ROB!
In November of this year, I will have known you for 40 years. It’s been a wild, psychic, synchronistic ride – quantum entanglement in our holographic universe!
Now we’re headed to Montana. Happy birthday to a wonderful husband, creative partner, adventurer, and dad!
In Sharon Hewitt Rawlette’s terrific book, The Source and Significance of Coincidences, she has a fascinating chapter called Yet to be Born.
She writes “While after-death communication is quite frequently considered as an explanation for coincidences, there is another similar explanation that is much more rarely explored -pre-birth communication. As the name suggests, this kind of communication comes from children before they are born, and often before they are even conceived.”
In our book, Secrets of Spirit Communication, we touched on this topic, but Sharon has explored it more deeply. She recounts how a friend of hers, Anna, now in her early twenties, still remembers being elsewhere before she was born and “ feeling the love and encouragement of a whole group of friendly beings gathered behind her. She also recalls a moment in which she felt she was ‘diverted to a different path,’ which she describes like moving on to the next step of some sort of natural progression.
“Anna connects this memory to something she said to her mother when she was a young child. Although Anna is Caucasian American, her mother confirmed to me that, when Anna was still a toddler, Anna told her something along the lines of, ‘You’re lucky to have me, because God was going to send me to China.’ While Anna doesn’t now have any pre- birth memories specifically related to China, she does remember that, at the moment when she felt her pre-birth shift to a new path, she was in a place that was very orange and sky-like, perhaps with some clouds, and that she was alone with one particular being. She imagines this is the being that, as a child, she described as ‘God.’
“When the shift to the new path happened, Anna felt her attention shift to the right, and the orange color of her surroundings became much whiter and more vivid. She also remembers a feeling that she was going to be trying something new, and she could feel the excitement of many other beings regarding this new adventure, as well as their willingness to support her and not judge her if she made mistakes.”
Sharon points out that while some people may find these kinds of stories somewhat far-fetched, there’s a growing body of evidence in the spontaneous reports of young children. Parents often dismiss these reports as fantasy, but researchers have discovered there’s a consistency to these stories and some of them provide verifiable pre-birth details. In Memories of Heaven: Children’s Astounding Recollection of the Time Before They Came to Earth, Wayne Dyer and Dee Garnes wrote about such cases. A sampling:
Janis Monachina’s daughter remembered her grandmother’s deceased twin. She said, “Yes, I was swinging with her in the clouds before I came. We were picking out my family and wearing pretty white dresses. ”
When Michele Mira and her husband were showing their three-year-old son photos of his deceased grandfathers, he said about his father’s father, “I know him—he’s Poppy Henry. I saw him on my way to you.”
Rawlett’s book is one of the most comprehensive sources of information I’ve found on the many aspects of synchronicity.
For years now, Adele Aldridge has been working on I Ching Meditations: A Woman’s Book of Changes. She not only interprets the hexagrams and each of the six lines, she also illustrates them – 7 illustrations per hexagram for a grand total of 448!
She’s nearing the end of this monumental undertaking, working on the final line of hexagram 64. She emailed me earlier today about an incredible synchronicity related to it:
“Every morning I throw an I Ching to see what the day may bring or advise. Good research. I am planning on posting line 6 of Hex 64 today. The I Ching I got today is Hexagram 1 changing to 64! Now does that make one a believer or what! I am stunned.”
The first hexagram in the I Ching is entitled The Creative and Hexagram 64 is entitled Nearing Completion. She has come full circle. Below is the podcast we did with Adele about her work. Use the link above to check out her work.
The Mystical Underground: Adele Aldridge: The Art Of the I Ching
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 fiancé 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.
Because we write and talk about synchronicity, every so often we experience synchronicities about synchronicity.
That was what happened to me recently just before I joined Trish and others on a Zoom conference call for Bernard Beitman’s Synchronicity Project. I had been somewhat hesitant to get involved in the project because it was mostly composed of psychologist, psychiatrists and therapists–academics and medical professionals. I knew what they had to say would be interesting, but wasn’t sure that wanted to spend 90 minutes of my day listening to conversations about the difference between happy people and psychotics – both of whom experience synchronicities and react to them in different ways.
It turned out that this session spent some time on the difference between synchros that showed you were on the right path and those that warned you that you might be on the wrong path. That was interesting to me because just a few minutes before going onto Zoom I had gotten an e-mail message from Jane Clifford, a psychic healer who lives in Wales. It consisted of a 3-minute You Tube video of the channeler known as Bashar who was talking about that very subject – two types of synchros, the ones showing you that you were on the right path and the ones warning you that you might be taking a wrong turn.
