Lynne McTaggart – The Power of Eight

3 February 2023 · by Richard · in Lynne McTaggart

Back in 2000, I attended a weekend in London with Lynne McTaggart, on ‘The Field’ Conference. I had bought and read Lynne’s book, of the same name, a few months before and was very familiar with much of the material from other personal research I’d done over previous years. However, one thing on offer at the conference was a talk about ‘Remote Viewing’ and this was something that had interested me for a long time, but I’d never come across an opportunity to learn more about it first hand.

In more recent times, Lynne has continued to develop her connections between scientific investigation and metaphysical understanding. Her book, ‘The Power of Eight’ reminded me of a couple of things. One was when I was in a group practising Transcendental Meditation (TM) and the other was when I sat with two friends to send healing to one of their friend’s. In the first case, with TM, it was well known that wherever TM groups got together, crime rates in the area went down. In the second case, my friends’ friend recovered from Aids, enough to live a bit more physical life.

Here’s Lynne explaining The Power of Eight:

When I wrote my 1987 booklet, ‘How We Perform Negative Miracles’, I listed what I felt at the time were important words:

Desire
Imagination
Visualisation
Creative
Intention
Clarity
Belief
Faith
Knowing
Expectation
Gratitude
Acceptance

And this is how I described them:

Desire – Your inclination to want something – you can practically see or feel it!

Imagination – The ability to form mental images of things or events

Visualisation – A mental image that is similar to a visual perception

Clarity – Free from obscurity and easy to understand

Creative – Having the power to bring into being

Intention – An anticipated outcome that guides your planned actions

Belief – A vague idea in which some confidence is placed

Faith – Complete confidence in someone or something (not used here with any religious connotation)

Knowing – Clear and certain mental comprehension – beyond any doubt

Expectation – The feeling that something is about to happen

Gratitude – Feel grateful for everything you have which you are pleased about and if you get even a little bit more of anything, feel enriched

Acceptance – Acknowledge your current situation, rather than denying or pretending it does not exist.

One thing I did not include

When I wrote my booklet, one thing I omitted to include, was ‘surrender’ – letting go. At the time, although I was familiar with the term – a close friend of mine used it often – I never really understood what it was about. However, in subsequent and more recent years, I have come to understand the importance of surrender. A blunt definition might be ‘to give up’ or ‘give in’, but really, it’s more a case of ‘letting go’. One example of surrender, is to consider how we manage our concerns, worries, and fears. We tend to hold our thoughts in the physical mind, rationally trying to work out how to do, or solve, something. We go over and over, a situation or problem; we get stuck in loops of ‘no way out’. But eventually, we feel we have explored all possibilities; tried everything we can come up with – but to no avail. We are utterly overwhelmed by the magnitude of our perceived difficulties. This now, is usually our natural point of ‘surrender’. A more contemporary way to realise this point might be to shout out: “Fuck it!”

You cannot pretend to surrender. You cannot simply think: “I give up.” It has to be a genuine and deep acceptance, that there’s nothing more you can do; you are just going to have to let go. In this moment, you let in the universal consciousness; you stop rationalising and leaving it to your limited conscious mind, in the physical brain. It is only now, that ‘the magic’ can happen. This is also when, as Seth puts it: you start living ‘the magical approach’ of life. (You can usually find the book, by the same name, at the Seth Center.)