The most amazing part of Intention Experiments is not the effect on the target, but the effect on the participants. It’s become clear to me that aside from our collective effect on some sort of equipment or target, the group-intention experience causes a major change in individual consciousness. Some sort of complex alchemical process appears to be going on here.

Something about praying in a group causes deep, possibly permanent psychological transformation in many participants and improvements in their daily lives. The experience appears to carry on for a majority of my participants long after the experiment was over, as though they have been touched by something immensely profound.

As I reported last week, I recently ran a two-part Intention Experiment on May 21.  The first intention was to heal racial divide between African-Americans and the police in Minneapolis in the wake of the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, and the second was for the continuation of the ceasefire between the Israelis and the Palestinians. An estimated 8000 people participated, through the ILLUMINATE Film Festival’s livestream and also various Facebook pages handled by Israeli producer Tsipi Raz’s team for ‘The 1 Field.’

We measured the effect on Russian physicist Konstantin Korotkov’s equipment, and had fascinating results, which you can read about here.

But that isn’t the interesting part of the story. After every experiment I survey the participants to find out how the experiment was for them, and as usual, this ecstatic state seems to be so powerful that it opens the possibility of individual miracles: healed relationships, major life transformations, healed lives.

It starts with a feeling of great connection, in the form of energy, as many wrote:

’I felt a lot of energy and activity through my whole body. Definitely a strong electrical current-like feeling, especially in my brain.’

‘I felt chills for both events as well as moved to tears.’

But sending intention for peace seems to instigate some rebound effect, so that a greater sense of peacefulness infiltrates their lives, and this feeling of peace most affects their dealings with other people. Some 40% said they felt more love for their loved ones, and 26% said they were getting along better with people they normally dislike or argue with.

‘My husband is opening up and we can get things sorted out. We have started talking without accusing each other at last.’

‘My partner is more caring and I feel more love for him.’

‘My sister and I hardly talk. We are polar opposites. We have been talking every day since May 21st.’

‘We had a not so easy relationship to some of the neighbors and they came to see us in a very friendly way.’ 

But something even more fundamental in the ability to connect with people had been transformed in the participants, some opening of the heart that appeared to be indiscriminate and universal. Half of the participants feel more love for everyone they come in contact with; 30% feel ‘more tolerant of people who are not like them.’

The experience of joining together with thousands of unknown others for a common purpose appeared to give many people permission to open themselves to people they didn’t know—and this readiness to connect carried on after the experiment was over. The Peace Intention Experiments had ignited something so powerful within them that 45 % said were able to feel more love toward the entire world

‘I am less fearful of strangers on the street. I approached a homeless man who was crying. It didn't even occur to me to be afraid.’

‘It is easier for me to open my heart again and again during the day and just feel  the good and beautiful in me. There are not so many negative thoughts anymore. The negative can’t break through my tank, and it feels so, so good.’

Many of our participants were moved to do something about it: 41% said they want to do work for peace or to heal areas of high violence:

‘I just interviewed with a non-profit in my neighborhood that works with homeless women to help them get back on their feet.’

‘This really brings hope like nothing else ever has.’

But the healing isn’t just with others; our participants also report that they are more accepting of themselves; 31% said they were ‘more in love with their lives and the world’; 30% were more tolerant of people who are not like themselves and 28% said they forgive things about themselves that they regret.

These great shifts in consciousness carry over to their bodies as well: one-third reported that they had experienced physical improvements:

‘I didn’t use my asthma spray at all or today only once. Wow!! ! I feel calmer, more balanced.’

‘My shoulder had been hurting for weeks, and after the meditation the pain went away and didn't return. Yay!!!’

‘I had hernia surgery yesterday. To everyone’s surprise, I have not had one bit of pain.’

‘I have more energy than usual. I seem to breathe more easily. (I have interstitial lung disease.)’

‘Feeling younger and more flexible.’

‘I feel my body releasing excess weight that came on during the past year.’

‘Less chronic pain and stress/burnout from work. More peace and calm and groundedness.’

The question of whether any individual Intention Experiment has “worked” or not appears to be increasingly beside the point. Perhaps the success of the experiment had nothing to do with the actual outcome. The point is not the action but its reaction—a ripple effect of peace in the hearts of the participants that could eventually extend out to the entire world.

Perhaps these experiments carry one simple truism: To solve a seemingly intractable political situation, the fastest and most effective way forward in a war zone may not be through the military, politics, diplomacy, or even economic initiatives. All you may need are people coming together as a group and praying as one.