Topic: The Peace Intention Experiment

[Nichi]

This probably doesn't have scientific validity, as other variables were not considered or controlled, apparently, but the results were still intriguing.

In an experiment developed by Dr. Gary Schwartz, an audience was able to increase the biophoton emissions of a leaf, by imagining the leaf glowing. The results, which showed a significant difference between the target leaf and a control leaf, have now been successfully replicated six times, Lynn McTaggart reports.

McTaggart also reported on her first Peace Intention Experiment, which sought to demonstrate that thoughts can be used to change the world. The troubled country of Sri Lanka was chosen as a target to see if violence could be reduced there by having thousands of people send their intention for peace, at the same time for 10 minutes on eight successive days. Among the team evaluating the results were Dr. Robert Jahn, formerly of the PEAR Lab, and Dr. Jessica Utts, a professor of statistics.
 
Curiously, violence in Sri Lanka quadrupled during the week of the experiment, but in the weeks afterward, violence decreased by 75%, and the whole course of the civil war there was changed for the better, she said. Additionally, there was a spike in random number generator readings (REGs) during the 10-minute period people were meditating each day. More on the experiment here.

The reason intention and mind-over-matter processes work relates to the subatomic underpinnings of our being, and all matter-- on this level we're all connected, and can access the farthest reaches of the cosmos, she suggested. McTaggart is planning a Clean Water Experiment, on September 19, 2009 to help clean up polluted water, and people from around the world are welcome to participate. She is also working on setting up an experiment to lower temperature within a terrarium or biosphere-like environment.
www.coasttocoastam.com
September 2

(Continued)

[Nichi]

(For what data/statistics seem to be missing in this write-up, the graphs are available in the pdf link given at the end.)

Peace Intention Experiment

 

After all these small-scale studies of leaves and seeds and water, The Intention Experiment decided to take a giant leap, to examine whether ‘group mind’ has the power to lower violence and restore peace. The plan was to have readers all over the world join forces on our website to send peace to a particular war-torn area.


For eight days beginning September 14, The Intention Experiment carried out its first Peace Intention Experiment. As this was a pilot, testing the entire idea and the technology, we deliberately attempted to keep numbers low by carrying out no publicity or advertising. Nevertheless, the idea of a mass intention for peace under scientific conditions caught the public imagination, creating a huge buzz virally on the web and attracting tens of thousands of sign ups in just a few weeks.

We enjoyed participation from more than 65 countries and every continent but Antarctica – even many far-flung quarters such as Mongolia, Nepal, Indonesia and China.

Sri Lanka chosen
We decided on an obscure target — one where no one in the west would be sending prayer or intention to — so that any change there would more likely be the results of our intentions.

Eventually we chose the Wanni (or north) section of Sri Lanka. This area of the world has suffered a civil war for 25 years, with more suicide bombings than anywhere on earth. The Wanni section is the stronghold of the rebel Tamil Tigers, the well-armed and trained rebel forces, and the center of tefforist activities.

Noted peace advocate Dr. Kumar Rupesinghe and his colleagues from the Foundation for Co-existence in Columbo, Sri Lanka, supplied us weekly violence data from the past two years for both the North and Eastern sections of Sri Lanka, the two parts of the country with the worse and next worse levels of violence, and continued to monitor both areas for daily rates of killings and violence for some months after our intention week.

From these statistics, Dr. Jessica Utts, professor of Statistics at University of California at Irvine, modeled a prediction of the likely average violence levels we should have expected in October, if the fighting carried on as normal. We then compared this model of what should happen to what did happen over a month.

A pivotal week
The results of Dr. Utts’s preliminary report are extraordinary – suggesting that our Peace Intention Experiment may have been pivotal in helping to hasten the end of the war, which now appears imminent.

In order to show whether an effect is higher or lower than predicted, statisticians often use a trend-analysis plot.

According to our chart, found in the pdf, our intentions may have had the initial effect, it seemed, of vastly increasing violence. The week of the Peace Intention Experiments experienced a sudden surge of attacks and killings, largely brought on by the Sri Lankan government, which sought a last full-on effort to quash the Tamil Tiger rebels in the Northern stronghold, once and for all. Here is a chart assembled by Rupesinge’s organization, showing an increase in violence.

