The Importance of Consciousness in Creating Hospitality
Note: This article gives a simple introduction to some of the science that I believe will be used in at least a generation of time (25+ years) by the hotel industry to create a spirit of hospitality and an energetic feeling in a hotel property that are currently considered impossible. Quantum science and Psychoenergetic science, for example, have opened doors to knowledge that some ancient cultures knew about, but which current Orthodox science rejects. Orthodox science, which forms the basis of the worldview, concepts, and paradigms used by the hotel industry to create the guest experience, cannot accept the findings of New science, and unfortunately nor can the members of the Executive Boards of the leading hotel groups.
Introduction
The materialist standpoint of orthodox science and the continued predominance of the energy-denying Newtonian worldview continue to influence the hotel industry very strongly. As a result, the pervasive guest experience concept is mechanistic and non-energetic. However, now we know that we do not live in a solid matter universe; that everything in the universe is made of energy and exists because of vibrating energy; and that human consciousness affects the world around us. In other words, the hotel industry is organised according to obsolete science. Its worldview, paradigms, and concepts stem from this obsolete science. For how much longer does the hotel industry wish to continue to be led by Executive Boards for whom change isn’t in their financial interests?
Some of the Elements of Consciousness
To keep it simple, human consciousness is the state of being awake, thinking, knowing, and being aware of what is happening around you. Here are the main elements of consciousness:
- Awareness is the experience of now.
- Intelligence is the power of thought.
- Creativity is the power of expression.
- Idea of Self is the reference point of who is having the experience.
- Involvement is the activity of consciousness.
- Relationship is the continuous communication with the external world.
Now more precisely, here are the building blocks of consciousness:
- Awareness: sensations, observations, noticing, paying attention, emotions.
- Intelligence: learning, generalization, prediction, reasoning, setting targets.
- Creativity: novel approaches, surprise, hesitation, humour, stepping out of context, courage.
- Idea of Self: ego, values, beliefs, morals, purpose / mission, intention.
- Involvement: introspection, reflection, inner feeling, desire, love, etc., action.
- Relationship: perceived commonness or difference to others “out there”, use of symbols, communication (language, music, writing, technology, etc.).
The Power of Intention in the Physical World
Intention is one of the building blocks of human consciousness, and science has shown how the energy of intention affects the world around us.
William Tiller, Fellow to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and Chairman Emeritus of Stanford University’s Department of Materials Science wrote:
“For the last four hundred years, an unstated assumption of science is that human intention cannot affect what we call ‘physical reality.’ Our experimental research of the past decade shows that, for today’s world and under the right conditions, this assumption is no longer correct. We, humans, are much more than we think we are and Psychoenergetic Science continues to expand the proof of it.”
Collective intention through the synchronized meditation or prayer of many people around the world on a particular issue can have a significant effect on the world. People generally tend to be quite dubious about whether thoughts, intentions, or prayers can influence the world around them, but many scientific experiments have shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that our thoughts do indeed affect the world around us. Indeed, it is old science, even though it may be new to hoteliers.
What Studies Reveal about Collective Intention
In 1984 an experimental study took place at three different gatherings of over 7,000 people who did meditation each morning and evening for three consecutive weeks to reduce global terrorism The study took place in Fairfield, Iowa (December 17, 1983, until January 6, 1984); at The Hague, Holland (December 21, 1984, until January 13, 1985); and in Washington, DC (July 1 until July 10, 1985). The results were surprising.
According to the Rand Corporation, a think-tank based in California, “acts of global terrorism resulting in fatalities and injuries were reduced by 72%.” Time series analysis was used in this study to rule out possibilities that the reduction in global terrorism was caused by pre-existing trends, drifts in data, or cycles. Scientists believe this is due to a coherent resonance being created in the Unified Quantum Field by those meditating.
The 7,000 people meditating created a Field Effect of harmonious coherence that spread throughout the collective, which in turn helped to reduce acts of terrorism (incoherent, disruptive energy).
