Comprehending Coincidences [Perfect Paperback]

Craig Bell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2000

In our daily lives, coincidences occur that grip us or catch us off guard; and if we are open to their messages, we can use them to direct us on our path in life. Craig Bell provides unique and practical ways to use coincidence for personal transformation. His anecdotes reveal the profound lessons he has learned in his innovative search for meaning in everyday events. Coincidences and dreams bear marked similarities, the most important of which is that the content of both may be symbolic. Bell offers a few reliable rules that bring symbolic analysis within the reach of almost everyone. Incorporating elements of psychology, spirituality, and metaphysics, the author synthesizes Western quantum physics and Eastern metaphysics to explain how our psychological world may structure itself to provide meaningful coincidences.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Craig S. Bell has had a long career as an airline pilot and is now a professional writer. He began his twenty-five-year-long investigation of the meaning of coincidences while he was an Air Force pilot in the Vietnam War. His interest in coincidences evolved from his success in analyzing dreams, a product of his undergraduate studies in psychology. Bell, the author of Dreams: Answers about Yourself, lives in Sherman, Connecticut.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Coincidences prick our curiosity and our sense of wonder, yet we're usually not sure how to treat them. This is because they don't appear to be governed by the cause-and-effect relationship we use to explain the flow of most events about us. Your radiant smile causes another to smile back; flicking the switch causes the light to come on. These sequences are simple and logical. But how do you explain the fact that, just as you were thinking about your ex-lover, you stopped at a traffic light behind a car with a license plate that precisely displayed the numerals for the month, day, and year of his birth? Not only are we mystified about the hidden mechanisms in our world that can produce such a simultaneous connection, we are often just as much in the dark when it comes to recognizing the meaning of coincidences.

The good news is that the cloak concealing the significance of coincidental events may be removed without much difficulty. Then, we find revealed not just meaning, but often wisdom and guidance as well.

Product Details

• Perfect Paperback: 212 pages
• Publisher: Swedenborg Foundation Publishers; 1st Edition edition (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877853932
• ISBN-13: 978-0877853930
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,873,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New ways to think about coincidences, January 7, 2001

By 

Eve "moon2301" (Berwyn, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Comprehending Coincidences (Perfect Paperback)

After reading another book that was essentially a collection of coincidences and being inspired to start a coincidence journal of my own, I picked up Bell's book to try to figure out what it all means.

This is in many ways a scholarly book. Bell defines different types of coincidences and weaves in elements of Jung's theories, quantum mechanics and eastern religious thought to provide a framework for how to interpret these events. He gives interesting examples of coincidences and, unlike other books on coincidence I've read, "translates" them--looking beyond the "oh, isn't that interesting" to get to the possible message and meaning.

His theory that coincidences are similar to dreams and can be interpreted as such changed my whole perception of coincidences. That alone was worth the price of the book.

Overall, a very interesting and illuminating book that may change the way you look at the world.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars examples upon examples with no depth, November 30, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Comprehending Coincidences (Perfect Paperback)

This book is perfect for you if you want lots of stories about coincidences. However, even the author seems fickle in his interpretation of what many of the coincidences mean, even when they are in his own life! As a reader, boredom with story after story set in for me by page 150. The author even throws in a bell curve in a lame attempt to appear as though his 'life study' of coincidences has some credibility to it. Yet, anyone with the slightest understanding of statistics can tell you that a bell curve with no actual 'statistics' attached to it is one's attempt to appear scientific with zero knowledge. Ultimately, reading this book will only provide you with interesting cocktail party chat and nothing more. If you are looking for insight go elsewhere. By the end of this book you will feel like you delved into the mind of a schizophrenic and came out with nothing but a whole lot of confusion about coincidences and synchronicity. There is no personal transformation to be found here. Just confusion!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Signs and Science, October 29, 2002

By 

Nancy J. Sogliuzzo "cacace" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Comprehending Coincidences (Perfect Paperback)

There are a lot of books out now about coincidence and this is more scientific than most I have read. It talks little of the spritual or metaphysical side to any of this as if it is a given.

It works well to read this with another more spiritual book for balance.