In this segment of the Human Upgrade podcast, Dave Asprey recounts his extensive work testing the power of collective intention. Over 40 experiments conducted with scientists—ranging from accelerating seed growth to purifying water, reducing violence, and alleviating PTSD—yielded measurable positive effects in 36 cases. Curious about the impact of a tiny, focused group, Asprey organized a workshop in 2008 with a core group of eight participants (later found to work with 7‑12 people). The group reported dramatic health improvements within a day, including relief from limping, depression, irritable bowel syndrome, and cataract symptoms. Asprey collaborated with neuroscientists to record brainwave activity during these sessions, finding that the parietal lobes (which reinforce a sense of separateness) and right frontal regions (linked to executive function, worry, and negativity) significantly down‑regulated. This neural pattern mirrors that observed in Sufi chanting and Buddhist ecstatic prayer, producing a state Asprey describes as “ecstatic oneness.” He concludes that small‑group intention can induce a mystical, altered consciousness that feels like a shared field, with tangible healing outcomes.
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I started testing the power of intention, inviting my readers every so often to send intention to some well organized, one well controlled target set up by one of the scientists. And we've run 40 experiments to date. Everything from trying to make seeds grow faster to purifying water, to lowering violence in war torn areas, to healing someone of post traumatic stress. Of those 40, 36 have shown measurable, positive, mostly significant effects as recorded and quantified by these scientists. Scientists. Now, getting back to the group of eight that came about. When I tried to shrink this down in a workshop back in 2008, I thought, well, if we have these effects on a giant scale, what happens with just a small group? So I decided to do it in a workshop. And I thought it was going to be a very mild little feel good effect, like getting your back rubbed or something like that. But that's not what happened with these first groups. We did it on a Saturday. I told them to come back the next day. And I didn't discuss what I was going to ask them, but I asked them, okay, any change? And I was shocked to hear the result. We had somebody who was limping all weekend, who was walking normally, and somebody else with depression said, it really feels lifted today. And somebody else with irritable bowel syndrome who said, my gut's normal today. And somebody else with cataracts who said, I'm about 80% better. So I was shocked by this. But I started testing it, experimenting with it, and I've worked with thousands of people over the years and seen thousands of healings. What happens in a group is that we do experience the field. I've done some brainwave studies with teams of neuroscientists, and we found that when people come together to intend in a small group doesn't have to be exactly eight, by the way, seven works, nine works, 12 works. But a group, small group, what happens is in the brain. The parts of the brain that make us feel separate very quickly turn off. Those are the parietal lobes back here. They make us, they help us navigate through space. They tell us, this is me, this is not me, this is how to go. Those are dialed way down. And that is very much involved in making us feel separate. And so do the parts of the brain like the right frontal lobes, the executive function, that and parts of those that are involved with worry, doubt, negativity, those are also dialed way down. So people are in a state of ecstasy. Static oneness. Brainwave studies almost identical to those done by the University of Pennsylvania on Sufi masters doing chanting or Buddhist monks in ecstatic prayer. So the long and short of it is power of eight groups get people in a state, an altered state of essentially a mystical state, like ecstatic oneness. And then we actually feel the field. You're listening to the human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.
