The Power of Intention?

[Unidian]

It may sound like a Sidarthur post title, but "The Power of Intention" is becoming big business these days. An example of the claims made by advocates of the concept can be found in this brief video (1 min), by Lynne McTaggart, author of "The Field."

The video is produced by the Institute of Noetic Sciences, a non-profit organization concerned with studies of consciousness, founded by the astronaut Edgar Mitchell. You may note that despite its diminutive length, the video manages to make several dubious claims, including one apparent reference to the widely-discredited "mind affecting water" studies by Dr. Masaru Emoto, as well as the questionable assertion that similar results can be achieved in the laboratory.

For some of us, the question of whether there is anything to the "scientific" side of such ideas is essentially closed. In terms of verifiable evidence, there isn't - at least not anything anywhere near solid enough to support such extraordinary claims. A more interesting question might be, "how are such ideas impacting popular culture?" As most of us know, an idea does not necessarily need to be well-supported to have an enormous impact.

In what ways do you think these ideas are influencing the cultural climate? Is there anything useful or valuable in them? I have some thoughts on this, which I may share as discussion progresses.

[sagerage]

I'm out of luck - no sound. Is there a transcript?

[Cory Duchesne]

It may sound like a Sidarthur post title, but "The Power of Intention" is becoming big business these days. An example of the claims made by advocates of the concept can be found in this brief video (1 min), by Lynne McTaggart, author of "The Field."

The video is produced by the Institute of Noetic Sciences, a non-profit organization concerned with studies of consciousness, founded by the astronaut Edgar Mitchell. You may note that despite its diminutive length, the video manages to make several dubious claims, including one apparent reference to the widely-discredited "mind affecting water" studies by Dr. Masaru Emoto, as well as the questionable assertion that similar results can be achieved in the laboratory.

For some of us, the question of whether there is anything to the "scientific" side of such ideas is essentially closed. In terms of verifiable evidence, there isn't - at least not anything anywhere near solid enough to support such extraordinary claims. A more interesting question might be, "how are such ideas impacting popular culture?"

I think such ideas often appeal to people who idealize magic out of a greed to become something 'special', famous, and magical. But, on the other hand, there are the downtrodden. These types also like magic, but simply because they seek a kind of mercy. The impact such new age stuff has on culture is similar to the effect religion has had on culture. A refuge from the harshness of reality.

[Alex Jacob]

"Can our intention change the world?"

"Our human potential is just a glimmer of what it could be..."
___________________________________________________

There are a number of different levels to these sorts of declarations of faith, assertions of faith, and you have to carefully go through them. If there is one area within the human sphere where faith, thought, affirmation, and a belief in less limited possibilities has undisputed effect, it is in the realm of the psyche, our psychology, all the epiphenomena that is our consciousness that rests, as it were, and rises up from, the platfom of matter.

Given that we---supposedly---live in an Aristotelian age, an age of reason, people like the woman in that clip must make references to 'science' and to 'many studies', because these days, withouth such references, you won't be able to carry anyone with you along the conceptual pathway that opens into a mental space where our potential is less limited and our intent can operate and affect our life. At one time, all you would have needed would have been the knucklebone of some saint, or some icon that supposedly wept tears.

Where you guys are situated, it seems to me, is within that Aristotelian sphere. You seem to have mathematical minds, background in science, you are acutely 'logical', and so you see right through the false-facts and the phoney reasoning, and so with this presentation, dressed in this way, you would never be convinced. It seems that the only thing that convinces you is a spirituality, a religiosity, that is stripped down to the barest essence, and that is why (I guess) you are attracted to neo-Buddhistic formulations devoid of any extraneous imagery. You have cleared all distracting imagery from out of your abode. The only 'doctrine' that makes sense to you is one completely stripped down to the basics, and this doctrine seems the only one that could be paired-up with the facts of modernity. I guess this is why many take refuge in this description of the dharma, it is the only one that has any power to inspire, to motivate. It does so because 'it makes good sense'. I have the strong feeling that no one of you will ever be found, late at night and kneeling before your home icon of Mother Mary, reciting the Rosary while tears stream down your cheeks...

