The Engineering of Coincidence: a scientific explanation of magic

“Magic is the engineering of coincidence”

Fireballs. Wands. Turning people into frogs. Everyone knows that wizards like Harry Potter are fictional. But is there real magic in the world?

• The psychiatrist Carl Jung was obsessed with coincidences that seemed too incredible to be truly coincidental. He was convinced that they revealed a deeper level of reality, and called this revelation ‘synchronicity’.
• Years of rigorous scientific experiments have shown that people are capable of reading each other’s minds, influencing random number generators, and even seeing into the future.
• Millions of self-help books are sold every year on the premise that you can change your life by the power of thought.

These forms of magic all have something in common: no-one knows why they work. The purpose of this book is to explain (without invoking the supernatural) why they work, taking some of our most successful scientific theories, then weaving them together into a new way of looking at the world.

A world where you can engineer coincidence.

A world where you can do magic.

"A slim but demanding volume" - Prog Magazine

"What have you got to lose but your prejudices about what we laughingly call 'reality'?" - Fortean Times