Connecting with Coincidence 2.0 with Bernard Beitman, MD

Reality and fiction overlap. Science fiction can become reality. Gordon Smith, author of Revelation Antarctica, will make you wonder.  Today there are alternate facts depending upon who you ask -- and alternate ways that human beings think about reality. Our guest on episode 202 is challenging beliefs dearly held by a majority of the world’s population, about the fundamental nature of reality. Science fiction may not be "just" fiction, but can be a way to think about new possibilities and new insights into the world around us.    Connecting with Coincidence with Bernard Beitman, MD (CCBB) is now offered as both an audio podcast--anywhere that podcasts are available--and in video format on the Connecting with Coincidence YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE to our channel to be notified when future episodes are posted! Also available, there are 138 archived episodes of the CCBB podcast are available HERE.    In this episode, Gordon Keirle Smith shares more about what makes his new book, Revelation Antarctica, so different from most others works of fiction, or even different from much science fiction. We explore the notion of the book being "as real as you need it to be." Gordon describes this work as a Quantum vision fired by imagination. Further, the reader is encouraged to read the 99 short sections of the book in any order that they might wish: reflecting the idea that time or chronology is an illusion.    Our guest Gordon Keirle Smith has led many lives in this lifetime. In England he was a Rosicrucian, advertising copywriter, assistant theater electrician and lighting board programmer. In France he worked in tourism, became an English teacher, invented a new artistic technique and then decided to “paint in words.” Upon partial retirement in 2014, Gordon published Genesis Antarctica. He also wrote an introduction to reincarnation, Another Egg, Another Life, one edition for for parents and one for children. His Revelation Antarctica (2019) questions our concepts of reality by using multiple characters functioning at the interface of science fiction and convention. Published only a few months before Covid-19, it describes the coming of a plague that became our collective reality.

Episode 201, with guest Juliet Trail, PhD, explores how being attuned to the present moment can be a key to both mindfulness and recognizing  coincidences. This episode also represents the first interview of the independent podcast, Connecting with Coincidence 2.0 with Bernard  Beitman, MD (CCBB). During this conversation, we discuss how contemplative practices like mindfulness meditation relate to coincidences. We also explore how individuals are able to cultivate their inner self-observer through practices such as mindfulness, compassion, or experiencing coincidences, and whether there is a related, collective self-observer that might be developed by like-minded individuals. Juliet Trail is Managing Director of The Coincidence Project, which is dedicated to advancing the use and understanding of coincidence, synchronicity, serendipity, and simulpathity. Juliet is also founder and director of Courageous Compassion Connection, an initiative dedicated to bringing contemplative practices and approaches to diverse groups and individuals in the service of resilience, wholeness, healing, and compassion for all beings. She builds upon more than fifteen years of experience in leadership, organizational development and contemplative education in higher education. She is also a poet and singer who explores the intersections of creativity and contemplation in her bands, Unheard Sirens Inc. and Phoenix Noir. In this episode, Juliet describes a recent coincidence: Around mid-afternoon one day, I think of a good friend of mine who lives in New Mexico, and the thought pops into my head, “I should call him and check on him.” That evening, I go onto Facebook and find out that his mom was just admitted into the hospital that afternoon, perhaps around the same exact time that it occurred to me that I should check on him. So, my instinct that he was in distress or going through something that warranted friends reaching out to him, was correct. I think this is an extension of the simulpathity type of coincidence – sensing the distress at a distance of a loved one or close friend. Learn more about the Connecting with Coincidence podcast, here. View this episode on YouTube, here. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, here.