Book Review: Synchronicity and the Other Side (…With an Interesting Conclusion)

A few weeks ago I was offered the chance to review a book on synchronicity. I was interested. Somebody I lost recently was into this kind of thing, and I respected that kind of open mind and wanted to give it a chance. I was expecting to like the book.

I started reading, but was surprised… it was a bit more “far out” than I expected. Not my kind of thing. I kept going, but admitted to myself that I was expecting to dislike it as I went.

Well, I read the book, and honestly? Both happened.

I expected Synchronicity and the Other Side to be… I’m not sure what. A more detached look at the phenomenon? But when I got it, it seemed a bit more like a manual on how to believe in spirits.

I guess I’m – in the language of the book – “a skeptic, but open-minded”. I felt myself rolling my eyes. I’m “held back by fear” because I hadn’t had much “spirit communication”? Really? What if there just wasn’t any? A story about a woman getting a message from her dead husband noted that that her “initial experience might never have gone anywhere if she hadn’t drawn the connection”. Really? Aren’t you just saying that the connection was only there because she invented it?

My skepticism is rooted in what the book calls the “white crow” phenomenon. (Harry Potter fans may know it as Luna Lovegood’s philosophy!) It’s believing that you can only say something doesn’t exist if you can prove there isn’t one in the whole world. So I can’t say white crows and nargles and ghosts don’t exist because I can’t prove that there aren’t any. That’s just not a logic I buy into.

But I’m not a total disbeliever. I don’t think everything can be explained away. And some of this stuff freaks me out – ghosts and poltergeists and all that. And if I truly didn’t believe any of it, would it scare me?

So with my mix of beliefs, I ended up enjoying this book much more than I expected. First of all, it was surprisingly down-to-earth: at times, it was a how-to for meditation, a guide to vacation spots in Florida and upstate New York, even a provider of sensible suggestions not to read into situations when there isn’t anything there. The authors had a sense of humor, too… like when pointing out that John Edward didn’t want to get into doing his readings because he’d have to put “psychic medium” on his tax return. Heh.

I think synchronicities are sometimes there because you want them to be. You need that deeper meaning. But at the same time, I think that when your gut tells you something, you should listen, whether you call it instinct or intuition or a sixth sense or a guardian angel or God. I have my own words and you have yours, but what it comes down to is that yes, there’s a benevolent sentience shimmering out there, something good and smart that allows you to catch hold so it can give you a hand. Exactly what does that look like? I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’m quite as open to possibilities as the authors of this book. But I do think that anything that big and smart would also be forgiving if we used different words for it, as long as we came to it in the same spirit of goodwill.

You can find Synchronicity and the Other Side on Amazon or ebook, and you can also read their blog – but if you want this copy of the book, along with a Synchronicity Journal, leave me a comment and they’re yours!

Edited to add: Okay… this gave me goosebumps, and I swear it’s true. 

I had this all ready to publish. Then I looked again at the book cover. 

The person I mentioned in the first paragraph was my Aunt Jeanne. She and I didn’t know each other well until I was in my 20s, but then became very close until her death this spring. She was a fascinating lady, and as with most fascinating people, she was fascinating because she was fascinated. She loved learning and being open-minded.

She also loved hummingbirds. They were her “thing”. The last thing I gave her was a beautiful blown-glass hummingbird.

I just saw the little hummingbird on the cover of this book.