Beyond Coincidence (3 page)

If we were distant observers from Mars, the story would have no significance whatsoever. A little girl releases a balloon. Some time later it comes down in a garden somewhere else and is picked up by another little girl. Nothing exceptional here. Children are attracted to balloons after all, and balloons do go up and come down again. But seen from an Earth-bound point of view, and particularly from the perspective of the two Lauras, it takes on an entirely different meaning. It sends a shiver down the spine. Because it's personal, you see. It's
so
personal.

The fact that the principals in this story are little girls adds poignancy, but the coincidence would have been just as extraordinary had they been old men, or millionairesses, or even Martians. Coincidence makes no distinction between class, religion, or creed. It happens to us all, whoever we are, whatever we believe. We all are subject to its weblike embrace. To the axiom that only two things are certain in life, death and taxes, must be added a third—coincidence.

Even after death, coincidence can strike.

Charles Francis Coghlan, one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of his time, was born on Prince Edward Island on the east coast of Canada in 1841.

Coghlan died suddenly on November 27, 1899, after a short illness while performing in the port town of Galveston, Texas, in the southwest of the United States. The distance was too great to send the body back home, so it was interred in a lead-lined coffin in a granite vault in a local cemetery.

On September 8, 1900, a great hurricane struck Galveston—hurling huge waves against the cemetery and shattering vaults. Coghlan's coffin was washed out to sea.

It floated into the Gulf of Mexico, then drifted along the Florida coastline and out into the Atlantic where the Gulf Stream took over and carried it north.

In October 1908, fishermen on Prince Edward Island saw a long, weather-beaten box floating ashore. After nine years and three thousand five hundred miles, Charles Coghlan's body had come home. His fellow islanders reburied him in the graveyard of the church where he had been baptized.

Coincidences of the kind that befell Charles Coghlan, or the lucky key lady, Mrs. Lovell, are immensely attractive to us. They appeal to our innate need for order and pattern. They make us seem less small and insignificant and the universe less terrifying and aimless. Even the most hard-bitten skeptic can find comfort in the most modest of coincidences. Our preference, naturally enough, tends to be for benign coincidences—particularly when we are the recipient of the good fortune. But malign coincidences are also interesting to us—as long as they are viewed from a distance:

Jabez Spicer, of Leyden, Massachusetts, was killed by two bullets in an attack on an arsenal on January 25, 1787, during Shays' Rebellion. He was wearing the coat his brother Daniel wore when he, too, was killed by two bullets on March 5, 1784.

The bullets that killed Jabez Spicer passed through the holes made by the bullets that had killed his brother Daniel three years earlier.

When coincidence does dump misfortune on our doorstep, we at least have the compensation of feeling that we have been singled out by fate for special attention. Most commonly, however, coincidences are modest, unthreatening, and cheering. When we take our dog for a walk in the park and meet a fellow dog walker with an identical dog—with the same name—it brightens our day a little.

How often have you been thinking about someone when the phone rings, and it is that person? Does it not create a frisson of pleasure, a warm feeling? When such things happen we often conclude that we are blessed with the gift of extrasensory perception or are party to some sort of psychic connectedness. We don't like to think it is simply the laws of chance and probability at work. We see such events as transcending physical laws, as being beyond coincidence, beyond the normal—paranormal, in fact. A more rational explanation would be too dull, too meaningless.

It is much more interesting to believe coincidences, particularly the more unlikely events, are predetermined in some inexplicable way, guided by a universal unifying force we cannot yet comprehend. If not God, then perhaps we, ourselves, have the power to bring like and like together. Are coincidences, perhaps, a glimpse of our latent psychic powers, akin to telepathy, clairvoyance, and premonition?

Our fascination with both coincidence and the paranormal come together neatly in our passion for horoscopes. Even people who profess to be devout skeptics have been spotted surreptitiously checking their horoscopes.

It began thousands of years ago when our distant ancestors failed to understand that a solar eclipse—during which day turned dramatically into night—was nothing more than the coincidental alignment of a ball of gas and a ball of rock.

These events also, inevitably, coincided with events on Earth. Chroniclers down the ages have recorded how eclipses and planetary conjunctions have coincided with famines, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, major military defeats, or victories and the deaths of emperors and kings.

Fascination with these coincidences eventually formalized into the prediction business. Most famously, the sixteenth-century French astrologer and physician Nostradamus translated his study of the stars and horoscopes into a catalogue of dramatic, if inscrutable, prophecies. Some credit him with anticipating the French Revolution and the First World War. More recent claims that Nostradamus accurately foretold the September 11 terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York have been exposed as an urban myth.

In 1987, journalist and astrologer Dennis Elwell hit the headlines after he warned of a possible disaster at sea—just days before 188 people died when a car ferry, the Herald of Free Enterprise capsized off the coast of Holland.

Elwell explains the astrological evidence that prompted his warning. “Technically the March 1987 solar eclipse was raising the temperature of a square between Jupiter and Neptune, planets which, when working together, indicate both sea travel and big ships. Eclipses bring the matters signified into high profile, and tend to be associated with misfortunes, although positive outcomes are also possible.”

