December 18, 2025 • 44 mins
Can group intention really heal, influence biology, and change reality? In this episode, we explore the science of collective consciousness and focused intention with investigative journalist and bestselling author Lynne McTaggart (The Field, The Intention Experiment, The Power of Eight).
Lynne shares compelling evidence from large-scale group intention experiments showing how human consciousness can measurably affect the physical world — from biological changes in plants to improved health outcomes and reductions in community violence. Designed with independent scientists, these studies challenge conventional ideas about mind, matter, and healing.
We trace Lynne’s journey from sceptical reporter to pioneer of intention research, and break down what actually works: why specific intentions outperform vague wishing, why short 10-minute intention windows are most effective, and how collective focus supports nervous system regulation, emotional wellbeing, and healing.
Lynne also introduces The Power of Eight®, a simple weekly practice where small groups focus intention for one person at a time — often producing remarkable physical, emotional, and psychological shifts.
The takeaway is practical and empowering: consciousness connects us, and when aligned with clarity and compassion, intention can heal and transform — personally and collectively.
Ready to test your mind’s reach? Follow, rate, and share the show with someone curious. Then try a 10-minute, specific intention with a friend, record what happens, and tell us your results.
Thank you for listening
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Welcome to this episode.
Today I'm speaking with LynnMcTaggart, author of The
Intention Experiment and Powerof Ape, about the transformative
power of intention and how itaffects you.
Get ready for an inspiring andscientific look at how our
thoughts shape reality.
SPEAKER_02 (00:17):
Understand that you are intending at every moment.
Your brain is not the repositoryof your thoughts.
Your brain is and your thoughtsare not locked inside your head.
They're trespassers.
They go out and they affectpeople and things.
So what you're thinking, all ofthat stuff you're thinking, all
(00:38):
of those judgments you hold arealso an intention.
So start thinking a little bitmore consciously about what
you're sending out to the world.
SPEAKER_00 (00:48):
Hello and welcome to the James Gronstrom Podcast
Super Soul Model Series.
Today we are welcomed by a truevisionary, Lynn McTaggart.
Lynn is one of the world'sleading authorities on new
science and consciousness.
Lynn is an award-winning authorof seven books, including The
Field, The Intention Experiment,and The Power of AIDS.
(01:08):
Her works has helped bridge thegap between science and
spirituality, revealing a natureand a universe far more
connected than we've been led tobelieve.
Lynn is consistently listedamongst the world as one of the
top 100 leading spiritualauthorities and leading
influencers.
So it brings me great pleasureto welcome to this episode Lynn
(01:30):
McTaggart.
SPEAKER_02 (01:31):
Thank you so much, James.
It's great to be here with you.
SPEAKER_00 (01:34):
Lynn's work touched my life in a very unexpected way
20 odd years ago.
And I was just saying to Lynnoff camera that I actually won a
ticket to go and see Lynn speakat an event.
And it was about the nature ofconsciousness, something I was
really interested in, havingstudied and read so many books
and watched a wonderful moviethat Lynn was actually in, which
(01:54):
was called What the Bleep Do WeKnow.
And so Lynn's work found its wayinto my life.
And I really hope that you enjoythis episode because Lynn's work
will also, like me, find its wayinto your life.
So, Lynn, how did you get intothe nature of consciousness?
How does someone begin to studythis?
SPEAKER_02 (02:14):
Well, I kind of got hijacked into it, I would say.
I was working with my husband ona newsletter we had launched
called What Doctors Don't TellYou.
And it looks at what works andwhat doesn't work in
conventional and alternativemedicine, mostly what works in
(02:35):
alternative medicine.
And in the course of doing that,this is way back in the 90s, I
kept coming across very goodstudies of a spiritual healing.
And I kept thinking to myself,hold on, that in itself
undermines everything we thinkabout how the world works.
(02:55):
If you can have a thought andsend it to someone else, that
just blows apart our currentparadigm.
So I set out to find out why.
And I was on a journey without acompass.
I didn't know what I was goingto find, but I started talking
to some scientists involved inconsciousness research, and they
(03:20):
revealed to me some of theirwork, and I recognized very
early on that this was a biggerstory, that they were talking
about little pieces of whatcompounded together into a
completely new science, a newview of the world.
And so I wrote that up, and thatbecame my book, the field.
SPEAKER_00 (03:51):
For people who are new to this, what did you
discover the field is?
And how does that touch people'severyday life?
SPEAKER_02 (03:58):
Okay, well, we are told by mainstream science that
we are all separate entities,well-behaved entities, and our
subatomic particles are likelittle billiard bowls, but
they're all very separate.
And as I say, well-behavedbecause they and everything else
(04:20):
in the world operates accordingto fixed laws in time and space.
That's what we're told.
The new science demonstratesthat we are not separate, that
at the subatomic level, we areall part of a giant quantum
energy field, and that oursubatomic particles are actually
(04:41):
trading energy back and forthwith this field, almost like a
subatomic uh game of tennis.
So all our little subatomicparticles are playing tennis
with other subatomic particles,and in that energy exchange, it
gives rise to this giant field,which is so energy dense that if
(05:04):
you sat a yard away from me, ameter away from me, the energy
between us in empty space wouldbe enough to boil all the oceans
in the world.
So that's how powerful thisfield is.
But there are two very bigimplications here.
Number one, a field is made upof, as I say, subatomic
(05:27):
particles, which are also waves,which go on to infinity, but
they're also capable of uhcarrying almost an infinite
capacity to store information.
So if you took the AmericanLibrary of Congress, which has
every book written in English,and you put it into a subatomic
(05:51):
wave, it would fit in the sizeof a sugar cube.
So that's how much informationthis can store.
So imagine this field out there,which has basically all the
information that ever was, andalso goes on to infinity,
meaning it's a wonderfulmechanism by which we can
(06:15):
understand that we can accessinformation beyond our senses.
So this revealed to me, and thiswasn't, I'm not talking woo-woo,
I'm talking about scientistsfrom Princeton, UCLA, and so
forth, you know, prestigiousscientists doing this work.
This revealed to me that we arefar greater than we've been
(06:39):
told.
And also, as I've subsequentlylearned, we have far more
capacities than we've been told.
We have abilities to see beyondour senses, we have the ability
to intend and affect physicalreality, ourselves, everything
(06:59):
out there, each other, even theworld.
And we also have abilities toforecast information,
precognition, as it's officiallycalled, and much more.
But these kinds of capacitiesare denied to us.
We get discouraged by the verymaterialistic view of mainstream
(07:21):
science.
But it's now giving way to amuch more interesting paradigm.
And that paradigm, in onesentence, is that we are all
connected.
SPEAKER_00 (07:34):
I mean, that's fascinating to discover that
we're all connected.
I mean, we're all connectedreally by the subatomic
particles.
Is that what you were referringto initially?
SPEAKER_02 (07:44):
Yeah, we are all connected at our nethermost
level.
We're all part of, and mysubatomic particles, as I say,
are constantly doing this energydance.
We don't stay the same all thetime.
We're not just a collection ofchemistry and electrical
signaling.
We're just a vibrating packet ofenergy, and these are different
(08:07):
energies.
It is subatomic quantum energy,it is light energy, it is also
sound energy.
That's something I've justinvestigated, and it's going to
be my new book, The God Notes,coming out next October.
SPEAKER_00 (08:21):
Oh, well, very excited.
Very excited to read that.
I mean, I like to see, you know,give a visual to the audience
who may be listening and think,well, what Lynn's referring to
with the light and the sound, isit's like it moves like waves.
So I like to think of everythingas the ocean constantly
changing, constantly moving.
We don't know or can predictwhat's going to happen next with
(08:43):
the energy.
Um, very exciting.
Absolutely.
So what what so what's the mostother you've you know, you've
you've basically blown ourbrains, you know, in the first
few minutes.
But what's the most fascinatingthing that you've discovered
that you can actually begin tocooperate with the field with
(09:05):
your research?
SPEAKER_02 (09:06):
Oh yeah.
I mean, the the most amazingthing that that occurred to me
and that really changed thetrajectory of my work, was the
unfinished business that I hadleft over from the field, which
was that thoughts are an are anactual something with the
capacity to change physicalmatter.
(09:26):
There were many scientists thatI interviewed for my book, The
Field, that were doing researchinto consciousness and
discovering that thoughts arenot only things, but things that
affect other things.
And that they can affecteverything from single-celled
organisms to full-fledged humanbeings.
(09:47):
So I was fascinated by this, butI started out life as an
investigative reporter.
