There Are No Accidents: Synchronicity and the Stories of Our Lives

The author is a Jungian therapist who says he has pondered writing this book for a long time. He is well acquainted with the phenomenon of synchronicity, not only from his own personal experiences but those of his clients. What he has come up with is one of the best organized books on synchronicity I have seen. One of my primary wishes is that different people would each write a book on one of the 340 plus types of exceptional human experiences I have identified. The prototypical book experiencers need is one that introduces the phenomenon, the lore concerning it, its history, how it can be defined and identified, and how it can make our lives more meaningful, personally, socially, globally, and cosmically by introducing us to aspects of the More that we all are. Finally, the author should use examples from his or her own life if possible, and of course many examples provided by other people, and tell enough of each one to describe the circumstances that led up to it, as many details of the experience as possible, and how it benefited the experiencer. This book by Hopcke is the one I would recommend first to EHEers. This says a lot, because there are many books on synchronicity, unlike some other types of EHEs. I single his out because he does not simply concentrate on the "oh wow" aspect of synchronicity—and many truly are awesome—but, as the subtitle indicates, he shows how they are part of our lives, usually spearheading them in the direction of more meaning. In the course of doing this, he brings out the dual role synchronicity plays vis a vis exceptional human experience. Not only is it a type of EHE, but it often plays a central role in guiding experiencers to the meaning of other perplexing types of EHEs they may have had. Hopcke brings out this guidance factor beautifully.

The introduction and first chapter set forth the basics of the book and of synchronicity. The remaining five chapters relate synchronicity to central components of human life: love, work, dreams, spirituality, and matters of life and death, including birth, death predictions, and survival of death. Some of the accounts are about other kinds of EHEs with a synchronistic component. Regardless of which stage or aspect of life he is dealing with, Hopcke shows how taking synchronicity seriously and attending to its guidance can make human lives more meaningful and reveal to us our interconnectedness with everything that is.