“Deep down, the consciousness of mankind is one.”
—DAVID BOHM, WHOLENESS AND THE IMPLICATE ORDER
With the expansion of the Internet in the 1990s, we entered the Information Age. Today information and nearly instantaneous communication move our civilization forward. Research that only twenty-five years ago might’ve taken hours, days, or weeks appears on a monitor within seconds. It seems inevitable that even synchronicity should find its way into this hi-tech Information Age.
One evening, a Google alert for synchronicity brought up a site called synctxt.com, a way to explore synchronicity through modern technology. The tool is described as “a research experiment and self-exploration tool that combines modern technology with the concept of synchronicity as postulated by the psychologist Carl Jung.”
The technology behind the software grew out of the Princeton Anomalies Research Lab at Princeton University, where it was discovered that humans could influence quantum-scale physical events, even at a distance. This is nothing new. Physician and author Larry Dossey, for instance, explored the power of prayer (intention) in long-distance healing. Lynne McTaggart’s The Intention Experiment explores this theory in depth. Esther and Jerry Hicks have written several books about the law of attraction that illustrate how we can influence physical events through our thoughts and intentions.
What is different, however, is that synctxt is designed for personal use. It employs random event generators (REGs) to measure the influence of consciousness on physical events and searches for patterns that indicate a deviation from expected statistical distribution. Once you sign up, a random event generator that runs 24/7 is assigned to you. When a pattern is detected, the system sends a message—written by you—to your mobile phone.
According to the website, these messages often arrive at synchronous moments. Your messages might be things like: Go with the flow. Don’t worry about the small stuff. Be here now. Now you understand. Laugh. Whatever we need comes to us. Express your gratitude. Move ahead. A surprise check arrives. You’re on the right track.
You might be driving to the grocery store one morning, worrying about all the bills you need to pay, when your iPhone or Blackberry jingles. At the next red light, you glance down to read a synctxt alert: Sales today, a perfect day. A couple of hours later, the mail arrives and with it a check for a sizable amount, a refund you’d forgotten about.
Another afternoon, you’re on the phone, talking with a friend about an upcoming event you two are organizing for a charity. You’re both getting frustrated by all the details. That’s when an alert comes through: Trust the process.
These messages qualify as synchronicities. In fact, the one about money was a premonition. But by a machine? Not exactly. Although the message is transmitted digitally and the generator is a machine, you created the messages.
On the website, some users have shared their stories. One of the most striking proved synctxt works even for people who haven’t subscribed to the service. A subscriber had created a message that said, “See? All it takes is time.” A few days later she was in a bar with a friend, who was discussing her plans to become an independent architect. But she was worried about how long it would take. She finished her story by remarking that if she stuck with it, she could probably have her own practice by the time she was thirty. As soon as she said this, her friend got a text on her phone that said, See? All it takes is time! “She was pretty impressed, and I think it made her feel a little better and more confident about her plans.”
As more people connect to the underlying reality of synchronicity, a window opens with a view into the next age, one of transformation. By actively engaging synchronicity and trusting our subconscious selves, we begin to live more consciously, more thoughtfully. We grasp the interconnectedness of all life and fully understand that what affects one affects all.
In this age, answers can come to you as if by magic. You know who you are and who you wish to become. You’re in the right place at the right time. Synchronicity is your best friend and its messages act as your compass. In the Transformation Age, you easily bring your focus to your intentions and desires, and invite synchronicity into your life. In the Transformation Age, you engage the divine.
That’s the ideal. But to get to that place, you must learn how to ask your questions, define your desires, and frame your life so you create a rich environment in which synchronicities can readily occur. In such an environment, the law of attraction works as never before; intuition deepens, creativity flourishes. “Once you decide to work with coincidence, you invite new energy patterns into your life,” wrote Robert Moss in The Three “Only” Things. “You not only observe events in a new way; you actually draw events and people toward you in a way that is different from before.” Everything in your life starts shifting in a richer, more positive direction.