That was my work in my early20s.
I was going to put bad guys injail.
And I actually, my first bigstory was just that.
I broke a baby selling ring, aninternational baby selling ring
by posing as an unwed mother andthen as a prospective adoptive
(10:11):
parent.
And that became my first book,The Baby Brokers.
But I was going to do that.
So that kind of skepticalinquiry has never left me.
So when I saw this evidenceabout thoughts or things that
affect other things, I wanted tofigure out how far we could take
this.
You know, are we talking about avery subtle effect on a quantum
(10:33):
particle, or are we talkingabout curing cancer with our
thoughts?
And I also was fascinated by theidea of lots of people thinking
the same thought at the sametime.
Would that magnify the effect?
So I decided to write a bookcalled The Intention Experiment,
which was all about the scienceof intention, showing how much
(10:57):
thoughts are things that affectother things, but also an
invitation to take part in a bigexperiment.
I had, after that time, aboutthat time, which was 2007, the
field was in 30 languages bythen.
And I also knew a lot ofscientists.
(11:18):
So I had a lot of readers, and Ialso had knew a lot of
scientists working in this area.
So I thought if I put themtogether, I'll have the biggest
global laboratory in the world.
And that's what I did.
So in 20 in 2007, I startedintention experiments.
I would set up an experimentwith one of these scientists.
(11:40):
I wanted to change scientists.
They were from Princeton,University of Arizona, Penn
State, um, University ofCalifornia, a variety of
universities in Europe.
And I wanted to change it up soI wouldn't just work with one
scientist.
But we started doing experimentsand starting small, just trying
(12:05):
to make change the subtleeffects of a leaf, and we moved
on to trying to make seeds growfaster, purifying water.
SPEAKER_00 (12:14):
So so with the leaf.
But what were you what was theintention behind the leaf?
So how many people do you havein this experiment?
And then what what's yourintention?
And then what what was theresult?
I mean.
SPEAKER_02 (12:27):
Okay.
So with that, we had we decidedto do it in front of a live
audience of about 700 in London.
So I set up this experiment withDr.
Gary Schwartz, a notedpsychologist at the University
of Arizona.
And we set up an experiment tohave two leaves, live geranium
(12:49):
leaves, and he had specialequipment to measure a subtle
effect that happens in allliving things, which is it emits
a tiny current of light.
(13:09):
It's the smallest unit of light.
So we had two leaves.
We had the audience choose oneleaf.
We did an intention to increasethe light.
And because we figured we couldmeasure that very easily.
We didn't tell the scientistswhich one.
We had a live stream.
(13:31):
It was we had a live feed intothe the leaf from the University
of Arizona in two cents.
SPEAKER_00 (13:37):
It's one of those sort of clip things that you put
on the side of the leaf.
SPEAKER_02 (13:40):
I think I've seen No, no, no, no, no, no.
No, it was in a light type,serious piece of a kit uh of
equipment that is completelyblack, other than picking up the
light, and also can measure it,count it, and photograph it.
It's the kind of equipment usedto uh to photograph faint light
(14:04):
in outer space.
So this was serious kit.
So afterward, we did ourintention.
We didn't tell the scientistswhether we chose leaf A or B.
And afterward, that was his cue,Dr.
Schwartz's cue, to take the twoleaves, measure the light,
photograph the light, andafterward, when it was all done,
(14:26):
we told him which leaf we hadintended for.
And he said the light was, andhe showed me, the light was so
much brighter in the one sentintention than the other one.
It was almost like, as he putit, the other one had a neglect
effect.
It was like lower than usual.
SPEAKER_01 (14:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (14:45):
So that was the first very simple experiment we
did.
But we moved on to things likeseeds.
And with that experiment, I wasgoing to be in Sydney,
Australia, giving a lecture.
And so we decided to do seeds totry to make them grow faster.
And this time we had four setsof seeds.
(15:06):
So one experimental batch andthree sets of controls, 30 seeds
each, labeled A, B, C, or D.
They photographed the seeds,they sent them to us.
Um, I asked my audience tochoose one set.
We sent intention to make itgrow a certain amount by a
certain number of days.
(15:28):
I didn't tell the scientistswhich seeds.
After we were done, I told themwe're done.
That was their cue to plant theseeds.
They measured them four dayslater, and that was at that
point, they measured seedlings,and that was the time when I
could unblind the study and say,well, it was seeds A or
whichever one it was.
(15:49):
It turned out the seeds thatwere sent intention grew
significantly higher thancontrols.
And we ran it five more times indifferent in front of different
audiences, and then one timewith my audience around the
world on the internet and withdifferent sized audiences and
(16:09):
different locations, because wedid it in New York, Rhinebeck,
New York, and South Carolina, inDallas, Texas, in California,
and then over the internet.
And every single time the seedssent intention grew
significantly higher thancontrols.
So just think about this for asecond.
(16:31):
The first experiment.
I'm in Sydney, Australia, withmy audience.
The seeds are sitting in a labin Tucson, Arizona, 8,000 miles
away.
Plus, we're not sendingintention to the seeds, we're
sending intention to aphotograph of the seeds.
Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00 (16:52):
Symbolic representations.
And to do a study on that, whichis a photograph, not the actual
thing, and a fact.
This is this is what I'm sure inscience you call it non-local.
SPEAKER_02 (17:06):
It is non-local.
And what I what I was alsoamazed about is the whole idea
of a psychic internet, becauseit also worked when we did it
with people scattered around theglobe just participating with me
on my website from their owncomputer screen, and yet we had
(17:27):
an effect.
So that was an extraordinarystatement, in my view, about the
nature of consciousness, that itisn't local, it doesn't have to
be localized, but somethingabout a group intention seems to
magnify it.
And so that was probablymind-blowing.
(17:49):
And we but we moved on to moresophisticated targets, for
instance, lowering violence inwar-torn areas or violent areas.
And I'll give you, we've we'vedone about 10 or 11 of them,
including one last February.
No, all the way up to thepresent.
(18:10):
We've done 42 intentionexperiments to date.
Not only those seeds and water,um, but also lowering violence
in violent or war torn areas,and even healing someone with
post-traumatic stress disorder.
And of those 42, 38 have shownmeasurable, positive, mostly
(18:31):
significant effects.
So just to compare that, thereis no pharmaceutical drug out
there with that kind ofconsistent track record.
So I'll give you an example ofone of the most interesting ones
about lowering violence.
We did one a few years ago tolower violence in the officially
(18:57):
most violent place in America,which is St.
Louis, Missouri.
And we chose the most violentneighborhood.
It's an area of St.
Louis called Fairground.
Now, this was an easy one to dobecause the police keep very
good records there.
So we could go back and takeinformation from about three
(19:18):
years ago and then create atimeline of what should happen
if violence carried on the wayit was.
And for this experiment, Iworked with a professor of
statistics called Dr.
Jessica Oates from theUniversity of California, who
has done a great deal of studyinto consciousness research.
(19:38):
But she was also very, veryneutral about looking at the
data.
So we looked at, we did theexperiment, and then we had
people wait for six months whilewe waited to see how it was
going to pan out.
That's always a frustration withan experiment like this.
(19:58):
You've got to wait six months.
So we did.
We waited six months and thendid the measurements and found
violence had been going up allover St.
Louis and it continued to go up: violent crime and property (20:07):
undefined
crime.
But in fairground, the object ofour intention, while property
crime continued to go up,violent crime, the object of our
intention, went down by 43%.
Now we just did an experimentlast February for Washington,
(20:29):
D.C., the three most violentareas in Washington, D.C., and
we focused on them.
Um and then we patiently waited.
And we also said we hoped thatthat some of the peaceful, um,
the peace would have to crossthe river because these three
(20:50):
areas sat right across the riverfrom the Capitol building.
So we did a measurement and wechose these three wards of the
eight wards in Washington, andwe found that we did it February
1st, and I was live at Gaia, uh,their headquarters, and also I
(21:10):
had an audience of 300.
And we found that violence inour target areas went down as
much as 53 percent immediatelyafter our intention.
SPEAKER_00 (21:24):
And how many people were in the intention
experiment?
SPEAKER_02 (21:27):
Probably about 10,000.
SPEAKER_00 (21:29):
Wow, a lot of people, it's an amazing amount
of people.
SPEAKER_02 (21:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (21:33):
So can I just say something that I sort of I look
for patterns?
I like looking at patterns.
I see patterns everywhere, and Ifind it interesting that the
Capitol building, also nearby inthose three neighborhoods,
really tough, hard areas, right?
