NL: Hi everyone! My name is Natalie Ledwell and this is The Inspiration Show. Today on the show, my special guest is going to be talking about her new book called The Power of Eight:  Harnessing the Miraculous Energies of A Small Group to Heal Others, Your Life and The World. I can’t wait to get into this and also talking about an amazing peace experiment, intention experiment, that’s happening as well. But, before I introduce my special guest, I just want to remind you that if you are watching this show live on Facebook, or later on our YouTube channel, don’t forget after the show is over to click the link below this video so you can take my 30- second quiz, so we can figure out what’s holding you back from success. So, please let me introduce my special guest, the amazing Lynne McTaggart. How are you, Lynne?

LM: I am great, Natalie. Great to be with you…

NL: Yeah, pleasure to be here with you. Now Lynn is coming to us from the U.K. She has an American accent, but she does live in the UK. Lynn is also the author of the amazing, internationally well- known books, The Field and The Attention Experiment and The Bond and, of course, now The Power of Eight is her new book. So Lynne you are what we would call an investigative journalist. So tell us a little bit about your story and how you got into writing about some of these particular subjects.

LM: I started a newsletter called “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” because it was the end of a long journey of getting well. I was ill some 30 years ago and I had what everybody would know as a “faulty micro biome”, but they didn’t know. No one knew what it was at that time. When I finally found a great nutritional pioneer to heal me, it was such an amazing and heady experience that my husband and I really wanted to tell the world about it. So we started this newsletter, which has now become a magazine all these years later. It’s in 16 countries. It’s called, “What Doctors Don’t Tell You”, including the US, of course, and in the UK, and many other countries. But in the course of doing that work which is month after month of looking at medical literature, what works in conventional and alternative medicine- mainly alternative medicine- we kept coming across really good studies of things like spiritual healing. I kept thinking to myself, “if somebody could take a thought and send it to someone else and make them better, that in itself undermines everything we think about how the world works”. So I went on a quest really to find out why this could be and that quest became a book, which was The Field. It turned out that many scientists around the world were coming up with a small piece of what compounds into a completely new view of the world… That we’re all part of this amazing quantum energy field. So that was what really sparked my curiosity. That was my first book in this subject. But there was something else that was really a bit of unfinished business for me, which was that scientists were all coming up with good evidence that thoughts are an actual something with the capacity to change physical matter. So I kept wondering to myself, “How far can you take this? Can we cure cancer with our thoughts?” Mainly, let’s stop using it to just manifest more stuff. Can we use it to heal the planet? So that really became The Intention Experiment, which was not only the science of intention- and there’s loads of it-, but also an invitation to be. It was an invitation to take part in the world’s largest mind-over-matter experiment because I put together my scientists that I knew from doing this work and the many hundreds of thousands of readers I have around the world. My books are now in 30 languages. I put them together and set them up as every so often one of the scientists would set up a controlled experiment, and I’d invite my readers to come on, or an audience if I was speaking somewhere, and we would send intention to that target.

NL: Right. So with The Intention Experiment we were talking about as a group setting, as like all having the same intention at the same time. So is this like a prayer, or is it… What does this look like?

LM:  It’s a little bit more directed than a prayer. What we found with our experiments- I’ve run through 30 of them by the way- of these major experiments, 26 have shown measurable, positive significant effects and there’s no drug out there that’s got that kind of track record. But, what we would do all the time is ask the audience if it was a big intention experiment, or even if we have little groups of eight, to send the same thought at the same time. So it becomes one giant specific request. It’s a little different from prayer because prayer is usually not that specific. It usually is “God, you take care of things. Thy will be done”, whereas intention is very much a very specific request. In our experience, the more specific the better.

NL: Right. So with The Power of Eight you’re talking about having these intention experiments, but with groups of eight people. How did you come up with the number eight?

LM:  The whole thing came about by accident. The book really is about the unexpected effects of practicing in little groups of eight. I was running my first workshop, I didn’t know how to run a workshop. I thought, “Hmm. What am I going to do over a weekend? So I thought, “Well, I don’t know. I’ll put them in groups of eight and have them send intention to one of the members of the group who has a health challenge”. So we did this and I expected it would feel a little bit like getting a massage. You know? A little feel-good exercise. The next day when we asked our participants to come back and report on how they were, the people that had been sent intentions lined up. Each took the mic in turn and they started talking about how they had arthritis for many years and they didn’t have any pain anymore. Or… One woman who came in without her crutches; she had multiple sclerosis and she was so much better. Another woman had cataracts and she said she was 80% better. We had somebody with scoliosis who had to change the mirror of her car- the rearview mirror- because her back was so much straighter… And on, and on, and on. Stories like this and everywhere I ran these workshops, these group incredible healings came about. So I was shocked by this because it was all by total accident, but what I found over time, and the book is all about my journey trying to figure out what on earth happened to these people. We found there is this amazing rebound effect and also amplified effect of group intention. It doesn’t matter how big the group is. Eight is a nice number because it’s not too small to be a group, but it’s not too big to be unwieldy. But there’s no magic number in it. It’s just a nice ideal number, I suppose. But there’s an amazing effect that happens to both the senders and the receivers.

NL: Right. So, with these intentions, does it have to be focused on someone in the group, or can it be focused outside of the group?