In respect to neo-Buddhism, where, in this sort of conception, this particular sort of 'interior decoration of the mind', would you even be able to consider, say, the effect or usefulness of 'mystical prayer'? It probably cannot even appear on your map given the landscape of your choices. A person who changes his relationship to the outer world on the basis of changing things in his inner world? In such a way that, almost inexplicably, the outer world responds? 'Where is the causal link?' Of course, this is where things get tricky, because we know (because 'scientific studies' tell us it is so) that there is no statistical evidence that prayer can effect a mortal sickess, nor can we bend spoons with our mind, and when we look upon some old señora in a church praying every day (for Heaven knows what) we see her as an anachronism, a superstitious relic of a world disappearing who lacks knowledge of how the world really functions, someone who needs new insights such as we could certainly provide, as wise as we are. So, it seems to be true that our conceptions of metaphysics, as in mysterious spiritual agency, can have only limited effect on something like a physical illness, but in other areas---the psychological and the psychical---there is almost no doubt that it can have and does have astounding effects. And we all know that if I have some intense psychical pattern that possesses me, that psychical epiphenomenon has such power that it could actually destroy the Earth if it were not controlled. What happens in our psyche (whatever in fact that is) is powerful beyond reckoning. How do we explain that fact?

'Magic', as I understand it, is a very personal thing. The strength of one's intent(tions), one's ability to focus, one's ability to invoke, to call forth things, people and circumstances, is for me a real thing. Just as we can effect our own psyche, mysteriously (I don't know how to explain the causation), changes we make in our own psyche are responded to by other living entities, and especially in the human world. Often extremely dramatically. True, we will have a hard time causing a chair to float in the air by the power of our 'intent', but we may indeed be able to bring into our life a siginficant person of circumstance on the basis of the practice of a kind of 'magic', and without that 'magic', perhaps we'd remain impotent, unrealized individuals. Maybe we need magic because we sense that something in the mental ordering of modernity will kill our possibility to really live our life, as artists and mystics and not as statistic in a desert world where the Gods have fled?

I have personally seem evidence of this too many times to deny it. And it has always made me wonder, What are the real limitations in this sphere of life? Does having ideas about limitations thereby establish limitations?

If what takes place within our psyche can literally mold the world, and even destroy it, do we doubt that changes in the psyche can have and do have a dramatic and very real effect in the world?

[divine focus]

Intention is another word for direction. It really isn't about control. Direction can accomplish a lot, even things considered miraculous and unexplainable. But it's not about, "It would be cool if I could do this thing or that thing." It's not mental willpower. It happens when mentally you don't need to do anything. Just be. Very simple, but not easy. It's sooo much easier to complicate things. Simply focus on yourself, then let action happen.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Sounds like the book by Dr. Wayne Dyer.

Yes, I believe that it is far more likely to accomplish something if you intend to do it (note the difference between the word "intend" and "wish"). Of course, accidents happen and, as the old saying goes, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Nevertheless, it denotes a certain disciplined focus of attention and energy. Of course knowledge and wisdom need to back up the intention in order to maximize the likelihood of achieving the goal, but pure wisdom, like pure knowledge, is rather inert. The Totality is a statically dynamic blend of all things.

Nat, I'm not seeing the big impact that you are talking about. I think the concept might help awaken some people if we could lift their noses off the grindstone long enough to notice it. Most people are just reacting to what intersects with their tiny little bubble in the world. When their bubble feels empty, they blindly reach out for something to fill it with.

I don't see many people who ever figure out "what they want to be when they grow up." For that matter, finding adults who have actually grown up is less common than I'd like. Without the awareness of what they really want to do, intention is pretty useless.

[Carl G]

The video expresses wishful thinking. Most people are incapable of intention. Intention requires consciousness and the directed force of will. Most people are not interested in consciousness, and hence can have no access to the power of will. They are automatons, living reactively by cause and effect, fluttering like leaves in the wind.

