how do you think intention work? What gives it it's power? I'm curious to see where this thread will lead.

In an hourglass, sand falls through the spout from one chamber to the other.
It falls freely and faithfully, whenever the glass is turned 180 degrees.
It follows the shortest path, like most liquids do.
The first chamber is interacting with the second, feeding it sand.
Sand can for this example be considered information.
Intention, in this analogy would be the complex series of pipes/ramps/chambers that are situated in the neck of the hourglass that guide the information into a more interesting arrangement on its way to the second chamber. Creating friction and resistance to what would be the natural physical flow of sand, slowing it and allowing the second chamber a glimpse into something deeper from the first.
The pipes/ramps/valves are the sum total of the experiences of the communicator, with an emphasis on their relevance to what is being communicated.

I like that analogy

Hey BFP, how is it going?

I think intention has a big impact on the psychedelic experience, to say the least. Most recently, I've been learning how to let go during the DMT experience as well as resolving some other issues. I've had a couple of journeys as of late that have inspired me to focus on the "why" or "intention" behind my psychedelic use, DMT in particular. If interested, you can read about it here in my experience report(s) :


"Do What You Will, I'm Letting Go."

and the follow up report:

The Playful One

Basically what it boiled down to for me was that I wasn't going into the experience properly prepared. I would jump in, and just hope for the best which didn't work out too well way back in the beginning. It took me a long time and more hyperslaps then I'd care to admit to figure out what I was doing wrong. Half of it was having no intention and the other half has to do with addiction to drinking.

So my new focus and intention on resolving these issues and not jumping in willy nilly have resulted in majorly positive experiences, gently pushing me forward to better myself. Intention is very important in all aspects of life, IMHO!

But the "natural" flow of sand is subject to friction and resistance. The hourglass itself is part of nature.

Anyways, I'm not sure the original question is specific enough for me to able to give a specific answer. I guess I've been divided on this topic because willpower is an illusion based on what I know about physical reality, and physical reality is an illusion based on what I know about perceptions, but then even knowledge itself is an illusion... :/

So I guess I would question any truth statement about anything, including intention, except that "it is likely an illusion".

I also think that free-will is an illusion. I don't think that means that "will" doesn't drive every single thought-process and behavior, though. I believe that "will" is built from and fueled by our subconscious mind.

Setting your intentions during an extraction, making a brew, or especially when preparing for an intense experience, helps direct the experience in a more particular manner because of subconscious fixations. If you have ever heard of a sigil, I find that these really help set intentions well, in addition to meditation. I think this has huge importance in an extremely energetically intense state such as a DMT flash or relentless examination from mother aya.

I like to think of an electrical substation. It has been carefully designed to manage the ridiculous amounts of electrical energy flowing through it. They are being deliberately directed from input to output; to take in large amounts of energy and distribute it safely to the surrounding grid of buildings and homes. If this substation was unable to properly distribute the energy, you had better believe some stuff is going to blow up.

Have you ever had a classic bad trip on a psychedelic substance, one where you are caught in an intense negative thought loop? I always think of this as too much energy with nowhere to go. The only way to end it is to direct the loop in other, more positive directions. Energy flows where attention goes.

Setting your will can help direct this energy.

The unintentioned flow of sand/information.

Well, I should've been more specific, I really mean intention in a much broader sense than just having to do with the psychedelic experience. I meant when one makes an intention that effects the material world, or ones body for example. In the sense that words are spells and language can be used to effect our realities, or when one intends to perform reiki for example from a distance. What mechanism causes that to happen? Because it can and does happen.

That's a very controversial claim, but if it does happen then I think the cause is that the structure of what we call the "material world" is in fact determined by the mind. That objects in the universe are separate and unconnected is more of a perceptual interpretation than a fact of reality, and the phenomena that you mentioned are able to cut through the rigid structure that our minds impose on the world to achieve results that seem to transcend our material model of the world.

