Strange Coincidences

midaughter · May 19, 2004

Charles Coghlan, a leading actor in Victorian times, was born on Prince Edward Island, off eastern Canada. After a distinguished career, he died, following a brief illness, in Galveston, Texas, in 1899. Too far from Canada to be sent home, Coghlan was interred in a lead-lined coffin and placed in a local burial vault.

A year later, Galveston was struck by a hurricane that hurled massive waves over the cemetery and washed Coghlan's coffin out to sea. In stately solitude, the weatherbeaten box floated into the Gulf of Mexico, rounded Florida and sailed up the American coast until it reached Prince Edward Island. It was then picked up by local fishermen. He had made it home and was buried in the church of his baptism.

the story has a decidedly spooky resonance: the dead adrift on the high seas, like Dracula's boat carried by the tides towards Whitby.

pakua · May 20, 2004

"Coghlan was interred in a lead-lined coffin "

Just curious... how does a lead-lined coffin float thousands of miles?

RindaR · May 20, 2004

(giggle)

I think such coffins are usually air-tight? I kinda doubt that that would counterbalance the weight of the lead though. Good observation Pakua!

Rinda

RindaR · May 20, 2004

The story is a lovely metaphor for our journeys back to (God, heaven, bliss, etc.) though - no matter how difficult or impossible the terrain or seas, we can get there, we are there already...

Rinda

heylise · May 20, 2004

If it is airtight, it will float, I guess. Maybe not ON the water, but half or entirely under the surface. Maybe the best way to return to God, heaven, bliss?

Love the story,

LiSe

lenardthefast · May 20, 2004

Pakua, It can float as long as it doesn't leak. Same as large ships made of steel and concrete float.

Namaste,
Leonard

cal val · May 20, 2004

"John Cousins, a University of Prince Edward Island history professor, teaches a class in local folklore. He said the story was nothing more than an urban legend.

?I am sure the story is not only fiction, it is what is called fakelore,? said Cousins. ?That is a fictional account made to sound like an authentic tradition and foisted off by writers who have something to gain, most likely money.?

The legend spread after the story was widely published as a Ripley?s Believe It or Not syndicated feature. It was republished and discussed at length in Ripley?s first book, published in 1929.

The original Ripley feature said: ?Charles Coghlan comes home! He died in 1899 and was buried in Galveston. When the tragic flood came his coffin was washed out to sea and the Gulf Stream carried him around Florida and up the coast to Prince Edward Island ? 2,000 miles distant ? where he lived.?

"But it?s unlikely that Coghlan was even buried in Galveston, much less washed to sea during the 1900 hurricane. Both The New York Times and The Galveston Daily News reported on Nov. 28, 1899, that Coghlan?s body would be sent immediately to Prince Edward Island for burial.

The following day, the Daily News published a follow-up story that said Coghlan?s widow intended to have his remains cremated, in keeping with her husband?s wishes. Since the nearest crematorium at the time was in St. Louis, the widow planned to take Coghlan?s body with her to New York, where there were family members and a cremation could be accomplished.

The Daily News reported that Coghlan?s body was at the Levy Brothers funeral home, awaiting transport to the East Coast. "

http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/p03coff.htm

lindsay · May 21, 2004

Val, thank you so much for the word "fakelore"! It fits perfectly the recent work of a prominent Yi authority who is often honored here. I have been trying to think of the right word for a long time.

Lindsay

midaughter · May 21, 2004

I of course don't know whether the story is fake or not. There is a new book out on the subject of coincidences and this is from the book itself. The author seems reputable but who knows? It sounds improbable but then....

midaughter · May 21, 2004

another

A KIMONO successively owned by three teenage girls, each of whom died before they had a chance to wear it, was so unlucky it was cremated by a priest in 1657. But as it burned, a wind fanned the flames and started a blaze. The fire destroyed three-quarters of Tokyo, levelling 300 temples, 500 palaces, 9,000 shops, 61 bridges, and killing 100,000 people

Beyond Coincidence, by Martin Plimmer and Brian King

lindsay · May 21, 2004

Wow! True or not, Sunpuerh's example suggests an interesting point. We tend to think of synchronicities in terms of serendipity, that is, unexpectedly good and positive results. But isn't Jung's idea providentially neutral? Unrelated events could just as easily be working toward our hurt, harm, or destruction. The meaning of a series of seemingly random events could be to put us in the middle of the road just as a speeding car swerves around the corner.

