Hi, my name is JRW and I'm a numinosity addict.
It was a cold winter day and I was restless. I went looking for a good hit of synchroncity. My connection, Amazon.com, was offering some special prices on synchronicity books by the pair. I rationalized the expenditure thinking that my collection was looking a little stale. I clicked four of them into my cart and waited for my fix to arrive in the mail.
We numinosity addicts read this kind of woo-woo stuff because we are strung out on that feeling that comes when circumstance is transcending the boundaries of life-as-usual and magic is in the air. The first time you get a hit, it knocks you off your feet, but if you don't kick it right then and there, you're gonna be looking for more. Some folks feed their numinosity habit at church in nice small safe doses and others go for a direct hit anywhere they can find it. When the stuff gets scarce, hardcore junkies, reduced to banana-peel-smoking desperation, start manufacturing it themselves. At that point, it doesn't require golden scarabs scratching at a psychotherapist's window; it seems to only take finding a fortuitous parking place to evoke their low-threshold sense of magic. But like junkies of all kinds, we might settle for a low-grade substitute in hard-times, but our dream is a never-ending flow of high quality stuff.
What is it that we need? All channels open and connected to the divine is the mainline state. We need a numinous charge, a jolt of sublime universal spirit. That's not an easy thing to deliver and we aren't nice people when we feel like we've been burned.
Synchronicity Signs and Symbols (Patricia Rose Upczak, Synchronicity Publishing, Nederlands, CO, $13.99) is the smallest of the four at 116 pages (12¢/page). Synchronicity: the Promise of Coincidence (Deike Begg, Thorsons, UK, $14.95) has a pretty blue cover and weighs in with 134 pages (11¢/page). Comprehending Coincidence: Synchroncity and Personal Transformation (Craig S. Bell, Chrysalis Books, W. Chester, PA, $16.95) almost looks academic with its humble cover, an index, and 212 pages (8¢/page). And weighting down the package was Soul Moments (Phil Cousineau, Conari Press, Berkeley, CA, $14.95) with 294 pages (5¢/page).
One at a time any of these books might have been marginal substitutes, but after getting off with Soul Moments, reading the others was like downing cheap drinks at some sleazy hotel bar. The two pricey ones (11¢ and 12¢ a page) tried to substitute the real thing with a marginal sense of New Age mojo. Synchroncity Signs and Symbols flavored its watery NewAgeisms with a bit of animal omenology and some encouragement to discover your own symbols through journaling. Synchroncity, the Promise of Coincidence only makes promises. If you have a low numinosity threshold, you might be satisfied by the convoluted tales inside the pretty cover. The author has lots of suggestions as to how to get more synchroncity into your life. But both Upczak and Begg make the same fatal mistake in writing for synchrophiles; they approach the subject as "Hey, I've got a mainline to numinosity and you ain't got jack." Neither of these books deliver the goods.
Bell, besides his "you ain't got jack" attitude, commits that quirky breech of thinking that is one of my biggest pet peeves. What is the point of connecting the numinous to quantum physics? Does it provide the divine some kind of intellectual authority? When Victor Mansfield does it, he has the credentials and authority to pull it off. When a retired airline pilot does it, you want to just throw his relatively expensive little book into the woodstove. Then, inspired by his name perhaps, Bell turns statistician on us and tries to get us to lust for the upper end of the bell-curve of realized-human-potential-and-divine-contentment. Bell trots out Eastern Mysticsm without ever seeming to comprehend the essential wisdom of the Tao. Doesn't Bell know that you can't skew the curve? Move up the curve and someone must be pushed down the scale to keep things in balance. He, at least, offers a very succinct taxonomy of synchroncity, dichotomizing all such experiences as either: 1) mirroring charged patterns of psychic energy; or 2) directional guidance (omens to help you move into that right-hand tail of the curve). But in the end, you know the author's arrogance has rarely been paralleled when, in closing, he allows that Einstein "might have been right about one thing" - God doesn't roll dice. It's stuff like that that takes the magic out of magic.
Cousineau, in contrast, delivers the goods for a very reasonable price. He leaves most of the writing in the hands of his contributors. He introduces his themes in a few short paragraphs, then offers a feast of fresh and high-quality numinous stories. In his telling, synchroncity isn't a special magic reserved for special people; it's stuff that happens all around us. He doesn't purport to tell us what it means, but rather leaves that as an ineffable mystery rich enough to satisfy our every craving. The biggest problem with Cousineau's Soul Moments is that it doesn't go on forever. If you are a numinosity junkie, his 5¢/page is the only place to score.
Yrs truely,
JRW
PS. Sorry if I offended anyone.