LM: Well, that’s what we really discovered that was really interesting. First of all, in the big intention experiments too, I surveyed participants and I found that they were having essentially mystical experiences. They were having these overwhelming feelings of connection with everybody else. They were having physical feelings tingling down their arms and bodies, feeling like they were wired up to a “higher network” as one person put it. They were having their own physical healings. They were having more peace in their lives, particularly with our peace intention experiments. They were making up with long estranged colleagues, friends or lovers. They were hugging strangers and they’re… you know, their lives were turning around. They were rediscovering their purpose in life. It was extraordinary what was happening to them too. So there is an amazing rebound effect and one of the ways that I found that the rebound effect is even more amplified is when you get off of yourself and you start intending for someone else. That, in many instances in the number of people I’ve studied, happens once people stop asking for intention for themselves and start intending for someone else. Then the miracles in their own lives start happening.

NL: Isn’t that amazing?  I just find it so amazing. So, when we’re setting an intention, does it have to be something focused on health, or can it really be focused on anything?

LMY: Anything. I mean, in trying to study this I also ran year- long masterclass groups where I’d put people into groups of eight. I still do this every year. I run one year- long workshop and, in one of the cases in 2015, I started studying these people. I had them fill out forms and things every month. I was looking at the changes in their lives and many people had - it was whatever their intentions were set for. Some people were had financial issues and they got unexpected windfalls, or an amazing new job. Other people wanted to change their career and they did. They set up completely new careers, dream- type situations. Other people wanted to sort out their relationships; they did. Other people wanted to get over health issues; they did. I mean the extraordinary thing about people in my masterclass groups is of the people- there were 250 in total- 150 of them stayed working with the groups every week for a year. Those people, of those people, pretty much 100% had major life transformations. It was amazing.

NL: It’s incredible. Now, I know that with The Intention Experiment you actually have a new… an American peace experiment coming up. I know it’s also on September 30^th. So tell us a little bit about the motivation behind this and what’s entailed if people want to get involved.

LM: Well, I’ve run a number of peace intention experiments for Sri Lanka, for Afghanistan during the 9/11 anniversary of the Twin Towers disaster, the 10^th anniversary. I felt America really is in need of healing, but there were two reasons for doing this. Not just an area of America where we’re focusing on. We’re focusing on one of the most violent places in America. I’m not going to reveal it yet because I don’t want people to start intending for it yet. But, and we’re measuring it with a team of scientists as we have done. This is a real- live experiment. We’re going see if we can lower violence, but there’s something else going on here too. What I noticed in that 9/11 experiment I ran is… I ran it with thousands of Westerners and thousands of Muslims, as well. I invited them via a contact of mine in the Middle East who’s very well known there. I found that afterward, yes, it looked like we lowered violence. Certainly violence was lowered in those areas of Afghanistan afterward. But, the more important effect was what happened between the participants. The Westerners, particularly the Americans and the Muslims, started Face Booking each other. They started Instant Messenger-ing each other and they began finding each other-  and, finally, really ended up forgiving each other. So, with America being so polarized, the real purpose of this peace intention experiment is to heal the hearts of most Americans, this divided America, and bring them together more. In my ideal scenario, we have groups of eight- and four of them would be Republicans and four of them would be Democrats all intending for peace. It’s also the rebound effect in individual hearts, just like as I mentioned before. People’s lives become more peaceful. They become healed. They become more you know connected. They begin hugging strangers. That’s what I want to happen in the tens of thousands of people who are participating.

NL: Hmmm. Absolutely. So, other than really just having a true intention for unity and peace inside of America, can anyone participate in the peace experiment?

LM: People around the world are participating. I’ve got people writing me from countries all around the world participating because people understand that it’s not just about America. It’s about healing their hearts too and the people around them. So all they need to do… It’s a completely free event. There’s no upsell here. This is a gift. This is my gift. This is also the gift of Gaia TV, who are sponsoring the event, who have filmed the event, and will be showing it and airing it for free over six days. So people just need to sign up. When they sign up they’ll receive information and instructions from us, plus a daily URL. It’s, as you said, it’s run from the September 30^th to October 5^th. It’s going to be run the optimum time is 9 A.M. pacific, 12 noon eastern. That’s 5 PM UK, 6 P.M. European time, and all the other time zones in between and afterward you can just check. That’s the best time because the most number of people will be on it. But each broadcast, if you can’t make that time, you can still sign up and watch each broadcast. It will be up for 24 hours before it’s taken down. So I really urge you, for your own sake as well as America’s sake, to take part. The URL to sign up, by the way, is www.americanintentionexperiment.com so that’s americanintentionexperiment.com

NL: Yeah.

LM: And then you get all of the materials.

NL: Yeah. Now guys we will have either a banner to the side of the video. We’ll have the link underneath this video, so you can click and register to be part of that incredible world- changing event. I am definitely going to be participating myself and to be part of such a huge event like that- through basically through the intention of our thoughts and in a collective like this, that we can facilitate a peaceful global change. Like you said, it’s not just in the U.S., it will be, it will permeate out everywhere and not only to the people that we’re making the intention for, but also for ourselves as well. So, not that that’s the motivation behind it, but I really truly believe and I mean through the intention experiment and obviously through The Power of Eight you have so much scientific evidence that this actually does work- and so many stories that it’s a very exciting event. I’m so happy to be helping to create some awareness for it as well. Lynne, thank you for joining us today. It’s been such a pleasure chatting to you and I will be seeing you-  well maybe I’ll be seeing you- when we start the peace intention starting on September 30^th. But, thank you so much for your time today.

LM: Thank you so much. Thanks, Natalie.

NL: Wonderful. So guys I encourage you to register for this event. It’s going to be like we said completely globally changing. You can do that by clicking on the link added below this video, or the banner to the side. I also encourage you to share this video. You can do that by clicking the Facebook and the Twitter share buttons on this page. Let’s get the word out as much as we can. Don’t forget that once the show is over, if you click the link below the video you can take my 30-second quiz to figure out what’s holding you back from success. So until next time, remember to live large, choose courageously and love without limits. We’ll see you soon.