The cultural effects of such ideas as expressed in the video are therefore of little breadth or consequence.

[Alex Jacob]

The 'arrogance' of your view, Carl, renders your opinion absurd and invalid. All people have intention, and some level of consciousness, it is all about gradations here, and theirs is likely not so very much 'inferior' to yours, which is certainly assumed in your statement. (I feel I should genuflect when you great ones condescend to appear here on the various threads, distributing wisdom like the Eucharist).

More closer to the truth---even a simple, intuitive truth---is that all people use 'intention' (or you could use the Castanedian term, intent, as a sort of magical will), all the time. It is intent that focuses this world, that enables any living entity to move in the world and attain the things of its striving, and to exist here you have to have it. The question is what it is focussed on.

Some opinions expressed on this thread so far smack of the preposterousness of so much of the QRS misconceptions: an astounding, practiced, boyish arrogance that knows no bounds. If we should call it a sort of clever stupidity or a polished idiocy, I can't quite decide.

The Buddha would give you all a thrashing and send you to your cell without supper!

How many of the 'seers' and 'sages' here are in fact on some sort of medication?

;-)

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

How many of the 'seers' and 'sages' here are in fact on some sort of medication?

Probably not many. I can't afford mine anymore, so I probably should think twice about posting here until I know if I'll be okay without it.

But what's the issue about medication anyway? If a diabetic needs insulin and he takes it, that's a wise maneuver. The mind is not the brain, but the mind needs the brain to function properly in order for the mind to properly express itself. If someone needs a prosthetic leg to walk, it does not make walking any less valuable than walking with a biological leg. Wisdom is what is important. There are many different pieces to the puzzle of wisdom, and if a piece is missing, it is better to replace it than to just go without the piece.

Don't be so attached to things just happening to work out well for a biological creature to attain wisdom - sometimes different kinds of effort must be applied.

[Cory Duchesne]

How many of the 'seers' and 'sages' here are in fact on some sort of medication?

I wonder why you ask. Maybe it's because you can't imagine how anyone could tolerate life without the opiate of magical thinking?

[Alex Jacob]

Such interesting junctures we come to every once in a while!

I felt I would resond, Cory, by saying: Or, how could one tolerate a life without an artificial, refined, and extremely modern chemical, as are these medications? And there is a relationship of similarity to a sort of artificial, refined, and extremely modern style of thinking that, according to me, is far too rigid. It is its own 'drug' but the user doesn't recognize it as such. (The other irony is that I just took 2 tablets composed of 500 mg acetominofina con 30 mg codeina because I had 2 pesky wisdom teeth pulled today. If there is one thing I can't stand it is tooth pain, or perhaps it's that I can't stand wisdom, juaaar juaar juaar!).

But the clue here, the Secret Key that opens a thousand doors in a Magic Theatre of possibilities, is that both sorts of thinking (which is really to say perception, or lens of view, or organization of ideas, but also the sorts of activities we choose, the way we worship, a way of being in the world) can be used when circumstances require, it is not one or the other. Strangely enough, they can both exist and function at the same time.

You heard it here first, folks!

The idea I am working with is that certain defects of thinking, certain tendentious patterns, certain forced habits of thinking, a sort of iron fist of modernity that cruelly enforces thought into certain grooves and allows no escape, this sort of thinking has a tendency to drive the organism a little mad. I see it as an Imp with glowing red eyes who sits on the head of the possessed; a sort of vampire, a kind of parasite, a scared little monkey.

And it is not a jolly sort of madness that can catch and appreciate the funny side of life---there is in fact far too little heart in it---but a consumed, almost grief-stricken mental trap or cerebral network of traps, and when these walking and talking patterns of thinking meet each other, they quickly work to establish rapport, to 'recite from the Lists of Agreements, all from a lofty and arrogant mental position, with aristocratic distain, up in a tower of sorts, or a boyscout's treefort, and they maintain those agreements, enforce and manage them...at all cost!

