Jason Bulkeley on Kammerer’s revolutionary take on coincidence.
A century ago, a brilliant biologist from Vienna named Paul Kammerer made waves with his groundbreaking ideas about coincidences. Then, he was found dead under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind a legacy shrouded in controversy. What happened? Kammerer’s bold attempt to find scientific — not mystical — explanations for coincidences stirred up both excitement and backlash. Was he too far ahead of his time?
This week on the Connecting with Coincidence podcast, we dive into Kammerer’s fascinating theory of “seriality” with linguist and coincidence expert Jason Bulkeley. What makes seriality different from Carl Jung’s more popular concept of synchronicity? While synchronicity often links a mental event with an external one, seriality focuses on coincidences observable by others, beyond the experiencer. It’s a shift that raises some exciting possibilities.
Early in the episode, Jason shares an incredible story about two women named Nadia — one living in the 1920s, the other almost a century later. The parallels between their lives are so striking, you’ll have to hear it to believe it!
Meet Jason now on the Connecting with Coincidence podcast:
Jason Bulkeley served in the U.S. Department of Defense as a translator and intelligence analyst during the Cold War and has a degree in English and Linguistics from UMBC. He translated and published numerous books from Russian to English on scientific and human-interest topics. He also ran a restaurant for over 20 years, spurring his interest in coincidence and synchronicity by connecting with interesting people from all over the world. He now has an international online store on Ebay specializing in rare books on philosophy, history, and metaphysical topics.
Jason recently published the first English translation of The Law of Seriality by Paul Kammerer, the first comprehensive study of the theory of coincidence, written in 1919. You can also visit Jason’s real-life “Coincidence Cafe” — The Orchard Market & Café — located in Towson, Maryland. For reservationsm, please call (410) 339-7700.
And don’t miss our other coincidence podcasts and synchronicity podcasts here…
Image created with assistance from OpenAI’s DALL·E tool.
Thank you for shedding light in this area.
I believe that the 100 accounts in Kammerer's publication works with Category Four Synchronicity, if we consider Jung's categorical statements. In short, it may be that the Kammerer's accounts were criticized because they lacked "individuation", or actually a matching psyche'. But actually Jung's fourth category does not require a psyche' for the same kinds of events.
In the image, the four corners are Jung's four categorical statements. The first three require a psyche' event. If we witness a series of events as a set, does not mean we were thinking about it.
It is quite possible that there are other explanations, but my argument here is that we can categorize any account,…