Hundreds of years ago, electricity, radiation and radio waves were not something that people believed in, and if they were described, it would be impossible. Today, the idea of the mind's influence on matter, that the consciousness and power of the mind can have a direct impact on objects or people, is viewed as folly.
Here is a very brief overview of some of the most exciting research that helps us gain insight into the hidden nature of consciousness.
1. Experiments by Dr. William A. Tiller
Dr. Tiller, Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University, studied the mind over the phenomena of matter. He was the head of the department from 1964 to 1998. At the pinnacle of his field, he set out to investigate whether consciousness and the power of the mind could affect matter. He is also the author of Science and Human Transformation.
His experiments have repeatedly shown that the power of the human mind can have a direct effect on physical matter. Working with experienced meditators who, as he described them, were "highly intrinsically oriented people," Tiller asked them to focus on "imprinting" certain intentions on electrical devices.
For example, in one experiment by Tiller, a group of people placed their consciousness in an electrical circuit that contained a crystal. Then they implemented the intention that the pH of the water would either rise or fall. The circuits were wrapped in aluminum foil and sent overnight to labs across the country, turned on and installed next to the water sample.
The room was isolated so that people did not enter and all environmental factors of the room were carefully checked. Despite the precautions, the water samples did respond to the power of the mind, as the meditators assumed. PH rose or fell as intended by 1.5 pH. The odds of this happening by accident are a million to one.
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Dr. Tiller also discovered that over time, his experiments influenced the room where the experiment was being conducted, further demonstrating the power of mind over matter. Subject imparted its qualities to the room, so water placed in the room after the device was removed still affected its PH. He argues that intent can "change space," so rooms can become "conditioned."
One of Tiller's experiments with mind on matter successfully demonstrated that intent caused fruit flies to grow 15% faster than normal. He explains that consciousness and the phenomena he observed are not limited by distance or time. Bill Tiller acknowledged that relativity and quantum mechanics are categorically incapable of considering anything to do with consciousness or the power of the mind. However, most scientists are unwilling to deal with his findings. They roll their eyes and ignore his work.
Dr. Tiller is an important pioneer in the study of the power of the mind and how consciousness affects matter.
2. Repeated experiment with two slits
Many people with little or no interest in quantum physics may have heard the phrase "the observer influences the observed." This is a reference to the grandfather of modern physics experiments, who talks about the influence of mind on matter; experiment with two slits.
In short, the double slit experiment works like this: if an electron or photon is passed through one slit, it will appear as a dot on the film. You can think of it as a bullet going through a narrow doorway and leaving a hole in the far wall.
However, if you have two slits, the particle does something strange and somehow forms a wave pattern instead of a point. If the photon's path is recognizable, they react like particles. When we don't know the way, they respond in waves. (Don't worry if this doesn't make sense to you. Quantum physicists are still puzzling over this and studying the effect of the mind on the matter it raises.)
Does the photon pass through one slit or both slits at the same time? Does he collide with himself on the opposite side, or is something else happening? This question cannot be answered because the moment scientists set up a detector to see what is happening, you no longer see the wave pattern, but it is only registered as a particle. This phenomenon is known as "wave collapse".
The bottom line is that when there is no detector, you see a wave pattern, and when there is a detector, you see particles. This has been called the "observer effect". Somehow, the process of recording observations using a detector sequentially changes the results of this experiment.
Popular culture often interprets this to mean that whenever an observer appears, you change the outcome at the quantum / subatomic level of reality. Most scientists strongly disagree with this interpretation and say that we are not talking about a person conducting personal observation, where there is an idea of mind over matter, but rather about the presence of a detector to observe the event.
Dean Radin, chief scientist at the IONS (Institute for the Science of Science founded by astronaut Edgar Mitchell), recently published groundbreaking research that revisits the double slit experiment and further explores the possibility of mind over matter and the power of mind. Is the "observer" just a machine that detects photons, or can it mean a person capable of breaking a wave?
Dr. Radin asked the fundamental question of what is called the "quantum measurement problem." If you change the way you observe things, are you changing what you observe? Does a person's focused awareness affect external reality? Can experienced meditators influence the double-slit experiment with the power of reason alone? The implications of this can be monumental to the discussion of mind over matter.
Radin set up an experiment with two slits in a room protected from electromagnetic signals and physical vibrations. Meditators and non-meditators alike imagined putting their minds in a box and watching the photons pass through the slits. The result was that meditators were able to induce a significant shift from the expected wave pattern, and many particles were observed when only waves were to be recorded. It also happens that experienced meditators were more able to induce a shift than non-meditators, which speaks of the significant strength of the mind that can be developed through meditation.
After 50 sessions with 50 meditators, they pre-selected the people who achieved the best results. The experiments were also carried out over the Internet. People conducted 5,000 sessions, and the monitoring computer recorded 7,000 more sessions. The sessions conducted by the computer had no effect, but the meditators caused a significant collapse of the wave pattern, presumably through the power of the mind.
Radin went further to connect the meditators to the EEG and see when they got the best results in the double slit experiment. EEG tests showed that when people concentrated most effectively, their ability to influence the double slit experiment increased, and when they stopped focusing, the effect decreased. It is seen that the strong activity of the right temporal lobe causes better results and the influence of the mind on matter.
Dr. Radin continues to repeat this experiment with tighter controls to figure out the power of the mind.
3. Intentional experiments
Many other studies provide evidence of the power of the mind. Lynn McTaggart, an American journalist, writer and publisher, has experimented with thousands of people from 80 countries. The experiment with one intent involved up to 10,000 people based on the concept of mind over matter. She began with the idea of showing that human intent affects matter. The first target was to be a sheet, with another sheet as a control. The intention of the experiment was to see if humans could make the leaf glow.
All living things emit photons, and with a sufficiently sensitive camera you can see any glow of living matter that emits biophotons. Dr. Gary Schwartz of the University of Arizona conducted this experiment. As a result, the leaf that received the intention of people shone much brighter than the leaf that did not receive the intention. This test of mind over matter has been successfully repeated many times.
Another experiment was to see if intent could make the plant grow faster. A large number of people in Australia have sent energy to seeds. The charged seeds did grow faster. In another test of the power of the mind, there was one experimental group and 3 control groups of plants. All four sets were planted. They found that seeds that had intent germinated faster and grew the fastest. This has been repeated with many large groups around the world, all demonstrating the power of mind over matter. In one experiment, the seeds grew twice the size of the controls.
4. Global agreed project
When people all over the world think and feel the same things, is there a way that this can be observed or tested? Called the Global Consensus Project, this experiment has been under way for almost 20 years. Random number generators (RNGs) create sequences of unpredictable ones and zeros.
When big events happen, like 9/11 or the death of Princess Diana, the numbers don't seem so random. In these eventful and emotional times, the numbers line up surprisingly well, surpassing the trillion-on-one odds that happen by accident. They suggest that there is a "noosphere" that responds to the emotions of people around the world as a result of group consciousness.
While this experiment is not necessarily a study of mind over matter, it does reveal a very basic way of perceiving that human consciousness and the power of reason can have some effect on the physical world. This tells us that something is happening, but nothing concrete. It's a bit like being in a dark room and learning that you might find a small blinking light that comes up from time to time.
All of the above experiments tell us that something deep is going on. The problem is that we really don't know much other than that there is some kind of interaction between mind and matter. In the words of Bob Dylan, "You know something is going on, but you don't know what it is." If we want to know more, we need better tests that can help us understand the legitimacy of these thoughts in relation to material interactions.