This effect, also known as the Maharishi Effect, has had over 600 scientific studies conducted in 33 countries and in over 250 independent research institutions. The evidence overwhelmingly correlates synchronized group prayer and meditation as having extremely positive social, political, and economic benefits for the world. Positive correlations for numerous health benefits to the individual have also been observed and confirmed.
An article by D.W. Orme-Johnson, M.C. Dillbeck, and C.N. Alexander summarized the empirical research on the Maharishi Effect. (Orme-Johnson, D. W., Dillbeck, M. C., & Alexander, C. N (2003): Preventing terrorism and international conflict – Effects of large assemblies of participants in the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 36, 283-302.
This article surveyed experimental studies documenting the sociological improvements resulting from the group practice of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field. Based on these results Maharishi asserts that the collective practice of the Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program in groups of 7,000 (the square root of one percent of the world’s population) produces coherence in the collective consciousness of the entire world. Statistically significant reductions in crime, accidents, fatalities, disease and other positive benefits on a global scale observed during experimental periods have established this as an effective means of changing collective consciousness and thereby changing the quality of life in the world simply by enlivening the source of order and coherence at the basis of nature, from the level of the Unified Field of Consciousness, which pervades and connects everything.
Today this structured and coherent energy is being calculated by the Global Consciousness Project (GCP), whose logistical home is the well-known Institute of Noetic Sciences. The GCP has been collecting data for over 15 years, with up to 70 host sites worldwide, using random number generators. The GCP notes that “Random number generators (RNGs) based on quantum tunneling produce completely unpredictable sequences of zeroes and ones. But when a great event synchronizes the feelings of millions of people, our network of RNGs becomes subtly structured. We calculate one in a trillion odds that the effect is due to chance. The evidence suggests an emerging noosphere or unifying field of consciousness described by sages in all cultures.”
Major world events, such as the 9/11 attack (2001), Nepal’s earthquake (2015), worldwide meditations (2015), along with many other events, have been recorded by the GCP and have shown that the synchronization of RNG’s has occurred when thoughts, emotions, and intentions of many people from around the world get synchronized.
Dr. David Edwards, Professor of Government, the University of Texas at Austin says: “I think the claim can be plausibly made that the potential impact of this research exceeds that of any other ongoing social or psychological research program. It has survived a broader array of statistical tests than most research in the field of conflict resolution. This work and the theory that informs it deserve the most serious consideration by academics and policymakers alike.”
How This Phenomenon Can be Explained
Theoretical physicist Dr. John Hagelin explains: “We now understand that everything in life is essentially one. On the basis of all of the variety of life, there is unity. In our base, we are all one, and this unity on the foundations of mind and matter is consciousness, universal consciousness. And with this deep understanding, that consciousness is not generated by the brain, it’s not the result of molecular, chemical processes in the brain, but it’s fundamental in nature, is the basis of nature, this is called the Unified Field.”
Within the last few years, modern theoretical physics has identified and mathematically described a unified field of intelligence or consciousness at the basis of all observable states of physical nature. This field constitutes a non-changing, unbounded field of intelligent consciousness, which pervades all forms and phenomena in the universe on a non-active, or silent, and un-manifest level. All matter and energy in the universe are now understood to be just excitations of this one, all-pervading field to which we are all connected, like waves of one ocean. Each individual’s consciousness is simply a wave on this intelligent ocean of consciousness from which it comes.
Dr. John Hagelin explains: “What we have discovered at the core basis of the universe is a single universal field of intelligence that unites gravity with electromagnetism, light with radioactivity, and the nuclear force. All the particles and forces of nature are ripples on the same ocean of existence in the unified field or Quantum Superstring. All matter arises from this field of infinite possibility, from pure abstract potential. Our consciousness is composed of the vibrational waves in this unified field, which means all life is fundamentally one, as it arises from the same source. This reveals that the self is universal, which is the very definition of enlightenment”.