It's interesting that because Isee energy everywhere and I see
(21:53):
that you can't energy doesn'tlie, you know.
And I'm just thinking if there'sa lot of resistance, you feel it
in the air.
That's why also when you get agood feeling and you know that
you're in a good place, right?
So yeah, yeah, and well, I'mfascinated that you could
measure these experiments andsee such a decline, which is
beautiful because it kind ofmakes makes me want to ask the
next question (22:15):
what else can we do, you know, as a global family
to be able to help the planet?
You know, if you've gone from aseed, sorry, a seed to a
seedling to a leaf to an air toan area and it goes bigger, how
can we help this beautifulplanet that you know we dwell
(22:35):
on?
SPEAKER_02 (22:36):
Okay, so this is what I found that was most
interesting.
Since 2008, when I did my firstpeace intention experiment, I
have surveyed the participants.
So I did it mainly to find outwere they able to come onto my
website?
Because with so many peoplecoming on at the same time, I
(22:56):
used to run them on my website.
Sometimes that would create atraffic jam on the website.
So it was mainly to find out howthe experience was for them.
So I asked them, and I wasastonished by what I got back
because I just wanted to knowwell, how was that as an
experience for you?
(23:17):
And what I got back was thisnumber one, they were reporting
in the thousands that theirrelationships had improved, that
they were making up withestranged partners or strange
parents or children, that theywere getting along better with
not very nice bosses orneighbors they didn't like.
(23:40):
50%, which was amazing, 50%, andthey consistently say this, they
feel more love for everyone theycome in contact with.
Essentially, they're huggingstrangers.
Then the other thing I found wasabout a third to 40% report
every single time that a healthcondition of theirs is either
(24:03):
very improved or completelyhealed.
So this amazed me.
And then I started thinkingthere has to be some sort of
mirror effect.
So I in the last experiment, weactually tried to measure it.
So that February 1st, Washingtonexperiment, I had an audience of
(24:26):
about 300 in the audience, andthen the rest of the people were
live streamed.
So of the audience, we askedpeople to randomly volunteer to
be measured before andafterward.
So what we did was measure theirstress and autonomic nervous
system levels.
(24:46):
Now, the autonomic nervoussystem runs everything in the
body, it makes it, it's thebiggest nerve in our body,
starts in our neck.
Um, the it's called the vagusnerve, and it runs the whole
system.
And that is the sympatheticnervous system, fight or flight,
or its opposite number, theparasympathetic nervous system,
(25:08):
which is rest and digest.
And all of these things go onwithout our conscious awareness.
But we're all on sympatheticnervous system dominance right
now, based on all of the thingshappening in the world.
We're all pretty freaked out bynow.
And so what we discovered is ofour 44 volunteers, yeah, they
(25:30):
had huge sympathetic nervoussystem dominance.
But after taking part in theexperiment, their nervous
systems pretty much balanced.
So that could account for somany of the healings we've seen.
I mean, of the survey of theWashington, D.C.
(25:51):
people, we have a guy who waslosing his sight and his
hearing.
They're both back.
We had another woman who has athing called thrombocytopenia.
She doesn't have enough redblood cells.
And they were her plateletcount, she doesn't have enough
platelets, her platelet counthad really increased.
(26:14):
We have people with mentalissues like depression, even
psychosis, that were wellimproved, and on and on and on,
and I hear this over and overand over again.
So the other thing thatfascinates me about these
experiments is the infectiousnature of this kind of healing
(26:36):
and positivity, and also theinfectious nature of an
altruistic act, because that'swhat coming on, doing an
intention to heal Washington,D.C.
or anything else is analtruistic act.
And I was fascinated by workfrom Harvard, now Yale, a
scientist called NicholasChristakis, who is a sociologist
(27:00):
who studies social networks, hehas found that happy people are
more likely to have happyfriends, not because um of the
of the self-selecting, theyself-select people to be happy
with, and they only pick happypeople, but because of the
natural spread of happiness.
But the same thing happens withpay it forward activity, with
(27:25):
with um altruistic behavior.
If one person is, if Peter isnice to Paul, Paul is more
likely to be nice to Jane, who'smore likely to be nice to Jim,
who's more likely to be nice toTom.
And so it carries on.
And Peter, Paul, Jane, etc.,keep being nice.
So I did some calculations.
(27:46):
I started figuring, okay, we had10,000, let's say, on the piece
experiment for Washington.
And half of the people reportedthey feel more love for everyone
they feel uh they come incontact with.
So let's start multiplying thatby the number of people we all
know.
Very conservative estimate is100 people.
(28:10):
The standard estimate is about150 people.
If we say that everybody ofthose 5,000 knows 150 people and
it goes three degrees down asocial network, do you know how
many people will affect 15billion people?
That is twice the population ofthe world.
(28:31):
So my interest is, yeah, it'svery cool we can lower
Washington's violence levels,but imagine what we can do
continuing to bring people intothis altruistic work.
We can literally heal the worldjust from the bottom up.
SPEAKER_00 (28:48):
Isn't that beautiful?
And I think you mentionedsomething earlier.
Um, I really want to talk aboutyou, you know, what you're doing
with your masterclass and whatyou're doing with the intention
experiment there.
That's fascinating.
But I just wanted to sort oftouch on this because I don't
know if I read about it throughyour work or I studied it myself
and I kind of worked out themass.
But if you can get the wholeworld thinking and feeling the
(29:12):
whole the same thing, it wasonly a fraction for a shift in
consciousness.
SPEAKER_02 (29:17):
It is from the Transcendental Meditation Group,
and they said, and it was theMaharishi who said you just need
the square root of 1% of peoplemeditating, and that will heal
the world, etc.
Um, it it's it was hisguesstimate.
It was his guesstimate, and it'san interesting idea because
(29:37):
they've done many good studiesshowing when a critical mass of
meditators are meditating, thecrime rate goes down.
SPEAKER_00 (29:45):
Yeah, they did that with in Washington, DC, didn't
they?
Did a study on that, I think byone of your old colleagues.
Uh so that's fascinating aswell.
And I've been meditating forevery day for over 20 years now,
and I've noticed in my space,it's a pretty relaxed, nice
feeling space.
And I'm thinking, wait, is thatme or is that the outside world?
And it's like, and I always lovethis.
(30:06):
I was like, you're always at thecenter of what's going on in
your life, good or bad.
And so when you're doing thesewonderful altruistic
experiments, and you get towitness the act of your altruism
and your intention, you get tobe the benefit and receiver of
the energy that you cast out.
(30:27):
And I love that with your work.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat you're doing with your
masterclass.
SPEAKER_02 (30:32):
Well, from 2008, I decided to shrink the whole
intention experiment down.
What would happen if I just putpeople into small groups?
Would we see the same amazingeffects?
So I did this in Washington, DC,uh one in Chicago in 2008, my
first workshop there.
(30:53):
And we didn't expect there to bemuch effect.
Uh, I put people into groups ofeight.
And I said, Oh, I don't know,maybe I'll put them in groups of
eight or so to my husband andour team.
And my husband's a greatheadline writer, he's also a
journalist, and he said to me, Ilove it, the power of eight.
(31:14):
And that's how we got the name,and that's what it's called, the
power of eight.
Now, we didn't expect there tobe much of an effect, a little
bit like somebody coming upbehind you and giving your back
a little rub.
But we did.
And then the next day, we askedthe people who had been the
subject of the intentions, and Iit was always someone with some
(31:37):
sort of health challenge who waschosen as the subject in each of
these groups.
So we asked them to report onhow everything is, and we were
shocked because we had a womanwho had been really limping in
one day from bad knee arthritis,and that next day she was
walking normally.
And somebody else who had badgut problems said his gut was
(32:00):
normal that day.
Somebody else with depressionsaid it was lifted.
And the most amazing one of all,a woman who had cataracts said
they were about 80% better.
So I was completely freaked outby this.
And I thought, in a sense, thisis going to undermine my serious
work, the intention experiments.
(32:22):
But I kept doing it over theyears and over the years, and I
discovered that these littlegroups are super powerful.
And I started studying andlearning and putting together a
protocol for what maximizestheir effects.
And I have seen tens ofthousands of healings.
(32:45):
I'll give you a couple ofexamples of great no-hopers that
defied the odds, and I've seenthousands of those.
But for instance, Lori McLeod,she was going blind.
She had retinal damage in botheyes.
Doctors could do nothing forher, and they just said you'll
(33:05):
just have to get used to it.
