Lately I’ve been investigating the linger effect of intention – the idea that if groups of people continuously intend in the same spot, it creates a conditioned space.

The Stanford University physicist William Tiller found this out with his famous Black Box experiments, where he and a group of meditators ‘imprinted’ intention into an electronic box – and sent the box over to another lab, where it was turned on next to one of several experiments they were running – to alter the pH of water, affect an enzyme process or even accelerate the development of fruit flies.

Not only did all these experiments work – they started working faster and better with time.  Tiller proposed that intention appeared to ‘condition’ the space to improve all these outcomes.

Numerous scientists have witnessed a similar ‘charging’ of intention space. In one series of meticulous studies, for instance, researcher Graham Watkins and his wife Anita recruited participants, many known for their psychic ability, and asked them to attempt to mentally influence anesthetized mice to revive more quickly than usual. The experimental mice were drawn from a batch that had demonstrated similar waking times when placed under anesthesia; the chosen group were divided in two, with half acting as controls.

In the first batch of studies, the experimental group woke up about 4 seconds earlier than the controls, a result considered only slightly significant. However, in subsequent studies the wake-up times of the experimental mice improved and continued to do so with every study.

The Watkinses repeated their experiment seven times. They discovered that the healing had a ‘linger effect’; if a mouse were simply placed on the spot on a table where another mouse had received a psychic’s intentions, the second one would also revive more quickly than usual. The space appeared to have developed a healing ‘charge’, affecting anything that happened to occupy that space.

Biologist Bernard Grad at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, observed a similar phenomenon during experiments with Hungarian healer Oscar Estabany: Once the Hungarian healer touched something – even simple fabric – it appeared to hold a phantom charge. The material could be used successfully for healing in place of Estabany’s healing hands.

The idea of ‘conditioned space’ was also explored by former PEAR scientist Dr Roger Nelson at sacred sites. Nelson was intrigued by these sacred spaces and whether their special purpose, or even some inherent quality about the site, had ‘charged’ the space with an energetic resonance that might register on a random event generator (REG) machine, one of those electronic equivalents of the toss of a coin. He had run a number of experiments suggesting that a ‘field consciousness’ in a highly charged atmosphere, such as an intense gathering, affected the machines and made them more ‘ordered.’

He carried around a portable REG, to register any changes in the randomness in the ambient field at various sites: Wounded Knee, the site of the massacre of an entire Sioux tribe; Devil’s Tower in Wyoming; the Queen’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Nelson registered highly significant evidence of increased order on REGs at some sites, as if the location itself contained a lingering vortex of coherent energy, from all the people who had prayed or died there.

Institute of Noetic Sciences’ chief scientist Dean Radin also used REGs to investigate whether healing can condition the place where it is carried out. He placed three REGs near a culture of human brain cells, then asked a group of healers to send intentions for the culture to grow more quickly, and to engage in traditional space-conditioning meditations.

Any deviation from the random activity of the REGs would indicate the probable presence of greater coherence. Radin also prepared a control batch of cells, which were not to be sent intention.

After three days, there was no overall difference in the growth between the treated cells and the controls. Nevertheless, as the experiment progressed, the treated cells began to grow faster. On the third day, all three of the REGs began moving away from random activity and becoming more ordered. The intention of the healers also appeared to have effects on background ionizing radiation.

Like Nelson’s readings at sacred sites, Radin’s experiment offers tantalizing hints about the nature of the ‘linger’ effect of intention. The REGs’ registering of movement away from randomness to greater order implies that the Zero Point energy of empty space has shifted into a state of greater coherence. The ‘charge’ of intention may have a domino effect on its environment, causing greater quantum order in empty space, which would enhance the effectiveness of its aim.

All these studies suggest the extent to which the energy of human thought can alter its environment. The ordering process of intention appears to carry on, perpetuating, possibly even intensifying its charge.

I’ve been using this in my own work, asking Power of Eight® groups to meet in sacred spaces, and I find the ambience and connection between the group is unusually powerful. The effect is like that of a laser; when waves of the ambient Field become more ordered, an intention may ripple through it like one highly targeted bolt of light.