Up until this point, The Intention Experiment has been concerned with the scientific evidence of the power of intention. What has not been tested is the extent of this power in the cut and thrust of ordinary life. An inordinate number of books have been written about the power of the human being to manifest his or her reality, and, while they have served up many intuitive truths, they offer little in the way of scientific evidence.
Exactly how much power do we possess to shape and mold our daily lives? What can we use this for, individually and collectively? How much power do we possess to heal ourselves, to live lives of greater happiness and purpose?
This is where I would like to enlist your help. Determining the further practical applications of the power of thought is the purpose of the next portion of this book—the part that involves you as a partner in the research.
Although the power of intention is such that any sort of focused will may have some effect, the scientific evidence suggests that you will be a more effective “intender” if you become more “coherent,” in the scientific sense of the term. To do this to greatest effect, or so the scientific evidence suggests, you will need to choose the right time and place, quiet your mind, learn how to focus, entrain yourself with the object of your intention, visualize, and mentally rehearse. Believing that the experiment will work is also essential.
Most of us operate with very little in the way of mental coherence. We walk around immersed in a riot of fragmentary and discordant thought. You will become more coherent simply by learning to shut down that useless internal chatter, which always focuses on the past or the future, never the present. In time, you will become adept at quieting down your mind and “powering up,” much as joggers train their muscles, and each day find that they can perform a little better than the day before.
The following exercises are designed to help you to become more coherent and so more effective in using intention in your life and in our group intention experiments. These have been extrapolated from what has appeared to work best in the scientific laboratory.
Think of intentions in terms of grand and smaller schemes. Take the grand schemes in stages, so that you send out intentions in steps toward achieving the grand scheme. Also start with modest goals—something realizable within a reasonable time frame. If you are forty pounds overweight and your goal is to be a size eight next week, that is not a realistic time frame. Nevertheless, keep the grand scheme in mind and build toward it as you gain experience. It is also important to overcome your natural skepticism. The idea that your thought can affect physical reality may not fit your current world paradigm, but neither would the concept of gravity if you were living in the Middle Ages.
A number of scientific studies suggest that conditioning your space magnifies the effectiveness of your intentions. Choose a place to carry out your intentions that feels comfortable. Clear away extraneous items and make it personal or appealing, with cushions or comfortable furniture, so that whenever you spend time there you will find it an enjoyable refuge, a place where you can sit quietly and meditate. Use candles, soft lights, and incense, if you prefer.
Some people find it helpful to create an “altar” of sorts, as a focal point, with objects or photographs that you find inspirational or particularly meaningful. Even if you are not at home, you may find that you will naturally “enter” your intention space by visualizing it whenever you want to send an intention.
Unless you live in the mountains and can open your windows to clean mountain air, you also may want to install an ionizer in your space. The half-life of ions—which is related to the amount of time that ions maintain their effective radiation—depends on the amount of pollutants in the air. The cleaner the air, the longer the half-life of small ions, if there is a source of ionization (e.g., running water) present. The best levels of ions are:
The worst are:
As a rule of thumb, the lower the visibility, the lower the ion concentration. Low visibility is due to the presence of a great number of large particles, which air ions readily latch on to. For those among us who are city dwellers, placing plants and some source of water, like an indoor desk fountain, in intention spaces will help to improve ion levels. Keep your space free of electrical gadgets and computers.
In order to “power up” to peak intensity, you must first slow your brain waves down to a meditative, or “alpha,” state of light meditation or dreaming—when the brain emits frequencies (measured on an EEG) of 8–13 hertz (cycles per second).
Sit in a comfortable position. Many people like to sit upright in a hard-backed chair, with their hands placed on their knees. You may also sit on the floor cross-legged. Begin breathing slowly and rhythmically in through the nose and out through the mouth (slowly blow all the air out), so that your in-breath is the same length as your out-breath. Allow the belly to relax so that it slightly protrudes, then pull it back slowly as if you were trying to get it to touch your back. This will ensure that you are breathing through your diaphragm.
Repeat this every 15 seconds, but ensure that you are not overexerting or straining. Carry on for 3 minutes and then keep observing the exercise. Work up to 5 or 10 minutes. Begin to focus your attention just on the breath. Practice this repeatedly, as it will form the basis of your meditative practices.
To enter an alpha state, the most important feature, as any Buddhist understands, is to still the mind. Of course, just thinking about nothing is often virtually impossible.
