Can people’s thoughts affect the physical world? And if so, if a lot of people think the same thing at the same time, will the effect grow stronger?
That’s question “The Intention Experiment” intends to explore in a series of experiments later this year.
It sounds wacky, but some very well credentialed scientists are involved in author Lynne McTaggart’s project. And, though looking at the Web site, it’s clear she wouldn’t mind if you bought her book of the same name, participation in the Intention Experiment (actually a series of experiments) is free.
The actual experiment is described as “a series of web-based experiments testing an outrageous premise: that human thoughts and intentions are an actual physical ‘something’ with the astonishing power to change our world,” according the Intention Experiment’s Web site. “Thousands of people from around the world are going to participate in what will be the largest ongoing mind-over-matter study in history. This is not about sending intentions to make a million dollars. The targets are philanthropic: healing wounds, helping children with attention deficit or patients with Alzheimer’s, counteracting pollution and global warming. To participate, basically all you need to do is send your good thoughts on the day of the experiment. Maybe just one good thought is all it takes to change the world.”
Sounds like folks with nice intentions, but the idea’s a bit flaky, right? Kinda new age?
I’d be right there with you on that, except Fritz-Albert Popp, a German physicist and founder of the International Institute of Biophysics in Neuss, Germany, credited with the discovery of biophoton emissions – tiny currents of light emanating from living things seems to think this is a pretty interesting project. So does Gary Schwartz, professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry and surgery at the University of Arizona, director of its Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health and also director of the National Institutes of Medicine-funded Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science.
Rounding out the scientific team are Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, vice president for Research and Education at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and senior scientist at the Research Institute at the California Pacific Medical Center, and Dean Radin, PhD, one of America’s foremost researchers into the nature of consciousness and extended human potential.
While counteracting global warming and healing the sick are admirable goals, this project is starting a little smaller and aiming for something directly measurable.
On March 24, at 5 p.m. GMT, however many people have registered for the experiment will attempt to lower the temperature in a miniature Gaia-sphere remotely by intending for it to happen in a synchronized effort.
Think it’s impossible? Maybe. But measurable results were obtained in a prior experiment.
“McTaggart asked a group of 16 meditators based in London to direct their thoughts to four remote targets in Dr. Popp’s laboratory in Germany: two types of algae, a plant and a human volunteer. The meditators were asked to attempt to lower certain measurable biodynamic processes. Popp and his team discovered significant changes in all four targets while the intentions were being sent, compared to times the meditators were ‘resting.’”
Similar results have been obtained in other experiments, too, including some of Radin’s work. While McTaggart’s “Field” and practicum for living in it may sound a little bit like a cross between a kooky new age idea and the Jedi lifestyle to some, the science evolving behind these theories is truly mind-boggling, cutting edge stuff, involving quantum mechanics and physics, field theory. It asks the question, “What is reality, and how much do we really know about it?”
It’s sort of similar to the age-old question, “What is the meaning of life?”
I’m not sure we’ll find out the answer to “life, the universe and everything” for sure on March 24, but I’ll certainly be watching for the published results.
For more on The Intention Project, visit: www.theintentionexperiment.com/
To learn more about the Institute of Noetic Sciences (founded by Apollo 14 Astronaut Edgar Mitchell), go to: www.ions.org
(Originally published in The Easton News, January 25, 2007)
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