I recently was invited to join Dr. Bernard Beitman’s Coincidence Project, and several of the other members of the group will be guests on The Mystical Underground in coming weeks. This story comes from Chris Mackey, a clinical psychologist in Geelong, Australia. Chris is also the author of The Positive Psychology of Synchronicity .
“One time in Bali a butterfly landed on my head and stayed there for well over an hour. My friends were amazed and took a photo of it on the left lens of my sunglasses. Just recently I noticed that in a similar position near the other lens there was a heart shape in the background.
The heart symbol is another powerful synchronistic symbol for me. There was something synchronistic in the symmetry of these two symbols in the photo. I love these little touches that we can experience, and it’s terrific to be with a group of people who get this stuff and have lots of experiences of their own like that.”
Butterflies represent transformation, so I asked Chris what was going on in is life at the time. And this is where the story becomes intriguing.
“A key thing on that holiday was meeting Sarah, the wife in a lovely couple we met through our friend who organized the trip, who is one of the most psychic and spiritual people I know. She was right into synchronicity and she and her husband had just read my book and related strongly to it. I only learnt later that Sarah was a spiritual healer. A few years later I accepted her offer to come through my two psychology practice buildings in Geelong to clear the rooms of any negative energy.
“Sarah went from room to room, told me her impressions of what she noticed about the energy in each room, did a brief ritual when she spoke in tongues, and later described visual images of a snake like presence/energy leaving the room.
“Her comments on each room uncannily overlapped with how I perceived the psychologist in each room (how confident or experienced they were, whether there was conflict with me or others, etc.) There were a couple of striking examples. In one room she described a sense of mourning – a very idiosyncratic comment and different from any other comment she made.
“I was specifically wondering whether she would say anything that related to that consulting room previously having been the bedroom of a previous owner who had died in that room decades earlier. Neither she nor current colleagues knew that story. The psychologist using that room spontaneously commented the next day how smoothly everything had gone that morning, suggesting that she felt an extra positive energy in the room.
“In another room, I wondered whether my psychic friend would pick up the one example of strong conflict I felt with a colleague. She immediately described a feeling of long-term stuck resentment and strong negativity and resistance around the desk of that colleague. Her comments led me to be much more confident in forcefully challenging that colleague about aspects of her attitude and behavior.
“It led to a complete resolution of our conflict and we still get on very well now, 2-3 years later. This is an example where acting on synchronicity might not seem rational, but I don’t think I have ever regretted doing so. I think it is rational, because it works!
“I hadn’t connected meeting Sarah in Bali with the butterfly so much, but even at the time the butterfly landed on my head I was less surprised as it felt more of a synchronistic holiday with Sarah present.
“The link below has recordings from my synchronicity segments on local radio in 2019 (we did the segment, “Talking Synchronicity” twice monthly for a few years until the end of 2019). The segment from 8th May includes a conversation with Sarah and how she met her husband (the synchronistic matchmaker at work).”