The Sri Lankan navy sank two Tamil Tiger boats, a sea battle broke out off the northeast coast and the government also brought the battle to the rebel center of the North.

But in the immediate aftermath of the experiment, both deaths and numbers of people injured fell dramatically. The death rate suddenly fell by 74 percent and injuries by 48 percent, as the PDF chart shows.

Dr. Utts’ time analysis reveals that the violence vastly increased to levels far higher than predicted during the week of our experiment and for a few weeks afterward, and then plummeted to below what was expected.

In fact, the violence was the highest it had ever been over the entire two-year period during the very week of our experiment.

In the PDF graph, you’ll see the analysis. The red line represents the average of predicted levels.

The fifth point from the end – the every high one – is the week of our experiment, and the four points afterward are the after effects. As you can see, the violence levels are far than predicted, sharply drop after the high week of the experiment and then fall below what is expected.

From the perspective of these two-plus years, our week of intention may have proved pivotal. During that week, the Sri Lankan army won a number of strategically important battles, which enabled them to turn around the war.
 
Guerrillas expelled
On January 2, 2009, the army finally expelled the separatist guerrillas from their capital of Kilinochchi. On January 9, the army recaptured the strategic Elephant pass, opening up the entire northern Jaffna Peninsula – where mainland Sri Lanka connects with the northern peninsula – for the first time in nine years, liberating the entire Wanni district – the very target of our intention. 
Those of the Tiger Tamil tefforists that remain have been wedged into a tiny corner of northeastern Sri Lanka of about 330 square km.

So was this down to us and our intention?
Certainly, in September, the rebels had a tight grip on the north. Although the army had made some inroads in August, even as recently as May commentators believed that peace talks were out of the question.

Now, after all the decisive wins in September and January, many political analysts have laid down predictions that the 25-year-civil war will end in 2009.

Coincidence or intention?
This could have been entirely coincidental – or it could be the result of intention. Only more Peace Intention Experiments will give us the answer.

But why did the violence initially increase before drastically falling? We don’t know the answer to that yet. It could be:

• coincidence
• our intention to lower violence had the effect of accelerating the army’s victories over the rebels so that further violence would end
• our intention made things worse before they got better

Until we run another Peace Intention Experiment, we won’t know the answer. But as Jessica succinctly put it, when noting that the highest weekly total for violence in the entire 26-month period was our very week: “Weird, huh?”

REG machines change too
Roger Nelson, architect of Global Consciousness Project and a member of our scientific team, also analyzed the effect of our Peace Intention Experiment on the random event generators he continuously runs all over the world for the GCP.

Several analyses reveal that the REG machines were affected within a 40-minute window of meditations during the eight days of our Peace Intention Experiment, and that these changes were similar to those that occurred during moments of mass meditation in areas attempting to lower violence.

The effect was most striking during the actual 10 minutes of our experiment, when we were sending intention.

Intention healed the healers
Most interesting of all was the long-term effect of the experiments on our participants. Some 44 per cent of our participants noticed changes in their relationships with others during the experiment, notably between parents and children, in-laws of every variety or siblings. Intention apparently helped them to feel more love in general, whether they knew the recipient or not.

Although more than a quarter either felt more love for their loved ones or for people they normally dislike or argue with, 41 per cent felt more love for anyone with whom they came into contact, and 19 per cent found they were getting along better with perfect strangers.

In fact, when I asked with whom relationships most improved, the largest group – 38 per cent – said they noticed the biggest change in their relationships with strangers. The experience of working together with thousands of strangers gave many people the ability to bond with or be more accepting of people they don’t personally know.

The Details and Data Are Here -- (though it was my understanding they collected the data in 2008 --- note the typo on the date given.)

[Nichi]

It was most intriguing to me that "violence quadrupled" initially, and then dramatically decreased.    I remember teachers from way-back-when pointing out that when one petitions in this manner, all hell breaks loose initially.

[Nichi]

I also find this interesting:

Intention healed the healers
Most interesting of all was the long-term effect of the experiments on our participants. Some 44 per cent of our participants noticed changes in their relationships with others during the experiment, notably between parents and children, in-laws of every variety or siblings. Intention apparently helped them to feel more love in general, whether they knew the recipient or not.

