Should you pay attention when a coincidence, or coincidences, seems to point to a possible danger? And if you pay attention, what action(s) should you take, if any, to avert that danger?
My wife Barb and I are serious believers in the idea that everything in existence is connected and also linked to unseen worlds, dimensions, universes, etc., etc. This boils down to the understanding that no event is fully random even though we may not understand how this comes about. For us, it’s just something we accept as a demonstration of such connectivity and we don’t have to prove causation to ourselves or anybody else. Nor do we question why something happened very much. Once in a great while, however, we are forced to look more closely.
Such a time came a couple of years ago when we got a letter from our electrician warning all his customers about the possibility of fire if they had a particular circuit breaker box made in the 1970’s.
Since our house was built in 1976, we paid close attention.
Sure enough, we were the proud owners of one of the breaker boxes in question. That kind of shook me up because during the previous week I had two experiences with electrical fires: one at my chiropractor’s office and one in a nursing home where I visit Hospice patients. Those fires were small and did little damage but the fact that they both happened with me present now made me sit up and take notice. Besides, the stink of burning wires from each fire was still fresh in my memory and the warning letter seemed to glare at me from its place on my desk.
When I called the electrician, he said that during all those years since the ’70s, the company did make some faulty breakers but all-in-all, not too many fires occurred, and there had not been a general recall. His assessment was that a slight danger did exist but probably not much to worry about. He told me he felt obligated to send out the notice he himself had received but since a new box would cost right around $1,000, it was highly questionable whether the minimal danger warranted such a high expense.
I liked what he had to say because I sure didn’t want to shell out that kind of money if I could help it. Still, I went on the Internet to research the situation myself. I came up with a mixed bag of results. The search verified much of what my electrician told me but I also read reports by other electricians who said the breaker boxes in question were crap, they wouldn’t have them in their homes and and they wouldn’t install one. Not so good but I still didn’t want to pay $1,000 if I could help it.
Just as I had that thought about not paying the money, the power in the entire house flickered on and off. Woops. A power shift when I’m researching electrical problems and almost deciding to not get a new breaker box? Uh, that was a little too coincidental for comfort. As a result, I did another Google search and came up with a newsletter published by a civic association for the the Village of Westover. Location? Very near Harrisburg, PA.
The entire front page was about my breaker box and how many of the homes in the community were originally constructed in the 1970’s using identical equipment. Evidently, enough fires had begun because of those boxes that quite a few families in the Village of Westover purchased new equipment. One woman talked about how fire started in her home built in 1976–the same year mine was constructed.
After reading that woman’s story, I happened to glance at the list of officers for the civic association. The last name for the immediate past president? Dillon, my last name. Not an overly common name. Yes, I did a double-take on that one. Click here to see that newsletter.
In discussing this all with Barb, we decided there were just too many linkages to ignore. As much as we hated to do it, we reluctantly agreed to get a new breaker box installed. It didn’t happen right away. I think it was a combination of my not wanting to part with all that money and just being overly busy.
A couple of weeks later while doing my usual walk around the neighborhood for exercise, I passed what was left of a house just up the street from us. For whatever reason, I had forgotten the thing burned up a year or two before. Since no repairs were made for so long, I guess I just accepted its looks as normal until that moment when the word fire suddenly sprang to mind. My neighborhood. 1970’s. Oh my God!
After she arrived home from work that evening, I reminded Barb about the burned out house near us and my new reaction to it. Like me, she had put it out of her mind but she immediately got on the Internet. After an extensive search, she found our city’s report giving details about the house fire in question. In the document she read, it cited the cause as faulty circuit breakers. Within a week, we had a new breaker panel, the one pictured above. Sometime you just gotta stop fighting the problem and go with the flow.
Update: May 23, 2012
A couple of months after having the new breaker box installed, our clothes dryer stopped working. So naturally, I called in repair guy. Turns out he had nothing to repair. He said I must have a faulty circuit breaker. What? No way. Sure enough, he had me feel it and damn if the thing wasn’t warm–a sure indication that a problem existed.
I immediately got the electrician back who installed our brand new breaker panel worth $1000. “Yup,” he said, “that’s weird. Shouldn’t happen.” He aslso said he didn’t think it really put us in any danger but he replaced the breaker for no charge.
SO – what does this say about interpreting a series of coincidences and acting on them? All the indicators pointed to danger so we acted, right? But what if our interpretation was wrong? If there was indeed a message in all those coincidental events, it is conceivable this was it: By All Means, Do Not Buy A New Breaker Panel. It will contain a Faulty Breaker and This Will Put You in Danger.
I bring this up to remind myself and everyone else how difficult it is to tease specific meaning out of coincidental events. This is one area where humanity has tripped itself up over the eons by assigning way too much meaning through the use of seers, oracles and psychics. If the Multiple Universes Theory of quantum physics is correct, perhaps the strong indicators we see in a series of coincidental events may have a probable meaning but it may have stronger or weaker shades of probability according to the universe in which you live. A huge caution sign.
Am I now second guessing our decision to install a new breaker box? I did for a few seconds but as I weighed the two interpretations, I realized I would do the same thing again. Choices. It’s all about choices but based upon as much cool analysis as possible.
If you are truly interested in all kinds of strange phenomena, you might be like to take a look at my book, Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences. You can find it in most online bookstores. Listed below, however, are direct book links to some of the larger retail outlets in the English speaking world:
Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon India, Amazon Australia, Barnes and Noble, The Book Depository
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