What you depricate as 'magical thinking' and something for the lower orders of humanity---and there is a good argument to be made, and a cure to be offered, to superstitious thinking, to hysterical thinking---could be described as part and parcel of our perception, and not something to be ruthlessly cut out of us.

A rational tyrant who demands absolute obedience is certainly not a welcome housemate, Cory.

[Carl G]

The 'arrogance' of your view, Carl, renders your opinion absurd and invalid. All people have intention, and some level of consciousness, it is all about gradations here, and theirs is likely not so very much 'inferior' to yours, which is certainly assumed in your statement. (I feel I should genuflect when you great ones condescend to appear here on the various threads, distributing wisdom like the Eucharist).

More closer to the truth---even a simple, intuitive truth---is that all people use 'intention' (or you could use the Castanedian term, intent, as a sort of magical will), all the time. It is intent that focuses this world, that enables any living entity to move in the world and attain the things of its striving, and to exist here you have to have it. The question is what it is focussed on.

Some opinions expressed on this thread so far smack of the preposterousness of so much of the QRS misconceptions: an astounding, practiced, boyish arrogance that knows no bounds. If we should call it a sort of clever stupidity or a polished idiocy, I can't quite decide.

The Buddha would give you all a thrashing and send you to your cell without supper!

How many of the 'seers' and 'sages' here are in fact on some sort of medication?

;-)

Your dramatic bombast aside, you are simply wrong.

[Alex Jacob]

You're saying, Carl, that the Buddha would give you supper and then send you to your cell? Hmmmm. Perhaps you're right. I stand corrected.

[Cory Duchesne]

Such interesting junctures we come to every once in a while!

I felt I would resond, Cory, by saying: Or, how could one tolerate a life without an artificial, refined, and extremely modern chemical, as are these medications?

lol - Well played.

[divine focus]

and when these walking and talking patterns of thinking meet each other, they quickly work to establish rapport, to 'recite from the Lists of Agreements, all from a lofty and arrogant mental position, with aristocratic distain, up in a tower of sorts, or a boyscout's treefort, and they maintain those agreements, enforce and manage them...at all cost!

This reminds me of a certain society described in The Citadel of the Autarch, the last quarter of The Book of the New Sun. The Ascians are a civilization who teach everyone to memorize lines from special books, and all speech is conducted using the tens or hundreds of thoudands of lines from those books:

"How could they possibly say something like 'Take three apprentices and unload that wagon'?"

"They wouldn't say that at all--just grab people by the shoulder, point to the wagon, and give them a push. If they went to work, fine. If they didn't, then the leader would quote soemthing about the need for labor to ensure victory, with several witnesses present. If the person he was talking to still wouldn't work after that, then he would have him killed--probably just by pointing to him and quoting something about the need to eliminate enemies of the populace."

The Ascian said, "The cries of the children are the cries of victory. Still, victory must learn wisdom."

Foila interpreted for him. "That means that although children are needed, what they say is meaningless. Most Ascians would consider us mute even if we learned their tongue, because groups of words that are not approved texts are without meaning for them. If they admitted--even to themselves--that such talk meant something, then it would be possible for them to hear disloyal remarks, and even to make them. That would be extremely dangerous. As long as they only understand and quote approved texts, no one can accuse them."

I turned my head to look at the Ascian. It was clear that he had been listening attentively, but I could not be certain of what his expression meant beyond that. "Those who write the approved texts," I told him, "cannot themselves be quoting from approved texts as they write. Therefore even an approved text may contain elements of disloyalty."

"Correct Thought is the thought of the populace. The populace cannot betray the populace or the Group of Seventeen."

Funny, huh? From the mind of Gene Wolfe. As I look back, the book is probably full of metaphors for different aspects of society, and not so blatant as this one. When I read it, though, I couldn't get everything about even this one. This is a really deep book.

[sagerage]

Carl,

They are automatons, living reactively by cause and effect, fluttering like leaves in the wind.