Synchronicities, when you’re aware of them, are like whispered cues, signposts along life’s road. Take this turn, go straight here. Take a risk. Slow down, speed up. In the Transformation Age, if you’re a part of it, synchronicities happen every day. Yet, they aren’t everyday experiences.
Not everyone has a computer in the Information Age, and not everyone will be following the synchronistic path in the Transformation Age. But the influences will be felt universally.
Deepak Chopra identifies two states of higher awareness: divine consciousness and unity consciousness. In the first, our ability to manifest desires increases. The divine consciousness, an experience that comes and goes, allows us to glimpse the “presence of Spirit in all things” as Mary S did after the suicide of her lover, described in the previous chapter. Unity consciousness or enlightenment involves “the complete transformation of the personal self into the universal self, a state in which miracles happen and all is possible.” Can we engage the divine, even for brief moments?
Metaphysicians have been writing about the law of attraction since before the printing press was invented. But it was first popularized in the twentieth century by author Jane Roberts.
In the fall of 1963, Jane Roberts began to channel Seth, “a personality essence no longer focused in physical reality.” Jane’s husband, Robert Butts, recognized the quality of the Seth material and began taking notes during her trance sessions. By the time Jane died in 1984, there were more than twenty Seth books and hundreds of unpublished notebooks on a vast spectrum of topics—the nature of physical reality, life after death, reincarnation, health and illness, human and animal intelligence, the nature of consciousness, war and peace, and politics. The cornerstone of Seth’s philosophy was simple: “You create your reality; you get what you concentrate on … there is no other main rule.”
In other words, the law of attraction. Many of Seth’s descriptions about the nature of reality echo the contentions of David Bohm and other scientists—about how everything in the universe is connected and the importance of intent and belief in creating our experiences. According to Seth, “Because beliefs form reality—the structure of experience—any change in beliefs altering that structure initiates change … .”
The Seth books provide a philosophical basis for the nature of reality and consciousness, the law of attraction, and the role of beliefs in creating our realities. However, they may have been lacking in practical application. Just how do you do this? Fortunately, other authors (we’ve mentioned some of them in this book) have presented the law of attraction in ways that make it accessible to millions. Common themes run through their books: the importance of beliefs, focused intense desire, and powerful emotions.
In the following two stories, you’ll see the importance of beliefs, intense desire, and strong emotions.
For Jane Clifford, a single mother in Wales, her consuming desire and focused intention brought about the results she needed. Her youngest son, Harry, wasn’t thriving in the local secondary school and had asked if he could attend an expensive private school where his older brother had completed his education. Harry wasn’t a scholar, but he was a brilliant musician and the school agreed to interview him on that basis.
The interview went so well that the headmaster decided to create a place for Harry and gave Jane maximum funding. But even with the funding, she still needed £8,000 a year for two years and another £32,000 to complete his education. Her relationship with Harry’s dad had ended, her debts had piled up, she had no means of support. She didn’t even have anything left to sell.
Various friends and family members invested in Harry, and Jane scraped together what she could, when she could. But that £32,000 loomed in front of her, a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. While in London, a good friend told her to visit a tiny church where there were shrines to St. Anthony (saint of lost things) and St. Jude (saint of lost causes). Her friend had been to the church years earlier but could recall only the general location. With just a vague description, Jane set out to find the little church.
She asked every London cab driver outside the tube station about the location of the church; she inquired in cafes and shops, but to no avail. Discouraged and frustrated, she nearly gave up. “I decided to buy a peach from a stall holder. I asked him if he knew where this little church was and he pointed across the street.”
Jane hurried inside the church, lit a candle, and thanked St. Anthony for all his help with lost car keys over the years. Then she lit a candle to St. Jude and asked him for help with the school fees. For the next three months, with no solution in sight, she remained anxious and unsettled.
