Life is full of surprises, or so it is often said. These words are spoken now and then to remind us that all things change with time and around every bend there always lies the possibility that something new and out-of-the-blue could happen. Expect the unexpected!  This phrase is used on occasion too as a clever reminder that unanticipated or unusual events are inevitable, and we should try our best to be braced and prepared for their sudden arrival. Sometimes though, things will occur in life that are so peculiar and ironic that they seem to extend beyond the limits of what we would normally expect, even from the unexpected. Imagine, for example, that you are writing an old friend after years of lost contact, and in the middle of your composition, the phone rings and it is the very friend you are writing. Or, suppose that while driving to work one day you start to sing a few bars from an old musical, and a few seconds later, the song comes on the radio. Most of us have encountered events like these from time to time—events that seem all-too-timely or suspiciously uncanny. It might involve the peculiar way that a helpful person or some much-needed information happens your way as if air-dropped from heaven straight into your lap. It might also occur through a series of events or a chance meeting that seems to redirect a project or career path in a highly fortuitous manner, as if the doors of opportunity were being opened by fate herself. These kinds of experiences are typically referred to as coincidences. But are they merely coincidences?

Coincidence is no stranger to life, of course, and given that we live in a dynamic world of endless interactions, it would be a bit bizarre if coincidental events never occurred at all. But sometimes, the irony of an experience can be so profound and the coincidence so precise that it becomes difficult to dismiss to mere chance. But if not coincidence, what then? This question has troubled humankind throughout the ages and has given rise to a host of explanations and mythological tales. Ancient cultures with polytheistic beliefs would usually interpret events like these as signs or omens from the gods—something to either be feared or revered depending on the nature of the coincidence. Some would even place an otherworldly instigator behind these events. In Greek mythology, for instance, Hermes is depicted as a mischievous, wing-footed god who moves between the godly and earthly realms, delivering messages and taking pleasure in staging mishaps and surprises for humans. Hermes is also portrayed as the guardian of human boundaries, including those between life and death, waking life and sleep, and the god-realm and humans. Roman mythology has a very similar character in the winged messenger-god, Mercury, who is typically depicted with little wheels under his feet to help him deliver lucky moments and auspicious news quickly. In Norse mythology, Loki is the shape-shifting trickster of the unseen world, and to the Ashanti people of West Africa, it is the god Ananse. In ancient Chinese mythology, the trickster character is embodied in the clever and disobedient monkey, Sung, while in the sacred mythology of India, it is Krishna.  To the Polynesian Islanders, it is Maui, and in the stories of the American Plains Indians, it is typically the trickster Rabbit and Coyote who are placed behind disrupting events and lucky coincidences.

         Throughout human history, philosophical and spiritual beliefs have been called upon to make sense of the unknown. Age-old concepts like fate, destiny, providence, and grace have certainly been used to interpret and frame auspicious events, usually with the idea that nothing in life occurs by accident or coincidence.

Religious ideologies, too, have long provided the basis for labeling wondrous events as miracles, acts of divine intervention, or evidence of God’s will and handiwork. But Swiss psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung, had his own theories about these types of events.

Coincidence is no stranger to life, of course, and given that we live in a dynamic world of endless interactions, it would be a bit bizarre if coincidental events never occurred at all. But sometimes, the irony of an experience can be so profound and the coincidence so precise that it becomes difficult to dismiss to mere chance. But if not coincidence, what then? This question has troubled humankind throughout the ages and has given rise to a host of explanations and mythological tales. Ancient cultures with polytheistic beliefs would usually interpret events like these as signs or omens from the gods—something to either be feared or revered depending on the nature of the coincidence. Some would even place an otherworldly instigator behind these events. In Greek mythology, for instance, Hermes is depicted as a mischievous, wing-footed god who moves between the godly and earthly realms, delivering messages and taking pleasure in staging mishaps and surprises for humans. Hermes is also portrayed as the guardian of human boundaries, including those between life and death, waking life and sleep, and the god-realm and humans. Roman mythology has a very similar character in the winged messenger-god, Mercury, who is typically depicted with little wheels under his feet to help him deliver lucky moments and auspicious news quickly. In Norse mythology, Loki is the shape-shifting trickster of the unseen world, and to the Ashanti people of West Africa, it is the god Ananse. In ancient Chinese mythology, the trickster character is embodied in the clever and disobedient monkey, Sung, while in the sacred mythology of India, it is Krishna.  To the Polynesian Islanders, it is Maui, and in the stories of the American Plains Indians, it is typically the trickster Rabbit and Coyote who are placed behind disrupting events and lucky coincidences.

Throughout human history, philosophical and spiritual beliefs have been called upon to make sense of the unknown. Age-old concepts like fate, destiny, providence, and grace have certainly been used to interpret and frame auspicious events, usually with the idea that nothing in life occurs by accident or coincidence.

Religious ideologies, too, have long provided the basis for labeling wondrous events as miracles, acts of divine intervention, or evidence of God’s will and handiwork. But Swiss psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung, had his own theories about these types of events.

While not to discount the possibility of a divine agency behind the phenomena, Jung believed that many of life’s coincidences could be attributed, at least in part, to the activities of the human psyche. He also believed that when something occurs in a meaningful way and appears to defy all rational explanation, it moves away from the domain of mere coincidence and into a special category of human experience, which he called synchronicity.