Why was it my car that was totaled in an accident? Why was it me who won the card game, and why was it my opponent who lost? And how about that sheer coincidence when I met my wonderful wife? What was the event that set the writing of The Book that Happened in motion? If we contemplate our life events, we’ll find not one or two, but billions of coincidences without which our life would have taken a different course. On any given day, numerous connections can be found that we prefer to see as pure chance.

But does coincidence really exist?

In this book I deal with this question. I’ll show connections that help you understand the reasons of coincidence and that it is a matter of perspective. I’ll also point out how coincidence often only appears to be that, and instead is fake. You might not have seen it coming, but somebody else did. Let’s put our heads together, read the pages, and do some mental experiments. I promise that it will be a fantastic adventure!

When we reach the end of the book, we’ll know how to decide if an event was caused by coincidence. We’ll find its true meaning, even though we’ll begin with a clichéd definition. It will be inevitable to touch infinity, travel through dimensions and multi-dimensions, admire quanta, and the genesis of our universe. We’ll also deal with the concept of time, in a way that may surprise you.

The book offers a way to catch coincidence in action. It provides a method to understand complex coincidences quickly and to picture them logically and physically. It shows a simple way to compare groups of coincidences. Where we dig a little deeper into physics, I’ll give clear and simple explanations. I strive to provide food for thought without demanding a complex educational background, so you only need to be able to think logically.

How come I know so much about coincidence? I wrote my very first computer program at the age of thirteen; it was a dice program. I did that back in 1985 on a ZX81 Sinclair home computer. I’ve been a software developer for more than thirty years, and in the past ten years I’ve been working for financial institutions. Programming makes use of coincidence in many areas—or to be more specific, programming uses artificial coincidence for calculations. For example the secure use of credit cards was made to happen by creating artificial coincidence — this is what we call encryption. This means that the economy of today—the entire global economy—is based on computer science, on cryptographic systems. If the job is done well, the bad guys are unable get hold of data that can be used to harm us or others.

Quite amazing, isn’t it? How could the security of the global economy rely on coincidence?

Ever since I was a child, I’ve been eager to find out the truth about coincidence. My curiosity grew into annoyance in the last couple of years. I still knew so little about coincidence, and yet I used it on a daily basis.

People say that everything happens for a reason; nothing happens by chance.

But do they really mean it?

I know I didn’t.

But then I took Bell’s theorem and carried out an experiment via a computer program. There was an error in the code, and the chart result showed an extraordinary image. I couldn’t believe that in experimenting with coincidence I could accidentally make such a mistake. After this, I felt great respect for coincidence, and I finally got to the starting point of my discovery.

The book, furthermore, aims to grasp the meaning of Hermes Trismegistus’s duality that he stated as follows: “Every nature which lies underneath should be co-ordered and fulfilled by those that lie above.” He says that underneath and above only make sense together: one cannot exist without the other. We’ll see.

It doesn’t matter if you accept or disagree with the questions and answers of the book; they are meant to help you better understand your life and your world. Having read this book, you may find to be true what you always considered to be false and vice versa. It will be up to you to pick a convention you agree with and judge what is true and what is false—you’ll see that it’s all arbitrary.

The Book that Happened is not here to tell you that you are wrong. I simply want to show you why I think I’m right and how I found my way to my truth. I fully reserve the right to have a truth that doesn’t necessarily corresponds with yours. I am also fully aware of the fact that over time, the truth I talk about in this book may lose its relevance or may even become part of someone else’s truth.