During a reunion of classmates at the school, Harry volunteered to help at dinner. An elderly gentleman engaged Harry in conversation and said he understood Harry might not be able to continue attending the school. Harry explained that his mother couldn’t afford it. The old gent said, “I shouldn’t worry about that if I were you, Harry,” then turned away to speak to a dinner guest.
It turned out the gentleman was making a considerable financial gift to the school that very day. The money was to be invested, the interest used to help poorer students. “He specified that only in Harry’s case could some capital be used to pay all of Harry’s remaining fees to enable him to finish his education there!” Jane wrote. “Miracle!”
Jane not only had a powerful desire and intention, she refused to give up. Even though no one seemed to know the location of the little church, she kept asking and finally found it. It was exactly the synchronicity she needed. She literally engaged the divine by visiting the shrines of the two saints and requesting help.
See if you can put synchronicity to work for you. Think of a question. Or, focus on a goal. Make it something meaningful. Be serious. Be passionate. Back it with powerful emotion. What do you really want or really need? If you’re having trouble formulating a question or setting a goal, find a quiet space and relax. Let your mind wander as you get settled, telling yourself that the most important question for you at this time will come to mind. Let go of extraneous thoughts. Watch for the issue and the question. When it comes to you, refine it. Make it specific, yet simple.
Expect results. Imagine that you’ve already received your answer. How does it feel? What are you doing differently now that you’ve got your answer? Write it down, tell your friends. Put the word out to the universe.
Set a time frame for getting an answer. You might try an all-or-nothing approach by telling yourself the next thing you hear—a voice on television, a comment in a shop or parking lot—will provide an answer. That might work best for those of you who are intuitive and frequently notice synchronicities. Maybe you’ll want to give yourself a day or two for the message to appear. If you don’t recognize it, focus again and begin anew.
Look for something unusual in your environment, something unexpected. Maybe it’s a call from someone you haven’t talked to for a long time. Or a chance meeting with someone. Any unexpected encounter could provide a forum for obtaining your answer. What’s the first thing the person says to you? Can you find a meaning related to your question or goal? Does it offer you direction, a new approach, or maybe a warning? If you’re not certain, watch for the next synchronicity while you keep thinking about your question or goal.
With practice, it will become easier for you to harness synchronicity by creating space in your mind and your heart for it to manifest itself. Some people, like Jane, use prayer, visualization, and ritual. Others follow the environmental cues, as Jennifer Gerard did in her trip to China and Nepal, which changed her life. Perhaps, during your exploration of synchronicity, your intuitive voice has grown sufficiently strong so that you listen to it more closely. Maybe you now follow your impulses, search for messages in your dreams, read the events you experience as symbolic of your intentions and beliefs.
If, at this point in your journey, you’re still uncertain of your intentions and beliefs, then look around you. Everything you see in your personal life—family, home, loved ones, pets, children and partners, career triumphs and losses, your health and prosperity—is a result of intentions and beliefs you hold, desires you have. If you see elements you dislike, change your beliefs. Your experiences and external reality will change accordingly.
Leah Southey, a writer and editor, has a guardian angel, Shiva, who helps her whenever she’s in a tough spot. In March 2007, she and her husband, Neil, visited Jenolan Caves in Australia, where they celebrated their wedding anniversary. They were on a day tour of the caves when her husband realized his keys were missing. They didn’t know how they would get home again. Leah asked Neil if he wanted to find the keys himself or if he wanted someone to hand them to him. For Leah, this part of the decision—the intention—was the most important element.
“We agreed someone bringing them to us would be better. Despite that, he insisted we retrace our steps, go to the kiosk and the National Parks office to see if anyone had handed them in. When that failed, he went on a second tour of the cave we had already seen.”
While he was doing that, Leah sat by the river and asked Shiva where the keys were. “In a crisis, I automatically go to Shiva. He has helped me many times.” The answer? The keys were at the cave entrance.
