The Story of Field Coherence @ Transforum 2011

During the whole of the Transforum event, March 25-27 2011, we ran a Random Event Generator aligned to the field of the event, to track cohesion of the field.

Random Event Generators such as this Psyleron REG-1 were used in the 28 years of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) at Princeton University. For more information on this research and related products see http://www.icrl.org, http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/, and http://www.psyleron.com. For more on linking field coherence to collaboration, please contact Peter Merry (peter@humanemergence.nl).

Transforum 2011 was organised by the Wrekin Trust and held at Hawkwood House in Stroud, UK. The team was Janice Dolley, Jude Currivan, Peter Rhodes-Dimmer, Lisette Schuitemaker and Peter Merry.

Below are screenshots of each of the days and an accompanying interpretation.

When looking at the screenshots, you need to know:

1. the more random the field, the closer to the middle line one expects the data line to be
2. once outside the parabolic curves, the coherence is said to be statistically significant with less than a 1:20 likelihood of it being down to chance

A general note is that one can see that there was definitely field coherence even at a low level throughout the event, as the data lines generally stay one side of the middle line and do not fluctuate back and forth over it.

Friday

On the graphic below there are three interesting things to note:

1. the coherence of the field is relatively high as people are travelling to and arriving at the event (from 1630). This could be due to lots of people thinking about the event and what is going to happen – expectation, excitement, curiosity.
2. The coherence is relatively low as we meet for the first time in circle. This could be due to the fact that we are seeing each other for the first time, noticing the diversity, wondering if / how we will fit in with / resonate with the others in the room. Some trepidation in the field?
3. The coherence increases as we move through the evening programme, getting to know each other and relaxing into each other’s company.

Saturday

There are four moments I have picked out in Saturday’s process:

1. The increase in coherence after Jude’s talk about HOPE and the maintenance of this coherence throughout the letting go – letting come – celebration rituals.
2. The dip in coherence, which we all felt, during the faculties and government discussion
3. The resurgence of the coherence once we had noticed it and acted to restore coherence, including the use of Juan Carlos’ conch
4. The increase in coherence during the music session in the evening with James

Sunday

There are four interesting moments to note during Sunday’s programme:

1. high coherence in the morning check-in where we express in one word how we are feeling
2. low coherence during the open space sessions. This is likely to be due to the fact that we were all working in sub-groups on different issues.
3. Increasing coherence as we work on our deep identity and mission statements. Interesting that although we were working on them individually, the depth of our attention and intention probably generated collective coherence.
4. High coherence as we read out our statements to each other and participated in the spiral ritual at the end.