Can Thoughts Change Your Business, Your Life ... the World? by Steve Kayser
Join top scientists and participate in the world's largest-ever intention experiment to find out Featuring an interview with Lynne McTaggart - author of "The Intention Experiment," the first book to invite readers to take an active part in original research.
"This important book makes a good case that we are on the verge of another revolution in our understanding of the universe." - Arthur C. Clarke But first ...
I fully intended to keep my 2008 New Year's resolutions. I knew it would be hard. But I had good intentions. I had good intentions. Really.
However, even though I held out a long time - 6 days, 21 hours and 30 minutes short of the first full week of January - I didn't make it. I fell short. Badly. Some of it was simply from a sense of loss (also sometimes known as grief) that had weakened my resolve. Donkey O'Tee, my long-time co-writer and close friend, had left me to pursue his own career as an author (below).
Media Star
Donkey O'Tee had massive pre-sales. Five copies at least. The media loved him. He took a simple idea, complexified it to nearly an undecipherable obfuscation eschewing logic and reason, and suddenly he was a media know-it-all star. You'd thought he was running for President of the United States. But, before Donkey O'Tee went on his book tour, he sensed my despair - my utter hopelessness.
Donkey's are like that. Sensitive.
So, Donkey O'Tee sent his two cousins to help me while he was gone on tour. "Hollywood veterans" he assured me. Their names were Cal and Chichen (pronounced "chikken") Itza (figure out which is which?) from Yucatan, a state in Mexico.
Cal, Steve and Chichen Itza
But they were a little too perky for me.
I slipped into a deep funk. I pondered why my good intentions always went awry. My hair grew out of control (which horrified my friends who were all going bald), and I seemed to shrink - grow shorter from the weight of the deep thought in which I was engrossed. Why did my "good intentions" always go so bad? Then ... almost by accident (but not quite - that's what the word almost means) I ran across a book called "The Intention Experiment - Use Your Thoughts to Change the World," by Lynne McTaggart.
Your Life of Business ... or Business of Life
I jumped eyes first into it. Speed-read it (I completed the introduction). And wow ... not just a wishful "think your way to greatness and riches" bunch of crapola, but a book backed by top-notch scientific evidence. On the frontier of science, for sure, but backed by and working with an international team of renowned scientists to measure and create a "Science of Intention." To prove your thoughts and intentions can be scientifically measured and make a real difference in this world, in your life of business ... or the business of your life. The book even had an action plan and an invitation to all readers to join and be a part of the world's largest experiment - "THE INTENTION EXPERIMENT."
I was ecstatic.
I rushed out of the house down to the electronics store brimming with good intentions.
Oozing good intentions flowing like a volcanic river.
Yes, a river of good intentions.
That was me.
THE NEW I-PHONE WOULD BE MINE!
BUT, things didn't quite work out the way I had envisioned.
This business of thinking and intention was a bit more complicated than I thought. Or at least I think I thought I thunk that. So as usual I had to go to the source for more information. ENTER Lynne McTaggart
Lynne is an award-winning author of five books, including "The Field," which has been published in 14 languages. "The Field" was a major influence on the wildly successful U.S. cult classic, "What the Bleep Do We Know?" and Lynne starred in the BLEEP's full version, "Down the Rabbit Hole Quantum."
Steve: Hi Lynne. I tried the intention thing ... it didn't really work too well for me.
Lynne: Did you read the book?
Steve: Sorta.
Lynne: Sorta. What's that mean in English?
Steve: Oh, I forgot you were from England. Well, it means I got carried away after reading the introduction and tried to use my good intentions for something.
Lynne: For your own benefit? Steve: ... Maybe.
Lynne: Didn't work so well, did it.
Steve: It worked, just not the way I wanted it to. So, what did I miss in the book? What did I do wrong?
Lynne: Besides just reading the introduction? The book is not about sending intentions to make a million dollars. The book is about using the science of intention philanthropically: healing wounds, helping children with attention deficit or patients with Alzheimer’s, counteracting pollution, global warming, that type of thing.
