Over the years, in witnessing the transformational experiences in our community, I was inspired to assemble a team of research scientists to begin measuring the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual transformations that we once thought were immeasurable.

Last month, we began a new phase of scientific testing at our weeklong workshop in Indian Wells, California. In addition to continuing to share powerful and inspiring testimonials, the goal of this next phase of scientific research is to document, at a more detailed level, the genetic, chemical, magnetic, and electrical activity that occurs within the body and brain—the result of which produces measurable, positive changes.

By following the formula for overcoming the conditions of the environment, the body, and time, and elevating our emotions during our meditations, we train our minds and hearts to step out of the driver’s seat and surrender to the energy that balances and orchestrates the symphony of life.

With the help and participation of our students during our workshops, our newly assembled research team has begun (and will continue) to collect data from pre- and post-workshop conditions using very specialized instruments, as well as brain scans and heart rate variability devices. Each weeklong event where we perform these types of tests will deepen our understanding of the capabilities of the human organism, both individually and collectively, and will help us tell the transformation story with greater detail and profundity.

Even with the evidence our students have provided in video testimonials—including medical tests showing the absence of disease, where just days earlier the disease was clinically present—some of our new researchers entered into this work with healthy skepticism. However, once the scientists witnessed firsthand, real-time remissions of diseases, they too became inspired to seek answers to bigger questions such as, how is this possible? And what is really happening inside the brain and body?

Because students at all of our live events are eating almost the same foods, sleeping approximately the same amount, waking up at the same time, and doing the same things—that is, following the guided meditations—these types of rhythms that could never be replicated in a laboratory setting are providing a unique opportunity to sample a uniform population. As a result, we will continue to deepen our collaboration with the HeartMath Institute, in addition to our own brain-research scientists, as well as work with scientists from the University of California, San Diego. This team of scientists are enthusiastic, dedicated to asking better questions, and ready to make history.

What’s Beyond Supernatural?

In my last book, Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon, we published our research findings which demonstrated how gene expression can change in just four days of meditation. Now we will be able to expand these findings in more detail because the University of California, San Diego research department has an extensive laboratory of very sophisticated technology and instrumentation, which we can use to measure very specific information at a cellular level.

To perform these studies, we will take blood samples from volunteer students pre- and post-workshop—while in between, for seven days, they will be fully immersed in processing new thoughts, making new choices, doing new things, creating new experiences, and embracing new feelings and emotions. In other words, they’ll be bathing their body’s cells with new information.

Next, to document any changes in gene expression, our researchers will observe and record the reactions of specific types of cells in the body (nerve cells, white blood cells, heart cells, etc.) when they come into contact with these different pre- and post-blood samples. The samples will allow us to test for specific protein markers, signaling compounds, and elements that will measure epigenetic changes happening at the cellular level. The hope is to demonstrate that one week of really creating a new personality will produce these fundamental, measurable changes—right at the cellular level.

In addition to measuring chemical changes in the blood, we will continue to measure changes in real-time brainwave patterns at our events, adding to our ever-expanding collection of brainwave data.

Stay tuned for Part II where I’ll tell you more about some of the tests we performed at Indian Wells, as well as the announcement of a very exciting partnership with one of the world’s foremost medical research centers.

Read Part ll