When she and Neil met up again, they returned to the cave entrance but didn’t find the keys. “The tourist area was about to close when a couple of park officers drove around the parking area. They stopped next to us and a woman asked, ‘Would these help?’ She was dangling our keys out the window.”
The couple not only got their keys back, they got them in the way they had requested: someone handed them over. When Leah asked where the keys had been found, the woman said, “At the cave entrance.”
By requesting help from Shiva, by believing the keys would be found, by defining their intention, Leah and her husband activated the law of attraction and engaged the divine.
In the previous chapter, we told the story of the church choir in Beatrice, Nebraska, whose members were all late for practice the evening the church blew up. Lucky people, right? So what’s the difference between synchronicity and luck, and how can we harness it?
In essence, good luck is a fortunate synchronicity. But it doesn’t happen on its own. It usually takes some sort of action. Imagine dreaming six numbers that turn out to be the winning digits for the Powerball lottery the next day. That’s synchronicity. However, it would only be luck if you acted on your dream and bought a ticket using those numbers. In the case of the church choir, the members’ action was inaction, or delayed action.
When someone becomes an overnight success, we call that person lucky. But a closer look usually reveals that the “sudden” success followed years, even decades, of effort. Elmore Leonard wrote thirty-seven novels before he hit upon the genre that made him famous: mystery and crime. Harrison Ford got bits parts and worked as a carpenter until he found success acting in George Lucas’s movie American Graffiti in 1973. Stephen King tossed out his manuscript for Carrie, but his wife retrieved it from the trash; the paperback rights eventually sold for $400,000 and launched King’s career. Jeff Lindsay wrote in various genres over the years, but he was in his mid-fifties when he hit success with a character named Dexter. There are now five books in the series, the latest a New York Times bestseller, and Dexter is Showtime’s highest-rated program.
After graduating from college, Trish wrote five novels before writing the one that got published. Some would say she was lucky, because her work was selected from hundreds, even thousands, of manuscripts written by competent writers. But it wasn’t just luck, it took work, strong intent, and the guidance of synchronicities. The editor at Ballantine Books, who bought the manuscript, read it the weekend after he watched the premiere of Miami Vice. Like the television show, In Shadow featured two Miami detectives, one white, one black, who were involved in a drug investigation. Synchronicity. The editor made an offer the following Monday and Trish’s fiction-writing career was launched. The interest came with the twenty-fifth submission of her sixth novel, the first and only one of those six novels to be published.
Rob had studied anthropology in college and traveled the world to visit archaeological sites between jobs in journalism. But when he was hired to write what would become the first of eight Indiana Jones novels, neither LucasFilm nor the editor at Bantam Books knew of his interest in archaeology. They only knew he’d published one novel, Crystal Skull.
When we are focused, passionate, pushing our limits, our brains release endorphins. Research indicates this happens during sex and childbirth, strenuous exercise, meditation, and intense creative work. If you visualize what you want when endorphins are rushing through you, desires manifest more quickly. It’s as if the endorphins somehow help connect you to the powerful source of who you really are and the potential of who you can become.
“A serendipitous cosmos is a playful, childlike one, and an adventurous and joyful approach to life encourages synchronicity,” wrote Marcus Anthony, author of Sage of Synchronicity. “A key point is bringing the mind fully into the present moment. In the joyful state of complete presence, it is as if the cosmos comes alive. The deeper meaning and purpose of things becomes known even as they unfold, as if your psyche and the cosmic mind are in open dialogue.”
As synchronicities occur, it’s important to ask what they mean. The answer might come in the form of another synchronicity. You might catch a certain song on the radio, hear something said on TV, or read a passage in a book. The more you explore synchronicity, the greater your understanding becomes. The less resistance you have to such experiences, the more likely it is you’ll attract more of them. Lack of resistance is a major component in the law of attraction.