Just a tad more controversial, readings of the Yi might conceivably be intended to deceive as well as to enlighten, so that our fates can be fulfilled when we are marked for suffering. Everyone knows that omens can point to bad circumstances as well as good ones, but can oracles deceive in the service of some over-riding schema? I have heard stories in which oracles were misleading, causing individuals to proceed willingly to their destruction because they were misled into thinking all was well. Later, of course, people said the oracle was misinterpreted, but this seems somewhat disingenuous to me. An oracle like "You will get what you deserve" is a good example of this sort of thing. Whoopee!, I think, I deserve success! But Moira may have other ideas, may be ready to snip my thread. I rush forward with my plans, and the Big Fly-Swatter in the Sky swishes down. Whap!

Lindsay

dij · May 21, 2004

My favourite is the one when a fisherman guts a catch to find a ring his wife lost 20 years ago.

hilary · May 21, 2004

Hi Lindsay,

A certain Yi author I'm guessing you don't like once told me he'd seen cases where Yi deliberately misled people using to bad ends - carefully directing them into the nearest handy deep pit.

dij · May 21, 2004

wow Hilary that's a new one on me. did they say why would Yi do that, other than being an expression of the diviners self sabotaging personality?

hilary · May 22, 2004

Yes, it was very new to me, too - I've never noticed anything of the sort, but then I don't suppose I've done readings for as many people (yet

).

Ah - have just reread my own message and seen why you're asking what you're asking. I can't type straight. Try again. Yi misled people who were trying to use it to accomplish the wrong kind of goal.

Of course this opens a ridiculous-sized can of worms about who's going to decide what a 'bad' goal for using Yi is, and whether they get to do this with hindsight...

lenardthefast · May 22, 2004

Thanks for the stories, Sun, I liked them.

Namaste,
Leonard

dij · May 22, 2004

Thanks for clarification Hilary. I think you can't be mislead by Yi because it's too vague and multifaceted to begin with. You can only be mislead by your own interpretation, or by accepting someone elses interpretation that then turns out to be leading to bad places.

How do people ever get any sense out of Yi is beyond me

midaughter · May 22, 2004

The Great Treatise says that misfortune is never the will of heaven. I have never seen the Yi mislead someone. In Hexagram 4:6 the Yi will predict punishment for foolish behavior (not that I have ever had this line!) but in that event you are punished by your sins not for them.

Sun

hilary · May 22, 2004

Well, I suppose it would make some kind of sense in theory for Yi to prevent the accomplishment of plans that meant misfortune for a third party. But like I say, this is altogether outside my experience - never seen anything like it at all. I just mentioned it because it seemed to chime with Lindsay's speculations.

<BLOCKQUOTE><HR SIZE=0><!-Quote-!><FONT SIZE=1>Quote:</FONT>

How do people ever get any sense out of Yi is beyond me<!-/Quote-!><HR SIZE=0></BLOCKQUOTE>
Dij, don't you mean 'how Yi ever gets any sense into people'?

hilary · May 22, 2004

Not that this has anything to do with where this thread has gone, but I wanted to post it somewhere and it hardly merits a thread of its own:

From Cary Tennis of salon.com (found via a Google webalert):

"If the Internet has an unconscious, Google is its I Ching"

midaughter · May 24, 2004

I would like to hear of coincidences in our personal lives: this 'coincidence' continues to baffle me. About a year prior I learned that my Dad's family had settled in North Carolina in the 1700's at place called "Vaughan's Creek," Vaughan being my maiden name. I was going on a road trip to New York State and a few nights before began having dreams of wandering through a small village but I did not connect it in any way with Vaughan's Creek. While traveling from Florida to New York on I-95 there was an accident and everyone had to exit the highway. I traveled down a side road for about 40 miles and went over a rise and there it was, deja vu all over again. I had a strong feeling about the place. I sat in the car looking and finally looked up at a very weathered, old sign. Well, the sign said "Vaughan's Creek." The place is so small and has been essentially abandoned, only the sign remained and there on the right was the little village I had been dream walking through. Coincidence?

lindsay · May 24, 2004

Sun, I really enjoy reading your postings, they are full of new and interesting ideas, but I'm wondering where you are going with this thread. The difference between a coincidence and a synchronicity is that a synchronicity is supposed to be personally meaningful and a coincidence is not.