Steve: Oh. (Although the reader can't see, chagrin may have crossed my face at this point). What else is the book about?
Lynne: "The Intention Experiment" is really some unfinished business I had with my previous book, "The Field." It was a question (or questions) that was raised - there seemed to be anecdotal evidence to support and suggest that thoughts truly were things. A thought was not only a thing, but a thing that influences other things. A simple thought had the power to change the world. But the question was, could these thoughts and intentions be corralled, scientifically measured, tested ... and used for good? The first part of "The Intention Experiment" attempts to synthesize all of the experimental evidence that exists on intention into a coherent scientific theory of how intention works, how it can be used in your life and what conditions optimize its effect.
Steve: So, an investigative scientific journey of the latest, greatest research on thought and intentionality. Who are some of the scientists involved?
Lynne: Robert Jahn, Dean Emeritus of the Princeton University School of Engineering; his colleague, psychologist Brenda Dunne, who runs the Princeton Engineering Anomalous Research (PEAR)laboratory; Dr. Gary Schwartz of the Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science at the University of Arizona; and Fritz-Albert Popp, assistant director of the International Institute of Biophysics (IIB), in Neuss, Germany, to name a few.
Steve: Seriously eminent scientists. I'm familiar with Fritz-Albert Popp. His work on biophoton emissions, that DNA, molecules and cells all emit light that may be used for information communication is not only astounding but potentially has the ability to change humanity forever, but unfortunately is pretty much under-appreciated and unknown amongst 99.99% of the earth's population. What are some of the interesting facts coming out of this research?
Lynne: You can get stronger, bigger muscles just by thinking. Some of the research findings include that athletes who do not physically exercise but only imagine their workouts can increase their muscle strength between 13 and 16 percent.
Steve: By just imagining the exercise?
Lynne: Yes. Imagine the implications for business. For sales. For marketing. Anyone can see tremendous improvements in their personal or business lives by rehearsing specific activities before actually doing them. Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest, if not greatest, athletes of all times was a master of thought, intention and visualization. He's covered in the book.
Steve: Other results?
Lynne: Atoms can become entangled and behave as one single giant atom. Human bodies can act as transmitting and receiving antennas, living things demonstrate awareness of the well-being of other living things around them. A sizable body of scientific research, carried on for more than 30 years in prestigious scientific institutions around the world, show that thoughts are capable of affecting everything from the simplest machines to the most complex living beings.
Steve: What do you mean by intention? Lynne: A textbook definition of intention is "a purposeful plan to perform an action, which will lead to a desired outcome," unlike a desire, which means simply focusing on an outcome, without a purposeful plan of how to achieve it. Steve: How could I (and the reader) use the science of intention?
Lynne: That's in the second part of my book. I offer a blueprint for using your thoughts and intentions effectively in your own life through a series of exercises and recommendations. These exercises will show you how to "power up" your own thoughts and intentions to change your life and those around you. It's also an exercise in frontier science - albeit personal.
Steve: And you're going to be doing live group experiments via the internet?
Lynne: Yes, with the aid of our readers and our highly experienced scientific team, we will conduct large-scale group experiments via the internet to determine whether focused intention has any scientifically quantifiable effects on selected targets.
Steve: How will this be controlled? The www is full of world-wide-whackos, full of in-laws, outlaws and hackers who enjoy mucking things up.
Lynne: Website experts collaborated with our scientific team to design secure log-on protocols and to enable us to identify which characteristics of a group or aspects of their thoughts produce the most effective results.
Steve: An example?
Lynne: A patient with a wound. It is known that wounds generally heal at a particular, quantifiable rate with a precise pattern. Any departure from the norm can be precisely measured and shown to be an experimental effect. In this example, our aim would be to determine whether focused group intention will enable wounds to heal more quickly than usual.
Steve: Hmm. I knew that. And your ultimate plan for these experiments? Lynne: They're ambitious. To recruit hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of volunteers from around the world to participate in these series of web-based experiments, to try to tackle a number of societal ills. It will be the largest mind-over-matter study in history. Come join us!