I was referring to reiki, reiki does happen in my experience. Anyway, I think that either the mind creates reality all together, and I'm the only real mind, or perhaps all minds co-create this reality, or its its some sort of interplay between mind / minds and matter / energy. Idk really, but I've seen intention work though. Wayne dyer thought intention worked through some sort of source energy, I had actually thought about this lecture he gave about the power of intention before I started this thread. Then Terence McKenna thought that the planet itself has its own intentionality, as well as all the life on it. I agree with this btw.

Why stop at the planet? What about subatomic particles, spacetime, the universe itself? Do these things have intentionality? How is "intentionality" different from the laws of physics for these cases?

All of those suggestions are possible, but I am inclined to think that you are the only real mind.

What is intention?

Intention is the currency of energy,
Intention is what energy is composed of.
Intention is what the universe is made of.
Intention is like a gravity,
always drawing towards itself thoughts and frequencies similar to that which are being projected.
If we don't think of our minds being enclosed inside the brain like a box,
and instead regard our brains as more like radio antennas,
which can simultaneously broadcast and receive a very broad band of frequencies,
these frequencies correspond to the various levels of emotion we experience.
Intention is exactly that which charges, as if it were life force itself, thought.
As we think, so we speak.
As we speak, so we think.
Thought can be charged with intention and fired radially outward like bullet beams of thought-light - a finer essence than visible light or any light on the so-called electromagnetic spectrum.
These thought waves, if sufficiently invigorated with with the energy of intention, (intention reflects that which we desire)
can interpenetrate minds, in the same way as radio antennas generating and receiving each other's signals.
You are much more powerful than you realize.
Imagine how you might regard yourself and the world differently,
if you knew that you must take equal responsibility for, not only what you do, but what you think.
And, basically, the energy that sustains the generation of thought waves (ideas, words, symbols, etc)
is none other than intention.
And this leads to one basic profound realization.
All you must do, in order to elevate the consciousness of the human race,
is simply to intend it, imagining summoning together on yourself as you turn the wheel to generate incredible command all the clarity and love you can conceive of bestowing on the crowns of every human being.
If god can bless the world,
then you too can bless the world.
Just who does one think god is?

Hixidom,
I would say all those things of course have intentionality. If you take all the molecules in my hand, and then all the atoms that make up those molecules, and I observe the tremendous space, incredible distance between those little balls called atoms. Atoms which compose my body are as far apart from one another as the stars are so unbelievably distant from one another in space. My point is this: when you move your hand, all those molecules move altogether at once - in the same way that a flock of birds seem to be one mind when they all move up into the air together at the flick of a finger - they don't seem to have a leader - they move altogether at once. Where's the intention there? In the same way, all those examples you listed refer to just one side of reality corresponding to one particular inseparable aspect - material, or matter, or you can call it the physical. That's yin. That's tails.
The other side that we so often forget about is this invisible 'thing' - call it mind or consciousness, call it the mental, call it the psyche, call it the divine imagination, the vision of god, the spiritual. This aspect is the force that animates the body; this force is metabolism - a sort of pathway for the conductivity of the spirit into the body. In relation to this invisible aspect exactly is Intention. Intention is the fuel by which your organic intelligence, you know, the intelligence which beats your heart and grows your hair, the same intelligence that shines the sun and creates galaxies, manifests itself.
In other words, what you are doing now is the expression of what you truly want.
What you want is what you are doing now.

In this way, Intention and Meditation are the same.

Hypothetically, three people are in a closed room. They each have an intention-potential; that is, a specific passive charge that upon interacting with the others in the room it becomes kinetic and may be passed around.
If person A has +10 potential, person B has +14 potential and person C has +6 potential - over time, do they reach equilibrium?
All of them at +10 and faithfully/simultaneously passing the required amount of potential between each other to keep a steady rhythm.
A gives B +5, B gives C +5, C gives A +5 etc.

Intention would imply that there was someone to intend. Upon searching, there doesn't seem to be any evidence for that. It all just seems to happen.

Totally with you, as you might suspect :-) Intention itself is one of the happenings.

