Abstract

Proposes a methodology for the study of meaningful coincidences (synchronisms), based on the theory that such coincidences do occur, that they tend to occur in series, and that such series can be recognized before they are completed. A pilot study was conducted in which 10 instances of synchronicity were identified by the author by intuition. When a word was intuited by the author to be a synchronism, the frequency and time of occurrence of that word as well as of a control word (selected from an English frequency norm) were recorded for the subsequent 24 hrs. The synchronistic instances were found to occur significantly sooner than the control instances. In a 2nd experiment, the author identified key and control words and then looked for confirmatory instances of the 2 words in a prespecified issue of a newspaper. The meaningful coincidence hypothesis was again confirmed. (26 ref)