Recently I read Robert Perry’s book Signs: A New Approach to Coincidence, Synchronicity, Guidance, Life Purpose, and God’s Plan. As the title indicates, the book concerns synchronicities — those mysterious cases in which two or more events come together in a way that seems to defy chance coincidence. A classic example of a synchronicity is given by Carl Jung, who was discussing a patient’s dream about a golden scarab when the session was interrupted by a tapping noise. It turned out that a rare scarab beetle was tapping at the window of Jung’s office. The improbability of this event helped the patient achieved a breakthrough.
The trouble with synchronicities is that they seem to be inherently subjective. What strikes one person as a remarkably unlikely coincidence may strike another person as easily within the bounds of chance. What’s needed, argues Robert Perry (who has taught and written extensively about A Course in Miracles, or ACIM), is a more objective way of assessing synchronicities in order to separate genuine signs from chance.
Perry’s criteria are pretty stringent. In fact, as Perry points out, Jung’s famous synchronicity wouldn’t even qualify! In order to be considered a full-fledged sign in Perry’s terms, four criteria must be met:
1. There must be at least two “strikingly similar” events occurring no more than twelve hours apart.
2. There must be multiple parallels between the two events (eight parallels on average).
3. The conjunction of events must “comment” on our personal situation in some way.
4. The interpretation must be “rule-based,” not arbitrary or subjective.
This is, of course, only a brief overview of an interpretive system that is fleshed out in detail, with specific examples, over the course of the book. It makes an interesting and provocative read. I was particularly struck by chapter 8, “Can Signs Predict the Future?”, and chapter 9 “The Depth of Their Insight.” Chapter 8 includes a lengthy summary of a series of signs involving an ACIM copyright controversy in which the signs — as they were interpreted at the time — seemed to correctly predict future developments in the dispute, even when these developments were unexpected and unwanted. Chapter 9 shows how several signs offered unusual insight into a certain person’s psychological problems at a key point in his life.
Actually, Perry doesn’t really like the word signs all that much. He prefers an acronym he coined: CMPE, which stands for Conjunction of Meaningfully Parallel Events. His main point is to distinguish CMPEs from other, more subjective signs and to encourage readers to look more deeply at possible CMPEs in their own lives.
After reading the book, I tried doing just that with a minor synchronicity of my own. I was a bit skeptical, in part because the synchronicity in question did not seem very impressive at first glance. Still, by forcing myself to examine the conjunction of events in as much detail as possible, I did come up with a “message” that was relevant to my personal situation in a meaningful way. It’s possible that I merely used the events as a kind of Rorschach test — an ambiguous inkblot pattern into which I read my own (conscious or unconscious) concerns. Even if this is true, it was still a useful exercise. After all, Rorschach tests can be highly revealing, and anything that provides us with greater access to our unconscious conflicts and unresolved issues can serve a valuable therapeutic purpose.
But wait. Reading our own subjective meaning into the events is precisely what Robert Perry doesn’t want us to do! His whole focus is on making these events more objective, and identifying a meaning and a message that come from outside the self. Some of the examples given in his book do seem to fit this description, while others arguably are closer to the Rorschach test model. In some cases I wondered if the apparent synchronicities were the result of the natural confluence of interests on the part of the small circle of people involved in teaching and studying ACIM.
Basically I would say that more research has to be done if CMPEs are to be categorized as objective phenomena. Perry himself is doing some research along those lines, with initially promising results.
For me, the bottom line is that even if your own “signs” are more like ink blots than objective messages, they can still be valuable and meaningful. And if they do prove to have objective qualities, then they will only be even more meaningful and powerful. Either way, you can’t lose.
Not only is Signs inherently interesting, but also it opens up what may turn out to be a promising new line of research. I appreciated the author’s caution and candor, and his sheer persistence — he’s been documenting CMPEs (his own and others’) for thirty years! These decades of experience and observation have been distilled into a highly readable book with a unique perspective on an intriguing phenomenon. Give it a try.