Chocolate, Intentions, and Art?

Those of us who love chocolate know perfectly well it improves our lives. Surprisingly, someone decided to find out if they could boost the effects of chocolate even more by adding intentions to it.

Jonathan Fields discovered this interesting bit of research and shared it on his blog. Basically this experiment tested whether mood would be improved by eating chocolate that had been treated with intentions that those who ate the chocolate would experience an enhanced sense of energy, vigor, and well-being.

Now just how did I miss participating in a great experiment like that anyway? Pass the chocolate, please, with or without added intentions.

The experimenters said that the people who unknowingly ate the treated chocolate did have better results than those who unknowingly ate the untreated chocolate. Egads, I really did miss out on something good!

However, many variables are not explained. In the comments over at Jonathan’s blog they are befuddled by one reference in the experiment abstract stating the ones who ate the least chocolate had the most improvement. On the face of it that runs counter to the claimed outcome of the experiment, although no one is certain exactly what this “planned subset” was.

One can speculate on both sides of the fence endlessly, since there is not enough information provided about the relevant facts. Perhaps the experimenters will explain at some point.

In the meantime, we chocolate eaters are left with a dilemma that can only be solved by conducting our own personal experiments with eating chocolate. That is my own preferred method of problem solving anyway.

I find people conducting experiments are often asking different questions than the ones I would ask anyway. For example, I don’t have any problem with the idea one can embed intentions into food or anything else, because that process has been my livelihood for many years.

Perhaps I should clarify that my work is with art, not with food. However, the same principles apply. Whenever you touch a brush to canvas, handle wet clay, or engage in any other creative act, your state of mind is imprinted indelibly into the materials.

In other words, your intentions combined with action shape the materials into a work which has a powerful presence not explained by the mere combination of materials. The exception, of course, is when your technique is so bad nothing can come through the bungled handling of the materials. Bad art or burned food come to mind as examples.

So the questions I would ask would have more to do with how to effectively use the process of adding intention to the materials we use, whether for art, eating, or other purposes.

An experiment simply to find out if intentions even have an impact is only interesting to someone who does not already know the answer. The age old tradition of blessing food already embodies that wisdom. Obviously, someone who simply mouths a few appropriate sounding sentences, more intent on sounding good and holy than on actually blessing the food, is likely to miss the mark by a wide margin.

As with anything spiritual, the intent is must be precise for maximum results. Personally, I would say the same of intentions in chocolate and in art.

Now let’s break out the swiss chocolates and paint some flowers, maybe we can find out how combining intentions with food and art at the same time works! Mind you, this is strictly in the interests of science…

Copyright © Lexi Sundell 2008. All Rights Reserved.

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