When the meaning doesn’t jump out at you, look at synchronicities as opportunities, especially for exploring creative alternatives. Then you’re attracting luck. As Patricia Einstein wrote in Intuition: The Path to Inner Wisdom, “We’ve all had the experience of being in the right place at the right time, and at some point in our lives we’ve all known someone whom we characterized as lucky. Luck … is not a matter of chance. It’s really a question of synchronicity.”
Here’s one final story, an astonishing one that combines synchronicity, belief and intention, and personal transformation.
In 1988, Carol Bowman’s young son sat on her lap and related his past-life memories as a Civil War soldier. As a result of his recollection, her son’s terror of loud noises and a chronic health problem vanished. Nothing in her life up to that point had aroused her curiosity to such a high pitch. She became obsessed with learning what she could about these memories in children. She began her informal “research” of children’s past-life memories, interviewed parents she knew, scoured bookstores and libraries for books on reincarnation and past lives.
Carol found some academic works about children’s past lives but quickly realized no one had written a practical book for parents that explained what to do if your child expressed a past-life memory. She realized she should write that book. “I didn’t stop to consider the fact that I hadn’t written anything longer than a term paper in college. I knew I had to do it, and somehow I would.”
By January of 1992, she’d collected some case studies from parents whose children had past-life memories and the book was taking shape in her head. She and a friend went to a past-life conference in Florida so Carol could meet and network with people in the field. During a presentation by bestselling author and physician Brian Weiss, he mentioned that he’d been on Oprah. “As soon as he said it, everything seemed to fall away around me,” Carol recalled. “I felt a bolt of energy race through my body and with a certain, deep knowing I heard in my inner mind, You will be on Oprah, too. I immediately turned to my friend and whispered, ‘I’m going to be on Oprah, too.’” Her friend thought she was joking and laughed.
As part of her strategy to legitimize her research and add credibility to her work, Carol enrolled in a graduate program in counseling at Villanova University. She was due to start school the same week that her husband, Steve, learned he was being downsized from his corporate job. It was a shock, but Carol figured that now, more than ever, she needed to pursue her dream. She assumed Steve would soon find another job and things would return to normal.
Instead, things went from bad to worse. Doors kept closing for Steve—they had no steady income. Steve began doing freelance business writing to generate income. “But starting a business takes time and with two children and a mortgage, we didn’t have the luxury of time.”
Carol continued with her research, gathering stories from parents she met at school functions and on playgrounds. One mother, Colleen, had a young son who experienced traumatic nightmares that Carol recognized as past-life memories. She helped the boy. Colleen was so impressed she said she was writing Oprah about Carol’s research.
Great, Carol thought. But that didn’t pay the family’s mounting credit card debt. By 1994, she and Steve worried that they might not be able to stay in their home, a heartbreaking prospect. They couldn’t bear to tell their kids they were considering selling the house. Even though she was in graduate school, the pressure was on. Carol started looking for full-time work.
“I hadn’t had a real job in ten years, my computer skills were minimal. I was so desperate that I applied for a sales job with Scott Paper, but they wouldn’t even hire me to sell toilet paper. That was a low moment. My self-esteem was really in the toilet.” Even more troubling was that Carol felt she had something valuable to offer the world. She held stubbornly to her dream but kept hitting insurmountable obstacles. As each month passed, the dream seemed to slip a little farther away from her.
Carol didn’t give up, but things didn’t improve, either. One particularly bleak, bitingly cold day in February 1994, she walked through her neighborhood, raging at the universe. “Okay, if you want me to write a book, help me!” she shouted at the unseen forces around her. “With tears streaming down my face, I gave the universe an ultimatum. I felt like a jerk, but I was angry at the unfairness of it all.”
She was so ashamed of her behavior that when she arrived home, she sat on the front porch, unable to go inside. Steve poked his head out the door, his face seized with shock, and handed her the phone. “Listen to the message,” he said. A woman spoke. “This is The Oprah Winfrey Show calling for Carol Bowman. Could you please call me back?”
