The Intention Experiment

How were they? I put "Native American" in the search and the first two that pop up are NA Medicine and NA Healing in the 21st Century. I assume one or both of those are what you're talking about?

Look up GDV in wikipedia and see what it redirects to. ;-)

Isn't that what I just said?

Thanks, Rich

Gas discharge visualization?

This is the instrument to investigate it:

However the language of plants is proteins, polysaccharides, porphyrins etc; biochemical rather than electrical. I think that looking at more easily and cheaply measured but less relevant gross external phenomena is like investigating human behavior from the sound of street traffic.

jsw

So-so. What they had to say was better than the way they said/showed it. One felt a bit too much like an ad for an Austrian journalist's program "All if Made Beautiful", butcha get this keen companion guide. The other, Native American Medicine with David Broscome, gave some interesting uses for herbs and showed the facets of setting up a vision quest lodge. The music in this one was loud and NewAge, very inappropriately teched.

See? Toldja so. ;) I'd like to see Prez Barry's kirlian photo. I really and truly would. Someone, please offer to take Congress' individual photos with one, eh? They might be a much better winnower than mere voting.

-- You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. --Jack London

Where do biophoto emissions fall in your dichotomy?

I look forward to your experiment.

I find that most "documentaries" on "Native culture" are um... well, they miss the mark, to put it kindly.

Knowing that in advance (which I would only have guessed at before) might allow me to grit my teeth and get through it to pick out whatever actual info may be there.

I have about 100 varieties of seed, some from 20 years ago (I throw it out after it goes over 20) that I really hate to throw away, but germination trials really take a lot more space than I have.

"The viability of seeds can distinguished by the size of the corona. Fertile seeds show much larger coronas than dead seeds. The photography process does no harm to the seeds ability to grow."

Hearts That Beat as One

• Brain wave synchrony: Stimuli to the sender results in synchronized brain waves of the isolated receiver (this only worked after the pair had meditated together for 20 minutes).

• Entrainment occurs in brainwaves between QiGong masters and their students during tohate

• Certain stimuli register in the heart before they register in the brain. Heart and brain became entrained with each other earlier and more frequently in women than in men.

• Other types of stimuli register in the gut first.

• Husband/wife/cancer study. "All three groups had shown an effect. In every instance, each physiological response of the receivers had tracked those of the senders. However, the most prolonged pattern occurred among the cancer patients whose partners had been trained in compassionate intention. The receivers in the training group not only responded to the stimulus, but also kept responding over 8 of the 10 seconds of the intension."

Here's the study from a different vantage point:

AIDS patients (Love Study)

"Targ began her career as a mainstream psychiatrist, but made her name in 1999 with two remarkable studies at California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) in San Fransisco, which tested the possibility of remote healing with end-stage AIDS patients. Targ spent months designing her trial. She and her partner, psychologist and retired hospital administrator Fred Sicher, sought out a homogenous group of advanced AIDS patients with the same degree of illness, including the same T-cell counts and number of AIDS-defining illnesses. Because they wished to test the effect of distant healing, and not any particular healing modality, they decided to recruit highly experienced, successful healers from diverse backgrounds who might represent an array of approaches.

"Targ and Sicher gathered together an eclectic mix of healers from all across America -- from orthodox Christians to Native American shamans -- and asked them to send healing thoughts to a group of AIDS patients under strict double-blind conditions. All healing was to be done remotely so that nothing, such as the presence of a healer or healing touch, could confound the results. Targ created a strict double-blind format: each healer received sealed packets with information about the patients to be healed, including their names, photos, and T-cell counts. Every other week, the healers were assigned a new patient and asked to hold an intention for the health and well-being of the patient an hour a day for six days, with the alternate weeks off for rest. In this manner, eventually every patient in the healing group would be sent healing energy by every healer in turn.