It makes sense, that if one is Intending a Global Peace, broadly extended in focused visualization through such sessions, that it is bound to rub off personally.

My take on it is this: when one extends one's intent for healing, especially so generically and remotely, one benefits by the very act of stepping out of the hamster wheel of the self.  In the end, to "serve" others is to serve Self. It's a win-win situation.

[Ke-ke wan]

It makes sense, that if one is Intending a Global Peace, broadly extended in focused visualization through such sessions, that it is bound to rub off personally.

My take on it is this: when one extends one's intent for healing, especially so generically and remotely, one benefits by the very act of stepping out of the hamster wheel of the self.  In the end, to "serve" others is to serve Self. It's a win-win situation.

I've been part of many global peace and or love meditations/healing sessions over the past few years and my experience has always been that the feeling it brings to me personally is very powerful and uplifting.

Thanks for posting this V.

[Jahn]

Heh, I had to check that name in the initial post.

"The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program was established at Princeton University in 1979 by Robert G. Jahn, then Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, to pursue rigorous scientific study of the interaction of human consciousness with physical devices, systems, and processes common to contemporary engineering practice. Its methods were controversial and at the end of February 2007, it closed its doors"

Wikipeda

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_Engineering_Anomalies_Research_Lab

[Jahn]

Effects of Group Practice of the Transcendental Meditation Program on Preventing Violent Crime in Washington, D.C.: Results of the National Demonstration Project, June--July 1993

http://www.springerlink.com/content/k2hg216724k21411/

1)  Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa, USA
(2)  Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
(3)  Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C., USA
(4)  Planning and Research Division, District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, Crime Research and Statistics Section, Washington, D.C., USA


Abstract  This paper reports the results of a prospective experiment in which a group of approximately 4,000 participants in the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi assembled in Washington, D.C., from June 7 to July 30, 1993. It was hypothesized that levels of violent crime in the District of Columbia would fall substantially during the Demonstration Project, as a result of the group''s effect of increasing coherence and reducing stress in the collective consciousness of the District.

A 27-member Project Review Board comprising independent scientists and leading citizens approved the research protocol and monitored the research process. Weekly crime data was derived from database records provided by the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department (DCMPD), which are used in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.

 Statistical analysis considered the effect of weather variables, daylight, historical crime trends and annual patterns in the District of Columbia, as well as trends in neighboring cities. Consistent with previous research, levels of homicides, rapes and assaults (HRA crimes) correlated with average weekly temperature. Robberies approximately followed an annually recurring cycle.

Time series analysis of 1993 data, controlling for temperature, showed that HRA crimes dropped significantly during the Demonstration Project, corresponding with increases in the size of the group; the maximum decrease was 23.3% (p < 2 × 10–9) [24.6% using a longer baseline, with 1988--1993 data (p < 3 × 10–5)], coincident with the peak number of participants in the group during the final week of the assembly. When the same period in each of the five previous years was examined, no significant decreases in HRA crimes were found.

Robberies did not decrease significantly. However, a model that jointly estimated the effect of the Demonstration Project on both HRA crimes and robberies showed a significant reduction in violent crimes overall of 15.6% (p = 0.0008). Further analysis showed that the effect of the coherence-creating group on reducing HRA crimes could not be accounted for by additional police staffing.

The time series analysis for HRA crimes gave results that are highly robust to alternative model specifications, and showed that the effect of the group size was cumulative and persisted after the Demonstration Project ended. Also, calculation of the steady state gain based on the time series model predicted that a permanent group of 4,000 coherence-creating experts in the District would have a long-term effect of reducing HRA crimes by 48%.

[Nichi]

Also along this line ---

<span data-s9e-mediaembed="youtube" style="display:inline-block;width:100%;max-width:640px"><span style="display:block;overflow:hidden;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" loading="lazy" scrolling="no" style="background:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MMfCvdyaNGQ/hqdefault.jpg) 50% 50% / cover;border:0;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;width:100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MMfCvdyaNGQ"></iframe></span></span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/MMfCvdyaNGQ&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/MMfCvdyaNGQ&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;</a>

(Thanks Tio)

[Michael]

neat