“In that moment, I knew my prayers were answered. Within a week, my kids and I, along with other mothers, were in Chicago talking to Oprah about our children’s past-life memories. She devoted a whole show to my research. I reasoned that if Oprah was interested in my work, surely others would be.”
Curiously, when Oprah’s office received Colleen’s letter, it had been misfiled under children’s phobias. Apparently they wanted to do a show on children’s past-life memories but couldn’t find an expert. Synchronistically, the delay worked to Carol’s benefit. It gave her a year to collect cases.
When she returned from Chicago, Carol began contacting authors she knew about her book idea and asked how to find a literary agent. With the Oprah show behind her, she felt someone would finally pay attention to what she had to offer. A successful author in her field recommended his literary agent, and Carol and Steve met with her in New York. For the next few months, Carol and Steve worked full time writing a hundred-page proposal. “Again, this meant we weren’t generating any income. We were operating on pure faith. After all, if Oprah called, this would certainly happen, too.”
They finished the proposal. Weeks passed. Then months. Carol realized the agent wasn’t doing anything and contacted other agents. Some openly laughed at her for thinking anyone would be interested in such a topic. Others wouldn’t talk to her until she got out of the contract with the first agent.
A friend with connections in publishing had offered help months before, so Carol called her and explained the situation. “Her husband made a phone call and said that Ian Ballantine, the founder of Ballantine and Bantam Books, would like to look at my proposal. I didn’t know anything about publishing, or who Ian Ballantine was, but I was grateful that someone was willing to look at it.”
Within a few weeks, Ian, then seventy-nine years old, called and said he would like to help her get the book published. He offered to introduce Carol to the CEOs of some publishing houses, most of whom he had trained. “I actually screamed when I got off the phone. Steve came running upstairs to find me jumping up and down, screaming. Another miracle!”
Ian and Betty Ballantine, his wife and publishing partner, met Carol and Steve in New York and set up a meeting with Irwyn Appelbaum, president of Bantam Books. After a two-hour meeting, Appelbaum asked Carol what she wanted. “I told him to make me an offer. Steve’s jaw dropped by my uncharacteristic bargaining strategy. But at this point, I had a six-digit number in mind that we needed to pay down our substantial credit card debt, create an office space in the house where I could write, and sustain us for the time it would take for Steve and me to finish the book. I had gotten this far, why not dream on?”
Appelbaum called her at home and offered a substantial advance. Carol countered by doubling it. “I knew I was taking a risk, but I also knew what we needed to get out of trouble. There was a moment of silence, then Irwyn accepted my counter offer. I collapsed in a heap of relief.”
Before the contract was signed, Steve and Carol met the Ballantines in New York again for a celebratory lunch. The very next day, Carol got a call from Betty, telling her that Ian had died. “We were devastated. My new friend and mentor had vanished almost as quickly as he had appeared.”
Betty edited the book, and Carol is eternally grateful to her and her husband for giving her a start in publishing. “These invisible forces, the good fortune, the synchronicities, orchestrated and propelled me on this journey.”
When we heard this story, we could hardly believe it. It sounded like a corny plot element in a movie: first-time writer with no agent is offered a substantial advance, then negotiates with the president of a major publishing house and convinces him to double a six-figure offer. That kind of thing doesn’t happen in real life. But it did. Carol followed the synchronistic clues, refused to surrender her dream, had an unshakeable belief that she had something unique to offer, and kept moving forward on nothing more than faith, that unity of consciousness. And she found her life’s work.
When Carol Bowman asked the universe how she could get her book published, the answer came in a very big and obvious way with a call from The Oprah Winfrey Show. What could be more direct than a call from the person with a track record for creating bestsellers?
Of course, not all answers come in such a straightforward manner. Sometimes they need interpretation, as we’ve talked about in other chapters. And sometimes, you have to wait until the meaning becomes clear.
Write down one of your burning desires. Be passionate about it, descriptive; imagine how this desire may manifest itself in your life.
You’ve just answered the question you jotted down at the end of Secret 1!