Steve: Can I be a part of this experiment?
Lynne: I'd like to send a special letter about it to you and your friends, Cal and Chichen. Is that okay? Steve: That'd be great! (feeling special ... even if she did include the freako animals) Thank you, and best wishes to your readers and scientific team Lynne.
Lynne McTaggart is an award-winning author of five books, including "The Field," which has been published in 14 languages.
LIVING THE FIELD She is also editor of a written master class called “Living the Field”, the first comprehensive four-year part-work on how the findings of the new science impacts your everyday life.
Her company also holds highly popular conferences and workshops on health and spirituality.
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them."
'For the Fallen' by Laurence Binyon
At the end of each year, major media outlets run feature stories listing notables and celebrities that have passed away during the year; stories that recount highlights of the person’s life.
Sometimes memories connect through space and time linked to your own remembrances of the person. Memories of what you were doing at a certain time in your life, at a certain place.
Special memories randomly emerge from the dark recesses of time. You feel heaviness, a sense of loss, not only for the “notable person” or “celebrity” that you probably never met, but also for yourself. For the loss of time.
That time.
Your time.
Well, here’s my feature story.
My list.
It’s a little bit longer than the major media outlets would publish. 1009 names of people like Joshua, Tracy, Edgar, Elizabeth, Thomas, Carletta, Matthew, Ming, Kyle, Lui, Jermaine, Ashley, Eric, Adam, Michael, Kenneth, Steven, Marius, Jason, Christopher, Alejandro, Jonathon, Benjamin, Isaac, Jeremiah, Anamarie, David, Luke, Nicholas, Aaron ...
The Loved and Lost
... and on … and on … and on.
Fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, wives, husbands, cousins, nephews, nieces, all.
Not by Accident
They passed on not by accident, not by bodily deterioration brought on by the mean ravages of time, but because they had a special job.
A job that ended a too-brief sojourn on this blue-green magical wonder called earth.
A job they chose.
So Costly a Sacrifice
They were American soldiers.
A step ahead.
A step behind.
A look left, instead of right.
Right, instead of left.
Up instead of down.
Down instead of up.
A blink of the eye at the wrong time.
And ... it was over.
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow that runs across the grass
and loses itself in the sunset.
Crowfoot, Native American Blackfoot warrior and orator
The fleeting flash of a firefly in the night … gone.
But not.
Their undiminishable light echoes eternally throughout the music of the spheres like heavenly bagpipes playingAmazing Grace … across the unfathomable unknowable on their way toThe Last Post.
Who were these fireflies in the night?
Who were these shadows that ran across the grass riding a Sonata of Moonlight on an Ode to Joy - to living, giving and life?
Who were these fireflies in the night?
Who were these shadows that ran across the grass into the arms of an ...
Steve Kayser is an award-winning business writer. He's also founder of Squareballs Enterainment, a non-leading edge, next-to-lost generation, un-scalable (but eminently sellable), not seamlessly integrated (although certainly unseemly), robusted (once or twice at most), rigidly inflexible, world class (minus the "cl"), geometrically challenged (totally true), inchoate “Thoughtless Leadership” prepubescent publishing empire dedicated to stories that challenge the shape of the mind. At least his - or anyone else that got through that sentence and thinks they know what they thought was said and can say what they thought was thought when what was said was thought.
Lynne is an award-winning author of five books, including "The Field," which has been published in 14 languages. "The Field" was a major influence on the wildly successful U.S. cult classic, "What the Bleep Do We Know?" and Lynne starred in the BLEEP's full version, "Down the Rabbit Hole Quantum."
Lynne is an award-winning author of five books, including "The Field," which has been published in 14 languages. "The Field" was a major influence on the wildly successful U.S. cult classic, "What the Bleep Do We Know?" and Lynne starred in the BLEEP's full version, "Down the Rabbit Hole Quantum."
Steve: By just imagining the exercise?
