The Intention Experiment

Lynne McTaggart

The long-running paradigm of good intentions paving the road to hell has been brilliantly overturned by investigative journalist Lynne McTaggart's new book, The Intention Experiment. McTaggart provides dazzling evidence of the spectacular power of intentions from a wide variety of peer-reviewed, statistically significant research reports as she takes us on a tour of cutting-edge research currently underway in the relatively new field of consciousness.

• The book you hold in your hands is revolutionary, a groundbreaking exploration of the science of intention. It is also the first book to invite you, the reader, to take an active part in its original research. Drawing on the findings of leading scientists on human consciousness from around the world, The Intention Experiment demonstrates that thought is a thing that affects other things. Thought generates its own palpable energy that you can use to improve your life, to help others around you, and to change the world.
• In The Intention Experiment, internationally bestselling author Lynne McTaggart, an award-winning science journalist and leading figure in the human consciousness studies community, presents a gripping scientific detective story and takes you on a mind-blowing journey to the farthest reaches of consciousness. She profiles the colorful pioneers in intention science and works with a team of renowned scientists from around the world, including physicist Fritz-Albert Popp of the International Institute of Biophysics and Dr. Gary Schwartz, professor of psychology, medicine, and neurology at the University of Arizona, to determine the effects of focused group intention on scientifically quantifiable targets -- animal, plant, and human.
• The Intention Experiment builds on the discoveries of McTaggart's first book, international bestseller The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe, which documented discoveries that point to the existence of a quantum energy field. The Field created a picture of an interconnected universe and a scientific explanation for many of the most profound human mysteries, from alternative medicine and spiritual healing to extrasensory perception and the collective unconscious. The Intention Experiment shows you myriad ways that all this information can be incorporated into your life.
• After narrating the exciting developments in the science of intention, McTaggart offers a practical program to get in touch with your own thoughts, to increase the activity and strength of your intentions, and to begin achieving real change in your life. After you've begun to realize the amazing potential of focused intention, and the times when it is most powerful, McTaggart invites you to participate in an unprecedented experiment: Using The Intention Experiment website to coordinate your involvement and track results, you and other participants around the world will focus your power of intention on specific targets, giving you the opportunity to become a part of scientific history.
• The Intention Experiment redefines what a book does. It is the first "living" book in three dimensions. The book's text and website are inextricably linked, forming the hub of an entirely self-funded research program, the ultimate aim of which is philanthropic. An original piece of scientific investigation that involves the reader in its quest, The Intention Experiment explores human thought and intention as a tangible energy - an inexhaustible but simple resource with an awesome potential to focus our lives, heal our illnesses, clean up our communities, and improve the planet.
• The Intention Experiment also forces you to rethink what it is to be human. As it proves, we're connected to everyone and everything, and that discovery demands that we pay better attention to our thoughts, intentions, and actions. Here's how you can.

• McTaggart provides dazzling evidence of the spectacular power of intentions from a wide variety of peer-reviewed, statistically significant research reports as she takes us on a tour of cutting-edge research currently underway in the relatively new field of consciousness. 
• One of the challenges of studying the mind's effect on matter is that intention demonstrates variable effects depending on the state of the host and the time, place, and manner in which it is initiated. McTaggart examines some of ways that various types of intentions produce different effects, as well as ways to help ensure less variable outcomes.
• The Intention Experiment takes us on a journey to discover what, exactly, is meant by 'intention,' and how we can produce results we'll most appreciate. Seasoned meditators can demonstrate remarkable command over their physical processes and remotely influence others, and McTaggart describes how anyone can learn to achieve such noticeable results. The keys to achieving an effective state of intentionality are powering up, reaching a state of peak intensity, developing mindfulness, merging with what is to be influenced, being compassionate, and specifically stating the intention. Following these instructions after reading a thorough overview of relevant research, it’s a lot easier to believe that it may be possible to send one’s intentions to far-off places and times. 
• Yes, far-off times. Some of the more startling facts in The Intention Experiment are research findings about how our intentions can influence the past. Almost as startling is the fact that athletes who do not physically exercise, but only imagine their workouts, can increase their muscle strength between 13 and 16 percent. The world's top athletes depend on mental rehearsal to help guarantee their competitive edge. Anyone can see tremendous improvements in their lives by rehearsing specific activities before actually doing them.
• High points in The Intention Experiment include: a description of the way atoms can become entangled and behave as one single giant atom; a heated fullerene molecule can exhibit wavelike behavior in which it interferes with itself; human bodies can act as transmitting and receiving antennas; living things demonstrate awareness of the well-being of other living things around the; biofields change when receiving and sending healing intentions; physical health improves when others send focused healing intentions; different forms of meditation produce strikingly different brain waves; brain waves can be manipulated to initiate transcendent and/or terrifying experiences; sun and geomagnetic activity influences telepathic and telekinetic abilities; and places and things can become harmoniously aligned with healing intent.

• The Intention Experiment is a series of experiments that are going to test an outrageous premise: that human thoughts and intentions are an actual physical ‘something’ with the astonishing power to change our world. 
• A sizeable body of scientific research has shown that directed thoughts are capable of affecting everything from the simplest machines to the most complex living beings. 
• The Intention Experiment is going to test whether this effect gets stronger, the more people think the same thought at the same time. Our plan is to invite thousands of people from around the world 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. The first one took place on 24 March 2007 at 5:00pm GMT. However, we are looking only for committed participants, since experimental evidence suggests that those who are the most effective have trained their minds, much as athletes train their muscles.

• From the experimental evidence of what worked best in the laboratory, we have created a series of exercises and recommendations for how best to ‘power up’ your intentions effectively. To get you started, here are our recommendations for ‘powering up’ - reaching the optimum inner state for sending out an intention. 
• Power up
• 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 machine) 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 ever 15 seconds, but ensure that you are not over-exerting or straining. Carry on for 3 minutes and then keep observing it. 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 entering 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: 
  • the body and its functions, or the breath; 
  • your thoughts, as though they are floating by on a flying carpet, so that they are not ‘you’; 
  • a mantra, such as used in Transcendental Meditation, is usually ‘a word’ such as OM (‘The Field’ in Buddhism), AH (the universal truth of life) or HUM (the physical manfestation of the truth - the universe itself). In the early 1970s, many practitioners of TM were given the mantra AH-OM; 
  • numbers, through silent repetitive counting, either backwards or forwards; 
  • music - usually something repetitive, such as Bach or chanting; 
  • a single tone, such as that produced by an Australian didgeridoo; 
  • a drum or rattle, the repetitive sounds of which have been used by many traditional cultures to still the mind; 
  • prayer, as with a rosary, since the repetitive sounds still the mind. 
• Practice until you can comfortably focus on your ‘anchor’ for 20 minutes or more.

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