Meaningful Coincidences

Auteur
Bernard Beitman, M.D., a graduate of Yale Medical School, did his psychiatric residency at Stanford University. The former chair of psychiatry of the University of Missouri-Columbia Medical School for 17 years, he writes a blog for Psychology Today on coincidence and is the coauthor of the award-winning book Learning Psychotherapy. The founder of The Coincidence Project, he lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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Psychiatrist Bernard Beitman, M.D., explores why and how coincidences, synchronicity, and serendipity happen and how to use these common occurrences to inspire psychological, interpersonal, and spiritual growth.

Résumé
A comprehensive exploration of the potential of coincidences to expand our understanding of reality and inspire psychological, interpersonal, and spiritual growth

• Scientific and Medical Network's Annual Book Prize for 2022

• Presents a complete catalog of coincidence patterns with numerous illustrative examples

• Defines the many uses and potential pitfalls of coincidences and highlights the situations in which they are most likely to occur

• Explores the range of explanations for coincidences, including the psychosphere as the medium through which many coincidences take place

Each of us has more to do with creating coincidences than we think. In this broad exploration of the potential of coincidences to expand our understanding of reality, psychiatrist Bernard Beitman, M.D., explores why and how coincidences, synchronicity, and serendipity happen and how to use these common occurrences to inspire psychological, interpersonal, and spiritual growth.

Through a complete catalog of coincidence patterns with numerous illustrative examples, Dr. Beitman clarifies the relationship between synchronicity and serendipity and dissects the “anatomy of a coincidence.” He defines coincidence types through their two fundamental constituents--mental events and physical events. He analyzes the many uses of meaningful coincidences as well as their potential problems. He explains how you will see patterns guiding your life decisions and learn to expect that coincidences are more likely to occur during life stressors, as well as times of high emotion and strong need, which helps you be ready to use them when they occur.

Exploring the crucial role of personal agency--individual thought and action--in synchronicities and serendipities, Dr. Beitman shows that there’s much more behind these occurrences than “fate” or “randomness.”

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Chapter 1: Anatomy of a Coincidence

The words coincide and coincidence came into English through philosophy, likely from translations from the Latin of Roger Bacon (1220-1292). The words then passed into the vocabulary of scholarly English writers during the first half of the seventeenth century and then were taken up by mathematicians during the great revival of mathematical study at that time in England.

The word coincidence became a household word in American English following the simultaneous deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on July 4, 1826. The pair died exactly fifty years after each had signed the United States Declaration of Independence.1

So then, what is a coincidence? We actually know very little about what they are. That reality is best illustrated by the dictionary definition, which states that a coincidence is the remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection. Why is it remarkable? Because they occur at the same time? Because their concurrence is surprising? Because there is no apparent cause though it seems there should be one? And left unsaid in that definition is the suggestion that the coincidence may have meaning.

The definition of coincidence harbors contradictions. There could be no cause or there could be a cause. It could have no meaning or could be meaningful. Coincidences may be both improbable and surprising, but these are not synonyms. Coincidences tend to be improbable events, but all improbable events aren’t necessarily coincidences.2 For example, rolling a die six times and getting 464255 might be just as improbable as 666666, but not nearly as surprising.3 Similarly, coincidences are usually surprising.4 But events that are surprising (e.g., an unexpected firecracker or birthday party) are not necessarily coincidences.5,6 So a surprising and improbable coincidence captures attention and seems to demand explanation.

Our attempt to understand what is meant by the word coincidence is made all the more difficult at the starting gate because the word coincidence is used in two starkly opposing ways: either as attention-worthy or as irrelevant. Adjectives used with the word coincidence sharpen the direction of the intended meaning. When coincidences are thought to be important or to have a cause, whatever it may be, the speaker will use adjectives such as meaningful, remarkable, or amazing. “That was an amazing coincidence,” one might say. When the coincidence is viewed as irrelevant, as due to chance, adjectives such as mere, only, pure, sheer, and just will modify the word. “That’s just a coincidence.” And when the word is used without a modifying adjective, the speaker’s intended meaning may be unclear: “It was a coincidence that you showed up when I did.”

But one thing about coincidences is certain: they are all around us. In our daily lives, on the internet, radio, and television, and in our entertainment; but like the gorilla in the room, we often don’t notice them, or do so only briefly, in passing, and often without giving them a second thought. The survey I conducted while at the University of Missouri in 29 found that at least a third of the general population frequently notices coincidences.7 That’s a good start and suggests to me that perhaps it’s time to create a new field to explore how these unexpected conjunctions of events can be understood. To this end, I have proposed the establishment of The Coincidence Project, which includes the transdisciplinary field of coincidence studies (see appendix 1 for more on this).

But first, let’s begin by pulling apart the threads of what’s commonly called a coincidence.

TIMELINESS

When we consider coincidences, what variables are involved? The first and most obvious one is the time interval. Coincidences are commonly viewed as the coming together of two or more events simultaneously in time, or nearly so. The instantaneous or short time interval between the coincidental events seems to increase the significance of a coincidence in peoples’ minds, because short time intervals between the occurrences of two seemingly unrelated events begin to suggest a cause. Lightning is quickly followed by thunder, so lightning causes thunder.

But, in fact, the time intervals characterizing coinciding events can vary from simultaneous to many years. And coincidental events taking place years apart can be every bit as astonishing as those that are instantaneous. Take this example as related by psychologist Alan Combs and English professor Mark Holland in their book Synchronicity: Through the Eyes of Science, Myth and the Trickster: “Allen Falby was a highway patrolman in Texas. One night on duty he crashed his motorcycle and lay bleeding to death on the road, having ruptured a major artery in his leg. At that point, a man named Alfred Smith arrived, quickly put a tourniquet on his leg, and saved his life. Five years later, Falby was again on duty and received a call to go to the scene of an auto accident. There, he found a man who was bleeding to death from a severed artery in his leg. He applied a tourniquet and saved the man’s life. Only then did h…