[Thank you for the e-mail replies about my recent interview on Shirley MacLaine's radio show.]

"The nice thing about meditation is that it makes doing nothing quite respectable," a comic said. Prayer is often thought of as doing nothing.

Many people say, "There is so much evil in the world and the prayers to stop evil don't get answered." Yes, failures of prayer are evident, but are any successes of prayer evident? Can any sense be made from spiritual and psychic experiences people have that appear to be nonsense to the modern world? Bruce and John Klingbeil explored these questions.

In 1969 outside Chicago, Bruce and John began doing research. They founded Spindrift Inc. to support research and education in the fields that studied consciousness, prayer, the placebo effect, and spirituality. The father and son experimented with the positive, biased, and negative effects of intention, prayer, and placebo effects. They were able to isolate two intentions of prayer.

Bruce and John worked as Christian Science practitioners. They communicated about prayer and consciousness in the scientific language people understand today. Their controversial research was considered fringe, but it was also recognized as groundbreaking.

The two Klingbeils thought optimistically that their research would be met with openness from both the religious and scientific communities. After a few years of pursuing their work, it became clear this optimism had been misplaced, and in 1983 their church leaders punished them by removing Bruce as a practitioner.

Undeterred, Bruce and John moved to Salem, Oregon, where they continued their research for ten years. The toll of being expelled from their church, the harassment from the spiritual and scientific communities, the loss of income, and potential law suits tied to Spindrift led to dramatic choices by the researchers.

Spindrift presumes that the intention of quality prayer is to nudge disorder toward order. The findings suggest that prayer promotes order and quality. We present the Spindrift findings for your consideration. For example, see the FAQ page.