About the chocolate
For those who listened to me on the Coast to Coast AM show Thursday night, click here to go to the Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate website that I mentioned. The experiment involving chocolate will be published probably sometime this summer. When I get word that the article is in press, I'll post the abstract on this blog.
Comments
1. Were the people who consumed the chocolate in this test aware of its intention property?
2. Will the final results include some kind of measurable test of the chocolate's benefits (blood pressure, skin response, etc.)? Otherwise, I fear people will scoff and cite the placebo effect.
1. Were the people who consumed the chocolate in this test aware of its intention property?
Yes, under informed consent rules all participants had to be aware of the nature of the test. To offset expectation bias, the experiment was conducted under double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled conditions, and the statistical tests were based on differences in reported mood between people in the "treatment" vs. placebo groups.
2. Will the final results include some kind of measurable test of the chocolate's benefits...
The principal variable was mood, as measured using the Profile of Mood States. This is a standard questionnaire used widely in psychosocial and medical research.
All of this will be clearer when I post the abstract, and but since the paper is not in press yet, I'll hold off on further details for now.
I loved the interview...as with previous appearances on C2C, you leave me with plenty of "food" for thought (pun intended!) I was also delighted to see you included in the extended What the Bleep...
Question...where can I find more information about the sages who supposedly do not need food or water for sustenance?
Amazing discussion. Really fascinating in all facets.
Robert
Tokyo, Japan
From my perspective I think the jury is out on whether this is really possible. I've spoken to people who appear to be sincere, they aren't in the public eye nor are they selling anything, and yet they claim to subsist on virtually no food (taking no water seems to be much rarer). To do this seems to require a very strict practice of meditation and exercise, the type that most Westerners probably wouldn't be interested in maintaining. Also, if you interact with others in any way the social pressure to eat can be overwhelming. Those on strict diets will acknowledge how difficult it is to stay on their diet - imagine how much more difficult it would be if you don't eat at all! "Just try this piece of birthday cake ... just one bite couldn't hurt ..."
One thing we do know is that diets with severely restricted caloric intake and high nutritional content significantly extends the lifespan. It seems likely that we eat far more than is necessary anyway, so extending this idea to "eating" coherent energy (similar to how a plant "eats" sunlight) is not inconceivable to me. It might be exceptionally unusual perhaps, and maybe it would only work in humans with certain unusual genetic structures, but not inconceivable.
All this may be related to the Buddhist legends of the "Rainbow Body" that appears after bodily death, to the Shroud of Turin legend, and to the basic idea of energy healing. All of this is speculation of course, but in my estimation it's worth keeping an eye on.
Mpls Milfoil Project said...
Is the questionnaire available for us to explore?
If the question refers to the Profile of Mood States questionnaire used in the chocolate experiment, I'm not aware of any public domain sources of this questionnaire. Like many standard psychological tests, this is sold by a company and copyrighted by them. But the idea is quite simple. It's just a list of adjectives related to mood states. For each adjective you mark off how closely it describes you, and then responses to those questions are combined to provide validated scores for overall mood, and for several sub-scales related to mood.