After you enter the state by concentrating on the breath or focusing on a single object, most meditation schools recommend some sort of “anchor,” enabling you to keep your chattering mind quiet, so that you are allowed to be more receptive to intuitive information. The usual anchors include focusing on:
Practice until you can comfortably focus on your “anchor” for 20 minutes or more.
Powering up involves developing the ability to attend with peak intensity, moment by moment. One of the surest ways to develop this is to practice the ancient art of mindfulness, espoused as long ago as 500 BC by Shakyamuni Buddha, founder of Buddhism. It is a discipline whereby you maintain clear moment-to-moment awareness of what is happening internally and externally, rather than coloring your interpretation with your emotions or being engaged “elsewhere,” deep in thought.
More than just concentration, mindfulness requires that you police the focus of your concentration and maintain that concentration in the present. With practice, you will be able to silence the constant inner chatter of your mind and concentrate on your sensory experience, no matter how mundane—whether it is eating a meal, hugging your child, noticing some pain you are experiencing, or just picking some lint off your sweater. It is like being a benevolent parent to your mind—selecting what it will focus on and leading it back when it strays.
In time, mindfulness meditation will also heighten your visual perceptions and prevent you from becoming numb to your everyday experience.
One of the difficulties in incorporating mindfulness into ordinary activity is that it is usually taught at retreats, where participants have the luxury of meditating for hours a day or practicing mindfulness by engaging in activities, as it were, in “slow motion.” Nevertheless, there are ways to adapt many traditional practices for use in your intention meditation.
Once you have achieved your “alpha state,” quietly observe as precisely as you can whatever manifests itself in your mind and body. Be present and attentive to what is, rather than what your emotions tell you, what you wish were the case, or only what is most pleasant. Do not suppress or banish any negative thoughts, if they are true. One good means of harnessing your mind to the present is to “come into your body” and feel your body posture.
It is vital that you distinguish mindfulness from mere concentration. The most important distinction is a lack of judgment or reference point about the experience. You attend to every moment in the present without coloring it with preference for the pleasant or distaste for the unpleasant, or even identifying the experience as something happening to you. There is, in short, no “better” or “worse.”
Even when you are not using intention, the evidence suggests that you will mold your brain to become better at it if you develop mindfulness in your daily life. Psychologist Dr. Charles Tart, one of the world’s experts on altered states of consciousness, has a number of suggestions of ways to do so:1
Research shows that touch or even focus on the heart or compassionate feelings for the other is a powerful means of causing brain-wave entrainment between people. When two people touch while focusing loving thoughts on their hearts, the “coherent” heart rhythms of one can entrain the brain of the other.2
Before you set your intention, it may be important to form an empathetic connection with the object of your intention.
Establish connection beforehand by the following techniques:
Use the following methods to encourage a sense of universal compassion during your intention session:
Don’t waste the love and grief it arouses; the moment you feel compassion welling up in you, don’t brush it aside, don’t shrug it off and try quickly to return to “normal,” don’t be afraid of the feeling or embarrassed by it, allow yourself to be distracted from it or let it run aground in apathy. Be vulnerable; use that quick, bright up-rush of compassion; focus on it, go deep into your heart and meditate on it, develop it, enhance and deepen it. By doing this you will realize how blind you have been to suffering….4
In your meditative state, state your clear intention. Although many people use the construction “have always been”—“I have always been healthy”—I prefer the present tense—of sending your intention to its “endpoint” as a wish that has already been achieved. For instance, if you are trying to heal back pain, you can say, “My lower back and sacrum are free of all pain and now move easily and fluidly.” Remember to frame your intention as a positive statement; rather than “I will not have side effects,” say, “I will be free of side effects.”
Specific intentions seem to work best. Make sure to make your intentions highly specific and directed—and the more detailed, the better. If you are trying to heal the fourth finger of your child’s left hand, specify that finger and, if possible, the problem with it.
State your entire intention, and include what it is you would like to change, to whom, when, and where. Use the following as a checklist (as news reporters do) to ensure you have covered every specific: who, what, when, where, why, and how. It may help if you draw a picture of your intention, or create a collage from photos or magazine pictures. Place this where you can look at it often.
