A Tribute to the Great Shift of 2012 and Beyond: Improving Agriculture Using Consciousness & Intent

A Tribute to the Great Shift of 2012 and Beyond: Improving Agriculture Using Consciousness & Intent

Exploring how intention, meditation, and subtle energies may influence plant growth and agriculture.

Butterfly transformation artwork representing growth and consciousness

To honor the passing of the 12/21/12 marker as set by the Mayans and others (e.g. the Hopi, I-Ching traditions, etc.), I wanted to write a post highlighting some of the amazing potentials that may be possible with the shift in consciousness many people feel we are moving through.

Now I realize that to some people this might sound like “New Age fluff.” But personally, I believe something meaningful has been changing over the past few decades.

For instance, it’s pretty amazing to me that war and violence, which used to be widely accepted as unavoidable aspects of global society, are now largely viewed as tragic failures. The same goes for pollution and environmental destruction. There’s been a major cultural shift toward sustainability and ecological responsibility.

Even the idea that the Earth itself is a stakeholder in human decisions — something that would have seemed fringe not long ago — is now entering mainstream thinking.

With that in mind, I’d like to touch on a few areas that may seem somewhat esoteric, but actually have some empirical evidence suggesting they may have real effects.

The Effect of Deliberate Intent

One of the most fascinating aspects of human potential may be our ability to affect the environment around us through consciousness and deliberate intent.

In the Chinese arts of Tai Chi (Taiji) and its complementary healing practice Qi Gong, there is a saying:

“The Chi follows the Yi.”

Roughly speaking, this means that life-force energy flows in the direction of intention.

When I was younger, I became interested in Tai Chi primarily as a martial art. Like many outsiders, I initially assumed talk of “chi” sounded somewhat mystical. But at the same time, systems like acupuncture and Chinese medicine have existed for thousands of years, so I figured there had to be something worth exploring there.

Eventually I came to realize that chi is something that is very difficult to explain intellectually — it’s something that is largely experiential.

For now though, I simply want to focus on the concept of intent.

The “Staring Response”

One example many people may have experienced is the so-called “staring response.”

Researcher Rupert Sheldrake has written about this phenomenon in his work The Sense of Being Stared At. The idea is simple:

Sometimes you suddenly feel like someone is looking at you… and when you turn around, they are.

Whether one attributes this to subtle sensory cues or something more energetic, the experience suggests that focused attention may project some form of influence beyond the body.

Group Meditation Effects

Another example involves research on group meditation.

A widely discussed study conducted in Washington D.C. in 1993 examined the effects of large numbers of practitioners of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program meditating together with the intention of reducing crime.

The study reported a significant decrease in violent crime during the meditation period, suggesting that large-scale focused intention might influence social systems.

Effects on Plants

When it comes to plants, there have also been some intriguing experiments.

One example comes from the paper:

“Modulation of Germination and Growth of Plants by Meditation”
by Max Haid and Shankar Huprikar.

The researchers investigated whether meditators directing specific intentions toward water could influence plant growth. Some of the results included:

The authors concluded that meditation applied to water appeared to influence plant germination and growth.

The Secret Life of Plants Experiments

Another well-known set of experiments were conducted by Cleve Backster, described in the book The Secret Life of Plants.

Backster attached polygraph equipment to plants to measure electrical responses. When the plants were physically damaged, they produced measurable electrical signals — which we now know correspond to plant stress signaling.

But the more controversial observation was that plants sometimes appeared to respond to the intent to harm them, even before physical contact occurred.

While these experiments remain debated, they sparked decades of discussion about plant sensitivity and perception.

Masaru Emoto’s Water Crystal Research

Another controversial but fascinating line of research was conducted by Masaru Emoto, known for his book The Hidden Messages in Water.

Emoto photographed water crystals formed during freezing and reported that:

While these experiments have also been widely debated, they raise interesting questions about whether information or intention might influence physical systems.

Applications in Agriculture

So what might all of this mean for agriculture?

There may be ways to combine consciousness, intention, and subtle energies with conventional farming methods to improve plant growth and health.

One agricultural system that already incorporates these ideas is biodynamic agriculture, founded by Rudolf Steiner. Biodynamics treats the farm as a holistic living system, emphasizing the relationships between soil, plants, animals, and cosmic rhythms.

Today biodynamic farming is practiced around the world.

A Small Beekeeping Experiment

I even tried a small experiment myself with honeybee colonies.

Inspired by Emoto’s work, I placed printed labels with words such as:

on the tops of several hives.

After about three months, the labeled hives appeared noticeably stronger and more active than the unlabeled hive.

Now to be clear, this was far from a controlled experiment — the sample size was small and I didn’t collect hard measurements. But it was interesting enough that I would love to see someone repeat the idea in a more rigorous scientific framework.

Sound, Prayer, and Plants

There are also anecdotal reports suggesting plants respond positively to music, chanting, or prayer.

For example, a friend who runs a Siddha Yoga meditation center in St. Louis once told me he sang the chant Guru Gita to his vegetable garden every day for a season.

That year he harvested more tomatoes than ever before.

Again, this is anecdotal — but it’s another example of an area that would be fascinating to explore scientifically.

Electroculture Research

Lastly, I want to mention some research happening in France involving electroculture.

Rather than injecting artificial electricity into plants, this work explores how natural environmental electrical energies can stimulate plant growth.

One researcher working in this area is Yannick Van Doorne, who has conducted many experiments involving subtle energy and sound-based stimulation of plants.

Conclusion

Perhaps in the future we may see communities experimenting with collective intention to improve agriculture and environmental conditions.

Places like:

have already explored some of these ideas through meditation, intentional living, and ecological experimentation.

If human intention can influence:

then it’s interesting to wonder what other systems might respond as well — perhaps even weather patterns or climate events.

Imagine if large numbers of people coordinated meditation or focused intention through modern technology. Could that help reduce the formation of destructive storms or environmental disruptions?

It may sound ambitious — but these are exactly the kinds of ideas that deserve exploration.

What are your thoughts on this fascinating time we’re living in?

Have you ever experimented with consciousness, intention, or subtle energies in your own life or research?

If you know of interesting experiments or studies in this area, I’d love to hear about them.

Leave a comment and share your experiences.