Author: Bernard Beitman

Publisher: Health Communications Inc.

ISBN -13: 978-07573-1884-9

ISBN-13: 978-07573-1885-6

                           Formulating a Theory of Coincidence

Apart from the fact that the author of this book attempts to formulate some sort of a theory of coincidence, a task that can be compared to collecting water in a sieve, this book is a fantastic read. Despite the rarefied and esoteric nature of the material under study, the author uses a decades long experience as a psychotherapist, to succeed in creating a reasonably watertight framework towards understanding the unique nature of coincidence, thus straddling both sides of the divide, symbolized by God and the angels as suggested by believers on one side and random probability as espoused by sceptics and atheists on the other.

The reason for writing this book is expressed below in the author’s own words.

“I’ve been deeply interested in coincidences most of my life,- trying to make sense of them, to understand how to use them and how best to explain them to sceptics and believers alike”.

This book lays the ground for an “emerging field of consciousness studies, a field that I am helping to develop which proposes closer connections between mind and environment than are currently accepted in psychiatry and psychology”.

The author begins by showing how meaningful coincidences, i.e. those  where circumstances come together to help someone in a positive way, occur in all aspects of life, being in effect our built in GPS system whose voice is our intuition. He illustrates this uncanny sense of deja vu induced by a meaningful coincidence, with several examples each in nine different categories.:

i) Between very close people

ii) In the area of  romantic love

iii) Within the family

iv) Between colleagues and acquaintances

v) Health solutions

vi) Ideas

vii) Timely money

viii) Jobs, work and luck

ix) Spirituality and an experience that comes full circle.

Next the author makes an attempt to understand how coincidences can get integrated into daily life patterns. He coins a term viz., “coinciders” which characterize people for whom coincidences occur very often. This is probably because such people are more tuned to their subconscious and more likely to heed  inputs therefrom. He also takes up the term “failed coincidence”. A “failed coincidence” is the antithesis of a “meaningful coincidence”, it brings unhappiness and ego complications in its wake.

In the final section of the book, the author introduces the concepts of the “psychosphere” and E-I receptors  as a step to formulating a theory of coincidence. The psychosphere is postulated to be a nonlocal field containing all the psychic energy information on the planet. This field is everywhere, within and around us and  we communicate with it via what the author calls E-I receptors (energy information). The latter are activated during very subtle energy exchanges. This information is sent to the brain for analysis and provokes a response therefrom which is conducive to the occurrence of a coincidence. The concept of the psychosphere has an analogy in Rupert Sheldrake’s Morphogenetic Field”, a field postulated to explain the homing instincts of dogs and cats, among others.

This book is a must read. Even if the later contents are a shade technical, the examples of coincidence  that are given , could provide a great way to open the mind to the existence of other possibilities. Personally, I had great trouble putting it down.

Warmly recommended.