Global Harmony

One of the most frequent events in our prediction registry is in the category of organized meditations and activities that are designed and publicized to get large numbers of people to focus at one time on a positive future. The Internet is used in most cases, along with whatever other media outreach can be arranged, to cast a broad network of invitation and encouragement to participate. We have taken seriously the idea that is common to these efforts, that the combined wishes and prayers of thousands can have an effect on global consciousness.

We value the loving and genuine commitment of the many individuals and groups around the world who are working in this way toward a healthy and peaceful future. The work takes many forms, ranging from direct, hands-on engagement to quiet prayer and meditation. All these efforts contribute to a much needed spiritual enrichment around the globe, and the possibility is good that ever more people can be recruited into this mode of thinking and acting. We can hope the threshold for it to become an operational way-of-being in the world at large can be reached in our near future. It will prevent or ameliorate much unnecessary damage and suffering in the world, and it will bring us closer to our potentials as human beings.

The Global Consciousness Project has made formal predictions for a sample of organized efforts to raise consciousness and create greater harmony in the world. To date, there are 17 cases, and the corresponding GCP data show a strong positive effect for the group. The individual events can be found in the results table (see below). The following graph displays their combined, or cumulative deviation from chance expectation. Overall, the odds against such a persistent departure from expectation are about 300 to 1.

NOTE: Bryan Williams has recently done an update on this question, and has written a technical note on the effect of Global Harmony in a larger database of 56 events (pdf format).

The individual events are Global Peace Vigil, Twyman, 981113; World Peace Prayer, 981210; Praying for Peace, 31 days, from 990403; Billion Person Meditation, 991025; Just A Minute, 1 Min Epoch, 20000101; Papal Visit, Israel, 20000321-26; Great Experiment II, 20000423; World Earth Healing Day, 20000504; Peace Summit Relig Spirit, 20000828-31; Group Mind Meditation, 20000924; Group Mind Meditation 2, 20001022; Group Mind Meditation 3, 20001112; Group Mind Meditation 4, 20001126; Lovewave 010101, 20010101; Kumbh Mela, India, 20010124; WorldPuja Webcast, 20010331; Johrei Ceremonies, 20010401.