Global Consciousness

One of the websites I have logged in my ‘favourites’ box is the Global Consciousness Project which records the results of a 12 year experiment being run out of Princeton University. Following the outpouring of grief worldwide at the death of Princess Diana, the project’s originators decided that they should attempt to measure whether, 'when galvanised by significant events, a coherent world consciousness exists.'

The team has placed Random Number Generators at 70 locations around the world. As the website explains these “produce completely unpredictable sequences of zeroes and ones. But when a great event synchronizes the feelings of millions of people,[the] network of RNGs becomes subtly structured. The probability is less than one in a billion that the effect is due to chance.” 


So far results are listed for over 400 events. These range from natural disasters to World Meditation Days, from moments of major political upheaval to each New Year’s Eve. While I haven’t got a clue about the maths behind such terms as the Stouffer Z graph, it is quite easy to understand the basic data and when a major event happens it is interesting to check out if it had an impact on a global scale.

The next question then is if global consciousness exists, what are we adding? Fed by the media’s insistence on bringing us every piece of misery or salacious gossip from around the world is it fear and anger and a sense of separation or is it positive acceptance? When Facebook and Twitter are the embodiment of a global community, are we raising human consciousness up or dragging it down? And can we make a difference? Absolutely and always! Each individual’s input may be small but it is always significant, always powerful - it is the drop of water that carves through rock! As Caroline Myss puts it “Every thought is a tool. Every thought is a prayer.”