Book Title:  The Intention Experiment

Author:  Lynne McTaggart

Publishing Company:  Harper Element

Year:  2007

# of Pages: 342

ISBN #:  13-978-0-00-719458-2

ISBN#:  10-0-00-719458-7

$46.95 Canada

$26.00 USA 

4 Stars 

Reviewer:  Deborah Ground Buckner 

The Intention Experiment by Lynne McTaggart comes with a special invitation:  Be a part of a scientific experiment to test how our thoughts and intentions can affect the world around us, whether in our own lives, the lives of those we care about, or the world itself.   

McTaggart is an investigative journalist and an internationally recognized spokesperson on the science of spirituality.  Her previous book, The Field:  The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe, published in fourteen languages, won critical acclaim for its exploration of scientific discoveries linking thoughts with matter and science with religion. 

The Intention Experiment is divided into three sections.  First, McTaggart relates the stories of several prior experiments demonstrating how intention works.  Secondly, is the “power up” section, including exercises and techniques an individual may employ to use the power of intention in his or her own life.  Next, McTaggart turns to the application of these techniques in experiments.  Initially, she includes “mini experiments” to be attempted by an individual or a small group.  Next, comes the invitation to visit the website, www.theintentionexperiement.com and learn the details of participating with thousands of others in specific experiments described on the site.  (The most recent of these occurred on November 30).  To participate in these large-scale experiments, one must have read the book; the website includes a request for a code, choosing a particular word from a particular page of the book, for example (with specific codes for each of the various published editions of the book).

 In many ways, the concept of this book seems akin to a study of the power of prayer.  McTaggart addresses this in relating the Benson STEP experiment.  Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School studied 1800 patients undergoing coronary bypass surgery.  Patients were divided into three groups.  The first two groups were told it was uncertain they would receive prayer; one group did and the other did not.  The third group was told they would be receiving prayer.  The results showed no positive effect gained for those who received prayer and even noted negative results for those who were told they would be receiving prayer.  While this was deemed a shock both to the scientific and religious communities, McTaggart does not find it a reason to abandon her experiment.  Rather, she has studied the results and notes the design of the study had flaws.  For example, they “did not clearly formulate the content of the healing intention, and left the content of the prayers up to the individual supplicant”; they failed to tightly control “for the number of people involved in the prayer groups or for either the frequency or length of time they were to pray”; they “never recorded how long the individuals prayed.”  Each patient “received only a single healing message at any one time.”   

McTaggart also makes a distinction, as have others engaged in experiments, between “prayer” and “intention.”  “With intention, the agent of change is human; with prayer it is God.  Simple healing intention can be more easily controlled for in a scientific study by ensuring that every member of the group sending the intention was sending the exact same message.”   

The power of meditation and intention has been demonstrated in previous examples.  McTaggart relates the story of Tibetan Buddhist monks meditating in the Himalayas.  Dressed in very light clothing and seated in a room with a temperature approaching freezing, the monks maintained a body temperature “the equivalent of a furnace.” When sheets soaked in cold water were draped over the monks, steam rose from the sheets, and they were thoroughly dry within an hour. McTaggart cites the mental exercises boxer Muhammad Ali engaged in throughout his career, calling him “a master of intention.”   McTaggart's collection of anecdotal evidence in support of the power of intention is persuasive.  But she observes this is an unfinished story.  Readers may help to complete it, whether writing their own chapter by using the techniques described to exert the power of intention in their individual lives (results of the mini experiments are welcome for posting at the website) or participating in the large-scale experiments described at the site. The results will provide interesting discoveries in the link between mind and matter.