Product Description

Signs: A New Approach to Coincidence, Synchronicity, Guidance, Life Purpose, and God's Plan presents a new way of approaching coincidental or synchronistic events, events that seem to be telling us something. It explains how to separate out more ordinary synchronicities from what the author calls "signs" or CMPEs (Conjunctions of Meaningfully Parallel Events), a kind of super-synchronicity. These occurrences are so intelligently organized as to go far beyond chance and convey a remarkable depth of wisdom and insight for our lives. Filled with dozens of real-life examples, the book is both a how-to guide for working with this phenomenon and an exploration of the phenomenon itself, including what it implies about the nature of reality and the existence of God.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #151575 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 220 pages

Review
"Robert Perry's detailed model for identifying meaningful coincidences allows us for the first time to get a firm grasp on the concept of synchronicity. Reframing these personal experiences as publicly observable events honors their subjective spiritual significance while also bringing scientific rigor to our study and interpretation of them. Whether or not you believe that a higher intelligence speaks to us in signs, Perry's book will change how you listen."
--Bruce Greyson, M.D., Director, Division of Perceptual Studies, Department of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences, University of Virginia

"This is an amazing book. Reading it is an exceptional experience. Understanding the deeper meaning of my own CMPE catapulted me into a powerful experience, filled with the wonderful awareness that God is holding me, here in this life, just like He was holding me in my life review. We don't have to leave this world to experience a sense of being divinely cared for. All we need do is learn to listen. This book is teaching us how."
-- From the Foreword by Barbara Harris Whitfield, author of Full Circle: The Near-Death Experience and Beyond and The Natural Soul

"An important work that deserves wide distribution. It will afford great good to those who get a chance to read it. I found the volume to be articulate, attractive, well illustrated, winsome, and profoundly illuminating."
-- J. Harold Ellens, Editor for the Praeger Series in Psychology, Religion and Spirituality, Research Scholar at the University of Michigan Department of Near Eastern Studies, Retired Professor of Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology

"Perry offers a principled, systematic method for analyzing and interpreting coincidences. CMPEs are testable by recognized scientific methods. Should the courage and funding become available, Perry's well reasoned assertions can be systematically examined. A positive outcome would aid all human beings to relinquish our selfish exceptionalism and yield to the joy and peace that will come from recognizing our interconnectedness with each other and our world."
-- Bernard D. Beitman, M.D., Professor and Former Chairman, Department of Psychiatry, University of Missouri-Columbia

From the Author
The more time I've spent with this phenomenon, the more I've realized the need to share what I have found. First, it is has been extremely valuable for me personally, so I am naturally assuming it could be that for others as well. Second, it's new territory. I haven't found anything out there that resembles this model.

If you look at the way synchronicities are often defined, you see they are defined as a confluence of events that have some meaningful similarity or relationship to each other. In that sense, my signs just have much stricter requirements. Yes, they are a confluence of events that have a meaningful relationship. However, they are required to have not just one thing in common, but a whole list of things. It must have some really specific commonalities, which are then surrounded by a whole parallel context. And the list as a whole has to tell a coherent story, one that goes to the heart of both events. In contrast, if you think about a classic example of a coincidence, in which you think about an old classmate and then read his obituary in the paper, the only thing those two events have in common is the person's name. There's not a list of things in common, just that one thing.

My signs model, in contrast, is simply much tighter. The requirements are much more stringent, and therefore you can have much more confidence that something truly out of the ordinary is going on.

About the Author
Robert Perry has taught A Course in Miracles (ACIM) since 1986, and in 1993 founded the Circle of Atonement in Sedona, Arizona, which is dedicated to helping establish ACIM as an authentic spiritual tradition.

One of the most respected voices on ACIM, Robert has traveled extensively, speaking throughout the U.S. and internationally. He is the author or co-author of nineteen books and booklets, including the hugely popular An Introduction to A Course in Miracles.

Though he has not written about CMPEs prior to this book, he has been working with them and developing his model for them since 1976.

