described this tragedy as “plunging a knife into the heart of a joyous event.” One thing is for sure: the Boston Marathon will never be the same again.

Our thoughts go out to all the victims and their loved ones.