Abstract/Results:
| ABSTRACT:
Previous research into the effect of meditation with more advanced practitioners suggests that meditation
affects consciousness in some way that gives a degree of more reliable psychic awareness. This study
continues the earlier work with a preliminary investigation into two different types of meditation technique:
mantra and visualisation. The same free-response design (Roney-Dougal & Solfvin, 2006, Roney-Dougal,
Solfvin & Fox, in press) was again used for this study. 10 Tibetan Buddhist monks, who had done at least 5
years meditation practice, completed 8 sessions each: 4 mantra and 4 visualisation. A precognition computer
programme (PreCOG) chose a target set at random from a pool of 25 sets, and a picture at random from a 4-
picture pool. The targets were static pictures of Tibet and India. The participants aimed to visualise the target picture at the end of their meditation session and then rated the 4 pictures according to the degree of
correspondence with their visualisation. A meditation attainment questionnaire (MAQ) assessed the number
of years the participants had practised different disciplines, including different types of meditation practise.
A Stroop test was designed for Tibetans by University Massachusetts, Dartmouth computer students. The
Stroop effect is highly correlated with attention. This test was done by all participants prior to doing the main
psi test. A control sample of 10 student monks who don’t practice meditation also did the test 8 times. Using
the participants’ normalised ratings of the target pictures, overall, psi results showed that the two most
experienced meditators, gave independently significant psi-hitting (t=2.25, p=.04). This is a replication of the
previous research, suggesting that years of meditation practise appears to be related to more consistent and reliable psi. There was no difference in psi scoring between the mantra and visualisation sessions. 4 of the 12 MAQ variables were statistically significantly correlated with the psi scores and an additional 3 variables were marginally significant, all in the predicted direction. The amount of time spent practicing visualisation meditation gave the strongest correlation with the psi (Pearson’s r = 0.734, p < 0.01, 1-tail); followed by length of time spent in retreat, (r = 0.572, p < 0.05); practicing pranayama (r = 0.569, p < 0.05); and asanas (r = 0.559, p < 0.05). The marginally significant variables were: the number of years spent practicing meditation, (r = 0.49, p = .075), and pranayama (r = 0.505, p = .068), and the amount of time spent practicing the ngondros (r = 0.464, p = .088). Sadly, owing to a programming error the main Stroop effect could not be computed, but the Stroop test error scores, which is a measure of accuracy and so a secondary Stroop effect measure, gave non-significant overall results.
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Reference:
| Roney-Dougal, S. M., & Solfvin, J. (2008). Exploring the relationship between two Tibetan meditation techniques, the Stroop Effect and precognition. In S. Sherwood & B. Carr (Eds.), Proceedings of the 51st Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association, Winchester, Britain (pp. 187-203). The Parapsychological Association Inc. & The Incorporated Society for Psychical Research.
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