Today I will review the methodology and results of a few key studies from a body of 50 studies demonstrating field effects of consciousness through the Transcendental Meditation technique (TM). These studies have found reduced crime rate and decreased crime rate trend in cities after 1% of their population learned the TM technique, controlling for demographic correlates of crime. Causal analyses of random samples of 160 US cities and 40 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas over a seven-year period found stable causal structures in which the percent of the population practicing the TM technique predicted reduced crime in subsequent years. The greater the number of meditators in a city, the greater the reduction of crime in the cities in subsequent years, controlling for 13 crime-correlated demographics.

Originally posted by MischeviousElf
follow on from above post not enough room lol

The Skeptical Inquirer recently published an article by Robert Park (“Voodoo Science and the Belief Gene” (Park 2000a) which he excerpted from his book, “Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud” (Park 2000b). In his book and his article, Park lampooned the scientific research of Dr. John Hagelin and collaborators (Hagelin 1994, 1999), myself included. Based on 41 previous studies, we predicted publicly that a large group practicing the Transcendental Meditation program would lower violent crime levels in Washington, DC, by reducing stress and tension in society. During the 8-week experiment in the summer of 1993, violent crimes against the person (homicides, rapes, and assaults) decreased by 23% and closely tracked the rise in the number of participating meditators. The results were published in Social Indicators Research, a respected, peer-reviewed, scientific journal (Hagelin 1999).

Institute of Science, technology and Public Policy

So having PROVED SCIENTIFICALLY that positive thought can affect the actions and behaviours of others at a distance lets look how this exciting ability is able to help us individually, namely something overlooked in this thread and maybe where the true breakthroughs can be made in this area, making people happier, healthier and saving billions upon untold billions of $ a year namely the Placebo effect. All as the EXPECTATION, FAITH and BELIEF in an outcome happening in our thoughts, again affecting the reality away from the thoughts or consciousness, must accept this. The best example in my mind (now there’s a paradox eh?) is the following:

Originally posted by MischeviousElf
Wow hippy new age Special Forces isn’t that interesting?

Originally posted by MischeviousElf
Lets also forget the BMA (British Medical Association) acceptance and backing up in the Journal “the Lancet” (the most respected medical journal in the world! (You know new age non scientists) that at least 60% of all pathologies and disease in Human beings is Pyschomatic, you know caused by thoughts…

Originally posted by MischeviousElf
The point I am trying to make being that if you slander others for there point of view, and are soo sure of reality based on facts and figures, please only do so when you truly have a grasp for the subject you comment on, and bringing in my speciality of the “Big Picture” or macroscopic point of view on a subject I feel that the case is closed in defence of the Thread Authors Premise that positive thinking indeed does work, or more correctly infact that all thinking works and affects things outside of the thinking apparatus and consciousness, for both Bad and Good.

Science Is The Least Tolerant Of Religions

I love saying that, because it works on so many levels.

What do I mean by that?

Science is applied philosophy. So is religion.

As the oft-quoted and oft-maligned Wikipedia puts it:

Science

Science in the broadest sense refers to any knowledge or trained skill, especially (but not exclusively) when this is attained by verifiable means. The word science also describes any systematic field of study or the knowledge gained from such study. In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on empiricism, experimentation, and methodological naturalism, as well as to the organized body of knowledge humans have gained by such research.

In a new book, Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness (Oxford University Press, July 2006), physicists Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner of the University of California, Santa Cruz, present a clear exposition and entertaining discussion of the baffling mysteries of quantum physics. Their motivation, in part, was to counteract the irresponsible distortions of quantum physics that are often used to support pseudoscientific claims, as in the recent movie "What the [Bleep] Do We Know!?" "Things like that movie upset me, but this is not a debunking book," said Rosenblum, a professor emeritus of physics at UCSC. "A mystery in quantum physics indeed hints at some really wild stuff. The problem is that a layperson can't tell where the quantum physics ends and the quantum nonsense begins." >SNIP<

"Physicists can use quantum mechanics and calculate with it beautifully, but nobody understands it," said Kuttner, now a lecturer in physics at UCSC. >SNIP>

"As far as what's really going on in the world, I don't have a clue, except that it's much stranger than we once thought, and somehow consciousness seems to be involved," Kuttner said.


