The Magician and the Comedian

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Trish and Rob

 
Gibbs Williams sent us a couple of synchroncities that he distinguishes as ‘apparent’ and ‘real.’ To us, the apparent one sounds like a synchronicity, and the real one is a story with another layer, or another degree, of synchronicity. Call them what you want, here are the stories:
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A friend of mine recommended a book called Magic. In answer to my question who wrote it, he said he didn’t know. I responded by telling him a story about my having worked at a summer resort in New Hampshire years ago as a bus boy. While there, I was fascinated with one of my fellow workers who soon retreated to his bunk room, isolating himself. Feeling concerned, I went to visit him. What I saw was a highly depressed fellow of about 25 years old compulsively flipping cards, making them fly back into his hands. During the few hours I visited him he never ceased flipping the cards along with showing me remarkable card tricks.

I thought this young disturbed man might turn out to be a great magician if he could somehow overcome his depression and keep on compulsively practicing his craft. The depressed  card flipper was named Ricky Jay. The next day I got a phone call from my friend who excitedly said the name of the author of the book on Magic was  Ricky Jay. This to me is only an apparent synchronicity as it is the outcome of a logical progression of cause and effect occurrences.

However, what follows for me fulfills the requirements to be a meaningful coincidence.The next day I went to a local bookstore to look at the book on Magic. The owner said they didn’t stock it. I looked around and soon spotted a biography of Einstein. In the same pile of books I also spotted a biography of Henny Youngman – the comedian. To me this was a meaningful coincidence. How so?

I detailed the coincidence to the simpatico owner of the bookstore, telling him the following events. Years ago, I had been a bus boy in a resort hotel wherein I met this depressed worker who compulsively flipped playing cards, and years later turns out to be a famous expert magician who wrote a book on magic.While working at that hotel,  I also had the opportunity to eat lunch with Henny Youngman, who had been entertaining at the resort.

I found the experience to be depressing, however. Instead of eating his hamburger, Mr. Youngman compulsively told one liners to the other people surrounding him. Their laughter seemed to be fueling his empty psychological gas tank. So here was another instance of a an exceedingly talented man compulsively transforming his abilities into a defining life purpose.

So what does this synchronicity have to do with me? I am conducting an event to launch the publication of my recently published book on Demystifying Meaningful Coincidences (Synchronicities): The Evolving Self, The Personal Unconscious, and The Creative Process. I have been searching for a good beginning, I had been thinking about asking the question: what would have been compelling enough for me to invest much of the 50 years of my life in investigating the perplexities of synchronicities? So now the story of the obsessive magician and the comedian provided me with a lead-in to my own story.

As a psychoanalyst, I could easily give myself a diagnosis of obsessive compulsive personality disorder, like the magician and the comedian. And, or, I could also judge my interest as parallel to  Blake’s observation: in viewing the whole world in a grain of sand. This second point of view has a ring of truth and reinforces my belief that at least for me my naturalistic theory of synchronicities is valid and therefore worth my continuing efforts to understand the nature of these amazing events.
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Earlier this week, we saw the magician/actor Ricky Jay on an episode of FlashForward. If Gibbs hadn’t sent this post, I wouldn’t have looked up a photo of Ricky Jay and wouldn’t have recognized him. That might be what Gibbs calls and ‘apparent synchronicity.’ Now if I bump into Ricky Jay in the gym, that will be a meaningful coincidence. – Rob

Posted in actors, Gibbs williams, magic | 7 Comments

Born to Run

Posted on April 11, 2010 by Trish and Rob

A few days ago, Rob went for a bike ride with Noah and I headed out for the gym. As I was backing out of the driveway, I saw our neighbor, and got out to chat with her. We had told her about the Springsteen synchronicity and she remarked that some women she knew had told her they’d seen him at the gym and he’d allowed them to take photos of him with their kids.

“Well, Easter is history, the winter horse people are leaving, so I’m sure he has gone back to New Jersey, or wherever,” I said. Most of the snowbirds leave right after Easter, and I was sure Springsteen was among them.

En route to the gym, Rob called to asked me to check the bulletin board to see if his new yoga class had been posted. “You’re going to miss Bruce,” I said.