So she had joined my PowerVapemasterclass, intention
masterclass, which is I startedin 2013 or 2015 actually, making
this a year-long course, becauseI thought if I have people for a
whole year, will everything intheir lives begin to heal?
(33:26):
So what I tend to do is I teachpeople live and interactively
for a couple of hours eachSaturday for uh six sessions.
It's what I call intention bootcamp.
So they learn 13 keys tointention mastery and how to
deal with negative intention,how to use intention out there
(33:48):
in the world for everythingthat's a problem for them,
whether it's their finances,their health, their careers,
their relationships, orwhatever, and also how to use it
to get along with anybody, evenpeople you completely disagree
with, and so much more, but alsohow to run these groups.
Then I put people into groupsfor a year in their time zone,
(34:12):
they have to meet virtually, andthey have to do intentions for
each other.
They meet for an hour a week.
And what I find is by the by theend of the year, those who have
religiously followed what Irecommend that they do, and
they've met regularly, prettymuch all of them, in some
(34:33):
fashion, have had majortransformations.
So Lori was one of them.
So she's going blind, nobody cando anything.
Her group does an intention forher.
Guess what?
After one intention, she feelsthis extraordinary energy, and
she gets her eyesight back.
She now has 2020 vision.
SPEAKER_01 (34:54):
Wow.
SPEAKER_02 (34:55):
And no doctor intervention.
Another woman, Lisa Pickle.
SPEAKER_00 (35:00):
No medication, no doctor, no doctor attention.
This is astounding, Lynn.
And it's it's beautiful to it tobe part of what you've been
doing with the intentionexperiment and these
masterclasses.
I mean, it can really savepeople and have 180 turnarounds,
right?
SPEAKER_02 (35:16):
Oh, yeah.
Well, Lisa was another one whowas born with um a genetic uh
deficiency of a particularlyimportant enzyme for her liver.
And her liver was deteriorating,and all doctors could do was
regularly scan it, monitor it.
And they told her it was gettingworse, her spleen was uh
(35:39):
enlarged, and that she was goingto have to be a candidate for a
liver uh uh replacement, a livertransplant soon.
So she joined a group, she didher intention with the group,
one intention, and it's only 10minutes, by the way.
It's not hours like people oftenhave to do with meditation.
10 minutes.
(36:00):
That's all we've ever done forthe intention experiments or the
power of ape groups.
And again, she feels thisamazing energy, this these
lights, et cetera, when she'shalf asleep.
And um, she suddenly feelssomething really important has
gone on.
And she waited a few months, shewent to the doctor, again, no
(36:22):
other intervention.
Two consultants, specialists inliver diseases, reported after
scans that her liver and spleenswere normal, and they've been
normal now for a few years.
So I've seen this over and overagain.
I've seen people um reverseserious diseases or use
(36:44):
intention to work alongsideconventional medicine or to
repair their finances, get outof debt, start businesses.
I mean, we've done all kinds ofhealings for people, and once
again, I see a mirror effect.
There is just as much healingamong the senders as there is
(37:05):
among the receivers.
So when people are doingintention for someone else, they
also get healed.
So it's a big virtuous circle,and I think it's so important
because we're all so lonelythese days.
We don't have connection.
We have we have fewerconnections than we ever have.
(37:28):
You know, we might have onlineconnections, but people don't
get together.
They don't know their neighbors,etc., etc.
I had one of my students saidduring COVID, so we were all
locked down, but I still hadgroups and I was teaching
people, teaching peoplevirtually, of course.
And he said at the end of theyear, I've had more love this
(37:52):
year at the time of COVID thanI've ever had in my life.
I now know what love is.
Just to have a group ofstrangers who've got your back,
who started out as strangers,are now your intention family,
is hugely strengthening.
SPEAKER_00 (38:09):
You know, we need to people can feel very lonely only
because they don't feel likesomeone has got their back.
And then that's it.
And I think as human beings, wewant to feel supported, and
hopefully by like-minded peoplewho also want to have help.
So it's a win-win all around,isn't it?
SPEAKER_02 (38:28):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And we need community.
I mean, one of my books calledThe Bond was all about the fact
that Darwin was wrong.
The whole idea of survival ofthe fittest was wrong, or at
least how people haveinterpreted Darwin.
Darwin, toward the end of hislife, was much more interested
in cooperation.
(38:49):
But, you know, theneo-Darwinists have really
talked about survival genes andselfish genes and all of that.
And it's not true.
We need to belong and connectmore than we need to breathe.
And I noticed that is a bigimportant piece of healing, is
being part of a group, beingbelonging.
(39:10):
And that is a powerful elementof this too.
But also, and most importantly,I guess it is feeling a state of
oneness.
When I talk to people in mymasterclass and power vape
groups around the world, theytalk about getting into an
amazing altered state when theyare in these power vape groups.
(39:33):
And that's because they feel asense of oneness.
So I was so intrigued by this.
I actually did a study of itwith a team of neuroscientists
to find out what went on whenpeople were doing this.
So we did this at LifeUniversity, which is the largest
and most prestigiouschiropractic university in the
(39:55):
world.
And we got a group of studentvolunteers together.
Never done any of this,including meditation before.
And we put an EEG cap on onemember of each group, and we
thought it was going to lookjust like meditation.
And we were shocked to see thatit didn't.
And Dr.
Stephanie Sullivan, who is ranthe study, was completely
(40:19):
surprised.
But what we did see was alowering, instead of a change in
brain waves, a slowering, uhslowing up of brain waves, as
happens in meditation.
Your brain waves or ordinarywaking consciousness slow down.
These were turning off.
The parts of the brain making usfeel separate were dialed way
(40:42):
down.
So the parietal lobes, they sithere.
They tell us uh how to navigatethrough space.
This is me, this is not me.
They were dialed way down.
So were the right frontal lobes,the parts of the brain involved
with worry, doubt, negativity,were dialed way down too.
So these were people whose brainwaves didn't look like
(41:06):
meditation, but what they didlook like was almost identical
to work done by the Universityof Pennsylvania, Dr.
Andrew Newberg, a notedneuroscientist, on Sufi masters
during chanting and Buddhistmonks during ecstatic prayer.
So these were people essentiallyin a state of ecstatic oneness.
(41:29):
So we don't get to feel that toooften.
SPEAKER_00 (41:32):
You know, as I said, we're all in your master class,
you might get to feel ecstaticoneness from time to time.
SPEAKER_02 (41:39):
And even putting yourself in a power vape group,
absolutely.
Well, not from time to time.
You feel it in the group whileyou're doing the intention.
We've measured it, as I say,these student novices.
They were total novices, and yetthey were transported within a
minute or two into an alteredstate, a mystical state.
(42:02):
And so I always say that powervape groups are a fast track to
the miraculous.
SPEAKER_00 (42:09):
Amazing.
Lynn, it's been a real joyspeaking with you, very
insightful and so muchinformation.
And what I love most is thatyou're an absolute skeptic at
heart, and you need to get thestudies to show and prove that
what you're doing and whatyou're researching is is valid.
And I think that is wonderful toshare some spiritual aspects,
(42:30):
but meeting it with the science,and I think you do it absolutely
beautifully.
Your life's work is has and willbe changing lives as a beautiful
ripple effect for a long periodof time if we're looking at the
waves and the particles going onfor infinity.
So I like to see your work inthat kind of way.
Just in closing, what's the lastthing you might be able to say
(42:50):
to someone in the audiencelistening today that they might
be able to practice or do umwith some of the things you've
discovered in your work?
SPEAKER_02 (42:59):
Sure.
If I could give you one piece ofadvice on intention.
Number one, understand that youare intending at every moment.
Your brain is not the repositoryof your thoughts.
Your brain is and your thoughtsare not locked inside your head.
They're trespassers.
(43:19):
They go out and they affectpeople and things.
So what you're thinking, all ofthat stuff you're thinking, all
of that flotsum and jetsum, allof those judgments you hold are
also an intention.
So start thinking a little bitmore consciously about what
you're sending out to the world.
And the second piece of advice,when you intend, be specific.
(43:44):
Tell the universe what you want.
Be specific about it.
That's what's worked best withour intention experiments, and
it's what works best in my powerof eight groups.
SPEAKER_00 (43:55):
And those power of eight groups, that mastermind is
going to be in February nextyear, is that right?
In 2026.
SPEAKER_02 (44:02):
Yeah, our power of it's called the Power of Eight
Intention Masterclass.