Synchronicity is often cited as an explanation for the action of the Yi, and many find this convincing, though I personally think it is a feeble idea, a sign that the older Jung was losing his power to think. In any case, sychronicity has some relation to the Yi -- but what about coincidence?

Coincidences are such that we do not understand their meaning -- if they have any meaning. Yes, it's all rather creepy and mysterious that A coincides with B, but so what? In the world of ten thousand things, many odd combinations and occurrences are bound to happen, no? It's the law of large numbers.

There are many people who argue that nothing happens by chance. Everything happens for a reason. I am not one of these people, I reject this idea root and branch, but let's assume it is true for a moment. Surely it is their responsibility to prove, or at least demonstrate, the reason behind seemingly unrelated events? If you are going to say things are actually related, then the least you can do is show how. I'm not asking why, only how.

lindsay · May 24, 2004

Sorry, Sun, I posted accidentally before I finished writing. What I posted sounds much too disagreeable by itself. What I wanted to add was only a question about the value of coincidences. Do you think it is worthwhile thinking about them? I ask this, because my inclination is to say "So what?" when I read your stories. Many weird and odd things happen everyday, but that doesn't mean that they are meaningful, does it? Maybe you are simply a connoisseur of the strange and mysterious? I used to love Ripley's Believe It or Not too, but it never occurred to me to put it in the same category with the Yi. I'd love to hear your thoughts on all this.

Lindsay

heylise · May 24, 2004

Try Amit Goswami's books (a quantum physicist), then suddenly it makes sense. Probably not for Ripley, but casting the Yi and getting a literal answer to your question is not that incredible anymore.

'The Selfaware Universe", and 'The Visionary window' and several others.

LiSe

candid · May 24, 2004

To my thinking, the only difference between coincidence and synchronicity is the conscious awareness of the co-incident in synchronicity. Co-incidence is an incident that one is co-active in or with, that is, conscious working in co-operation with unconscious. If nothing conscious is applied to the event, it appears as coincidence only. As soon as the conscious makes a meaningful connection to the coincidence it then becomes synchronicity. I do not think Jung?s definition of ?meaningful coincidence? was due to his aging mind, but rather to his conscious awareness of the unconscious.

How actually meaningful the event is is subject to the value one places on it. Value is the job of conscious, while movement in time is the action of the unconscious. Its like a big book that is opened to the present page; the only thing separating the future incident from the present is the time and the action of reading. The arrival is the co-incident, but the connection of continuity is the synchronicity. Premonition of coming incidents is the subconscious peeking at future pages in the book (the collective story). This is, I believe, how Yi works.

midaughter · May 25, 2004

Dear Lindsay, Lise, Hilary, Candid and all: I would really like to drop synchronicity from this thread. I find the theory wearisome and feeble.

In any event, the experience I have described has several fascets:

the dreams,

the accident on the interstate, and;

my subsequent detour down an unknown road;

having a strong experience of deja vu when seeing the place;

and chancing upon the old, weatherbeaten wood sign that faintly said "Vaughan's Creek."
Had I been more than 3 feet away I would not have been able to read the sign and the Creek itself was dammed in the 30's and is now a small fish camp upstream. There is no Vaughan's Creek anymore.

I think of the dreams and this happening upon this place as a precognitive event. But, how is the Interstate closed down just at that spot? Is it coincidence?