“He’s gone,” Rob said. “Left with the snowbirds. And I heard he sold one of his homes here for a $500,00- loss.”

So I get to the gym, later than usual, and I’m on the rowing machine and thinking about Rob’s friend, Rabbit. Right after we’d told him about the Springsteen synchro, he wrote back that he was in an office in Minneapolis earlier in the day, waiting for a meeting, combing through magazines for something to read. And what does he come across? An issue of AARP with Springsteen on the cover. The Boss Turns 60! the headlines screamed.

And  right as I’m thinking that, there he is, on an ab machine, just doing his thing, and I’m laughing to myself. Not gone. Not yet. A woman goes over to him, they start talking. I move into another section of the gym and suddenly hear another woman shriek, “Bruce, how’re you doing?”

“Fine,” he says, “fine.” He moves along, just a 60-year-old guy who looks like any other guy in the gym, just a guy with biceps. He opens the door to the tae kwando area, a woman steps out, they hug hello, and walk off together to another section of the gym.

Does he look like someone who made $57 million in ’09, second to Bono in the entertainment world? Does he stand out in any way? No, not really, not unless you know he’s Springsteen. But the real message here, at least for me, is that he’s a guy who made tons of money last year and is probably worth far beyond that, doing what he loves. So in the end, it all comes back to Joseph Campbell. Follow your bliss. Springsteen did that. And the next time I muster the nerve to approach him, I’ll ask him about that. So hey, Bruce, tell me about following your bliss.
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A final word on the Boss…

Saturday morning, in the gym again, we were talking to another Bruce,  Rob’s co-author of THE FOG, and he mentioned this blog and the Boss synchronicity post. I turned to him and said, “I just want to see him here with his guitar playing a song.”

Just after I said that, Rob pointed up, the direction from which the music emanates from the overhead speakers. The first notes of a new song had just come on, and yes, it was the Boss.

Baby we were born to run. 

Bruce smiled. “You guys are getting pretty good at that.”

Posted in Bruce Springsteen | 11 Comments

Goodluck arrives today!

Posted on April 10, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Here’s a timely post, thanks to Augustine, our friend in Nigeria and author of a book on synchronicities involving world leaders. Augustine informs us that the acting president of Nigeria will be visiting the White House and President Obama today. The name of the visiting dignitary: Goodluck Jonathan–a name with a built in synchronicity.

So here in typical Augustine form are the synchronicities he has found. Yes, some are a stretch, but nevertheless interesting to consider.
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Barack Obama and Nigerian President MusaYaradua were born in August 4, 1961  and August 16, 1951 respectively. So both are Leos.

Obama’s father and Yaradua’s father were both Muslims.

Obama and Yaradua are both smokers and both of their vice presidents,  Joe Biden and Goodluck Jonathan, were born on November 20.  Biden in1942 and Jonathan in 1957.

The most significant event  for the Obama presidency so far has been health care reform. For Yaradua, it is his personal health. Because of his illness, he was unable to make the trip to Washington and turned over the presidency in February to his vice-president.

For a very long time American presidents were sworn in on March 4. The Nigerian Presidential Advisory Committee, headed by Lt. Gen Theophilus Danjuma, was sworn in on March 4.

John Quincy Adams was president from March 4,1825 to March 4 1829. The letters that make up Theophilus Danjuma’s name can also spell “John Adams sixth American President.”

Vice President Goodluck Jonathan became acting president on February 9, 2010; the anniversary of the election (February 9 1825) of John Adams by the U.S. House of Representatives due to the inconclusive elections of November 3, 1824. Like Adams, Jonathan became president under unusual circumstances, a constitutional crisis that led to the national assembly electing him as acting president.
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Outside of Augustine’s comparisons, there is also the synchronicity of a child being named Goodluck, who then becomes president of his country.
So bring on Goodluck!

 

Posted in synchros between nigerian figures and american figures | 5 Comments

Parent Radar

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Not to be confused with parent controls on televisions, parent radar is the psychic detection of dangers related to their children. A few examples follow. Maybe some of you have had similar experiences with your children.

