An unexplainable thought can create a coincidence.
A few months ago (2003) I was at work. My mind was on my work when 'thought words' occurred into my mind: Arthur C. Compton. The name: "Arthur C. Compton" spontaneously emerged into my thought, for no reason. Immediately I stopped what I was doing then entered the name into the Search window. The impulse seemed to be part of the thought words, I didn't hesitate.
I did a search on the Internet for 'Arthur C. Compton' and got a direct link to a web document! It was a letter written in 1942 labeled "Letter: Arthur C. Compton to Enrico Fermi, September 14, 1942." The document was a copy of a letter to Enrico Fermi letter from 'Arthur C. Compton'. I read the letter through.
Then I realized the name Arthur C. Compton was incorrect. It occurred to me at that point that the correct name of the name of the man I knew about from a newspaper article I'd read was 'Arthur H. Compton', not 'Arthur C. Compton.
I'd read a story about Arthur H. Compton when I decided to verify what the major news had been on the day, month and year I was born, 1-02-1932. I'd gotten a printout one day in 1989 when I was in Chicago visiting the Museum of Science and Industry. This printout made me curious enough to want to see if it was true. I went to the University of Washington to look at microfiche archives and found nothing of interest for 1-02-1932 in the Chicago Sunday Tribune. As I was leaving a thought occurred to me that the news is a day late so I read the 1-03-1932 newspaper. On the front page was a lengthy article about Arthur H. Compton and his work with gamma rays! The subtitle of the article was intriguing: "Flaw found in material formula". Obviously the formula was Einstein's equation. These links lead to the printout and the article I read but I suggest reading them later:
Quite clearly I remembered only now that it was not Arthur C. Compton I'd read about in the newspaper the name was Arthur H. (Holly) Compton. Yet the name, Arthur C. Compton had occurred into my thought then I'd stopped what I was doing without hesitation and typed the 'thought name' automatically! It seemed very strange that with wrong information I had gotten a response.
I re-read the copy of the letter and saw an error had been made in the signature. Enrico Fermi had received it from Arthur C(ompton) and whoever labeled the letter had made a mistake. (There's a link to that letter below.)
But how could that mistake explain the spontaneous words and immediate response in actions in my life, in 2003?
What caused the name to appear suddenly into my thought interrupting my work?
What caused me to immediately type the words into an Internet search window? I had no answers to those questions.
That night I went to the post office to get some stamps. The clerk says: "We have some very nice new Enrico Fermi Stamps, would you like to try them?
I bought several Fermi stamps.
Later that evening I read an article in the newspaper that briefly mentioned Enrico Fermi.
How would a post-office clerk 'know' to suggest that particular stamp from a drawer that was full of other stamps? She asked if I wanted to try some new stamps and mentioned Enrico Fermi for no reason?
The meaning of this event carries some significant information, but what is it? If it was not to illustrate that all of my mental 'eruptions' are not my own, what other reason could there be? The fact that as soon as the name occurred into my thought and I acted without hesitation is what I puzzled about, later. Then I remembered a few other instances when a thought had occurred spontaneously into my mind and without hesitation I'd done something. Or were those events retrieved and displayed on their string, not by my own will? Did I 'think' or was I the recipient of a string of memories that were significant?
The link to the letter: www.osti.gov/accomplishments/pdf/DE99003405/DE99003405.pdf .
Some review of my context may be helpful:
What made his name familiar to me was that I had found the article about his work when I looked for the news of stories that had happened on my birth date (1-2-1932).
On May 18, 1989 I'd been in Chicago and I'd spent a very strange day at the Museum of Science and Industry. What caught my eye on the printout was that discoveries related to quantum physics as well as the discovery of the function of neurons in the brain were awarded Nobel Prizes that year. I had read several books by then, Paul Davies Other Worlds; David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order to name only a couple of the first ones I'd read. I'd also read Presence of Other Worlds by Wilson van Dusen, a psychologist who introduced me to psychology and other ideas that were new to me, even though I was 57 years old! I'd felt compelled to read non-fictions that came to my attention. What unusual books to find myself almost forced by a new compulsion to read!
There was nothing on the day I was born (1-2-1932) so I started to leave when a thought occurred that the news is always a day late. So I asked for the microfiche of 1-3-1932. There it was, a long front page article: "Clew found to human destiny. Flaw found in material formula."
That seemed to have some significance to me because by then I'd read several books authored by current authors, Paul Davies, David Bohm, Eugene Mallove. Joseph Chilton Pearce's The Bond of Power seemed especially compelling to someone like me because he had been influenced as I'd been by Arthur C. Clarkes' Childhoods End and William Blake. I had an interest in the concept the 'postulate arrived full blown in the mind' which was one major theme in that book. But he also wrote about autism, folie aux duex and I had reason to be interested in those ideas also, in mylife. This had been a radical change of reading material for me. I'd read fictions, rarely anything but fictions.
The printout introduced me to the idea that I could calculate the number of days I'd lived, that had never occurred to me. Also I noticed that the day May 18, 1989 was exactly 9 years after Mt. St. Helens exploded near where I lived.
A couple of quotations by Arthur Holly Compton: "Every great discovery I ever made, I gambled that the
truth was there, and then I acted in faith until I could prove its existence."
"It is not difficult for me to have this faith, for it is
incontrovertible that where there is a plan there is intelligence - an orderly,
unfolding universe testifies to the truth of the most majestic statement ever
uttered - 'In the beginning, God.' "