And it kicks off in February.
So you can find out more aboutit just on my website,
lynnmctaggart.com.
SPEAKER_00 (44:13):
And we'll have all the links underneath this
episode.
Lynn, it's been a real joyspeaking with you.
Thank you for sharing yourknowledge and wisdom.
Lynn is this week's super soulmodel.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (44:23):
Thank you so much.
It's been a joy to be here withyou.
SPEAKER_00 (44:28):
Thanks for tuning in.
And if you've enjoyed thisepisode, remember to subscribe
and share and join ourcommunity.
Until the next episode, wishingyou a wonderful week ahead and
green lights all the way.
Welcome to this episode.
Today I'm speaking with LynnMcTaggart, author of The
Intention Experiment and Powerof Ape, about the transformative
power of intention and how itaffects you.
Get ready for an inspiring andscientific look at how our
thoughts shape reality.
SPEAKER_02 (00:17):
Understand that you are intending at every moment.
Your brain is not the repositoryof your thoughts.
Your brain is and your thoughtsare not locked inside your head.
They're trespassers.
They go out and they affectpeople and things.
So what you're thinking, all ofthat stuff you're thinking, all
(00:38):
of those judgments you hold arealso an intention.
So start thinking a little bitmore consciously about what
you're sending out to the world.
SPEAKER_00 (00:48):
Hello and welcome to the James Gronstrom Podcast
Super Soul Model Series.
Today we are welcomed by a truevisionary, Lynn McTaggart.
Lynn is one of the world'sleading authorities on new
science and consciousness.
Lynn is an award-winning authorof seven books, including The
Field, The Intention Experiment,and The Power of AIDS.
(01:08):
Her works has helped bridge thegap between science and
spirituality, revealing a natureand a universe far more
connected than we've been led tobelieve.
Lynn is consistently listedamongst the world as one of the
top 100 leading spiritualauthorities and leading
influencers.
So it brings me great pleasureto welcome to this episode Lynn
(01:30):
McTaggart.
SPEAKER_02 (01:31):
Thank you so much, James.
It's great to be here with you.
SPEAKER_00 (01:34):
Lynn's work touched my life in a very unexpected way
20 odd years ago.
And I was just saying to Lynnoff camera that I actually won a
ticket to go and see Lynn speakat an event.
And it was about the nature ofconsciousness, something I was
really interested in, havingstudied and read so many books
and watched a wonderful moviethat Lynn was actually in, which
(01:54):
was called What the Bleep Do WeKnow.
And so Lynn's work found its wayinto my life.
And I really hope that you enjoythis episode because Lynn's work
will also, like me, find its wayinto your life.
So, Lynn, how did you get intothe nature of consciousness?
How does someone begin to studythis?
SPEAKER_02 (02:14):
Well, I kind of got hijacked into it, I would say.
I was working with my husband ona newsletter we had launched
called What Doctors Don't TellYou.
And it looks at what works andwhat doesn't work in
conventional and alternativemedicine, mostly what works in
(02:35):
alternative medicine.
And in the course of doing that,this is way back in the 90s, I
kept coming across very goodstudies of a spiritual healing.
And I kept thinking to myself,hold on, that in itself
undermines everything we thinkabout how the world works.
(02:55):
If you can have a thought andsend it to someone else, that
just blows apart our currentparadigm.
So I set out to find out why.
And I was on a journey without acompass.
I didn't know what I was goingto find, but I started talking
to some scientists involved inconsciousness research, and they
(03:20):
revealed to me some of theirwork, and I recognized very
early on that this was a biggerstory, that they were talking
about little pieces of whatcompounded together into a
completely new science, a newview of the world.
And so I wrote that up, and thatbecame my book, the field.
SPEAKER_00 (03:51):
For people who are new to this, what did you
discover the field is?
And how does that touch people'severyday life?
SPEAKER_02 (03:58):
Okay, well, we are told by mainstream science that
we are all separate entities,well-behaved entities, and our
subatomic particles are likelittle billiard bowls, but
they're all very separate.
And as I say, well-behavedbecause they and everything else
(04:20):
in the world operates accordingto fixed laws in time and space.
That's what we're told.
The new science demonstratesthat we are not separate, that
at the subatomic level, we areall part of a giant quantum
energy field, and that oursubatomic particles are actually
(04:41):
trading energy back and forthwith this field, almost like a
subatomic uh game of tennis.
So all our little subatomicparticles are playing tennis
with other subatomic particles,and in that energy exchange, it
gives rise to this giant field,which is so energy dense that if
(05:04):
you sat a yard away from me, ameter away from me, the energy
between us in empty space wouldbe enough to boil all the oceans
in the world.
So that's how powerful thisfield is.
But there are two very bigimplications here.
Number one, a field is made upof, as I say, subatomic
(05:27):
particles, which are also waves,which go on to infinity, but
they're also capable of uhcarrying almost an infinite
capacity to store information.
So if you took the AmericanLibrary of Congress, which has
every book written in English,and you put it into a subatomic
(05:51):
wave, it would fit in the sizeof a sugar cube.
So that's how much informationthis can store.
So imagine this field out there,which has basically all the
information that ever was, andalso goes on to infinity,
meaning it's a wonderfulmechanism by which we can
(06:15):
understand that we can accessinformation beyond our senses.
So this revealed to me, and thiswasn't, I'm not talking woo-woo,
I'm talking about scientistsfrom Princeton, UCLA, and so
forth, you know, prestigiousscientists doing this work.
This revealed to me that we arefar greater than we've been
(06:39):
told.
And also, as I've subsequentlylearned, we have far more
capacities than we've been told.
We have abilities to see beyondour senses, we have the ability
to intend and affect physicalreality, ourselves, everything
(06:59):
out there, each other, even theworld.
And we also have abilities toforecast information,
precognition, as it's officiallycalled, and much more.
But these kinds of capacitiesare denied to us.
We get discouraged by the verymaterialistic view of mainstream
(07:21):
science.
But it's now giving way to amuch more interesting paradigm.
And that paradigm, in onesentence, is that we are all
connected.
SPEAKER_00 (07:34):
I mean, that's fascinating to discover that
we're all connected.
I mean, we're all connectedreally by the subatomic
particles.
Is that what you were referringto initially?
SPEAKER_02 (07:44):
Yeah, we are all connected at our nethermost
level.
We're all part of, and mysubatomic particles, as I say,
are constantly doing this energydance.
We don't stay the same all thetime.
We're not just a collection ofchemistry and electrical
signaling.
We're just a vibrating packet ofenergy, and these are different
(08:07):
energies.
It is subatomic quantum energy,it is light energy, it is also
sound energy.
That's something I've justinvestigated, and it's going to
be my new book, The God Notes,coming out next October.
SPEAKER_00 (08:21):
Oh, well, very excited.
Very excited to read that.
I mean, I like to see, you know,give a visual to the audience
who may be listening and think,well, what Lynn's referring to
with the light and the sound, isit's like it moves like waves.
So I like to think of everythingas the ocean constantly
changing, constantly moving.
We don't know or can predictwhat's going to happen next with
(08:43):
the energy.
Um, very exciting.
Absolutely.
So what what so what's the mostother you've you know, you've
you've basically blown ourbrains, you know, in the first
few minutes.
But what's the most fascinatingthing that you've discovered
that you can actually begin tocooperate with the field with
(09:05):
your research?
SPEAKER_02 (09:06):
Oh yeah.
I mean, the the most amazingthing that that occurred to me
and that really changed thetrajectory of my work, was the
unfinished business that I hadleft over from the field, which
was that thoughts are an are anactual something with the
capacity to change physicalmatter.
(09:26):
There were many scientists thatI interviewed for my book, The
Field, that were doing researchinto consciousness and
discovering that thoughts arenot only things, but things that
affect other things.
And that they can affecteverything from single-celled
organisms to full-fledged humanbeings.
(09:47):
So I was fascinated by this, butI started out life as an
investigative reporter.
That was my work in my early20s.
I was going to put bad guys injail.
And I actually, my first bigstory was just that.
I broke a baby selling ring, aninternational baby selling ring
by posing as an unwed mother andthen as a prospective adoptive
(10:11):
parent.
And that became my first book,The Baby Brokers.
But I was going to do that.
So that kind of skepticalinquiry has never left me.
So when I saw this evidenceabout thoughts or things that
affect other things, I wanted tofigure out how far we could take
this.
You know, are we talking about avery subtle effect on a quantum
(10:33):
particle, or are we talkingabout curing cancer with our
thoughts?