Jane Clifford of Wales says that she has picked up on car crashes involving all three of her grown children in separate incidents. With one daughter, she detected an accident three months before it happened, and also at the time of the crash. “I knew she would be deeply shocked, but I also knew she would not be injured. With her other daughter, she felt an accident coming about six weeks in advance. With her son, she was aware of an upcoming accident two weeks in advance, and more insistently on the day of the accident.

Her strongest psychic link is with her son, Harry, 22. “A couple of years back he was in Bali with friends when one night I strongly felt his distress and frustration and deducted that he was separated from the others, needed to find them but couldn’t contact them.”

Finding them, she felt was absolutely crucial to him. “He’s a pretty steady guy, so to pick up distress really concerned me. When he returned he said I was exactly right! They were all to meet in a restaurant before flying in the early hours of the morning. But he couldn’t remember which restaurant or find it by repeatedly going up and down a long street. The others had the flight details and flight cards.

“Eventually, he had to head for the airport (on the back of a moped, because he was out of money). Then, at the airport, he wasn’t allowed inside without the flight card. So he sat outside the airport until early in the morning when he finally spotted his mates.

“Last week Harry was in the French Alps doing a barn conversion. He had been there a month when late one night I picked up despair and frustration. So I texted him. He had a fabulous time all month, but the night I contacted him he had a disagreement & he was feeling what I picked up. I never fail to pick up his stuff!

I just wonder how many out there have direct “transmission” from their kids. I know of two mothers who lost sons in car accidents and both “knew” something bad was coming. In fact, one of them was up and dressed waiting for the police to contact her at 3 am!”

The other case was even more peculiar. “The woman had suddenly became upset about a tree in her garden that had been there for years. Unaccountably, she wanted it cut down. Later that day, it transpired that her son broke his neck when he hit a tree on his way home.”
***
Such ‘genetic’ psychic links, or ‘parent radar,’ is probably more common than most of us realize. Here’s one such case, from our own experiences that we wrote about here. Have others here had such experiences?

Posted in kids, parents | 10 Comments

Are you a borderland personality?

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Trish and Rob

We’ve written lately about people who detect earthquakes and other natural disasters ahead of time through physical symptoms and changes in their bodies.We’ve referred to these people as planetary empaths. Now D Page recommended  a book by Jerome S. Bernstein called: Living in the Borderland: The Evolution of Consciousness and the Challenge of  Healing Trauma.

Berstein describes his book this way: “There are many people whose experience of reality is outside the mainstream of Western culture; often they see themselves as abnormal because they have no articulated frame of reference for their experience. The concept of the Borderland personality explains much of their experience.”

So we’re wondering how many visiting here consider themselves to fit the borderland personality. Keep in mind the distinction between borderline and borderland personality. The former is a pathology; the latter, possibly an evolutionary personality. As you’ll see, some of the traits fit closely with the experiences of the planetary empaths.

In fact, we’ve already shown the following list of trait to those who wrote that  they felt the recent Mexican-S.Callifornia quake coming. All of them said that they related closely with most of the trails. Two said all of the traits fit. See what you think.

   1. Borderland personalities have a deep and primary connection to nature. Most are more comfortable in relationship with animals than with people.
   2. All have transformational experiences such as communicating with plants and animals and somatic identification with earth’s suffering.
   3. Many have experienced trauma as children or adults. Many have not.
   4. Unlike the Borderline personality, the Borderland personality has a stable identity.
   5. Most hide their Borderland nature – often including from their therapist — for fear of being branded “crazy” or weird. This leads to living parallel and camouflaged lives — their hidden life in the Borderland (which is their primary identification), and their life in the mundane world.
   6. Most feel isolated and lack a sense of community and belonging because they  are unaware that there are many others like them.
   7. All experience their Borderland reality as sacred.
   8. Most tend to be hypersensitive on the somatic level. Many experience  environmental illness. But, many do not.
   9. 100% of all Borderland personalities with whom I have had contact say they  would not give up that connection if they could – even if it were to diminish their suffering.
  10. Although many would identify with being Nature’s “canaries,” most are at a loss as to the imperative for transformation that they have been given



For more about borderlanders, you can go to Berstein’s site.