In other words, a synchronicity about synchronicity…and I guess it was good guidance, telling me to go on Zoom.
We also talked about how synchronicities can manifest through altered states of consciousness and I offered an example of how being fully focused on a fictive tale I was writing recently – a horror story involved a Spider Woman cult that’s gone bad.
Lots of spiders involved in the tale, and after working on it intensely for a couple of hours the other day, I sat back and noticed for the first time a large spider web stretched between my desk and a nearby bookcase. A short time later, I got up and went to the bathroom where I found a large brown recluse clinging to the wall.So those were like manifestations from fiction into the everyday world.
Bernie Beitman, M.D. a visiting psychiatric professor at the University of Virginia, has done something unique. He has created the Coincidence Project, a group of people who write about and explore this phenomena and meet the first Thursday of every month via Zoom. My unusual encounter with a mockingbird happened on the same day that I attended my first Zoom meeting.
This occurred during an afternoon bike ride that takes me down a side street that ends at a police station that faces a canal. That afternoon, my cell buzzed as I turned into the station, and I stopped to see that I’d gotten a spam call. I glanced up and saw a mockingbird in the nearby bushes. I moved my bike closer and closer and the bird didn’t fly away. It made that sound these little guys make and I interpreted it as, “Hey, hi.” So I moved closer and took more photos.
It eventually moved farther down into the bushes, away from me, and when I got home, I researched the esoteric meaning of mocking bird. It’s about communication, mimicry, how we can tweak our own method of communication by expanding it.
At the time, I didn’t understand the message. Combined, Rob and I have written hundreds of books. The written word is how we communicate. But in Feb 202,0, we started a podcast, The Mystical Underground. And now this mockingbird encounter was asking for something else? That very day, I’d attended my first Coincidence Project Zoom. I’m not much of a joiner, but I committed to attending the first Thursday of the month and I realized the mockingbird was a kind of confirmation of that decision.
At the first Zoom, I suggested we do a Coincidence Cafe every third Saturday. More casual. Bring your own coffee, tea, wine and share your stories with other people who are experiencing the same types of things that you are. Bernie is onto something here. So many of us experience this weirdness and feel isolated in our experiences, unable or unwilling to talk about it with others for fear of being ridiculed. At the Coincident Cafe, we’re all on the same page.
This beauty hangs out on the property where our vet’s office is. Today, he was just perched on the fence where I was parked, waiting for someone to come out and get our cat, Beowulf, for his checkup. Due to Covid, humans wait in their cars and a technician comes out to get your buddy.
The peacock started making its raucous call and Beo heard it and tried to peer out of his cage to see it. I got out of my car and took this photo. One other time, back in February, I spotted this guy.
Peacocks are harbingers of rain – and it poured after I left the vet’s place.
According to this site, in Native American symbolism, “peacock meaning is wellness, splendor, and poise. Peacock medicines are powerful and sometimes used by Shamans for awakening clairvoyant abilities.
“Peacock feathers have great importance in healing rituals. Peacock symbolism indicates when you need to be humble and when to display your energy, aptitudes, etc.
“The overall meaning of Peacock in Native American culture is self-confidence, self-esteem, dignity, refinement, knowledge, sexuality, pride, and beauty. According to some myths, in history, lore, and legend, the peacock symbol carries omens of nobility, guidance, holiness, watchfulness, and protection.”
He made my day.
A new episode of The Mystical Underground is live! “Amelia Aeon Karris: Star Seed”:
Join Trish and Rob for a conversation with…
Amelía Aeon Karris, author of “Synchronicity: Unlock Your Divine Destiny.” Amelía mentors truth-seekers and entrepreneurs to ground their unique gifts and find their calling. For the last 25 years, she has been a way-seer and business consultant helping visionaries craft impactful businesses and design artistic lifestyles in alignment with their revolutionary spirit.
She offers online courses in Self Mastery and excels in mentoring those who’ve had spiritual awakenings and are ready to ground their expanded worldview and unique abilities into their business or special project. On her podcast, Love, Sex & the Hidden Agenda Amelía and Satya Ra explore love and the misuse of power on the planet in the hope to shed light on this sticky energy.
Chris Mackey is a clinical psychologist in Australia and author of The Positive Psychology of Synchronicity: Enhance your mental health with the power of coincidence. He was also one of our guests on The Mystical Underground.
