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The thoughts heard ‘round the world
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Results of
the first three experiments
The Intention Experiment has run six intention
experiments so far – with extraordinary results
about the power of intention. We’ve demonstrated
that intention from a group scattered around the
globe can affect living light — in everything from
algae and leaves to human beings. |
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We’ve also shown that
intention can help plants to grow faster. In our
latest experiment, we sent intention to barley seeds
and showed that our intention caused them to
germinate faster and grow taller than three sets of
controls.
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Living light
All our early experiments have designed by and
carried out at the laboratories of Dr. Fritz Albert
Popp at the International Institute of Biophysics in
Neuss, Germany and Dr. Gary Schwartz at the
University of Arizona’s Laboratory for Advances in
Consciousness and Health.
Our first experiments examined the alteration in the
tiny light — called biophoton emissions — being
emitted from living things.
We chose to look at this tiny current of light,
because it is infinitely more subtle than, say,
cellular growth rate. Popp has a number of extremely
sensitive photocount detectors at his disposal, and
Dr. Schwartz uses highly sensitive CCD cameras,
which record and photograph the faint light of outer
space.
This type of ultrasensitive equipment would enable
us to record every single hair’s breath of
difference – even by a single photon – and so
determine the extent of our influence. |
Jade plants, algae and human beings
For our pilot intention experiment, we asked 15
experienced meditators in London to send positive
intention to four targets at Popp’s IIB laboratory
in Germany: two types of algae, a Jade plant and a
human volunteer.
In our experimental design, we aimed for an ‘on off,
on off’ effect, so that we could isolate any changes
as being caused by remote influence. Our group sent
intention intermittently at regular intervals: 10
minutes on, then 10 minutes off over several hours.
If our experiment worked and intention did have an
effect, once we plotted our result on a graph it
would create an identifiable, zigzag effect.
After analyzing the data, Popp’s team found that in
the light was profoundly altered.
These results exactly match those Popp’s team had
observed during a study of healers, when they’d
tested whether the act of healing has a ‘scatter
effect’ on any other living things in the
environment where the healing takes place.
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The little leaf that glowed
In March and April of this year, we
began our large-scale computer experiments, with Dr.
Schwartz’s University of Arizona team. Unlike our
experiment with Dr. Popp, we decided to have a
target plus an identical control. The scientists
would not be told which target we’d sent intention
to until after they’d analyzed the results.
Our first experiment was carried out at a London
Conference on March 11, where 400 of our attendees
sent intention to increase the light emissions of a
geranium leaf at the University of Arizona. Our
intention was to make the leaf ‘glow and glow’.
The results were highly significant, compared to the
control — so much so that the difference can be seen
on photographs taken by the lab’s special CCD
imaging systems. |
Technical glitches
Our biggest challenge so far has been technological.
Our intention experiments require that thousands of
people stare at the same image of the target on our
website at the same time. Ordinarily, this is
extremely expensive, requiring many servers linked
together to cope with the web traffic.
In our early experiments, we also use a ‘live’
webcam or continually refreshed image of the target.
This also requires extra server capacity to enable
thousands to see the same image at once.
Our challenge has been to find an affordable
computer system sophisticated enough to cope with
thousands of people around the world staring at the
target image on the same computer page all at the
same time.
On March 24 we attempted to replicate our first
experiment, asking people around the world to send
intention via our internet site.
Some 10,000 people attempted to participate in the
experiment. Our system could not cope with that many
participants all trying to access the system at the
same moment, and the website crashed.
It became clear to us that we needed web experts to
cope with this challenge and extra server capacity. |
Team of web
experts
We hired a team of web engineers, who carefully
designed the experiment to enable the pages to show
continually refreshed photographs of the target on
the website.
We also rented server space from a company that
supplies the servers for Pop Idol, the British
equivalent of American Idol. For the next
experiments, we had nine linked servers, which could
have coped with traffic of one million visitors. |
Glowing seeds, too
On April 14, we ran our next web-based
experiment. The target this time was stringbean
seeds, and again the intention was to make them
glow. Nearly 7000 participants from 30 countries
around the world participated and the technology
worked perfectly,
The bean experiment was showed a strong 'glow
effect', but not in terms of statistical
significance — largely because of the limitations of
our imaging equipment.
According to Dr. Schwartz: “The beans were in the
predicted direction, but the results did not reach
statistical significance. However, there were only
12 beans per condition (glow versus control). If it
was possible to image twice as many beans, the
results would have reached statistical significance
(this is called power analysis in statistics).”
In other words, we showed a large effect, but we
needed more seeds to satisfy the scientific
definition of ‘significant’. |
More technical hitches
A repeat of our leaf experiment a week later also
experienced technical problems so that only 500
people managed to log on.
According to Dr. Schwartz, ‘The final leaf
experiment showed little effect. Less than 1/6th the
number of people who participated in the bean
experiment participated in the leaf experiment, so
the results are inconclusive.’
We began working with Nick Haenen, a web developer
in the Netherlands, who is working in technology
that gives us access to 500 linked servers— and now
at low cost. In addition, a team of computer experts
from a variety of Dutch computer companies have
offered to donate their time to our project to
assist in any other technological issues.
Our technical problems appear to be solved. |
So, what have we learned so
far?
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Intention sent non-locally
by a group of at least 400 appears to have a
significant effect on distant targets |
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A group of more than 6000
people sending intention from remote sites
creates a significant effect, and is as
large as 400 people in the same room. |
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For intention to work in a
scattered group, we may need to have a
critical mass of more than 1000 people. |
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Computer distractions or
problems interfere with intention. |
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