The view of the universe as consisting of billiard-ball-type objects, each separate, discrete, and isolated from the other, and behaving according to fixed, deterministic laws, belongs to the old classical Newtonian view of the world. This is the worldview upheld by the hotel industry; a worldview, which excludes energy and consciousness. In that worldview, there is no unified field of consciousness, and nobody can influence another person or place through his thoughts, feelings, and emotions, i.e. through his individual consciousness. As a result, all a hotel has to do to create the guest experience is to create mechanistic systems and for the staff to follow clearly written mechanistic operational manuals. The hotel industry clearly needs to update its understanding of reality.
When we realise that all beings are part of the seamless fabric of creation, it naturally awakens in us a sense of connection with and compassion for the rest of life. We automatically broaden our scope of concern when we realize that we are inseparable from all that exists. We no longer see ourselves as isolated entities whose being stops at the edge of our skin. We see that, because we are all connected by means of a deep ocean of consciousness, a vital connection always exists among all beings.
Also, because we are all connected in a unified field of consciousness, we can meditate or carry out heart coherence exercises, for example, to influence the energetic feeling of the hotel or guests staying in the hotel, and also send love energy to influence a guest room or the whole area of the hotel. Of course, the effect goes much further than just the hotel.
Dr. Hagelin says: “Since the unified field is an all-pervading field at the basis of consciousness and matter when unity is enlivened in the individual, unity is enlivened everywhere. This is a field effect of consciousness.” Moreover, we unite within the field, and it is “enlivened everywhere.”
Unless Executive Boards understand that there is a unified field and that human consciousness can influence the energetic feeling of the guests or the hotel area, it is unlikely that they will encourage staff throughout the group to meditate and send energy, which is beneficial to the hospitality experience in the group’s hotels. Moreover, it is unlikely that they will change from SOP-Customer Satisfaction to energetic, spiritual, heart-based, and consciousness-oriented hospitality, which I call Heart-Based Hospitality.
A New Paradigm Is Needed
An abundance of robust scientific research has shown that qualities of human consciousness, i.e. thoughts, feelings, emotions, intentions, and beliefs, influence the physical world.
Classical physics has been very successful at understanding the physical nature of the universe, yet this worldview assumes that reality is limited to unconscious matter. We know that this is not true. Classical physics and its associated materialist and mechanistic worldview are, therefore, unable to accept or understand non-physical phenomena, such as energy, spirit, and consciousness. The SOP-Customer Satisfaction concept is based on this obsolete science, and consequently, hotel group Executive Boards cannot accept these aspects of reality either.
Hotel group Executive Boards should study Quantum science. In addition, hotel conferences should broaden their choice of speakers to include scientists, and not just feature CEOs and Vice-Presidents who have spent their whole career within the obsolete Newtonian paradigms; otherwise, there will be no radical change in hospitality.
There is an urgent need in society generally as well as in the hotel industry for a new paradigm that allows mind, consciousness, and non-material phenomena to be accepted into the equation of reality. There is strong resistance, though, because the evidence of the impact of human consciousness on the world is upsetting to many members of the scientific status quo. Careers, institutions, and corporations have been established on the foundation that there is no way that energy, spirituality, or consciousness can affect the physical world. Just imagine what would happen to the pharmaceutical industry, if people knew that they could cure themselves; and to the industrial-military establishment, if people knew that they could create peace by collective intention.
The same resistance is happening in the hotel industry regarding the use of energy, spirituality, the power of the heart, and consciousness to create unknown levels of hospitality. The status quo cannot accept this even though it is based on ancient knowledge about the world, religious traditions and texts, and scientific research. This is understandable because accepting it would mean that the SOP-Customer Satisfaction concept would have to be replaced by a new energetic, spiritual, and consciousness-oriented concept of hospitality.