Elwell sent identical letters to two shipping companies, alerting them to the potential hazard. The letter said, “The emphasis is on the sudden and disruptive. While I am not in the prediction business, it would be no surprise to find that, at the very least, sailing schedules were upset for some unexpected reason. But there has to be a possibility of rather more dramatic eventualities, such as explosions.”

Only nine days after the car ferry company replied that their procedures were designed “to deal with the unexpected from whatever quarter,” their ship, the Herald of Free Enterprise, capsized.

Elwell's prediction was dramatically and tragically accurate. But was this just coincidence? We never hear about all the psychic predictions that turn out to be wrong, the foretold disasters that stubbornly fail to happen. Perhaps there aren't any; though that seems a little unlikely. Perhaps the mistakes are quietly swept under the carpet. And how many amazing predictions are only revealed after the events they heralded? Predictions by hindsight!

Less spectacular predictions pour out of our newspapers and magazines every day in the horoscopes. But how likely is it that the celebrity astrologers responsible will be able to anticipate fortune or misfortune in our lives?

Whether we “believe” in astrology or not, most of us can take pleasure from horoscopes. When the predictions appear to come true, it is hard not to pause and wonder.

On August 25, 2003, three different national newspaper horoscopes offered a variety of advice for people born between March 21 and April 19 under the sign of Aries. The first promised the arrival of long-awaited money, a new kind of inner strength that would help with “love choices” and the solution of a family mystery; the second predicted the discovery and unleashing of “real hidden power” that would open up wonderful possibilities; and the third advised that the alignment of Jupiter and Uranus could force changes regarding a commitment that had become a burden. He warned, “You're letting imaginary fears force you to try so hard to make everything perfect that there's no time for things you like best. Do something about it.”

What does it all mean? And what were Arians to conclude if any of those predictions came to pass? Those who believe in the prophetic power of horoscopes use them to guide themselves through crises in their lives. Others dismiss any apparent correlations between prediction and events as simple coincidence. Should we dismiss accurate predictions as the product of pure chance or is something more interesting going on? Are our lives already written down for us in the stars? Is there a template for our lives in the planets?

Our historical fascination with horoscopes would be legitimate if it were possible to prove scientifically that from the moment of birth our lives are bound inextricably with the movement and interactions of the planets and, therefore, that coincidences between predictions and subsequent events are meaningful. Astrologers say they are, but then it pays their wages. What about an astrologer turned scientist? Pat Harris is running a research project at Southampton University looking at, among other things, the possible impact of the planets on pregnancy and childbirth. She stresses that she doesn't “believe” in astrology, she is simply interested in studying it scientifically to establish whether coincidences associated with the juxtaposition of the planets can be attributed to anything other than pure chance.

After studying the star signs of a number of mothers-to-be she is able to say that there is a strong correlation between the influence of Jupiter and successful pregnancies and healthy births.

But how could Jupiter cause the successful birth of a baby?

“I can't say that it does. At this stage we can only talk about correlation—or synchronicity, as Jung would call it. When something goes on in the heavens, something goes on down on Earth. They appear to be connected, but we don't know if one causes the other.”

Astrophysicist Peter Seymour has gone further, and has attempted to come up with a theory of how the planets might have a physical impact on human destiny.

Seymour sees the solar system as an intricate web of magnetic fields and resonances. The Sun, Moon, and planets transmit their effects to us via magnetic signals. Magnetism, he points out, is known to affect the biological cycles of numerous creatures here on Earth, including humans.

The planets, he suggests, raise tides in the gases of the Sun, creating sunspots. Particle emissions then travel across interplanetary space, striking the Earth's magnetosphere, ringing it like a bell. He believes the various magnetic signals are then perceived by the neural network of the fetus inside the mother's womb, “heralding the child's birth.”

French psychologist Michel Gauquelin devoted his life to trying to find out if there was a scientific basis for astrology. He conducted major studies exploring statistical links between the births of eminent doctors or politicians or soldiers and particular conjunctions of the planets. He discovered, for example, that an unlikely percentage of French professors of medicine had been born when Mars and Saturn were dominant. Mars was also shown to be particularly significant in the birth charts of more than two thousand leading athletes.

He found many other similar correlations:

By no means did all of Gauquelin's findings came out in support of astrology. His early work on zodiacal signs found no evidence to support the astrologers' claims. Throughout his life he faced accusations from the scientific community that his findings were inaccurate or even fraudulent. In 1991 he committed suicide, after first destroying much of his original data.

A piece of more recent investigative research has thrown up a possible astral link between car thieves and their victims. Using statistics provided by police, it has been discovered that car thieves and the owners of the cars they steal commonly share the same birth sign. The inference is that if you are born under the same sign, you share similar preferences, including your taste in motor vehicles. It's doubtful how much comfort that will offer the freshly bereaved former owner of a shiny new Porsche Carrera GT. What will the thief come after next? His wife?

Amateur astronomer Peter Anderson regarded astrology as “bunkum.” One day he found a newspaper lying on a desk, opened by chance at the horoscopes and, despite his innate skepticism, found himself glancing at the prediction for his birth sign—Capricorn. It said he would be offered two jobs in the next week. He had a good laugh about it. The next day he was offered two jobs.…