I’ve just heard back from Gary Schwartz about our latest Intention Experiment, which I am delighted to share with you.
After our successful Germination Intention Experiment, and the interesting results we got from our three Water Intention Experiments, Dr. Schwartz and I decided to merge the two by carrying out a Water Germination Experiment. We’d try another Germination Experiment, but this time we would send the ‘grow’ instructions to the water, not directly to the seeds themselves.
In late June I was due to speak at the Eric Pearl/Wrage event in Hamburg, which seemed a perfect venue to carry out a first pilot study, particularly as a large percentage of the audience would be Reconnection healers.  I showed the audience photos of four bottles, like the one in the photo, and asked them to choose one.  A member of the audience randomly selected bottle number 4, and I asked the audience to send the following intention to the water:
‘My intention is that all the seeds given water from our target jar will sprout at least three inches by the fourth day of growing.’
Dr. Schwartz and Mark Bocozzi, our wonderful lab technician in Dr. Schwartz’s Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health at the University of Arizona, then used each bottle to water a set of 30 seeds, like this.  Each set of seeds was assigned a particular jar of water.
The seeds were then soaked in the intended water (or control water) for 24 hours, rinsed in their respective water, and then planted within their water. The water was poured into an airtight bag, and the seeds placed within the soil within them, so they were imbued with the water’s energy for five days.
On the fifth day, Mark measured all five sets of seedlings, and Dr. Schwartz analyzed them.
When he looked at the average level of growth, the seeds watered with the ‘grow intention’ were slightly higher than the others, but the results were not  statistically significant, according to the scientific definition.. The average growth was 4.77 cm for the intended water (n=30 seeds) versus 4.66 for the non-intended water (n=90 seeds).  The difference is .11 cm or 1.1 millimeters.
The little seeds that grew
However, Dr. Schwartz noted one other interesting phenomenon.  In this experiment, ordinarily all of the seeds don’t sprout in any given group.  In this experiment of all the control groups, only had 90 per cent of seeds sprouted (that is, 9 of the 90 seeds in total didn’t sprout).  However, the full 100 per cent of the seeds, or all 30, sprouted in the group watered with the intended water.
In other words, intention may have given the seeds more energy and caused more of them to sprout than normal.
For all of you number crunchers, a chi square statistic on these numbers reached a p <.07, which is borderline significant (p <.05 is the cutoff for statistical significance).
‘This observation is encouraging, and deserves replication and extension,’ wrote Dr. Schwartz. ‘Since this is a "first ever" long distance (Germany to Tucson) group intention experiment on the effects of intention to water on the germination and growth of seeds, there is reason to do the experiment again.’
Master intenders
And the exciting news is that I’m going to try it again with a very special audience.  I am heading off to the Transformational Leadership Council meeting in a few days.  That group is composed of the leaders of the personal development movement, such as Jack Canfield, Steven Covey, Lynne Twist and many others.  It will be a powerhouse group of hugely experienced intenders.
Mark Boccozzi has also suggested slightly altering the experiment, using a “folded towel” method (this is a way to sprout seeds without soil). He suggests this method because it presents fewer potential confounding factors due to soil differences and allows us to use more seeds and larger groups.  We’re considering it and soon will be rolling out this experiment on the internet for all of you to participate.
In the meantime, please do sign up for our Peace Intention Experiment on September 14.