There would be a tremendous upheaval in the hotel industry as it changed from a materialist, mechanistic worldview to the energetic and spiritual Quantum worldview. Hotel groups would have to change their internal organisation, their Human Resources and Training systems, their corporate templates for opening new hotels, their operational manuals, the philosophy of all of their brands, their Sales and Marketing strategies, and websites. In addition, the staff in every hotel would have to be trained and developed differently; amongst other upheavals.
There would be a rush to change everything quickly, and the hotel groups, which did not change or changed too slowly, might not survive the revolution in hospitality. Indeed, the resulting changes could bring down even the biggest hotel groups, if they did not adapt in time. Inevitably, some will resist change and they will be auctioned off.
But change is inevitable because the evidence about the beneficial effects of energy, spirituality, and consciousness are already overwhelming:
“Major advances in science – revolutions, even – follow the collapse of outworn paradigms, whose overthrow is forced by the accumulation of empirical evidence that violates the paradigm.” Dave Pruett, Former NASA researcher; Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, James Madison University
Science Has Arrived at the Doorstep of Energy and Spirituality
The first echo of the need for a new paradigm that addresses the non-physical reality came from Einstein in the early 1930s. In his research, he observed something so bizarre that he could barely believe what he was seeing. He called it “spooky action at a distance”, which later became two of the main concepts studied in the quantum information sciences, known as entanglement and non-locality.
Entanglement occurs when two particles are so deeply linked (by a quantum field) that one particle can instantaneously influence the other even at great distances non-locally. This implies that the physical distance between the particles is irrelevant and that everything is connected. They just look separate.
Quantum Mechanics is showing us how the universe works, and it is very relevant to the hotel industry. We are learning that everything within the universe is interconnected. We may think that objects, planets, stars, and galaxies have no connection to each other, but they do. Quantum entanglement means that every action, thought, feeling, and emotion is connected and can affect the whole in one manner or another. The Maharishi Effect demonstrates this.
We are all made up of atoms, protons, electrons, and an array of quantum particles. We are all in a constant state of vibration. Our thoughts, feelings, and emotions affect what frequency our molecular structure vibrates at. The energy we emanate by frequency is speaking to the universe and to each other because we are all connected, we are all entangled, and we are all one.
The state of our being affects everything in the world at some level. The collective state of planet Earth and the beings upon it affects the universe. We truly are a lot more powerful than we think.
“The shift from materialistic science to post-materialistic science may be of vital importance to the evolution of human civilization. It may be even more pivotal than the transition from geo-centrism to heliocentrism.” A Manifesto for Post-Materialistic Science
Maybe you have experienced a moment where you randomly thought of a loved one about whom you had not thought in a long time. Then the phone rings and you pick it up to hear their voice. This illustrates how we are all entangled. These sorts of synchronicities happen often to many people.
Physicists Admit That the Universe Is Immaterial, Mental, and Spiritual
We know that a correlation between consciousness and our physical, material world does indeed exist.
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” Max Planck, theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
“A fundamental conclusion of the new physics also acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality. Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote:
“The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. Get over it, and accept the inarguable conclusion. The universe is immaterial-mental and spiritual.” (R.C. Henry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, “The Mental Universe”; Nature 436:29,2005)
The Quantum Double-Slit experiment is a very popular experiment used to examine how consciousness and our physical material world are intertwined. It is a great example that documents how factors associated with consciousness and our physical, material world are connected in some way.
Although this is one of the most popular experiments used to show the connection between consciousness and physical reality, there are several other studies, which show clearly that consciousness, or factors that are associated with consciousness, directly affect our reality in some way. A number of experiments in the field of parapsychology have also demonstrated this time and time again. So, what I am saying is nothing new from a scientific point of view.