Perhaps a spirit (I sensed a strong spirit) knew I would detour down this road and wanted me to go into the settlement beside Vaughan's creek. (In my 2-3 dreams, I wandered that little settlement and knew exactly how to get to the house). Perhaps this entity caused the Interstate, (and I should say for those in other countries this highway is the major north-south highway between Florida and New York,) caused the highway to shut down just as I happened upon that spot.

I beg the question: is this a series of coincidences plus precognition on my part? Does the incident remain inexplicable?.

BTW the Hexagram for this trip in part was 56:5 so it sounds like good fortune at least.

I see Lise has cited some of the new quantuum physics, I also recommend the Dancing Wu Li Masters which theorizes about how the future occurs.

To me it is simple how the Yi works-chi or qi responds to our thoughts. CHi has intelligence but it answers the question literally because it is a subjective medium. It answers reflexively and impersonally yet it is equally available to all. The hexagrams and lines have some beneficience but I think this is due to the authors of the Yi. Essentially chi is an intelligence that is not aware of itself. Modern metaphics is based on this model as is actually the Chinese and yoga (especially gnani yoga which is use of the mind) also has this concept.
Perhaps the quantuum particles show evidence for this.

Sun

RindaR · May 25, 2004

Sun,

first the dreams point you toward a goal, or a destination... On your way to another (more mundane?) destination you are side-tracked and led to a ghost (spirit? past embodiment?) of the first destination. I asked Yi what these events meant for you, or were trying to tell you, and received 50.2.3.5.6 >45.

Ghost town, ancestors, hmmm... I wonder if this might be telling you that your current life-journey, though it may look mundane, is not so, but rather is a kind of sacred offering, and will accomplish a special purpose related to the values you've inherited from your family.

Have you been wrestling with questions about the meaning of your life? with what you have to offer? if so, this sounds like a huge vote of confidence.

Rinda

jte · May 25, 2004

"Perhaps a spirit (I sensed a strong spirit) knew I would detour down this road and wanted me to go into the settlement beside Vaughan's creek. (In my 2-3 dreams, I wandered that little settlement and knew exactly how to get to the house). "

While it's rather difficult for us humans to know the answer to something like that, my guess is it knew you were coming so it baked a cake... something like that...

"Perhaps this entity caused the Interstate... to shut down just as I happened upon that spot."

I suspect that it would not shut down the highway just for you. However, if it knew the highway would be shut down and it knew you'd be around that area at that time, it might arrange for you to know about it and give you directions in advance...

"Does the incident remain inexplicable?"

Of course.

Of course, the above is just my sense of the situation. I have no special knowledge of how spiritual beings work and could well be wrong.

- Jeff

candid · May 25, 2004

Discount synchronicity, but acknowledge coincidence and spirit intervention? They are inseparable, quantum particles and all ? slices of the same pie.

midaughter · May 25, 2004

Dear Rinda, first of all-your ideas give me shivers! and I will re-read the entire thing. In a bit on 'synchronicity' I just now put the Book down from doing a reading on Hexagram 50.

I guess we all struggle with the meaning of life. In my case I was given an I Ching assignment to utter and complete surprise in 1976. Since them I have been bound at the sacred mountain with an assignment so to speak.

Rinda, after many, many bad results I do not divine physically for others. This is not to say that I am not grateful for the time and thought that led you to do this. That's a wonderful gift coming from so far away...

Candid, I just find the synchronicty idea has become a sacred cow of the overly-rational Western thought. Methinks in a 200 years Wilhelm himself will be deified! For me I see a lot of stagnation in Western I Ching theory, although much is being done in history and translation. Its that Westerners struggle with how the I Ching works. Wilhelm's idea was just that, a little theory. Wilhelm's genius is in the translation and what a gift he and Lao Nauxian gave to the world!
Sometimes I think the West took the I Ching 'tree' but not the 'roots' Synchronicty is the Western overlay, the tree without its theoretical roots; a theory less than 100 years old, in and of itself o.k. but it seems to supplant at least 2,000 years of Chinese thought in its current Western application.

Jte: I think it baked a cake for me too. I will always wonder why I did not enter the little settlement and find this house. I promised to return. Anyone in North Carolina with a calling for spooks? Just kidding but I will return.

As ever,

Sun

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