And I also was fascinated by theidea of lots of people thinking
the same thought at the sametime.
Would that magnify the effect?
So I decided to write a bookcalled The Intention Experiment,
which was all about the scienceof intention, showing how much
(10:57):
thoughts are things that affectother things, but also an
invitation to take part in a bigexperiment.
I had, after that time, aboutthat time, which was 2007, the
field was in 30 languages bythen.
And I also knew a lot ofscientists.
(11:18):
So I had a lot of readers, and Ialso had knew a lot of
scientists working in this area.
So I thought if I put themtogether, I'll have the biggest
global laboratory in the world.
And that's what I did.
So in 20 in 2007, I startedintention experiments.
I would set up an experimentwith one of these scientists.
(11:40):
I wanted to change scientists.
They were from Princeton,University of Arizona, Penn
State, um, University ofCalifornia, a variety of
universities in Europe.
And I wanted to change it up soI wouldn't just work with one
scientist.
But we started doing experimentsand starting small, just trying
(12:05):
to make change the subtleeffects of a leaf, and we moved
on to trying to make seeds growfaster, purifying water.
SPEAKER_00 (12:14):
So so with the leaf.
But what were you what was theintention behind the leaf?
So how many people do you havein this experiment?
And then what what's yourintention?
And then what what was theresult?
I mean.
SPEAKER_02 (12:27):
Okay.
So with that, we had we decidedto do it in front of a live
audience of about 700 in London.
So I set up this experiment withDr.
Gary Schwartz, a notedpsychologist at the University
of Arizona.
And we set up an experiment tohave two leaves, live geranium
(12:49):
leaves, and he had specialequipment to measure a subtle
effect that happens in allliving things, which is it emits
a tiny current of light.
(13:09):
It's the smallest unit of light.
So we had two leaves.
We had the audience choose oneleaf.
We did an intention to increasethe light.
And because we figured we couldmeasure that very easily.
We didn't tell the scientistswhich one.
We had a live stream.
(13:31):
It was we had a live feed intothe the leaf from the University
of Arizona in two cents.
SPEAKER_00 (13:37):
It's one of those sort of clip things that you put
on the side of the leaf.
SPEAKER_02 (13:40):
I think I've seen No, no, no, no, no, no.
No, it was in a light type,serious piece of a kit uh of
equipment that is completelyblack, other than picking up the
light, and also can measure it,count it, and photograph it.
It's the kind of equipment usedto uh to photograph faint light
(14:04):
in outer space.
So this was serious kit.
So afterward, we did ourintention.
We didn't tell the scientistswhether we chose leaf A or B.
And afterward, that was his cue,Dr.
Schwartz's cue, to take the twoleaves, measure the light,
photograph the light, andafterward, when it was all done,
(14:26):
we told him which leaf we hadintended for.
And he said the light was, andhe showed me, the light was so
much brighter in the one sentintention than the other one.
It was almost like, as he putit, the other one had a neglect
effect.
It was like lower than usual.
SPEAKER_01 (14:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (14:45):
So that was the first very simple experiment we
did.
But we moved on to things likeseeds.
And with that experiment, I wasgoing to be in Sydney,
Australia, giving a lecture.
And so we decided to do seeds totry to make them grow faster.
And this time we had four setsof seeds.
(15:06):
So one experimental batch andthree sets of controls, 30 seeds
each, labeled A, B, C, or D.
They photographed the seeds,they sent them to us.
Um, I asked my audience tochoose one set.
We sent intention to make itgrow a certain amount by a
certain number of days.
(15:28):
I didn't tell the scientistswhich seeds.
After we were done, I told themwe're done.
That was their cue to plant theseeds.
They measured them four dayslater, and that was at that
point, they measured seedlings,and that was the time when I
could unblind the study and say,well, it was seeds A or
whichever one it was.
(15:49):
It turned out the seeds thatwere sent intention grew
significantly higher thancontrols.
And we ran it five more times indifferent in front of different
audiences, and then one timewith my audience around the
world on the internet and withdifferent sized audiences and
(16:09):
different locations, because wedid it in New York, Rhinebeck,
New York, and South Carolina, inDallas, Texas, in California,
and then over the internet.
And every single time the seedssent intention grew
significantly higher thancontrols.
So just think about this for asecond.
(16:31):
The first experiment.
I'm in Sydney, Australia, withmy audience.
The seeds are sitting in a labin Tucson, Arizona, 8,000 miles
away.
Plus, we're not sendingintention to the seeds, we're
sending intention to aphotograph of the seeds.
Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00 (16:52):
Symbolic representations.
And to do a study on that, whichis a photograph, not the actual
thing, and a fact.
This is this is what I'm sure inscience you call it non-local.
SPEAKER_02 (17:06):
It is non-local.
And what I what I was alsoamazed about is the whole idea
of a psychic internet, becauseit also worked when we did it
with people scattered around theglobe just participating with me
on my website from their owncomputer screen, and yet we had
(17:27):
an effect.
So that was an extraordinarystatement, in my view, about the
nature of consciousness, that itisn't local, it doesn't have to
be localized, but somethingabout a group intention seems to
magnify it.
And so that was probablymind-blowing.
(17:49):
And we but we moved on to moresophisticated targets, for
instance, lowering violence inwar-torn areas or violent areas.
And I'll give you, we've we'vedone about 10 or 11 of them,
including one last February.
No, all the way up to thepresent.
(18:10):
We've done 42 intentionexperiments to date.
Not only those seeds and water,um, but also lowering violence
in violent or war torn areas,and even healing someone with
post-traumatic stress disorder.
And of those 42, 38 have shownmeasurable, positive, mostly
(18:31):
significant effects.
So just to compare that, thereis no pharmaceutical drug out
there with that kind ofconsistent track record.
So I'll give you an example ofone of the most interesting ones
about lowering violence.
We did one a few years ago tolower violence in the officially
(18:57):
most violent place in America,which is St.
Louis, Missouri.
And we chose the most violentneighborhood.
It's an area of St.
Louis called Fairground.
Now, this was an easy one to dobecause the police keep very
good records there.
So we could go back and takeinformation from about three
(19:18):
years ago and then create atimeline of what should happen
if violence carried on the wayit was.
And for this experiment, Iworked with a professor of
statistics called Dr.
Jessica Oates from theUniversity of California, who
has done a great deal of studyinto consciousness research.
(19:38):
But she was also very, veryneutral about looking at the
data.
So we looked at, we did theexperiment, and then we had
people wait for six months whilewe waited to see how it was
going to pan out.
That's always a frustration withan experiment like this.
(19:58):
You've got to wait six months.
So we did.
We waited six months and thendid the measurements and found
violence had been going up allover St.
Louis and it continued to go up: violent crime and property (20:07):
undefined
crime.
But in fairground, the object ofour intention, while property
crime continued to go up,violent crime, the object of our
intention, went down by 43%.
Now we just did an experimentlast February for Washington,
(20:29):
D.C., the three most violentareas in Washington, D.C., and
we focused on them.
Um and then we patiently waited.
And we also said we hoped thatthat some of the peaceful, um,
the peace would have to crossthe river because these three
(20:50):
areas sat right across the riverfrom the Capitol building.
So we did a measurement and wechose these three wards of the
eight wards in Washington, andwe found that we did it February
1st, and I was live at Gaia, uh,their headquarters, and also I
(21:10):
had an audience of 300.
And we found that violence inour target areas went down as
much as 53 percent immediatelyafter our intention.
SPEAKER_00 (21:24):
And how many people were in the intention
experiment?
SPEAKER_02 (21:27):
Probably about 10,000.
SPEAKER_00 (21:29):
Wow, a lot of people, it's an amazing amount
of people.
SPEAKER_02 (21:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (21:33):
So can I just say something that I sort of I look
for patterns?
I like looking at patterns.
I see patterns everywhere, and Ifind it interesting that the
Capitol building, also nearby inthose three neighborhoods,
really tough, hard areas, right?
It's interesting that because Isee energy everywhere and I see
(21:53):
that you can't energy doesn'tlie, you know.
And I'm just thinking if there'sa lot of resistance, you feel it
in the air.
That's why also when you get agood feeling and you know that
you're in a good place, right?
So yeah, yeah, and well, I'mfascinated that you could
measure these experiments andsee such a decline, which is
beautiful because it kind ofmakes makes me want to ask the
next question (22:15):
what else can we do, you know, as a global family
to be able to help the planet?