"At the end of the first study, although 40 percent of the control population died, all ten of the patients in the treatment group were not only alive, but far healthier in every regard. "... In the second study, those sent healing were again far healthier on every parameter tested: significantly fewer AIDS-defining illnesses, improved T-cell levels, fewer hospitalizations, fewer visits to the doctor, fewer new illnesses, less severity of disease, and better psychological well-being. The differences were decisive; for instance, the treatment group had six times fewer AIDS-defining illnesses and four times fewer hospitalizations at the end of the study than the controls."

"In Targ's original studies, the healing had been carried out by highly experienced, successful healers who'd been chosen because they possessed a special gift. After the studies were completed, Targ grew interested in whether an ordinary individual could be similarly trained to use intention effectively."

e:

There's no dichotomy, I don't have a preferred answer.

"I take Houdini's approach to paranormal phenomena, not denying anything but looking very hard at the evidence for intentional or inadvertent errors. "

I am a lab technician concerned with rigorous methodology, not the conclusions which I won't have to defend.

If it makes you feel better I just made an offering of the mineral- rich ashes from my stove to the oak tree outside whose spirit watches over my house. It will drop branches on the roof if I displease it.

jsw

So plant some of the 19 y/o seeds, collect seeds from the new planting, and retun those to your collection. Easy peasy.

-- You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. --Jack London

Dichotomy doesn't imply preference. You said "biochemical rather than electrical," implying those are the two potential alternatives of plant language. In normal English, that can be described as a dichotomy. Either... or...

You're well aware that a single continuous tone isn't the same as morse code.

I have yet to see you "looking very hard" at any evidence, much less even giving a cursory glance at the studies you find fault with.

I had imagined you to be above that sort of thing.

That's the plan for a select few, but... Some are tree seeds, requiring years to produce new seed. Many aren't suitable for the climate we presently find ourselves in. Some would cross-pollinate, thereby producing mystery seed. Some are even hybrids that won't produce true seed. (I really should just automatically dispose of those.) My wife would probably be happy if I just tossed all of them, and started over with just what we want to plant this year.

And should have been started ears ago.

This proves to be a definite problem, unless you have a conservatory [where Nancy (BettyJo Bialoski/Audrey Farber) studies trees.]

Which means that you'd have to buy the grafted plant again to get the same hybrid.

Correct.

What are the seeds for? Got a list?

-- You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. --Jack London

Nah. I should have, but don't. Here are the first dozen:

Conium maculatum Cucumis metuliferus Cyperus esculentus sativus Cytisus scoparius Datura meteloides Datura stramonium Eleutherococcus senticosus Eucalyptus globulus Eucalyptus viminalis Euphorbia lathyrus Gleditsia triacanthos Hyoscyamus niger

Dayum, he's gonna make me hunt fer it.

Used to make poison hemlock tea, I'm guessing?

Decorative melon. Looks dangerous to prepare, though, if one were to eat one.

Tiger nuts? How are they?

Do not plant these! Scotch Broom is a horribly invasive plant which is strewn by both birds and the wind. It's on the kill list here in Oregon. It has beautiful and vivid yellow flowers, though.

I've planted jimson weed (datura/Devil's trumpet) before and love their gorgeous and gigantic flowers. Mine were white.

My favorite ginseng, SiboGin, which I much prefer over Panax for energy.

Teensy shrub for the back yard? Bluegum, 98-180' tall.

Another tiny shrub, this one only 89m tall.

Spurge? You saved spurge seeds?!?

Pretty honey locust tree. is it treacherous like the spiny black locust?

Henbane? Interesting. What is your use?

-- You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. --Jack London

Entering Hyperspace

• Monks in the Himalayans can slow their metabolism by 60%. Compare to

• Conversely, those same monks can sleep outdoors @ 15,000' in Feb. without sleeping bags, coats or blankets. Can dry a soaking wet sheet in freezing temperatures using only body heat.

• Monks practicing "compassionate meditation" show sustained bursts of high gamma band activity -- rapid cycles up to 25-70Hz. Waves all over the brain synchronize.

• Brain waves predominantly in alpha produce inner awareness while predominantly gamma produce heightened perceptual awareness, magnified outer awareness.