Consciousness Can Be Imprinted
Dr. William Tiller’s research has shown that consciousness can be imprinted onto objects and into spaces. This is of tremendous relevance to the hotel industry. Loving-kindness, for example, can be imprinted onto objects so that when the imprinted object is placed in a room, the object will emanate the energy of loving-kindness throughout the room and the people in the room will feel the energy. By applying this knowledge systematically, you could imprint a guest room, for example, with the kind of warm and calming feeling you get in an old temple or church. Just imagine what this could do to the hotel’s occupancy rate.
Buddhist relics and statues are known to emanate a special calming and healing energy, which is the result of an accumulation of many decades, if not centuries, of Buddhist monks and followers showing their love for Buddha in front of the relics and statues. The spiritual energy emitted has the capacity to exert a powerful and inspirational effect on people nearby. Scientists do not understand how it happens, but the formless quality of consciousness, in this case, loving-kindness, is imprinted onto the form of the relics and statues, and this energy emanates all around.
Dr. Tiller has shown that a simple, electrical device can be imprinted with the energy of unconditional loving-kindness of the relics by just placing it close to a Buddhist relic. The energy device then exhibits remarkable physical space-conditioning properties that are measurable. His research has provided dramatic examples of what is achievable when human consciousness, such as loving-kindness, is directed onto objects or into spaces.
He has discovered that when an intention is embedded into a simple electrical device day after day, and the device is turned on and left in a room, after about three to four months that space becomes conditioned with the energy of that intention, and the energy of the room goes to a higher level of symmetry.
You do not have to use an electronic device to condition spaces. Cloth, wood, metal, or crystals, for example, can be also infused with an intention and used to condition a space. Indeed, monks in Thailand commonly infuse prayers and blessings into cloth. In addition to that, people have been imprinting energy onto crystals for a long time.
You can also condition spaces. For example, after meeting to pray or meditate together in a building or space, people generally feel good. When they leave that meeting, they leave energy behind in that space. An elevated and tangible field of consciousness seems to fill the room and people want to stay in the room. If they wait a long time before they go back to that space though, it will feel different because the energy will decay slowly. But if they return very soon before it has fully decayed, then they can increase the energy through more prayer and meditation. If they do that day in and day out for months, they eventually create a space, which has a very special, warm energy and feeling. Humans have the capacity to do this, but it requires sustained, committed, and directed intention.
Proving Scientifically that Mind Affects Matter
In Dr. Tiller’s experiments, the imprinting of an intention was done by four experienced meditators, people who Dr. Tiller says were “highly inner-self-managed people”; who could hold a focused thought – an intention – in a deep meditative state for 20-30 minutes. Each intention (or information) was imprinted into a separate, simple, electrical device. The actual device was not all that important as anything can be imprinted, but for standardization, an unimprinted electrical device was used.
Then this device, after being imprinted with the intention, was wrapped in aluminium and sent by overnight shipping to a laboratory 2,000 miles away, where it was placed beside the target experiment and turned on. He began by placing the device beside a glass of water.
In this experiment one electrical device was imprinted with the intention of raising the pH of water by at least 1 unit of pH while another was imprinted with the intention of lowering the pH of water by at least 1 unit of pH. This is a huge amount, and enough to kill a human being if it happened in the body. They did this every day for 20-30 minutes for about 3 months. When the device was turned on in the vicinity of a jar of water after the imprinting and left there day after day. the pH of the water was raised or lowered, depending upon the original intention, by 1 to 1.5 units of pH.
The Effect of Repeated Experiments
It was when the same experiment was repeated over and over, however, that the really significant effects began to show. Dr. Tiller found that when the imprinted device was left beside the water day after day, the room also became conditioned with the intention more and more strongly. Eventually, they did not need the imprinted device to change the pH of the water because the room had become conditioned with the intention. They could just put the glass of water in the room without the device, and the room changed the pH up or down according to the original intention used in that room.
In the case of the Buddhist Relics, reverential showing of loving-kindness over hundreds of years has kept these objects imprinted. If there is no respect or love anymore, the relics will lose their energy. In a similar way, the imprinted device will lose its imprint and become an unimprinted electrical device over the course of about 3 to 6 months. However, Dr. Tiller says that “In one of the spaces that we have used, the alteration in the space of the room has remained stable for well over a year, and it’s still going strong.”
