Synchronicity

I’m a huge fan of synchronicity. (Here’s a link to a wacky new age definition of the idea.) Another, more common synch is Pink Floyd and the Wizard of Oz, which is a decent example of a movie synch. Basically, you take one thing, then you take another, unrelated, but abstractly similar thing and you put them together and out comes some 3rd and strangely profound thing. Sometimes these synchs written off as coincidence and other times worshipped as miracles. Usually they just make people believe – however fleetingly – in ‘magic.’

The Toynbee tiles are sort of like an axle from which an infinite number of synchronicities are attached. A huge part of my interest in the tiles is the wholly unexplainable set of coincidences and strange events associated with their research. The odd thing is, as strange and improbably as many of these coincidences are, none of them really means anything. But take all these meaningless improbabilities and put them all together and they move the research in the right direction.

Here’s a small, recent example. Justin Duerr, the world’s preeminent tile fan and expert, is also an enormous admirer of Kathy Change. His appreciation of her is near to the level of interest that he has for the tiles. Recently, a suspect emerged as the second, new-school tiler. He’s a Philly artist who works with stencils. Some of his work is very similar to the tiles. He was introduced to the Resurrect Dead message board by a poster who presented a piece of his, Portrait of Kathy Change. (pictured)

But none of this meant anything. The artist found out about the message board discussion and posted. Although he knows of the tiles, he’s not the new-school tiler. But he did go ahead to point out that Arnold Toynbee died on 10/22/75. Kathy Change died on 10/22/96. Aside from these 2 things, he himself was born on 10/14/75, or just 8 days before Toynbee’s death.

In case you didn’t pick this up, the Toynbee/Change memorial days, (31, 10) are this Sunday. And just to throw in an extra piece that you’ll have to take my word on, the Toynbee idea, the inspiration for the tiles in the mind of the tiler was discovered at almost precisely the time of my own birth.

None of this means anything. Somehow though, this information is a step in the right direction.

3 Comments on “Synchronicity

  1. I think it means everything. The way all of these things tie together, and the number of “coincidences” involved in all this stuff is just incredible.

    As humans our greatest strength lies in our ability to understand abstract symbols and languages of different types. I think our species would have become extince long ago if not for the fact that we are so talented at searching for – and finding – symbolic meaning in what at first glance seem to be “random” events.

    Even our most sophisticated technologies can’t find a picture in a raincloud yet….. but that’s our task, and I think we Toynbee tile researchers are doing a pretty good job of finding lots of pictures in lots of rainclouds.

  2. As a fan of synchronicity, you may be interested in my theory that can explain it…and other paranormal events.

    SUBJECT:
    Irony and memes

    MESSAGE:
    Hi there, my IRONY OF THE UNIVERSE book length manuscript is online. After a prolonged bout with one publisher that expressed interest but no action, I have self published the beast via lulu.com . So you can order a hard or soft bound book ($28 or $18 ), here for the hardback http://www.lulu.com/content/669730

    and here for the paperback

    http://www.lulu.com/content/672240

    Alternatively, you can download it for $10 which is five pounds sterling, the price of a London pint. It has a wrong aol email on the inside page currently, which I will change eventually, and there are undoubtedly typos, misspelling and inaccuracies in the text, but the main gist of my thoughts and arguments and evidence is all there. So all the best, and keep the meme flag flying high.

    Jack

    http://www.ironyoftheuniverse.com

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