But at the level where one does see intention and feels ownership over it, it may be useful to "act" with intention :-)

Yes! I love this image to describe not only the equilibrium factor but also the psychology of transference, which is sharply demonstrated by the fact that it is likely that the total of you is the sum of the top 5 people in your life that you've spent the most time around. This is also why Mckenna didn't like taking the mushroom with other people as often as he liked to do it alone. I know personally, my roommate and I are highly synchronized and he is literally the only person on the planet, besides you guys out in this virtual space with me, with which I can communicate on various vertical levels at once.

In other words, we're becoming more or less the same person. Just in the same way that it is said rightly to be careful with who one hangs around. In your box scenario, I think it would happen exactly as you described, and we might add that any plant intelligences that would be involved with the human minds inside the box (say are we smoking tobacco, or cannabis, or sharing mushrooms, or any of the psychedelics together inside your box) would catalyze the transmission/transference/stabilizing factor between all the antennas balancing to achieve a perfect frequency.

Come to think of it, this makes perfect sense. I remember a trip I had last year with my best friend, and towards the end of it, the word symbiosis came spilling out of my mouth, trying terribly to describe the atmosphere of not only my mind, but also the combined forces of both of our minds projecting out vibrations and harmonizing with the each other. We had achieved a state of perfect unity with each other. I saw him, though I didn't see him - you know what i mean. And the same thing happened from his point of view. We had both effectively disappeared. The world was a mirror. And we we're both mirrors. Everything understood itself.

I feel like i'm in the presence of zen masters.
Intention would imply that there was someone to intend.
It's amazing how one sentence like that disables the entire concatenation of thought,
as if I suddenly realized i was thinking nonsense,
which leads me down to a point when I suddenly re-member.
I see your point.

Is there anyone present that has any experience doing this kind of working with energy (call it intention-potential)?
I would absolutely love to find out more about this kind of thing, if one would like to write about their experiences.
In big dimensions I think we do it everyday of our lives. However, I think we as culturally and ideologically programmed and programmable beings are asleep to it.
Those waking up to this seem incapable of not spreading the news to others,
because one cannot believe how human beings have not recognized even a mote of their power.
And all you want to do is help them step into their power, simply by recognizing what they've actually been doing all along.
The universe depends on you as much as you depend on the universe.

Your enthusiasm is infectious anamnesia
I think a parallel and inclusionary concept to the model for intention we are exploring, is expectation.

When individual A and B are preparing to interact, they both have a level of outward intention and and level of inward expectation.
The expectation of A (+10) exceeds the intention of B(+6), and for ease of this example we will say that the intention of A (+5) is equal to that of the expectation of B(+5)

Interaction = {A={(i+5),(e+10)},B={(i+4),(e+5)}}


Because A's expectation of the interaction surpasses the intention of B, the total sum of intention from B cannot be transferred to A (the expectation of a must be subtracted from the intention from B). So Instead of the full (+4) intention A would have received had their expectation been conservative, they end up and the end of the interaction with a negative total intention.

Result = {A={(i=-6)},{B={(i=O)}


Expectation is exclusive to the individual and to the individual circumstance of interaction (which is why it is excluded from the result). It cannot be observed by another. But, intention can always be observed because it is the currency of the energetic transaction.

What does this mean?
A, by having higher expectations from the interaction played a mental trick on themselves and received a false result (-6) when the true result was actually (+4).
B, on the other hand could have quite easily received a similar false result; but a stroke of luck and good favour allowed them to achieved a zero sum result, perfect equilibrium.

Where did the (4+) intention really go?
Back to the soup of the verse I guess....who really knows

I disagree. Matter is wavelike, and so particles such as atoms do not exist at singular locations. They are dislocated in space, and have significant overlap. This is how they interact. Intention is not necessary to explain why atoms move together. It can be explained by many-body interactions. Sorry to be a buzzkill. I do admire the theoretical mindset you guys are in.

We exist. we are programmed, we program ourselves w language. And language carries farther into our bodies than we can feel, as the sound of the spoken word may often carry farther afield than intended. . . And intention is the extension of ourselves, our own unique wave form, via the languages and patterning of that bodily programming.

I think of strings on an instrument. They will sound without being touched, if the note of their particular tuning is played at the correct pitch nearby.