In The Power of Eight, Lynn McTaggart describes 10 years of experiments that show group intention can heal individuals and reduce global problems. Sounds too good to be true? The results of her experiments and others who did similar research showed that groups that focus their intention on a specific result can effect positive change. But better yet, they report the people who did the intention exercises, found their lives improved in numerous ways.
If you want to listen to a summary of McTaggart’s intention experiments, watch this: video
McTaggart describes how Dr Sean O’Laoire, an Irish Catholic priest and clinical psychologist, discovered rebound prayer. He did research with 406 volunteers to see if prayer had a positive effect on the volunteers’ emotional and mental health. Ninety of the people were trained using visualization and intention. These people prayed for the other 316 people. The people who were prayed for “improved on every objective and subjective measure of physical and psychological health”. O’Laoire was surprised to learn the people who were praying were doing better than the people prayed for. And the more they prayed, the more their physical and emotional health improved. He concluded, “It seems, then, as if praying is more effective than being prayed for.”
Another study McTaggart describes is Karl Pillemer’s study of almost 7000 older Americans. He tracked the health histories of these individuals for 20 years. The elderly people that volunteered to help in projects to help the environment, were “far more healthier and physically active and half as likely to be depressed as the others.” She recounts how research at Stanford University in CA of senior citizens showed that those that were involved in volunteer work had mortality rates nearly two-thirds lower than those people who were not volunteers.
At first McTaggart thought the group intentions she organized would be related to the amount of people doing the intentions. She did a 9/11 Peace Intention Experiment in 2011 involving participants from 75 countries, from Iceland to Indonesia. Seven thousand signed up on her website while tens of thousands tuned into her daily webcast. It was the biggest “mind over-over-matter experiment in history”. The target of this huge group intention experiment was to reduce the casualties of the war in Afghanistan in the two provinces where there was the most civilian casualties. The group met daily for eight days straight, focusing on the intention to increase peace and reduce fighting.
The results of this 9/11 Peace Intention were amazing. Four hundred forty civilians had been killed the month before the experiment. These numbers dropped to 340 the month of the experiment. Between September and November 2011, civilian casualties fell by an average of 37 percent compared to August 2011. Taliban initiated attacks decreased greatly.
McTaggart writes that the participants of the 9/11 Peace Intention “made an extraordinary connection with one another.” During the daily broadcast of this intention experiment, in the instant messenger chat room, “many of our Western participants began to instant message and befriend people from the Arab countries who could write in English-and vice versa”.
McTaggart asked participants to describe their experiences doing this 9/11 Peace Intention. She reported that “three-quarters of my participants spoke of how their newfound peace had improved relationships in every regard.” They reported getting along better with neighbors, family, co-workers and employers. A third of the volunteers said they were getting along better with people they normally don’t get along with or disliked. Many reported having positive effects affect other areas of their lives.
It occurred to McTaggart that Intention Experiments may work well in small groups as well as large groups. She organized and trained groups of 8 to 12 participants in a master class seminar starting early 2015 to carry out their own intention goals. The groups met weekly, doing 10 minute intentions where the group unified to imagine and visualize a specific intention. She called the groups Power of Eight groups.
Dr Stephanie Sullivan, a neuroscientist, offered to conduct a trial seven times with different Power of Eight groups, targeting brain measurements. Sullivan reported in February 2016 that the Power of Eight participants “showed evidence of immediate and major global brain changes that were considerably different from normal.” She found significant improvements in overall mood score, an increase in feeling calm, and a reduced activity on the right side of the brain, which “aside from creativity, is associated with negative thinking, fear, worry and depression.”
I began participating in the 2019 Power of Eight master class in February 2019. I was put in a group of 12. One person was from Pennsylvania, while the other ten lived near or in New York City. We started meeting weekly via Skype group video platform where we usually did two 10 minute intentions for different group members. We decided that to make our intentions more powerful, to do them also daily at 8 am for 10 minutes (off skype).
I have really enjoyed the Power of Eight group so far. More than half of the members have dropped out but even if we only have 3 or 4 meet for our weekly intention meeting, we feel it is still powerful. When I started participating in the group, I wrote down 3 things I hoped would improve in my life during the year being in the group. I am writing this blog 9 months after the group started. Of the three areas I have targeted to be changed in my life, I have experienced major improvement in one area, moderate improvement in the second area and small movement in the third area.
I have met unusually open minded, caring and interesting people doing this Power of Eight group. As one of them said, she felt we are really blessed to be able to meet and support each other in this way. Normally we take turns to make intention requests but when one of us has a loved one that is sick or in crisis, we prioritize to do an intention for that person. One member bought and sold his home with ease. Another member became more motivated to exercise. Yet another member found a partner she never thought she would find.
One my Power of Eight group members shared: “Being part of an intention group satisfied my desire to give service to others. I feel good knowing that at least for 10 minutes every day, I’m contributing to something greater than myself.”
My Power of Eight group joined together to do a 10 minute intention daily for a member’s sister who had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was having a very hard time from the chemo side effects. She had to be hospitalized. In addition McTaggart’s bigger Intention group who does intentions for people on Sundays intended that this sister to be able to tolerate her chemo treatments and related surgery, and become cancer free. My group member reported her sister was able to tolerate seven rounds of chemo, had her surgery and is now cancer free.
A member of my Power of Eight group wrote: “I will recall the first time we met (as a group): I had vertigo and pain in the back of my neck. I had a lipoma (fatty lump) which at that time was big. The group intended for me. The vertigo was gone and the lipoma shrank half the size. I felt the energy of the group, it was amazing. I felt calm and at peace.”
McTaggart has a chapter on the “mirror effect.” This is when the person(s) doing the intention have related improvements in their own lives. McTaggart wrote how a group of people did intentions for a war veteran who was deeply depressed, hypervigilant, and had trouble sleeping. One in 5 people doing the intentions to help the veteran “reported some sort of pronounced physical improvement.” One person’s carpel tunnel injury improved while another person’s regular digestion was normal after 20 years of constipation.
I noticed the mirror effect in my Power of 8 Group also. One time when we intended for someone to have her sinus cleared, I felt my sinus cleared. When we intended that a member go to bed by a certain time, I felt like falling asleep. During an intention to help a group member sleep well at night, my cat stopped wandering around, sat right in front of me on the table and fell asleep. Right after this intention finished, my cat started walking around again.
I believe from my personal experience, the experiences of my Power of Eight group, and the experiences McTaggart writes in her book The Power Of Eight that this method has great potential to help people who are suffering from emotional, financial and interpersonal problems. It does not have to be eight people meeting at a time. Even two or three people meeting to make an intention can make a difference.
McTaggart states that the keys to the success of the Power of Eight groups is for group members to meet weekly, to do the intentions from their heart, and to unite with each other.
In The Power of Eight, McTaggart instructs how to run a successful Power of Eight group starting on page 239. If one has the time and money to take her yearly Master class and be placed with other like-minded people in a small group, that may be even better. McTaggart provides inspiring stories as do others on the master class video call. Members of the master class are invited to the master class Facebook group to ask questions and share encouraging success stories. In my 2019 Master class almost 1000 people signed up to participate.
If you can’t join McTaggart’s group and feel unable to start your own group, doing intentions with a friend or family member one on one can also make a difference. If you feel you have no one to do an intention with, and could also benefit from therapy for anxiety, depression, overeating or trauma, please feel free to call me for a free 15 minute phone consultation at 586-799-2399. I can incorporate doing intentions into therapy sessions.
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