The recent success of “The Secret” is perhaps due in part to a conscious effort on the part of Prime Time Productions to include people of faith in the interviews. This has allowed a majority Christian audience in the United States to more readily accept theories that largely spring from a Western / Christian perspective on what was once called Oriental Occultism and Theosophism.

The New Thought Movement was begun in the mid 19th as a way, in part, to merge beliefs in monism (such as experiential Christianity demonstrated in the first to third centuries AD) with practices it had shunned during an era of empire. Today, some very successful transdenominational, New Thought churches are joining more traditional churches as a supplement to one’s spiritual life, even in relatively small towns.

One prominently featured interviewee in the film was the charismatic Rev. Michael Beckwith, a minister of “New Thought / Ancient Wisdom” divinity, ordained in Religious Science, who founded and runs the transdenominational Agape Center in southern California. Centers like it have been popping up all over North America since the mid 1990s with swelling congregations, often with more than several thousand individuals.

The program at a service there consists of personal empowerment, peace though communication and an international rainbow of beliefs that are heavily influenced by Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Like the wide search cast by Wallace Wattles and Rhonda Byrne to find their Secrets, Transdenominational New Thought includes a little bit of everything, presented in such a manner that you can recognize it and be comfortable, but just interesting enough to be fun.

However, that doesn’t mean people don’t want somewhere to go on Sunday. One of the fastest growing segments of faith in North America; the transdenominational focus is upon spirituality draws people from various faiths who feel no need to switch affiliation or beliefs. They simply go, enjoy the show, and take away what they feel is personally useful to them.

The buildings such congregations meet in are often enormous and called centres rather than churches. Little to no time is spent on ritual, and more effort is expended upon creating the right mood for a joyful, shared experience. Usually this means a amplified band and flashy choir to accompany many speakers. Services at such centres usually last far longer than the usual 45 minute Catholic Mass or Lutheran Service that many are used to. There is no kneeling required, unless the spirit moves you to do so.

These churches seem to borrow a great deal of their set-up and outward appearance to the tent revivals that traveled the United States in the early to mid 20th century. Though usually without faith healing, there will certainly be discussions about physical and spiritual heath as a consequence of positive thinking and an open attitude.

In recent years, many conservative preachers and rabbis have voiced concern that such a movement toward individual spirituality will prove the end of organized religion having an organized force on society at large. However, attendance at such churches suggests that many of the attendees go in addition to existing commitments to their regular church.

The theology that has sprung up in the late 20th century with regards to transdenominational congregations argues that the similarities shared between various Christian sects are greater than their differences. Furthermore, these differences are thought to be an asset when accepted into a larger Christian framework.

In addition to Religious Science, the New Thought Movement has given rise to many independent organizations with various types of organization. Some others in the United States include independent organizations that are actively spreading today, including Divine Science, Humanity’s Team, Unity and Universal Foundation for Better Living. Some of these groups are more closely identified with transdenominational Christianity than others, with Unity being perhaps the one with the closest ties.

The various groups and organizations of New Thought tend to welcome those from outside groups because a main tenet of the philosophy is that it should change over time — hearing what those in other faiths have to say is a way to go about doing that. While many in the New Thought Movement choose to pursue teaching in books or as self-help “gurus,” the use of a church-like service to discuss issues of spirituality has proven a natural and successful one.

Wow, now that really is a long time since the last post. I am unable to focus on this and I apologize to all that were following along. I had written 4 more articles but never had the time to post them. I have a virtual admin now, actually I have two, so I am going to get one of them to post the articles. I will do what I can. I did not realize what an audience I had until I stopped posting and got all of the email. Thank you for taking the time to write.

All the best,

Greg

There's been a very interesting experiment going on at Princeton University since 1998. A collection of random number generators all over the world have been continuously linked up to a computer that tracks deviations from randomness. Essentially, there now exists a record of nearly a decade of the power of the human mind, not only registering common emotions but also, doing so just a little bit outside time, with the help of the EGG network.

Roger D. Nelson, a PhD in Cognitive Psychology, began this experiment in 1997, after nearly 20 years background in the study of human consciousness. Dr. Nelson began his professional career at Princeton in 1980 when he began working as the Coordinator of Research with the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research or PEAR project. Also having a background in physics and mathematics, Dr. Nelson is uniquely suited to propose a theory that encompases the mind and the physical universe with a real theory of operation.

PEAR was begun in 1979 by Robert G. Jahn, an emeritus professor of Aerospace Engineering, studied the interaction of human consciousness on electronic and mechanical devices. It was determined through a large series of experiments that there is a small but predictable effect on truly random numbers. The project finally shut down in early 2007 after nearly 30 years of unique data and funding from a wide variety of well-respected foundations.

The Global Consciousness Project is a continuation of that work that specifically focuses on shared group experiences and the power they have. EGG is an acronym that stands for a play on words: EncepheloGaiaGram. This takes the PEAR experiments one step further in that they track the whole planet through global network, rather than undergraduates. So far, the result has been the same in that human consciousness, whether singly or in groups, can affect the operation of electromechanical devices, somehow.

Some of the math that may allow a mental effect on the outside world that operates independently of space and time was produced by Richard Feynman of CalTech in the 1960's. Having made a life's work of probing the mysteries of quantum electrodynamics (among a great many other things), Feynman was among a few prominent 20th century physicists who devised math to support the idea of retrocausality, or that under some circumstances effect can precede cause. He described the wave aspect of something with those properties as, "advanced waves."

In published papers, Dr. Nelson has reported on the experiment set-up and results of September of 2001. There clearly was a significant spike in what is called "coherence" or non-randomness as reported by the eggs on the 11th. In fact, like a tidal wave, there was a strong streak of what is called "anti-coherence" beforehand. What was interesting is that no matter where they were in the world, all the eggs registered the deviation. In addition to that, there was a definite ramping up of coherence, starting hours before the hijackers even took off.

Experimenters working with the Global Consciousness Project have asserted that the influence is a sub-conscious mass precognition, perhaps made possible by an exotic property of the waves generated by a lot of people thinking about the same thing. Research that has followed the progression of New Years Eve across the globe shows that the effect isn't always global, with individual EGGs in various time zones reacting most intensely in the midnight timezone. On the other hand, sometimes something as seemingly mundane as a TV broadcast with wide appeal can register worldwide.

Even though physics makes some very interesting predictions about the nature of time, experiments to cover them are hard to receive funding for and difficult to publish. Among the community of physicists, great pains are made to separate themselves from metaphysics, or the study of the observable physical universe, though many who identify themselves as purveyors of metaphysical information in recent years have no scientific training or discipline whatsoever.

As such, research scientists have had to proceed carefully in order to investigate these theories. Current investigations into retrocausality by the University of Washington team lead by Dr. John Cramer are building upon the entangled photon experiments by the University of Innsbruck, Austria, often referred to as "quantum teleportation" by the media.

By connecting disparate disciplines of psychology, arts, physics and medicine together perhaps the mechanism by which the mind interacts with the physical world, we can begin to influence realms we once thought uncontrollable.