After I finished my intention session today, a few thoughts came to mind. I wondered why I was so curious about the Million Dollar Experiment, and after letting my train of thought traverse itself I remembered a few things I thought you might find interesting.
In 1993 a study was done in Washington, D.C., that assembled 4,000 meditation practitioners together for a 8 week period to practice in the city. During this 8 week period, the rate of violent crime in Washington, D.C. dropped by 23 percent.
In July of 1998, the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco published a double-blind study: Forty healers around the U.S. were recruited to pray for the health of patients with advanced AIDS. The prayed-for group had significantly fewer illnesses than the control group.
The Global Consciousness Project is a research study that monitors 75 devices called random number generators. These machines generate numbers based on electronic noise to measure whether events that focus mass consciousness tip the random number generators toward significantly greater randomness or significantly greater coherence.
On September 11, 2001, a few hours before the World Trade Center was attacked, there was a large spike in the 37 generators being monitored at that time—a uniform rise.
These are just a few of the stories I remembered off the top of my head, and I’m sure you’ve also read of similar stories or even heard some first or second-hand ones yourself.
The question is, could this just be mere coincidence?
Yes.
The other question is, could there be something beyond coincidence at work here, something we might not yet understand but is there nevertheless (like electricity before we learnt how to harness and generate it)?
There might be.
At the cost of nothing but 60 seconds a day, could it be useful or at least interesting to participate in a massive group experiment around the world to tap into this ‘field of consciousness’ to see if it’s true we can consciously manipulate it as the stories above describe? And to manipulate it in a way that can bring more positivity into not just our lives, but in the lives of others?
That’s your question to answer.
To be honest, I’m not really expecting anything out of this subjective experiment, and I think that’s the most important part of it. Not to have a lot of emotional expectation riding on it, not to let it degenerate into wishing thinking by letting it substitute action, but to simply have an attitude of ‘Let’s test it out’.
Again, if you want to join Pete, Brenda, Yezhong and myself who have publicly declared our intention, leave a comment here and that’ll give us a chance to check up on each other and see how the experiment worked in our own experience.
Let’s see just how far down this rabbit hole goes.