So, if a leaf becomes conscious it breaks away from cause and effect...Or, isn't it ALL part of causation?

[sagerage]

For example: "Enlightenment" is just part of cause and effect. The idea and the effect and all the rest.

[Carl G]

It is possible to exercise free will, through conscious effort. This takes much practice, and is only possible within the narrow confines of one's nature. In other words, it doesn't mean you or I can jump off a cliff and spontaneously take wing. But yes, if a leaf becomes conscious it can transcend the automatic train of cause and effect. That is to say, it may begin to consciously cause.

[sagerage]

Oh, I see what you mean. Nonetheless, what I mean is that when something is beginning to consciously cause, it was already caused to do so, in the confines of cause and effect. So, the very freedom of consciously causing is, for all intents and purposes, caused to do so. It's just a person who is "conscious" may have a much more complicated (advanced) causation working on it. Ex. an animal and a human - the animal hasn't evolved in the same way that a human has, because it didn't have the same conditions in cause and effect (existence)... That's what makes sense to me. Though, believing in freewill, is reasonable, because all the conditions will never (not anytime soon) be fully be determinable.

So when someone talks about enlightenment - to myself - that just means: a more evolved mind (I guess), then a person who lacks enlightenment. But, I don't see it as exercising "more" freewill in anyway.

[Carl G]

Describe the situation as you wish, the point is the same: most people do not intend, they react. They are not capable of intention, because they have not cultivated attention. So their world chugs along on mostly the animal level, where the ideas in the video, while possibly correct in theory, remain practically mostly fantasy.

[Sapius]

Carl: Your dramatic bombast aside, you are simply wrong.

Alex: You're saying, Carl, that the Buddha would give you supper and then send you to your cell? Hmmmm. Perhaps you're right. I stand corrected.

Alex, you know what, I couldn’t help laugh my guts out, (I must have been awfully oppressed, but then again, I am almost on a regular basis), not so much on your joke, but seeing Carl respond with this one liner “argument”. Basically I see you speaking from a thinkers point of view, whereas a sage seems to be speaking from an almost about to burst of a bloated ego, although I’m told a sage is not supposed to have one. I suppose, a sage has the final authority to ego-less-ly declare, who has and who hasn’t an ego, and of course, define it as well.

However, begging your pardon, I think you are still wrong with your supper and cell thing.
In those days, I believe castration was the order of the day.

Jokes aside, I find this…

More closer to the truth---even a simple, intuitive truth---is that all people use 'intention' (or you could use the Castanedian term, intent, as a sort of magical will), all the time. It is intent that focuses this world, that enables any living entity to move in the world and attain the things of its striving, and to exist here you have to have it. The question is what it is focussed on.

…as you mention, more closer to truth myself. In my view, you are talking about the fundamental principle of existence itself, which in a way I express as “will to be”. The driving force of causality itself, a dynamic will to simply BE. (And I don’t mean a purposeful will of intent, but a “blind” one) What a particular will of intent is focused on due to its complex nature is a totally different matter, but absolutely everything in and of existence is driven by the ‘will to be’, at its most fundamental level.

Regarding your idea your are working with, could I summarize it as – arrogant egoistical stubbornness? Is that what you mean in short? Interesting study though. What makes a sage tick?

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As for the advert in the opening link; it sounds too commercial, targeting for gullible souls. I don’t think it is just the ten-dollar monthly fee that they may be really after, since it seems they have quite a number of books to sell, may be "techniques" for sale too. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be yet another front with hidden connections to scientologists. They are trying to whitewash their act, and this seems to be quite a suitable front, given their style of market entry. Well, may be not, but it does seem quite likely.

---------

Carl, no disrespects of your thoughts intended, but I can’t bring myself to it see eye to eye.

[Alex Jacob]

Sapius, in respect to the people who come up with these spiritual traveling shows, it always seems to me that everyone is hoping for their day in the sun, or their '15 minutes of fame'. Everyone wants to be on the cutting edge, and everyone wants to feel that they have some bit of information, or some twist on information, that gives then an advantage, that places them at the vanguard.