Posted in borderlanders, planetary empaths | 29 Comments

Another Car Manifestation

Posted on April 7, 2010 by Trish and Rob

 

On March 22, we posted a story about manifestation. There were some cool comments from people who also had manifested  One of the best stories came  from Sansego. He has posted numerous comments on this blog. This story is such a terrific example of “be careful what you wish for” that we decided to make it a post.
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In 1994, when I was living in Italy and moving back to the U.S., I thought about buying a car for my final year in the Navy. My choice was either a Geo Metro or a Saturn Sl1. By the end of the year, I had become friends with a guy (who’s still my best friend today) who was selling his Geo Metro, so I bought it from him for $4,000.

I had the car for 18 months and paid it off after a year. In May 1996, I was running an errand for a guy who was running for Congress. It was hot and my Metro did not have air condition or a radio/cassette player. I remember thinking that day how nice it would be to have air condition and a cassette deck to blast my music on. While waiting at a stoplight at the bottom of a hill, next to the VA hospital, a Jeep Cherokee came speeding down the hill and rear ending my car. The Metro was totaled and I was devastated.

In my search for a new car, I decided that I wanted a Ford Escort or a Saturn SL1…that had A/C, a cassette deck, a sunroof, and stick shift. As I passed by a Saturn dealership, I had the strangest urge to turn around and check it out. I didn’t think they would have any in my price range (under $8,000), but I asked. The lady took me to the one car they had for that amount…and it was a Saturn SL1 with sunroof, cassette deck, A/C, and stick shift! It was $7,800 and the miles were around 85,000, which was how many miles my Metro accumulated until the accident.

When I got my check from the insurance company, they paid $200 more than what I paid for the Metro. So, my wish in 1994 for either a Metro or a Saturn SL1 came true with both cars.

I’ve been carless since 2002, though, after my Saturn died. I’d love a Scion tC, but I’m not putting any energy into “car manifestation” as I want other things more, that I can’t seem to manifest.

It is probably my first clear example of getting exactly what I desired…twice!

Posted in cars, manifestation | 12 Comments

Empaths Among Us

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Trish and Rob

 

On March 11, we posted Planetary Empaths, about individuals who feel physical and emotional symptoms before an earthquake occurs. These symptoms are unpleasant, painful, and flat out disturbing. But they seem to indicate that these empaths are intimately connected to the planet’s internal rumblings. One of the challenges for these individuals is figuring out where the quake – or other natural disaster – will occur.

Not surprisingly, a day after the 7.2 quake in Mexicali, we heard from several people who don’t know each other but know us, describing their symptoms in uncannily similar ways.  A rather unnerving synchronicity!
Connie Cannon and d page were both in our March 11 post.  Jenacide commented on the Mexicali post, describing her experience. Tonight, we got an email from healing mudras, who is in Laos rather than Bangkok, where she lives. She described her symptoms before the quake.

We’ve put together a list of physical and emotional symptoms that seem to be most common based on the experiences of these individuals and of others who have experienced similar symptoms.

– a ringing in the ears. It seems to be long and sustained, sometimes high pitched, and may be specific to one ear
– disorientation. A feeling of being disconnected from your body
-nausea, a sense that the earth is rolling and undulating beneath you
– pronounced imbalance
– great fatigue
-dizziness, headaches
– disturbed sleep
-plugged ears
-crying for no apparent reason, feelings of deep sadness, despair, chaos
– sense of malaise
-inability to function normally
– waking from a sound sleep, alert, rapid heartbeat, “feeling it in my body.”
This last symptom came from a young man, Jon, who is a friend of d’s. In an email, he wrote: “How about this, I know when earthquakes are going to happen too. If I’m asleep, I’ll wake up and be completely alert. No waking up half asleep, instead, I’m completely awake and alert. I then feel it in my body and my heart beats a bit faster and then a few minutes later, earthquake. That’s how I felt yesterday when I was playing video games with my cousin before it happened. At first I thought it was the game, which was very funny to me.”

