How is that triple?
On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 2:12 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Ruby <r...@hush.com> wrote: > > >> I have been moving into a new old house and moving stuff out of storage. >> I have about 2000 books, covering every phase of my life's interests. I >> just pulled this very book out of a box yesterday, and wondered to myself, >> hmm, why do I have this book? >> >> Now I know! >> > > That's courtesy the Department of Synchrony. > > I once experienced a case of triple synchrony with a book. The only thing > like that I ever encountered. Before the Internet reached Sri Lanka I was > in a fax conversation with Arthur Clarke about synchrony and coincidences. > I faxed him some pages of the book "Meeting Japan" by Fosco Mariani, in > which Mariani described the time he was a civilian POW in Japan and he > suddenly sensed that his mother, back in Italy, had just died. Which was > true. He found out after the war she had died that hour. Anyway, I faxed a > copy of that page and Arthur faxed back something like: "by coincidence I > just today picked that book up off my shelf." Not because he remembered > that passage, just by coincidence. > > Or maybe someone brought him a copy . . . It was something like that. I > could look it up, since I never throw away anything. > > Clarke was fascinated by coincidences and mysterious occurrences. I think > he was interested in the occult, but he did not want to admit it, being of > such a scientific bent. He did a TV series "Mysterious Universe." > > My guess is that if extrasensory perception exists, Clarke himself had no > trace of it, even though he was fascinated by it. In that, he resembles the > character Rupert Boyce in his book, "Childhood's End." Boyce is > investigating ESP and has a library of books on it. He is described: > > "He pretends to be open-minded and skeptical, but it's clear that he would > never have spent so much time and effort in this field unless he had some > subconscious faith. I challenged him on this and he admitted I was probably > right. . . . > > In many ways Boyce is remarkably obtuse and simpleminded. This makes his > attempts to do research in this, of all fields, rather pathetic." > > I believe this is actually Clarke's rueful description of himself. > > I myself have no trace of ESP. > > - Jed > >