Many years ago, when Rosenblum was a graduate student, he and a fellow student got to spend an evening with Albert Einstein, who tried to discuss the enigma of quantum mechanics with them. But they were ill-prepared.

"Our advanced courses in quantum mechanics taught us how to calculate, but avoided the mystery. Our ignorance of it disappointed Einstein," Rosenblum said. "The missed opportunity of that evening is one of the motivations behind this book. Physics courses still avoid presenting the quantum enigma. We would like to see our book used as collateral reading in such courses."

Trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics and found, to their embarrassment, that their theory intimately connects consciousness with the physical world. Quantum Enigma explores what that implies and why some founders of the theory became the foremost objectors to it. >SNIP<

Physics' encounter with consciousness is its skeleton in the closet. Because the authors open the closet and examine the skeleton, theirs is a controversial book. Quantum Enigma's description of the experimental quantum facts, and the quantum theory explaining them, is undisputed. Interpreting what
it all means, however, is controversial.

Every interpretation of quantum physics encounters consciousness. Rosenblum and Kuttner therefore turn to exploring consciousness itself--and encounter quantum physics. Free will and anthropic principles become crucial issues, and the connection of consciousness with the cosmos suggested by some leading quantum cosmologists is mind-blowing.

SOURCE
The Mental Universe

Richard Conn Henry

Richard Conn Henry is a Professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA.

--

Abstract

The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things.

Historically, we have looked to our religious leaders to understand the meaning of our lives; the nature of our world. With Galileo Galilei, this changed. In establishing that the Earth goes around the Sun, Galileo not only succeeded in believing the unbelievable himself, but also convinced almost everyone else to do the same. This was a stunning accomplishment in 'physics outreach' and, with the subsequent work of Isaac Newton, physics joined religion in seeking to explain our place in the Universe.

The more recent physics revolution of the past 80 years has yet to transform general public understanding in a similar way. And yet a correct understanding of physics was accessible even to Pythagoras. According to Pythagoras, "number is all things", and numbers are mental, not mechanical. Likewise, Newton called light "particles", knowing the concept to be an 'effective theory' — useful, not true. As noted by Newton's biographer Richard Westfall: "The ultimate cause of atheism, Newton asserted, is 'this notion of bodies having, as it were, a complete, absolute and independent reality in themselves.'" Newton knew of Newton's rings and was untroubled by what is shallowly called 'wave/particle duality'.

SOURCE
Embracing the Immaterial Universe (Bruce Lipton, Ph.D)

A fundamental conclusion of the new physics also acknowledges that the “observer creates the reality. "As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality! Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a "mental" construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: "The stream of knowledge is heading toward a nonmechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter . . . we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter” (R. C. Henry, "The Mental Universe"; Nature 436:29, 2005).

Although quantum mechanics was acknowledged eighty years ago as the best scientific description of the mechanisms creating our universe, most scientists rigidly cling to the prevailing matter-oriented worldview simply because it "seems" to make better sense out of our existence. To grapple with the contradictions, the majority of physicists have chosen an easy way out: They restrict quantum theory’s validity to the subatomic world. Renowned theoretical physicist David Deutsch wrote: “Despite the unrivalled empirical success of quantum theory, the very suggestion that it may be literally true as a description of nature is still greeted with cynicism, incomprehension, and even anger” (T. Folger, “Quantum Shmantum”; Discover 22:37–43, 2001).

However, quantum laws must hold at every level of reality. We can no longer afford to ignore that fact. We must learn that our beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes about the world create the world. Recently, Johns Hopkins physicist professor R. C. Henry suggested that we “get over it” and accept the inarguable conclusion: "The universe is immaterial—mental and spiritual" (R. C. Henry, "The Mental Universe").