The Power of Intention

For the last three decades Princeton University has been conducting ongoing research through a program known as the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research project (PEAR). This research has been focused on testing the impact that human intention has on random events. Hundreds of different automated random event generators were created for the study, with the goal of measuring what effect, if any, human thoughts could have on the outcome of random events. The machines underwent rigorous testing to ensure that they did, in fact, create random outcomes under normal conditions in their environment.

The tests involved participants holding the intention for specific outcomes to occur, while simultaneously observing the random event generators in action. For instance, one experiment involved a random event generator that mimicked the tossing of a coin, generating either heads or tails. Participants were asked to hold the intention for the machine to pick tails more of the time. The machine then generated thousands of trials, with researchers tallying the results. There were hundreds of these types of tests performed using different machines, replicated over the course of three decades.

What these studies uncovered confounded the researchers involved in the project. Over many decades of testing, the conclusion was reached that there is a significantly high correlation between participant intentions and the outcome of random events. In the example of the coin tossing experiment, the results showed that the machine did, in fact, produce the tails outcome more of the time when the intention was held for that particular outcome. The implications of these findings question the foundation of Newtonian physics, and points to the idea that there are other influences in effect beyond what can be measured with current instrumentation.

Researchers noted, however, that even though the outcome deviation was significantly consistent, it generally produced a minimal effect. The tails outcome, for instance, would occur 55% of the time, versus the expected 50%. Interestingly enough, the deviation was generally increased when a well-bonded romantic couple simultaneously held the same intention. Groups of socially bonded people, such as families or group of friends also increased the degree of deviation more significantly than individual participants.

Another well-known study involving the effects of intention on the physical world took place in Washington D.C. in 1993. Researchers were curious to see what affect group meditation might have on the incidence of city-wide violent crime. A group of over 4000 practiced transcendental meditators traveled to Washington D.C. to participate in the study, which spanned the course of nearly two months. The study was monitored by an independent review board consisting of a 27-member team of sociologists, criminologists, and representatives from the police department in the District of Columbia. Amazingly, over the course of the two-month study, researchers observed a significant drop in violent crimes in Washington, with the decrease averaging a 23 percent drop in comparison to previous years. Researchers noted that the likelihood of these results reflecting chance variation was roughly 2 in 1 billion. No scientific explanation for this phenomenon was reached.

More compelling evidence regarding the connection between intention and the physical world comes from the research of Dr. Masaru Emoto. Dr. Emoto spent much of his professional career studying the effects of human intention on various living and non-living substances, most notably, the effects of certain thoughts on water molecules. Emoto’s studies involved freezing water samples that had been subjected to different thoughts, and compared the results.

For one water sample, Emoto instructed participants to hold loving thoughts and intentions towards the water for a period of time, while for the second water sample, he had participants hold negative thoughts and intentions. The results showed that a frozen water crystal subjected to loving intentions created a symmetrical design similar to that of a magnified snowflake, while the water subjected to negative thoughts and intentions created an asymmetrical mishmash of jagged lines and shapes. Emoto replicated these studies using a variety of different mediums, and achieved similar results in many cases. In 1999 he published his findings in the book “Messages from Water,” where he provides photographs of the different water samples.

One of the most incredible phenomena involving observer intention is that which has been described as the “double slit” experiment. First observed by the physicist Thomas Young in the early part of the nineteenth century, these experiments demonstrate one of the central quandaries of quantum mechanics—a mystery that continues to baffle scientists and challenge the traditional Newtonian approach to how physical matter behaves. The phenomena in question is an electron's ability to exist both as a wave and a particle, which appears to be dependent on observer expectation and intention.

In the experiments, scientists blasted streams of electrons through a panel with a number of slits in it, observing the patterns where the electrons made impact on a background wall. Because electrons have traditionally been observed as particles, scientists expected to see the electrons form a single band pattern when passed through the slit. What scientists discovered, however, was that when electrons were passed through the slits they behaved as waves (the way in which light and sound travel), creating a spectrum of points of contact on the background wall. These results baffled researchers. How can a particle demonstrate the qualities of both a wave and a particle? And this is where things get even more strange.

When scientists set up measuring equipment to see exactly how the electrons passed through the slits, the passing electrons reverted back to behaving as particles, making one band on the background wall. When scientists removed the measuring devices, the electrons once again behaved as waves. The mere act of observing the electrons collapsed their wave function back into a particle. It was as if the electrons were consciously aware that they were being watched, and behaved according to what the observers were expecting to see.

While scientists remain baffled by the mystery behind these phenomena, and tend to discount them, it is possible that the scientific community is on the verge of having their own spiritual awakening. There may come a time when scientists discover that what they are studying beneath the lens of a microscope is actually the very same essence in which we are all a part. Consciousness studying consciousness in order to know itself. What an amazing and beautiful dance, and what a wondrous way to wake up from the illusion of separation.