You know, if you've gone from aseed, sorry, a seed to a
seedling to a leaf to an air toan area and it goes bigger, how
can we help this beautifulplanet that you know we dwell
(22:35):
on?
SPEAKER_02 (22:36):
Okay, so this is what I found that was most
interesting.
Since 2008, when I did my firstpeace intention experiment, I
have surveyed the participants.
So I did it mainly to find outwere they able to come onto my
website?
Because with so many peoplecoming on at the same time, I
(22:56):
used to run them on my website.
Sometimes that would create atraffic jam on the website.
So it was mainly to find out howthe experience was for them.
So I asked them, and I wasastonished by what I got back
because I just wanted to knowwell, how was that as an
experience for you?
(23:17):
And what I got back was thisnumber one, they were reporting
in the thousands that theirrelationships had improved, that
they were making up withestranged partners or strange
parents or children, that theywere getting along better with
not very nice bosses orneighbors they didn't like.
(23:40):
50%, which was amazing, 50%, andthey consistently say this, they
feel more love for everyone theycome in contact with.
Essentially, they're huggingstrangers.
Then the other thing I found wasabout a third to 40% report
every single time that a healthcondition of theirs is either
(24:03):
very improved or completelyhealed.
So this amazed me.
And then I started thinkingthere has to be some sort of
mirror effect.
So I in the last experiment, weactually tried to measure it.
So that February 1st, Washingtonexperiment, I had an audience of
(24:26):
about 300 in the audience, andthen the rest of the people were
live streamed.
So of the audience, we askedpeople to randomly volunteer to
be measured before andafterward.
So what we did was measure theirstress and autonomic nervous
system levels.
(24:46):
Now, the autonomic nervoussystem runs everything in the
body, it makes it, it's thebiggest nerve in our body,
starts in our neck.
Um, the it's called the vagusnerve, and it runs the whole
system.
And that is the sympatheticnervous system, fight or flight,
or its opposite number, theparasympathetic nervous system,
(25:08):
which is rest and digest.
And all of these things go onwithout our conscious awareness.
But we're all on sympatheticnervous system dominance right
now, based on all of the thingshappening in the world.
We're all pretty freaked out bynow.
And so what we discovered is ofour 44 volunteers, yeah, they
(25:30):
had huge sympathetic nervoussystem dominance.
But after taking part in theexperiment, their nervous
systems pretty much balanced.
So that could account for somany of the healings we've seen.
I mean, of the survey of theWashington, D.C.
(25:51):
people, we have a guy who waslosing his sight and his
hearing.
They're both back.
We had another woman who has athing called thrombocytopenia.
She doesn't have enough redblood cells.
And they were her plateletcount, she doesn't have enough
platelets, her platelet counthad really increased.
(26:14):
We have people with mentalissues like depression, even
psychosis, that were wellimproved, and on and on and on,
and I hear this over and overand over again.
So the other thing thatfascinates me about these
experiments is the infectiousnature of this kind of healing
(26:36):
and positivity, and also theinfectious nature of an
altruistic act, because that'swhat coming on, doing an
intention to heal Washington,D.C.
or anything else is analtruistic act.
And I was fascinated by workfrom Harvard, now Yale, a
scientist called NicholasChristakis, who is a sociologist
(27:00):
who studies social networks, hehas found that happy people are
more likely to have happyfriends, not because um of the
of the self-selecting, theyself-select people to be happy
with, and they only pick happypeople, but because of the
natural spread of happiness.
But the same thing happens withpay it forward activity, with
(27:25):
with um altruistic behavior.
If one person is, if Peter isnice to Paul, Paul is more
likely to be nice to Jane, who'smore likely to be nice to Jim,
who's more likely to be nice toTom.
And so it carries on.
And Peter, Paul, Jane, etc.,keep being nice.
So I did some calculations.
(27:46):
I started figuring, okay, we had10,000, let's say, on the piece
experiment for Washington.
And half of the people reportedthey feel more love for everyone
they feel uh they come incontact with.
So let's start multiplying thatby the number of people we all
know.
Very conservative estimate is100 people.
(28:10):
The standard estimate is about150 people.
If we say that everybody ofthose 5,000 knows 150 people and
it goes three degrees down asocial network, do you know how
many people will affect 15billion people?
That is twice the population ofthe world.
(28:31):
So my interest is, yeah, it'svery cool we can lower
Washington's violence levels,but imagine what we can do
continuing to bring people intothis altruistic work.
We can literally heal the worldjust from the bottom up.
SPEAKER_00 (28:48):
Isn't that beautiful?
And I think you mentionedsomething earlier.
Um, I really want to talk aboutyou, you know, what you're doing
with your masterclass and whatyou're doing with the intention
experiment there.
That's fascinating.
But I just wanted to sort oftouch on this because I don't
know if I read about it throughyour work or I studied it myself
and I kind of worked out themass.
But if you can get the wholeworld thinking and feeling the
(29:12):
whole the same thing, it wasonly a fraction for a shift in
consciousness.
SPEAKER_02 (29:17):
It is from the Transcendental Meditation Group,
and they said, and it was theMaharishi who said you just need
the square root of 1% of peoplemeditating, and that will heal
the world, etc.
Um, it it's it was hisguesstimate.
It was his guesstimate, and it'san interesting idea because
(29:37):
they've done many good studiesshowing when a critical mass of
meditators are meditating, thecrime rate goes down.
SPEAKER_00 (29:45):
Yeah, they did that with in Washington, DC, didn't
they?
Did a study on that, I think byone of your old colleagues.
Uh so that's fascinating aswell.
And I've been meditating forevery day for over 20 years now,
and I've noticed in my space,it's a pretty relaxed, nice
feeling space.
And I'm thinking, wait, is thatme or is that the outside world?
And it's like, and I always lovethis.
(30:06):
I was like, you're always at thecenter of what's going on in
your life, good or bad.
And so when you're doing thesewonderful altruistic
experiments, and you get towitness the act of your altruism
and your intention, you get tobe the benefit and receiver of
the energy that you cast out.
(30:27):
And I love that with your work.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat you're doing with your
masterclass.
SPEAKER_02 (30:32):
Well, from 2008, I decided to shrink the whole
intention experiment down.
What would happen if I just putpeople into small groups?
Would we see the same amazingeffects?
So I did this in Washington, DC,uh one in Chicago in 2008, my
first workshop there.
(30:53):
And we didn't expect there to bemuch effect.
Uh, I put people into groups ofeight.
And I said, Oh, I don't know,maybe I'll put them in groups of
eight or so to my husband andour team.
And my husband's a greatheadline writer, he's also a
journalist, and he said to me, Ilove it, the power of eight.
(31:14):
And that's how we got the name,and that's what it's called, the
power of eight.
Now, we didn't expect there tobe much of an effect, a little
bit like somebody coming upbehind you and giving your back
a little rub.
But we did.
And then the next day, we askedthe people who had been the
subject of the intentions, and Iit was always someone with some
(31:37):
sort of health challenge who waschosen as the subject in each of
these groups.
So we asked them to report onhow everything is, and we were
shocked because we had a womanwho had been really limping in
one day from bad knee arthritis,and that next day she was
walking normally.
And somebody else who had badgut problems said his gut was
(32:00):
normal that day.
Somebody else with depressionsaid it was lifted.
And the most amazing one of all,a woman who had cataracts said
they were about 80% better.
So I was completely freaked outby this.
And I thought, in a sense, thisis going to undermine my serious
work, the intention experiments.
(32:22):
But I kept doing it over theyears and over the years, and I
discovered that these littlegroups are super powerful.
And I started studying andlearning and putting together a
protocol for what maximizestheir effects.
And I have seen tens ofthousands of healings.
(32:45):
I'll give you a couple ofexamples of great no-hopers that
defied the odds, and I've seenthousands of those.
But for instance, Lori McLeod,she was going blind.
She had retinal damage in botheyes.
Doctors could do nothing forher, and they just said you'll
(33:05):
just have to get used to it.
So she had joined my PowerVapemasterclass, intention
masterclass, which is I startedin 2013 or 2015 actually, making
this a year-long course, becauseI thought if I have people for a
whole year, will everything intheir lives begin to heal?
(33:26):
So what I tend to do is I teachpeople live and interactively
for a couple of hours eachSaturday for uh six sessions.
It's what I call intention bootcamp.
So they learn 13 keys tointention mastery and how to
deal with negative intention,how to use intention out there
(33:48):
in the world for everythingthat's a problem for them,
whether it's their finances,their health, their careers,
their relationships, orwhatever, and also how to use it
to get along with anybody, evenpeople you completely disagree
with, and so much more, but alsohow to run these groups.
