When I was 8 or 9 my dog got lost. I went to look for him and got lost. Then we found each other. When I was 31 I was choking uncontrollably at the kitchen sink in my San Francisco house. Three thousand miles away, my father was choking on his own blood and dying. He died on my birthday. I may be thinking about someone and that person unexpectedly contacts me. You have probably had similar weird coincidences.

Events like these suggest that our minds are not as separate from our environments, including other people, as we are being taught by mainstream science. If you think of something and that person, idea or thing appears, you are seeing evidence of mind-environment connections. Synchronicity and serendipity are the two primary categories of meaningful coincidences. Synchronicity involves coincidences that accelerate psychological, interpersonal and spiritual growth. Serendipity tends to involve happy accidents—finding something useful in a surprising and unexpected way.

How you explain it depends upon your preferred view of reality—is it randomness, God/Universe, personal agency or some combination? The Coincidence Project will sharpen your understanding of explanations and meanings. The more these stories accumulate, the more confidence we have that our minds are in some ways embedded in our environments.

Climate change demonstrates that we are negatively impacting our habitat—planet Earth—and in return the planet is responding to us with pandemics and turbulent, destructive weather. What we think and do creates feedback loops between our environment and ourselves. A major purpose of the coincidence project is to assist you in finding your individual purpose as well as to find your connections to others, and to inspire us all to work together to reduce the impact of human activity on the planet and build a more positive future.

The many troubling shifts in the world inspired me to write, Meaningful Coincidences: How and Why Synchronicity and Serendipity Happen (Beitman, 2022). The book organizes this once chaotic field in ways that will help you effectively use meaningful coincidences in your life.

The Coincidence Project is cultivating coincidence awareness, use, and understanding in the collective mind of humanity. By telling your family, friends, and colleagues your stories, you are accelerating their awareness of the value of these remarkable stories in their lives. You are also accelerating global awareness. Sometimes the person you tell will say “Oh, that reminds me of my own coincidence story…” They then may tell you one or more. These surprising concurrent events help us make decisions, soothe grief and strengthen connections with other people, animals and plants.

This cultivation illuminates hidden currents that unify us. The currents can show you the next steps in your personal journey and for preserving our habitat, if you want to take them. We hope you do. The board members of The Coincidence Project stand ready to offer you guidance and opportunities to learn more about how to successfully experience and make use of coincidences.