One of his key roles in ten years as a senior clinical psychologist in psychiatric hospitals was to help differentiate psychosis from other mental health conditions, including complex trauma reactions. He recently wrote a piece on synchronicity and spiritual crises, which he shared with us. We’re including part of here. You can read the entire article at the link at the end – or you can listen to his podcast on this topic!
From Chris:
Many people feel overwhelmed if they start to experience a huge increase of weird coincidences. This may be especially unsettling if people haven’t experienced such frequent or striking coincidences before. It can be hard to make to make any sense of them.
In such situations people may fear that they are going mad. Otherwise, they might believe that their experiences are genuine and meaningful, but family members or friends might think they are becoming mentally ill. For example, If the person is especially excited or energized by such experiences, it can seem to others that they are suffering from a bipolar disorder.
This raises the question of how you can tell the difference between non-ordinary states of consciousness, which overlap with recognized spiritual or mystical phenomena, and psychosis. This is a complex question as it can be difficult even for mental health professionals to tell the difference. Some people might even be experiencing a combination of both. It can be even more complicated when people have also experienced significant trauma reactions including dissociative symptoms, which may also have overlapping features with psychosis, including hearing voices.
However, it’s at least worth making the attempt to differentiate transpersonal experience from psychosis. Those who are experiencing such phenomena and are pushed toward psychiatric hospitalization tend to respond poorly, especially if they are mainly treated according to a rigid medical model focussing on medication. They might not only feel unnecessarily invalidated, but their mental health may deteriorate.
Here I am using the terms spiritual, transpersonal and mystical as overlapping descriptions of experience that has a numinous, or sacred, quality. William James, an influential American pioneer of psychology, defined mystical experience as being extraordinary experience with four key features. It is ineffable: that is, it’s impossible to describe the experience adequately in words. It is noetic, in that it conveys seemingly significant insight beyond what can be gained by the intellect. It is transient, being unsustainable for a long period. And it shows passivity: a sense of being influenced by something beyond our own will.
Striking and meaningful coincidences, also known as synchronicity, are one example of an experience that is recognized by many people and cultures as a potentially genuine spiritual or mystical phenomenon. Other transpersonal or mystical experiences may include hearing the voice of a deceased relative, déjà vu or near-death experiences. They can include suddenly developing psychic or other paranormal abilities such as clairvoyant visions of past or future events or telepathy. These experiences may arise in such a way that is overwhelming for an individual and they may fear that they are losing their mind. This is more likely if people have not discussed such experiences with others and don’t have any mental framework for thinking about them.
Click below to read the rest of the article. Or listen to the podcast!
Here’s the podcast:
Chinese Feng Shui compass
The Derek Chauvin trial qualifies as a mass event. Huge media coverage. And as with any mass event, there are some stunning synchronicities.
Chauvin, a white cop, knelt on the neck of Derek Cuavin, a black male, for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, and at least three of those minutes occurred after Floyd wasn’t moving or breathing and had no pulse. In other words, he wasn’t a threat because he was dead.
So, first synchro. Chauvin’s name. Chauvin is the truncated version of chauvinistic, defined as: feeling or displaying aggressive or exaggerated patriotism or displaying excessive or prejudiced support for one’s own cause, group, or sex. Anyone who saw the video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck also saw the cop’s face – he knew what the hell he was doing.
Second synchro: Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Add the seconds, 2+9 and you get 11. So, 9-11 – the same date the World Trade Center was brought down and nearly 3,000 people were killed- defined the last minutes of George Floyd’s life.
Today, when we were waiting for news about the verdict, I threw an I Ching on it. My question was simple: Floyd verdict. I got Hexagram 23, with changing lines in the 2nd and 3rd place, which resulted in Hexagram 18. #23 is called Splitting Apart, and the first changing line reads: “The bed is split at the edge. Those who persevere are destroyed. Misfortune. The second changing line reads: Six in the third place means, He splits with them. No blame.
Hexagram 18 is called Work on What Has Been Spoiled. Together these two hexagrams are about as bad as bad gets. “Decisiveness and energy must take the place of the inertia and indifference that have led to decay in order that the ending may be followed by a new beginning.
Hexagram 23 points to Chauvin splitting apart from the Minneapolis PD because of his actions. Hexagram 18 points to the racism that runs through this country, a powerful undercurrent, an attitude that begs for a different kind of police training.
I think my next question for the Ching will be, Where do we go from here?
