Researchers at Engineering Anomalies Research Program (PEAR) housed at Princeton University, have been attempting to measure the effect of human consciousness on machines since 1979.
Using random event generators -- computers that spew random output – the researchers, led by physicist and Princeton professor emeritus Robert Jahn, have participants focus their intent on controlling the machines' output. They can see their apparent effect: balls that go in certain directions on command, water fountains that rise higher with a wish, and drums that quicken their beat.

The researchers note that results aren't affected by distance or time: participants have the same effect on a machine from outside the room or across the country.

Environmental conditions -- such as room temperature -- also don't matter, but the tester's mood and attitude do. It helps, for example, if the participant believes he or she can affect the machine.

Resonance with the machine is another important factor, Jahn said. He likens it to what happens when a great musician seems at one with her violin.

Gender also matters: men tend to get results that match their intent, although the degree of the effect is often small, while women tend to get a bigger effect, but not necessarily the one they intend. For example, they might intend to direct balls in the random cascade machine to fall to the left, but they fall to the right instead.

Results are also greater if a male and female work together, but same-sex pairs produce no significant results. Pairs of the opposite sex who are romantically involved produce the best results -- often seven times greater than when the same individuals are tested alone. Brenda Dunne, a developmental psychologist and the lab's manager, said the results in such cases often reflect the two gender styles. The effects are bigger, in keeping with what the female alone would tend to produce, but more on target, in keeping with what the male alone would produce.

"It's almost as if there were two styles or two variables and they are complementary," Dunne said. "(The masculine style) is associated with intentionality. The (feminine style) seems to be associated more with resonance."

Dean Radin, a senior scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences said the phenomenon could be similar to quantum entanglement in which two particles separated from each other appear to connect without any apparent form of communication.

Excerpted from www.wired.com 7/19/05