From cult film phenomenon What the Bleep!? to Oprah Winfrey’s talk show, the media is filled these days with stories about the power of intention. Have you ever wondered, as we have, whether claims of miracle cures and dreams mysteriously becoming reality are true? Can our thoughts alter reality? And if so, how? This week, WIE senior editor Elizabeth Debold speaks with Lynne McTaggart, an investigative reporter who writes about alternative health care, science, and consciousness studies, to try to find out.

McTaggart explains her research into the burgeoning science exploring how mind and matter interact, and describes her passionate search for verifiable results of intention in action. Discovering such phenomena as plants that seem to respond to positive thoughts and researchers purifying water with only the power of their minds, McTaggart has unearthed a vast array of evidence that she says begs a new understanding of who we are and how the universe functions. As she writes in her recent book The Intention Experiment, she believes these findings support a view of life in which all things are intimately interconnected—and more endowed with creative potential—than we could ever have imagined.

In this fascinating exchange, McTaggart takes the impact of thought and intention out of the realm of mere speculation and into the tangible world of experimentation and possibility.

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