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Journey into the unknown

Episode 1177 · Apr 17, 2005 · 2h 54m

April 17, 2005: Prayer and Healing - Bill Sweet

Key Moments

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  1. Transcript

    Soybean prayer experimentsSweet describes the Klingbeils' experiments using over-soaked and under-soaked soybean seeds to isolate prayer's effect on plant systems against control groups.

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    Same prayer, two opposite effectsSweet says the same blind prayer helped over-soaked seeds release moisture while simultaneously helping under-soaked seeds take on moisture, suggesting prayer addresses need rather than dictating outcome.

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    Church groups prayed against SpindriftSweet says church groups actually prayed against their research, sent hate mail, and the work cost members jobs, marriages, and torn-up literature.

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    Klingbeils' mutual suicide pactSweet confirms the father and son entered a mutual suicide pact in May 1993 just as Spindrift was on the verge of mainstream scientific publication and replication offers.

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    Suicide noteunder attack: Sweet reads the gist of the suicide note left to him: the Klingbeils said they were under a lot of pressure and being attacked, with little further explanation.

Art Bell welcomes Bill Sweet, president of Spindrift Research, to discuss the remarkable and untold story of Bruce and John Klingbeil, a father-and-son team of Christian Science practitioners who spent decades conducting scientific experiments on the measurable effects of prayer. Their tests with soybean seeds demonstrated that prayer could cause over-soaked seeds to release moisture and under-soaked seeds to absorb it, both moving toward a normal state compared to unprayed-for control groups.

Sweet explains the distinction between goal-directed prayer and non-goal-directed prayer, which the Klingbeils called "thy will be done" prayer. The research drew fierce opposition from both religious fundamentalists who accused the group of tempting God and scientific skeptics who rejected any mixing of spirituality with laboratory methods. Church groups prayed against Spindrift, members lost jobs, and the hostility grew relentless.

The conversation takes a dark turn as Sweet reveals that both Klingbeils died by shotgun wounds in an apparent murder-suicide pact in May 1993, just as their research was on the verge of publication in scientific journals. Art connects their work to his own mass consciousness experiments and the Princeton Global Consciousness Project, reflecting on the staggering power and potential danger of directed human thought.