Coincidence

A coincidence occurs when unexpected parallels can be drawn from two or more events. In the popular sense it is used to describe events which are of low probability.

The following provides an example of coincidences:

• In 1878 Leo XIII was elected Pope and became the third longest serving Pope.
• In 1978 John Paul II elected to become the third longest serving Pope.
• In 1903 the Cardinal for Krakow delivered the papal veto on behalf of Kaiser Franz Joseph to thwart Cardinal Rampolla: the Patriarch of Venice was elected instead becoming Pius X (and abolishing the veto), and was succeeded by Pope Benedict XV.
• In 1978 the Cardinal for Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, succeeded the former Patriach of Venice, Albiano Luciano as Pope, and was succeeded by Pope Benedict XVI.
• On the day Pius X died the head of the Jesuits (Father Francesco Zavier Wernz) an office known as the Black Pope also died. On 22 March 2005, Clemente Domínguez y Gómez, proclaimed Pope Gregory XVII by supporters of the Palmarian Catholic Church, died, some 12 days before John Paul II. (see Antipopes.)

A well-known set of coincidences involves the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

References

• Jung, Carl G.: Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1973.
• Arthur Koestler: The Roots of Coincidence

See also

• anomaly
• anomalous phenomenon
• forteana
• anthropic principle
• cognition
• déjà vu
• determinism
• extra-sensory perception
• intuition
• mathematical coincidence
• pseudoscience
• psychic
• psychology
• superstition
• synchronicity

External links

• Unlikely Events and Coincidence (The Austin Society to Oppose Pseudoscience)
• The Power of Coincidence by David G. Myers (Skeptic)
• The Power of Coincidence by Jill Neimark (Psychology Today)