For many years the noted Swiss psychotherapist Carl G. Jung observed that many events and situations, in his own life as well as in the lives of his patients, seemed strangely connected, but not by a causal link. In 1952, Jung published an essay in which he discussed an idea he called “synchronicity.” His theory suggested that meaningful events that defy the usually accepted laws of cause and effect occur so often, and in such amazing ways, that they cannot be discounted as mere coincidences.

Over the years, for example, you might have noticed that whenever you find coins in unexpected places, you subsequently receive a significant sum of money. That's an example of synchronicity. Everyone experiences meaningful occurrences of this sort from time to time, but most people don't pay attention to them. Science may not be able to prove why such things happen. Magic, though, offers a very good explanation: the cosmic web discussed in Chapter 1. If you accept that everything in the universe is linked via this web, synchronicity makes perfect sense.