Some thoughts about The Great Experiment
I participated in The Great Experiment today, but I had some mixed feelings
about some of the instructions for it on the site linked
from here. Personally, I felt some special sense of affinity for it because,
whether it was intentional or a synchronicity, this was the second event
on the twenty third of a month out of the
three that had appeared in my email in the last several months. I am in
general heartened by each additional global meditation and celebration of
unity of spirit. In many ways I do see them all embedded in a lineage which
now stretches from The Harmonic Convergence, through GaiaMind, to the Light
Shift in the Year 2000, and beyond. The question of what exactly these
events may or may not actually accomplish or influence is entirely open
in my own mind.
The fact that researchers
have observed an effect of two standard deviations during GaiaMind, and
that this level of effect is, as I understand the reports, about three times
the level normally observed with subjects in the lab, indicates that there
is at least some perturbation of the established order of randomness. How
that does, or does not, scale up is yet to be conclusively proven.
I find the phenomenon of the averted war in the gulf in late February exceedingly
interesting. I too participated in that meditation event, and expressed
some doubt as to our likelihood of success at that time. In my own view
it was a long shot. Astrologically there were indications that it could
go either way, but the parallel to the previous gulf war invasion was striking,
with both coming within days of a major solar eclipse. That the war didn't
happen this year was a minor miracle, but far from conclusive in itself.
The second associative connection between an event, in this case a live
performance, but not necessarily a global meditation, and the recent peace
deal in Ireland is also a striking apparent connection.
If I understand correctly, this latest event today, The Great Experiment,
was meant to constitute the third in a string - if it works. But it is
difficult to know exactly what we were trying for? In that sense this event
was misnamed when it was called "The Great Experiment." Because
an experiment, is by its very nature, in the scientific tradition, falsifiable.
I suppose we might conclude based upon the previous pattern, that if we
observed a trend, i.e. a peace treaty, somewhere in the world, within a
day or two, or even a week, of this meditation, that we would have a third
hit, and thus conclude that we have proven a trend. Yet, I would have several
reservations about that interpretation of this event, in either direction;
whether we were to conclude that the results constituted either a scientific
confirmation, or refutation, of any potentially correlated phenomena.
I do think that it is an excellent idea to continue to experiment with these
events as a high art and spiritual practice. The only problem is when we
transform the word experiment from an adjective into a noun,
in the title. Appending the word great is another red flag that
we are claiming too much for an event with far too little advance work,
and preparation and thus, most likely too little participation, to deserve
it. But who knows, if we suddenly get a dramatic treaty in the middle east,
my faith that it was a highly effective act of collective ritual magic could
not help but be redeemed. Otherwise, it was at the very least an exceedingly
positive expression of our collective spiritual identity and willingness
to experiment with being collectively psychically proactive.
Yet I do think that we have a responsibility when constructing these events
to try to be as open and inclusive, and therefore nonspecific, as possible
with the language in the instructions. This goal might be countervened
by the advantage of bringing everyone into resonance through toning or song,
or even a fairly concise visualization exercise, but the over specificity
of any text or prayer from any one particular spiritual subculture may turn
many people off. In this case this was no problem for me, I would participate
no matter what, but it may have been an indication that a large number of
people who might otherwise have chosen to participate, might instead have
been put off. This is not skillful.
I do understand the need for those who have been given the tremendous energy
to attempt to organize such an event, often to acknowledge specific instructions
which have come to them as part of the impetus to do such a thing. I only
wish to point out that the more we can be true to those messages, while
also presenting them with as much grace and subtlety as possible, the more
people will be able to hear them in a welcoming spirit.