• Neophytes who practiced mindfulness meditation for 8 weeks showed enhanced immune function and increased blood flow to "happy" part of brain.

• Long term meditation produces actual physical changes in the brain, making it permanently more coherent. Increases cortical thickness; stops normal reduction associated with aging.

• Left-brain as accountant and right-brain as artist not as efficient as "whole brain" working together. During meditation, both sides communicate harmoniously.

• Harmann Boundary Questionaire test shows people with "thin boundaries" (e.g., artists, musicians) score best in remote influence.

"Davidson, Krippner, and Lazar demonstrated that we can remodel particular portions of our own brains, depending on our different types of focus and indeed different thoughts. It became clear to me that the intense focus of certain types of meditation can be a portal to hyperspace and peak awareness, transporting the meditator to a different layer of reality. It can also be an energizing practice more than a calming one, that can help us rewire our brains to improve our /reception/ and /transmission/ of intention. I had assumed that intention was like a strong "oomph," or mental push, through which you project your thoughts to another person to ensure that your wishes are carried out. But the healers described a very different process: intention requires initial focus, but then a type of surrender, a letting go of the self as well as the outcome."

Better you than me!

Yup. It's also medicinal in the right dosage, but not advisable.

They've got an interesting texture. Mild flavor. Mildly sweet. The "spikes" aren't rigid like thorns. They look more threatening than they are.

Never got around to trying them. Maybe this year...

It's also known by the State of California to be a pest, but most of the rest of the country doesn't have that same knowledge.

Yup, very pretty, but the blossoms almost verge on stink to me. They need to far enough away not to be smelled while still close enough to see.

Much less stringent growing requirements too. Panax is very fussy.

IIRC, one of them has sweet sap, perhaps suitable for making syrup. They're not very cold tolerant, but we were in northern FL when I got those. One or both is supposed to be very fast growing too... like the bamboo of the tree world.

Was thinking about planting them around the garden perimeter as a potential pest deterrent.

Yup like sewing needles. Rot resistant and strong wood. Got some started in FL. A similar species grows like weeds around here.

Well, when you put it that way! The Internet of twenty years ago didn't have all this info. I don't recall why I got this one. There must have been an entry in _A Modern Herbal_ or _Scientific Validation of Herbal Medicine_ or _Indian Herbalogy of North America_ or _Using Plants for Healing_ or... any one of numerous others, that made me want to try growing it.

Most of those were from the '91 - '94 period and I never did get around to trying Datura's hallucenogenic properties. I did flirt with the idea, but the list of side effects was sufficient deterrent.

Lazy bastid.

I keep saying things like that, too...

That's because the Left Coast has superb weather. Everything is invasive out here. It doesn't know when to quit!

I didn't notice it. But the bush didn't get over 6' after my late planting. It later froze at 17F.

It makes damned good firewood, if you like a snap/crackle/pop.

Yeah, it has medicinal doses, too. ;)

Yeah, too scary for a (dare I say "sane"?) regular guy.

I found a copy of _The Intention Experiment_ for a buck and a quarter, so I picked it up from an Amazon vendor today. Your little quoted tidbits from it taunted me to no end.

-- You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. --Jack London

Ok. Delete the "maybe." They're on the todo list, and I even know exactly where I'll plant them.

Hey, I have/had some Kudzu seed. How do you think that'll do out your way? ;-)

Inside a wood stove, it wouldn't matter much. I imagine it smells nice, too?

Sane, I am. Not too sure about "regular" though.

Always glad to be of service. :-)

I'm only planning on going as far as the study that IIRC, showed that prayer was roughly as effective as intention, though there were conditions where prayer had deleterious effects under the same conditions where intention provided favorable results... the part that demonstrates certain types of "prayer" are answered when there's no deity being asked.

It'd look good right next to the Hellfire and Damnation plants.

I consider prayer to be a sort of subset of intention. Both require good focus.

-- Invest in America: Buy a CONgresscritter today!