Vivid dreams and nightmares occur days or weeks before the quake or disaster and often contain powerful symbols. For Connie Cannon, for example, songs and lyrics as well as numbers are extremely important. Before the Baja quake, she dreamed the songs, “South of the Border” and “Down by the Riverside.” The south of the border reference is now obvious. She believes the riverside reference is Riverside, California, where the quake was felt. Connie is also a numerologist, so numbers are powerful dream symbols for her as well. Several days before the quake, she dreamed of the numbers 33 and 44 repeatedly. As she pointed out in a subsequent email, earthquake resonates to 44 and Mexico resonates to 33, so it was all given to her, even the place, but she didn’t connect the dots.

D’s symbols are best expressed here, where she describes a dream image that required research.
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Rob and I were speculating that perhaps this sensitivity to what the planet is about to do is an evolutionary step for humans. I mentioned this to D, too, and she wrote: “I was wondering if  what is described in Jerome Bernstein’s Living in the Borderland is what we are witnessing. Similar to your idea, he states that what he calls  “borderland consciousness” is “an evolutionary dynamic that is moving the western psyche to reconnect our overspecialized ego to it’s natural psychic roots. It is my view that we are all in the grip of this unfolding. Indeed,it is possible that our very survival as species Homo Sapiens may depend on the shift that is taking place.” (page 9)

Food for thought.

Posted in planetary empaths | 21 Comments

Lady in the Mirror

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Gypsy posted a remark under a story we had posted about orbs. It’s a good one and we didn’t want it to get lost in comments.
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I must have been about 12 years old at the time and we were living in Winnfield,  Louisiana, a little “courthouse square” southern town where everyone knows everyone else. We were living across the street from my paternal grandmother. One day she and my aunts were discussing the death of a lady who had died at her home. Her  family planned a home wake, but just after her death [in her own bed], there appeared on her bureau/dresser mirror an image – an image in color – that was the exact image of the lady as she lay in her deathbed.

This event left the family in a state of concern as to whether or not they should  still have the wake at home. By then, word of this “miracle” had spread to my  grandmother’s home where it was the subject of conversation. I was somehow allowed to attend the wake and will never forget it. The casket was  set up in the living room and the house was full of people. After we paid our respects in the living room, we were allowed to view the mirror  in the woman’s bedroom.

And there it was, here it was, a big round mirror in a wooden frame and in the center of the mirror  was the colored image of this lady as she lay in bed. Funny, how I remember the colors of pink and lavender. Some people went up to the mirror and tried to rub the image off but it didn’t budge.

It was the talk of town for a long time afterward. I don’t remember ever hearing that the image had faded or gone away. but it certainly has not faded from my own  memory.

Posted in death, ghosts | 14 Comments

7.2 Quake Mexicali

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Trish and Rob

This afternoon, there was a 7.2 quake in Mexicali, Mexico. When I was reading about the aftershocks felt in L.A, I wondered if some of the planetary empaths we wrote about in a March 11 post had felt anything.

This evening, I dropped by d page’s blog. She’s one of these empaths we wrote about. Her account of the quake is vivid. And yes, she apparently felt it beforehand.Read her account here.

Posted in 7.2 quake mexicali, planetary empaths | 6 Comments

Easter Lillies: Nature’s Synchros

Posted on April 4, 2010 by Trish and Rob

 About 95 percent of the 11 million Easter lillies sold each year are bought during Easter week. Most are grown in Oregon and California. They’re usually in bloom by Easter Sunday because their bulbs are “forced” in greenhouses, which means their environmental conditions are constantly adjusted so the flower blooms in the spring rather than during the summer.  After an Easter lilly has bloomed once, you can plant it outside and it will then bloom as nature dictates, during the summer.

 So four years ago, we bought an Easter lilly and after it had bloomed, planted it along the fence in our garden. Every year as Easter approaches, we wonder if it will bloom again. Easter, after all, doesn’t always fall on the same date and can vary by as much as five weeks.  But invariably, year after year, this beautiful plant is in bloom in our garden by Easter Sunday. This year, we’ve had an unusually cold winter for Florida and Easter falls on April 4. Two weeks ago, the buds were hard to find and it seemed impossible that the flowers would bloom by Easter.

Here’s a photo of it on Palm Sunday, March 28. It certainly looks as if it’s going to be in bloom again by Easter Sunday! So how does it know when Easter is?

The last photo was taken this morning, Easter morning  The lillies are in full and glorious bloom.

                                                          


Posted in easter lillies, nature | 12 Comments