Numerical Analysis and Theoretical Modelling of Causal Effects of Conscious Intention

Abstract

This paper describes a 13 year long, and still continuing, series of laboratory experiments that demonstrate that persons are able to exert direct mental influences upon a variety of biological systems that are situated at a distance from the influencer and shielded from all conventional informational and energetic influences. The spontaneously fluctuating activity of the target system is monitored objectively during randomly interspersed influence and noninfluence (control) periods while, in a distant room, a person attempts to influence the system's activity in a prespecified manner using mental processes of intentionality, focused attention, and imagery of desired outcomes. The experimental design rules out subtle cues, recording errors, expectancy and suggestion ("placebo") effects, artifactual reactions to external stimuli, confounding internal rhythms, and coincidental or chance correspondences. Distantly influenced systems include: another person's electrodermal activity, blood pressure, and muscular activity; the spatial orientation of fish; the locomotor activity of small mammals; and the rate of hemolysis of human red blood cells. The experiments are viewed as laboratory analogs of mental healing.