Primary Perception Results
Well, the waiting is over – here are the results of the Primary Perception Experiment:
Over the last six days I have been regularly standing in front of six envelopes containing a leaf each and focussing positive thoughts on just one of the envelopes that was chosen at random by the throw of a dice.
I got Sally to open the envelopes and place the leaves on top of their corresponding envelope. I then asked her to pick which one she thought looked the healthiest and whether it was markedly healthier than the others. She picked leaf number six (which appeared only slightly healthier probably due to the fact that it was the biggest leaf of the range) and stated that it wasn’t markedly healthier than the others. She then opened the envelope with the number of the leaf I was focussing my attention on and confirmed that the leaf corresponding to that number was not noticeably different to the others.
Here are the leaves after six days.
Leaves 1, 2 and 3. Number three was the randomly selected leaf that I lavished positive thoughts on for six days.
Leaves (3), 4, 5 and 6. Leaf number 6 was the one picked as being the healthiest by a very slim margin.
Conclusion:
There was no noticeable difference between the leaf that was the focus of positive thoughts and the others. I remained optimistic throughout the experiment and even began to suspect that it was actually working about half way through due to the observation that the envelope that the leaf was in that I was focussing on appeared to be warping less than the others. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed when it came to the ‘reveal’.
The friend who initially suggested this experiment mentioned in response to my request for thoughts on the setup that publishing photos of the leaves at the first step may have tainted the outcome by allowing any people who saw the photo to have interfered. I suspect that even if this were the case you would have to have at least six people projecting their positive thoughts to each of the leaves for the experiment to have turned out so evenly. And surely proximity would have an effect?
From this experiment I would have to say that the theory that projecting positive thoughts at a detached leaf keeps it from deteriorating faster than other, similar leaves was a failure.
If anyone knows of a reason why this experiment may have been flawed I would suggest that you try the experiment yourself (minus the flaws) and, if you have success, rerun the experiment a couple of times. If you consistently get positive results please let me know – I would love to give it a try.
Until then I’ll avoid the embarrassment of standing in front of dead leaves and thinking positive thoughts.
At the risk of sounding like a total loon, I’ll pop off a few thoughts.
If I were a scientifically inclined new-ager, I’d word it thus: You’re attempting to translate a mental thought into a spiritual energy. That energy then has to retranslate to the physical level to affect a change. And untrained mind with little understanding of the energy it is trying to direct is going to be terribly inefficient at the job. Additionally, there has to be fairly significant loss at least in the spiritual->physical translation. And perhaps most difficult of all is the change you’re trying to effect….extending life, preventing millions of cells from dying of thirst or starvation for a little while longer. When you look at the physical mechanisms you’re working with, it’s even likely that sending them some energy would only hasten their demise.
So firstly, instead of dying leaves, I’d switch to something like attempting to affect the rate of growth of something like bread dough. Assisting growth of life rather than attempting to delay its inevitable demise. It’s easier to work with nature rather than attempting to oppose it. Carefully measured flour, yeast, and water in a graduated cylinder maybe. Constant temperature between experiments, and see if you can speed up or retard how long it takes for the volume to double. Use a real bread recipe, and even if the experiment is a failure, you’ll at least get a tasty treat out of the deal.
Of course, there’s still the issue that you’re attempting to use a form of spiritual energy to generate a result that has no inherent spiritual value. It would help if you actually loved the yeast.
But it’s all pretty much useless, scientifically speaking, because mankind has not yet learned how to properly qualify or quantify the primary input into the experiment. “Positive thoughts”? How many? What was the content of these thoughts? Were they all the same or all different? Were they the only conscious thoughts in your head at the time, or were they sullied by doubt or other distractions? How pure were these thoughts? With what level of conviction were they held? If you were sure, at a lower level, that you were wasting your time, would not that have affected the quality of the thoughts themselves? How do they compare between experiments? Perhaps the manner in which you thought actually produced a field effect rather than a directed flow due to inexperience or other factors?
At the very least, you should keep track of your brainwave frequency; if there is anything to this at all, that’s likely fairly important. It’s pretty much certain that you’ll not be successful if you’re hanging out in Beta. Form the thought in Beta, and then move to Alpha or preferably Theta. This, along with keeping the “positive thoughts” clear and singular in your mind, will be easier if you’re well-experienced with any meditation techniques.
To me, there’s also a critical importance in truly holding the belief that it will work. Optimism isn’t quite the same. Science experiments typically don’t depend upon the belief of the scientist, but there is a distinct probability that experiments such as this need the thought patterns of the belief as an input, held in the same mind simultaneously with the “positive thoughts”. There is an inverse relationship between the level of doubt and the probability of success. The higher the doubt, the more improbable the desired outcome is reached. Remember that according to scripture, Yoda said, “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
Yes, it’s an area fraught with fuzziness. All I was really doing was testing the claim that if you think positive thoughts at one of a bunch of dying leave it’ll prolong the life of that leaf. The experiment was a failure. If anyone thinks they are able to prove something of this nature I would suggest that they bring other people in, preferably who don’t share the same enthusiasm for the possibility of primary perception, who can help document and measure the results.
Logically the whole concept smacks of utter woo woo. Any claim that decreases in positive outcome with the increase in rigour should raise a few question marks.
I ran the methodology of the experiment past a statistician afterwards and he made some valuable suggestions:
I discussed this with my friend who’s a believer in primary perception and even he wasn’t interesting in running the experiment to this degree of rigour. I have to say I don’t blame him. I’m pretty much done with it as well.
I’ll leave it to the enthusiasts and will let this experiment count as a miss.