As with elite athletes, the best way to send an intention is to visualize the outcome you desire with all your five senses in real time. Visualization, or guided imagery, involves using images and/or internal messages to obtain a desired goal. It can be used for any desired outcome—to change or improve your living situation, job, relationships, physical condition or health, state of mind (from negative to positive), or outlook on life or even a specific aspect of yourself, including your personality. It can also be used to send intentions to someone else. Self-guided imagery is a little like self-hypnosis.
Plan a mental image of the outcome of your intention well ahead of time. Many people believe that when carrying out visualization, you must “see” the exact image clearly in your mind’s eye. But for an intention it isn’t necessary to have a sharp internal image or, indeed, any image at all. It is enough to just think about an intention, without a mental picture, and simply to create an impression, a feeling, or a thought. Some of us think in images, others through words, still others through sounds, touch, or the spatial relationship between objects. Your mental rehearsal will depend on which senses are most developed in your brain.
For our example of healing back pain, imagine yourself free from pain and doing some sort of exercise or movement you enjoy. See yourself walking, agile, free from pain. Remember, feel the feeling of being pain-free and electrically alive. Imagine the internal and external sensations of your limber back. Feel yourself running free. Choose other sensations that support the healing of your back. If you are sending your intention to heal someone else, carry out all the same aspects of the healing, but imagine yourself inside the other person’s back. Send your intention to his or her back.
You can practice visualization first by getting into a meditative state and imagining the following, while recalling or imagining as much as you can about the sights and smells, and your feelings about them:
To visualize your intention, first work it out carefully ahead of time:
The copious evidence of the placebo effect demonstrates the extraordinary power of belief. Belief in the power of intention is also vital. Keep firmly fixed in your mind the desired outcome and do not allow yourself to think of failure. Dismiss any it-won’t-
happen-to-me type of thoughts. If you are attempting to affect someone who does not share your belief that it may be of benefit, speak to him or her about some of the scientific evidence in The Intention Experiment and elsewhere. It is important that the two of you share the same beliefs. Herbert Benson believes that his monks were able to achieve their effects because they used words or phrases incorporating their most deeply held beliefs.5
In studies of meditation, mediumship, and healing, people who are successful at intention imagine themselves and the person receiving healing as one with the universe. In your meditative state, enter into a zone where you relax your sense of “I” and you sense a merging with the object of your intention and The Field. Frame your intention, state it clearly, and then let go of the outcome. At this point, you may sense that the intention is taken over by some greater force. Close your internal meditation with a request and then move your own ego aside. Remember: this “power” does not originate with you—you are its conduit. Think of it as a request you are sending to the universe.
The evidence suggests that mind-over-matter intention (that is, psychokinesis) works best at points of increased geomagnetic activity. You can find out about the geomagnetic levels in your area by consulting several websites. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) created a Space Environnment Center (SEC), America’s official source of space weather activity (www.sec.noaa.gov). The SEC, in turn, set up a special Space Weather Operations (SWO) branch to act as a warning center for the world concerning disturbances in space. Jointly operated by the NOA and the U.S. Air Force, SWO provides forecasts and warnings of solar and geomagnetic activity.
SWO receives its data in real time from a large number of ground-based observatories and satellite sensors around the world. These data enable the SWO to predict solar and geomagnetic activity, and to make worldwide alerts during heavy storms. For the forecast of the day you plan to carry out your intentions, see http://sec.noaa.gov/today2.html.
The SEC has created Space Weather Scales to give laypeople an idea of the severity of geomagnetic storms, solar radiation storms, and radio blackouts, and their effect on our technological systems (www.sec.noaa.gov/NOAAscales). The numbers attached to them (such as “G5”) indicate the level of severity, with 1 being mild and 5 the most severe.
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) was set up as a joint project by the European Space Agency and NASA to study the effect of the sun on the Earth. For more information, see http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/. For other aspects of space weather, including charts of geomagnetic activity, see http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/spaceweather/. This website includes useful charts on geomagnetic activity, solar wind, and high-energy proton and X-ray flux.
All geomagnetic activity is measured on a K index, with 0 being the most quiet and 9 the most turbulent. The a index is similar, but uses a larger scale—from 0 to 400.
When you are sending an intention, plan to do so on a day when the K index is 5 or more (or the a index is more than 200).
It may also be best to use intention during local 1:00 P.M. sidereal time (check the Web to compute local sidereal time). Send intentions only on those days when you feel happy and well.