Customer Reviews

A unique take on synchronicity
This book really surprised me. When I first started reading it, I was drawn in by Robert Perry's explanation of the signs and the examples he gives from his personal experience with them, but was pretty skeptical that what he was describing had any relevance in my own life. But the further into it I read, the more I began to appreciate that this book has something completely new to say about a universal intelligence that is not only present in my life, but also cares about me and wants to communicate with me. In fact, by the time I got to the final chapters, I felt like it was written specifically for me, and I couldn't put it down. Within a few weeks of finishing it, I experienced a series of signs myself: unlikely synchronicities that couldn't be written off as mere coincidence, that actually fit the model in the book, and that demonstrated incredible insight into my past, my present life experiences and relationships, my thoughts and feelings, and my questions about the future. So now I'm really curious to see what happens once word gets out about this book, and whether other people will have their own amazing experiences to report after they read it!

An important book
Robert Perry's "Signs" is an important book, though one suitably written with caution and modesty.

In the Middle Ages, theology was considered the Queen of the Sciences. It consisted principally of the study of a God who ruled the Earth from on high and who was thought to periodically intervene on Earth. Theology was later dethroned by rationalism and scientism (the belief that the physical universe alone existed and that there were no worlds other than space-time). A new paradigm is now emerging, one which transcends both former limited visions. I believe that the science of spirituality may eventually become the most important science. The science of spirituality studies how non-space time (spiritual) realities interact with space-time and those of us who live in space-time. Per the new science of spirituality, God is not seen as a being separate and apart from space-time or us but as the Supreme Intelligence that guides all evolution from within, including the inner spiritual growth of humans.

Perry's "Signs" is a significant contribution to this new science of spirituality. He documents the existence, in the lives of all humans, of CMPEs, Conjunctions of Meaningfully Parallel Events, a phenomenon that he describes more thoroughly and scientifically than the "synchronicities" discovered by the late renowned psychologist Carl Jung. CMPEs are two or more events that occur together in time, that share quite a number of objective commonalities, and that are designed to say something spiritually meaningful to us. They happen to all of us. Perry tells us how to recognize them and heed them.

In a sense, CMPEs are waking dreams. All the major spiritual traditions, from time immemorial, have recognized the importance of dreams as a means through which the spiritual world connects with us and speaks to us. The Hebrew and Christian Bible recount many such dreams. But, from the vantage point of outside space-time, this world, our everyday space-time world, can be seen as a dream. So, everything that happens to us each day can be interpreted as if it were a dream. And, just as dreams are rich in spiritual guidance, so too are the events of everyday life - if we pay attention and have eyes to see.

Native Americans say the most important dreams are "Big Dreams," powerfully spiritual dreams that we have all had and recognize as important. Perry's CMPEs are the "Big Dreams" of everyday waking life, the stunningly parallel events that occur to all of us to teach us spiritually but that we, all too often, fail to recognize or capitalize upon. Perry tells us how to recognize CMPEs and what to do with them to realize spiritual growth. I recommend "Signs" to all serious spiritual seekers.
Jim Marion, author of "Putting on the Mind of Christ, the Inner Work of Christian Spirituality."

Put this on your reading list!
I have always appreciated the value of even simple "synchronicities" as moments that pull me into the present to notice and reflect on something that is going on, either internally or around me. Perry's system for evaluating true signs takes that a step further in a way I like a lot. I found his discussion of the four-point model to be logical and clear. And the steps he provides, to unravel the validity and meaning of specific signs, are straightforward and easy to grasp. Of course I'll need some practice before I become really confident at it, and that's ok.
I am reminded of a book of essays exploring important mathematical equations, "It Must Be Beautiful," edited by Graham Farmelo. In the forward, the editor describes the way a scientific equation can be "beautiful" by saying:
"Fundamentally, it means that the equation can evoke the same rapture as other things that many of us describe as beautiful. Much like a great work of art, a beautiful equation has among its attributes much more than mere attractiveness - it will have universality, simplicity, inevitability and an elemental power."
In my mind, the system Perry presents in Signs can be called "beautiful."