"What a particular will of intent is focused on due to its complex nature is a totally different matter, but absolutely everything in and of existence is driven by the ‘will to be’, at its most fundamental level."

Couldn't agree with you more. And as a result of 'being', everyone is 'doing', and it is their focus that channels their intent. If we examine the force of our focus, our intention (Paramahansa Yogananda once noted to a disciple the focussed intent of a dog waiting for a tidbit and said that it is that sort of focus and dedication that a god-seeker needs to have for God), it completely consumes our life and almost all of our available energy.

If we stand back and examine the nature of our focus, and the object of our focus, we can see that it is pure 'intent' standing behind it, and we might also see that we could 'lift' it off of that 'mundane' focus and apply it to...well, so many things. (Say, a new Cadillac, or a gf with giant knockers). The quality or activity that most defines us, we can't quite see: will, focus, intent. Yet we are actively engaged in using it at every moment.

Sagacity, briefly, is poetry. You either have good poetry or bad poetry, you either read good poetry or bad poetry, and we 'gargle in the rat-race choir' or hum along with the stars. If we are plants, the plant that is a sage is a plant that receives the best nutrients, and which nutrients travel on all the veins of consciousness causing the most portions of the living entity to shine.

The 'sages' here are deformed, defective, even pathetic creatures who hack at their own vital roots every day, and call that 'wisdom seeking'.

I am come spreading the Good News of fuller nutrition in nearly perfect humility, and no one pays any attention!....the main sages don't even respond to me anymore! (They've got me on 'ignore' I'm sure).

;-)

[brokenhead]

How many of the 'seers' and 'sages' here are in fact on some sort of medication?

Not nearly enough of us, IMHO.

[brokenhead]

The 'sages' here are deformed, defective, even pathetic creatures who hack at their own vital roots every day, and call that 'wisdom seeking'.

I think it only seems that way. Certainly, QRS exhibit consistency, if nothing else. I haven't read all the literary output yet, but it is strikingly single-minded. It is kind of like that disease where the body's immune system works so well, it begins to attack the body itself.

I question the oft-used term "ego" in these forums. I did study psychology at uni enough to know that Freud meant something very specific when he used the term "Das Ich," which we translate to "Ego," instead of "The I." The notion that you can undergo a process whereby you systematically take your Ego apart is a bit misleading. For whatever action you take upon your Ego results in your Ego. Your Ego can't be dismantled, as it were, because whatever comes out is still the Ego that you have, by definition. The Ego is dynamic. You can make the Ego go in a certain direction or directions, that is true. I think what QRS aims to do is empower people - especially males - to transform the Ego by diligent self-examination in as scientific a way as possible. This is hardly a new idea. I'm sure one of the QRS adherents will "set me straight" as to my conception of QRS methodology and goals.

Also hardly revolutionary is the notion that WOMAN in society has men in its clutches and prevents them from attaining spirituality or enlightenment. All a male has to do is watch one or two Oprah Winfrey segments to get this idea. The audiences - mostly female - has WOMAN's sensibilities. Shrinkage, Jerry!

The Collective Consciousness of society - Male and Female - has been under self-scrutiny since the 1930s and '40s. "Scrutiny" is perhaps too strong a word for it. But war brought women into the workforce en masse and radio and TV covered it all. Down to this day; the Collective Delusions that WOMAN holds before us will fall away as a matter of course under this scrutiny, QRS notwithstanding, just as surely as cream rises to the surface and shit rolls downhill. It may not happen in our lifetimes, but the process is inexorable. And you know what? Women will benefit from it just as much as men.

[Sapius]

(They've got me on 'ignore' I'm sure).

Should that really bother you?

I simply express what I have to, according to what I think best, and what best suits the situation, that's all. Ignored or acknowledged, does not really make a difference to me; however, what does is, how closer to truth am I?