Subtle Energies and Uncharted Realms of the Mind
An Esalen Invitational Conference
July 2 - 7, 2000

Concluding Brainstorm Session
Marilyn Schlitz

If you were the director of a subtle energies and consciousness institute with no financial limits, what would be the most important project to undertake in the next year to advance the field (using all of the talent of the participants in the room)?

Listed below are a number of the useful suggestions arising from this session:

1) Think Tank: Create a think tank utilizing scholars from math, science, philosophy, and the healing arts to evaluate research proposals in the psi and subtle energies fields.

2) Website: Create a database website that collates and indexes the vast data already generated in the psi and subtle energies fields. Conduct on-line psi experiments. See www.boundaryinstitute.org as one example.

3) Compare Healing Modalities: Conduct a qualitative analysis of 10 separate healing modalities with the goal of determining which worked the best. Create a center where various healers could cross-train one another to test the effectiveness of healing techniques. Train more people in the VAS technique (see John Ackerman’s presentation).

4) Working with Medical Doctors: Have healers conduct healings in the presence of doctors who would:
1. translate those healers’ descriptions into traditional medical categories.
2. measure the before and after effects of someone who receives healing using a simple biological healing detector.

5) Public Relations: Expose policy makers to this research through a PR campaign, involving grants comparable to MacArthur grants. Many high-standing people believe in the validity of subtle energies and psi but are unwilling to risk their public reputations, even though the Clinton administration recently passed funding to further alternative medicine.

6) Instrumentation and Measurement: Develop our ability to measure the biofield and aura, including a close investigation of biophotons, EEG, EKG, EMG, GSR, kurilian photography, and acupuncture meridian measurements. Perhaps, new technologies, such as nanotechnology can play a roll in developing the instrumentation to measure the biofield?

7) Definitions: Create a well researched and comprehensive lexicon of all the unclear terms in these fields, such as "bio-field." By way of historical comparison, it was pointed out that the Oxford English dictionary was the work of several people who culled multiple definitions to show the richness and diversity of meanings that a complex word has.

8) Random Number Generators (RNG): Do a study showing how meditation and relaxation increases someone’s influence of a random number generator. Find the lowest level of skill necessary to influence a RNG. See if chi kung can influence a RNG. Set up an RNG/EGG for the Global Consciousness Project at Esalen.

9) Causality and Time: Have a major conference on space, time, and causality, including spiritual leaders, such as the Dalai Lama. Discuss how information travels through space and time and how it is transmitted into the body.

10) New Theories and Models:
1. Develop mathematical models to describe psi and subtle energies.
2. Design experiments to substantiate Ralph Abraham’s slope time model.
3. Develop a more inclusive biological model that allows for testing of intentionality on the healing process.
4. Develop Roger Penrose’s and Stuart Hammeroff’s work on quantum mechanics and the human brain. Is transfer of non-local quantum information powerful enough to create a measurable effect in the human biofield and body?

11) New Experiments and Research:
1. Conduct remote viewing experiments using pulsed targets at different frequencies (e.g., slides) with the intention of asking if it is possible to stobascopically match the period at which the target is presented to a person’s consciousness with enhanced clarity of the image.
2. Conduct further experiments to follow up on Marilyn Schlitz and Richard Wiseman’s work on the experimenter effect.
3. Continue the collaborative research model that has been underway at the California Pacific Medical Center.
4. Conduct experiments to study relationship between biophoton emission and random number generators.
5. Do research on the relationship between chi flow, the human ability to store light in our skin, and our skin’s self-repair capacity.
6. Do a staring study incorporating auric healers. See if the healers can detect the effect of the staring in a person’s aura.

12) The Next Generation: Host a conference to support the promising young students in these disciplines. Create easy-to-do experiments on psi that kids and teenagers could do in science class at school. Set up a Westinghouse prize for the best high school psi experiment. Set up a prize to reward high school teachers that support this work in their classrooms.