In another experiment, Dr. Tiller placed an unimprinted device for 3 days next to some Buddhist relics, which had been imprinted with loving-kindness for centuries. After the 3 days, it was wrapped in aluminium foil so that the imprinted energy would not leak out. After 6 months he removed the foil and left it in a room in his house.
Dr. Tiller and his team clarified what they wanted to ask of the device, which had been imprinted with the energy of a relic via an intention statement. This may sound strange, but you do actually have to think up an intention statement and communicate this consciousness to the host device.
The relevant part of that intention statement was as follows. Note that the intention and its purpose were stated specifically and clearly:
“This intention host device (IHD) has been exposed for 3 days some time ago to the Maitreya Buddha Relics and thus has, to some degree, been information-entangled with that loving-kindness essence. This loving-kindness essence is thought to still reside with this particular IHD at some very high gauge symmetry level of nature and thus still retains a significant excess thermodynamic free energy per unit volume state relative to our normal U(1) gauge state. We respectfully request that this excess thermodynamic free energy aspect of this loving-kindness essence be made manifest in this space so that we can experimentally measure its thermodynamic magnitude via the active pH, temperature, and magnetic field sensors present in this space.”
In the following 2 months, the pH of the water increased by about +2.5 pH units, which is a very large amount. It would take an effective temperature increase of about 700°C to produce such a thermodynamic energetic effect.
In physical terms, what does this mean? What has actually happened to the space of the laboratory room? Dr. Tiller explains, “The experimental data we gather seems to indicate that it raises what is called the ‘physics gauge symmetry’ of the room.”
This energetic intention resonates at a frequency that can be recorded or broadcast to achieve a designated effect in people, spaces, objects, or insects. Research with this technology in his lab at Stanford, as well as labs in London and Berlin, indicates the ability of directed human intention to increase or lower the pH of water by 1 point; to increase the growth rate of fruit fly larvae by 30%, and to kill bacteria at a 30% increased rate. This implies some sort of non-physical, non-local connection between intention and physical substances or spaces.
Other Intention Host Device Experiments
Dr. Tiller has also tested the effect of an imprinted intention on autistic children. His findings are detailed in white papers on his website at www.tillerinstitute.com. He found that the odds against the children’s improvement being due to chance instead of due to the intention were 1 to 10,000.
He has also carried out research on the measurable effect on physical spaces and biological processes of meditative states. The result is that people who meditate often and who practise loving-kindness, compassion, and care continuously, have a tangible effect on the space around them.
In one example, he measured the conditioning of the office of a husband and wife where they conduct their daily professional activities. They are a remarkable couple, strongly devoted to helping and healing others, and they are filled with love for both individuals and mankind generally. His first measurements in their office immediately showed it to be partially conditioned, which not surprising. Their office was conditioned with an imprinted intention, and the measurements revealed that the conditioning increased.
Final Comments
The information above has shown that human consciousness affects the world around us and that our consciousness can be imprinted onto objects in order to condition space with an intention. In the context of hospitality, the intention would be to condition a guest room, a guest facility, or even the whole property with loving kindness so as to make the guests feel loved and to feel peace in their hearts.
While it is not difficult to imprint consciousness, the main obstacle is getting hoteliers, and especially hotel group Executive Boards, to accept that human consciousness can influence the hotel environment. This is why I have gone into detail about several consciousness intention experiments.
Unfortunately, the materialist, Newtonian worldview is the guiding worldview in the hotel industry, and it will be hard to replace this with the Quantum worldview, so for quite a while to come SOP-Customer Satisfaction is likely to remain the flagship guest experience concept and mankind will continue to be deprived of the energetic and spiritual essence of hospitality in the hotel industry. In addition, the blind will continue to lead the blind.