Then I put people into groupsfor a year in their time zone,
(34:12):
they have to meet virtually, andthey have to do intentions for
each other.
They meet for an hour a week.
And what I find is by the by theend of the year, those who have
religiously followed what Irecommend that they do, and
they've met regularly, prettymuch all of them, in some
(34:33):
fashion, have had majortransformations.
So Lori was one of them.
So she's going blind, nobody cando anything.
Her group does an intention forher.
Guess what?
After one intention, she feelsthis extraordinary energy, and
she gets her eyesight back.
She now has 2020 vision.
SPEAKER_01 (34:54):
Wow.
SPEAKER_02 (34:55):
And no doctor intervention.
Another woman, Lisa Pickle.
SPEAKER_00 (35:00):
No medication, no doctor, no doctor attention.
This is astounding, Lynn.
And it's it's beautiful to it tobe part of what you've been
doing with the intentionexperiment and these
masterclasses.
I mean, it can really savepeople and have 180 turnarounds,
right?
SPEAKER_02 (35:16):
Oh, yeah.
Well, Lisa was another one whowas born with um a genetic uh
deficiency of a particularlyimportant enzyme for her liver.
And her liver was deteriorating,and all doctors could do was
regularly scan it, monitor it.
And they told her it was gettingworse, her spleen was uh
(35:39):
enlarged, and that she was goingto have to be a candidate for a
liver uh uh replacement, a livertransplant soon.
So she joined a group, she didher intention with the group,
one intention, and it's only 10minutes, by the way.
It's not hours like people oftenhave to do with meditation.
10 minutes.
(36:00):
That's all we've ever done forthe intention experiments or the
power of ape groups.
And again, she feels thisamazing energy, this these
lights, et cetera, when she'shalf asleep.
And um, she suddenly feelssomething really important has
gone on.
And she waited a few months, shewent to the doctor, again, no
(36:22):
other intervention.
Two consultants, specialists inliver diseases, reported after
scans that her liver and spleenswere normal, and they've been
normal now for a few years.
So I've seen this over and overagain.
I've seen people um reverseserious diseases or use
(36:44):
intention to work alongsideconventional medicine or to
repair their finances, get outof debt, start businesses.
I mean, we've done all kinds ofhealings for people, and once
again, I see a mirror effect.
There is just as much healingamong the senders as there is
(37:05):
among the receivers.
So when people are doingintention for someone else, they
also get healed.
So it's a big virtuous circle,and I think it's so important
because we're all so lonelythese days.
We don't have connection.
We have we have fewerconnections than we ever have.
(37:28):
You know, we might have onlineconnections, but people don't
get together.
They don't know their neighbors,etc., etc.
I had one of my students saidduring COVID, so we were all
locked down, but I still hadgroups and I was teaching
people, teaching peoplevirtually, of course.
And he said at the end of theyear, I've had more love this
(37:52):
year at the time of COVID thanI've ever had in my life.
I now know what love is.
Just to have a group ofstrangers who've got your back,
who started out as strangers,are now your intention family,
is hugely strengthening.
SPEAKER_00 (38:09):
You know, we need to people can feel very lonely only
because they don't feel likesomeone has got their back.
And then that's it.
And I think as human beings, wewant to feel supported, and
hopefully by like-minded peoplewho also want to have help.
So it's a win-win all around,isn't it?
SPEAKER_02 (38:28):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And we need community.
I mean, one of my books calledThe Bond was all about the fact
that Darwin was wrong.
The whole idea of survival ofthe fittest was wrong, or at
least how people haveinterpreted Darwin.
Darwin, toward the end of hislife, was much more interested
in cooperation.
(38:49):
But, you know, theneo-Darwinists have really
talked about survival genes andselfish genes and all of that.
And it's not true.
We need to belong and connectmore than we need to breathe.
And I noticed that is a bigimportant piece of healing, is
being part of a group, beingbelonging.
(39:10):
And that is a powerful elementof this too.
But also, and most importantly,I guess it is feeling a state of
oneness.
When I talk to people in mymasterclass and power vape
groups around the world, theytalk about getting into an
amazing altered state when theyare in these power vape groups.
(39:33):
And that's because they feel asense of oneness.
So I was so intrigued by this.
I actually did a study of itwith a team of neuroscientists
to find out what went on whenpeople were doing this.
So we did this at LifeUniversity, which is the largest
and most prestigiouschiropractic university in the
(39:55):
world.
And we got a group of studentvolunteers together.
Never done any of this,including meditation before.
And we put an EEG cap on onemember of each group, and we
thought it was going to lookjust like meditation.
And we were shocked to see thatit didn't.
And Dr.
Stephanie Sullivan, who is ranthe study, was completely
(40:19):
surprised.
But what we did see was alowering, instead of a change in
brain waves, a slowering, uhslowing up of brain waves, as
happens in meditation.
Your brain waves or ordinarywaking consciousness slow down.
These were turning off.
The parts of the brain making usfeel separate were dialed way
(40:42):
down.
So the parietal lobes, they sithere.
They tell us uh how to navigatethrough space.
This is me, this is not me.
They were dialed way down.
So were the right frontal lobes,the parts of the brain involved
with worry, doubt, negativity,were dialed way down too.
So these were people whose brainwaves didn't look like
(41:06):
meditation, but what they didlook like was almost identical
to work done by the Universityof Pennsylvania, Dr.
Andrew Newberg, a notedneuroscientist, on Sufi masters
during chanting and Buddhistmonks during ecstatic prayer.
So these were people essentiallyin a state of ecstatic oneness.
(41:29):
So we don't get to feel that toooften.
SPEAKER_00 (41:32):
You know, as I said, we're all in your master class,
you might get to feel ecstaticoneness from time to time.
SPEAKER_02 (41:39):
And even putting yourself in a power vape group,
absolutely.
Well, not from time to time.
You feel it in the group whileyou're doing the intention.
We've measured it, as I say,these student novices.
They were total novices, and yetthey were transported within a
minute or two into an alteredstate, a mystical state.
(42:02):
And so I always say that powervape groups are a fast track to
the miraculous.
SPEAKER_00 (42:09):
Amazing.
Lynn, it's been a real joyspeaking with you, very
insightful and so muchinformation.
And what I love most is thatyou're an absolute skeptic at
heart, and you need to get thestudies to show and prove that
what you're doing and whatyou're researching is is valid.
And I think that is wonderful toshare some spiritual aspects,
(42:30):
but meeting it with the science,and I think you do it absolutely
beautifully.
Your life's work is has and willbe changing lives as a beautiful
ripple effect for a long periodof time if we're looking at the
waves and the particles going onfor infinity.
So I like to see your work inthat kind of way.
Just in closing, what's the lastthing you might be able to say
(42:50):
to someone in the audiencelistening today that they might
be able to practice or do umwith some of the things you've
discovered in your work?
SPEAKER_02 (42:59):
Sure.
If I could give you one piece ofadvice on intention.
Number one, understand that youare intending at every moment.
Your brain is not the repositoryof your thoughts.
Your brain is and your thoughtsare not locked inside your head.
They're trespassers.
(43:19):
They go out and they affectpeople and things.
So what you're thinking, all ofthat stuff you're thinking, all
of that flotsum and jetsum, allof those judgments you hold are
also an intention.
So start thinking a little bitmore consciously about what
you're sending out to the world.
And the second piece of advice,when you intend, be specific.
(43:44):
Tell the universe what you want.
Be specific about it.
That's what's worked best withour intention experiments, and
it's what works best in my powerof eight groups.
SPEAKER_00 (43:55):
And those power of eight groups, that mastermind is
going to be in February nextyear, is that right?
In 2026.
SPEAKER_02 (44:02):
Yeah, our power of it's called the Power of Eight
Intention Masterclass.
And it kicks off in February.
So you can find out more aboutit just on my website,
lynnmctaggart.com.
SPEAKER_00 (44:13):
And we'll have all the links underneath this
episode.
Lynn, it's been a real joyspeaking with you.
Thank you for sharing yourknowledge and wisdom.
Lynn is this week's super soulmodel.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (44:23):
Thank you so much.
It's been a joy to be here withyou.
SPEAKER_00 (44:28):
Thanks for tuning in.
And if you've enjoyed thisepisode, remember to subscribe
and share and join ourcommunity.
Until the next episode, wishingyou a wonderful week ahead and
green lights all the way.
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