Group Magic:
An Inquiry into Experiences of Collective Resonance
(c) 2003 Renee A. Levi

This document is intended to provide a brief but comprehensive summary of my doctoral dissertation research. I endeavor, in these pages, to convey the essence of the 315-page original effort for those readers who are less inclined, by virtue of time or interest, to read the academic document. Especially shortened are the review of literature and the findings sections in which, in the original, references to supporting research and many direct quotes are included. I hope, however, that the wholeness of the work has been preserved and communicated.

It is also my intent to invite the reader’s personal experiences of collective resonance to come forward. If it happens that something in this writing reminds you of a time of resonance in a group, any group, and you are willing to share it, I would like to know about it. The research continues in the form of a growing collection of remembered stories, and each one that comes forward amplifies the entire field. Please contact me at the address listed on the last page of this document.

If you would like to know more about the stories referenced in this research, share your own perspectives, order a copy of the complete dissertation or additional copies of this summary, or inquire about potential funding for further research in this area, please refer to the contact page also at the end of this document.

R. L.               
December, 2003

TABLE of CONTENTS
[click on any heading]

INTRODUCTION
Approach
Scope
Collective Resonance Contexts
Rationale

METHODOLOGY
Choice of Method
Participants
Researcher
Data Analysis
Funding

FINDINGS
Elements of Experience
Shifting Factors
Assigned Significance of Experience
Recurrence of Felt Sense

INTERPRETATION
Reflection
The Importance of Collective Resonance
Implications of the Study

REFERENCES

CONTACT AND ORDERING INFORMATION

FIGURES

Figure 1: Visual Map of Elements of Experience
Figure 2: Visual Map of Shifting Factors

INTRODUCTION

We are at a crossroads in human evolution. We have arrived on the doorstep of the 21st century in great global disarray. Anxiety, hate, terrorism, and war are the pervasive themes of our time. We live in fear, and our dealings with one another reflect this undercurrent. We mistrust others in personal dealings, and group dialogues on important issues that affect our collective future are marked by skepticism and competition for perceived scarce resources. Our media capture and magnify it all—every unsettling detail—live and 24/7. This is dissonance: collective dissonance.

Even so, occurrences of resonance between individuals and within groups happen every day in situations in which people come together and experience intimacy and bonding, a felt sense of being in the flow or transcending, personal transformation, and sometimes the satisfaction of accomplishing extraordinary things

This is group magic, and these are the experiences that inform this study. They are extraordinary, but they are also ordinary in that they happen every day in all kinds of contexts and to people like you and me. They are difficult to describe, but we know when they have occurred. It is in the space between us, something beyond the level of intellectual exchange and felt in a different way than as a meeting of the minds. It is a meeting, but one of a different sort: it is a meeting of hearts, of souls, of energies, and memories, and although this group magic exists in the realm of physical space and time, it may reflect a dimension beyond the immediate interaction.

These experiences occur more frequently than we may know. They do not sell newspapers and therefore may go unnoticed in the course of a busy life, but they need to be brought to light and to be understood better because they serve as guideposts that point to ways of working and living together that sustain human life and spirit rather than destroy it. They are points of light that illuminate the way to a better world than the one in which we entered this century. The stories of these experiences need to be told in the voices of the individuals who have experienced them.

This study gathers and interprets experiences of collective resonance, the name I have given to the magic that is possible in group life. In it I explore the broad range of contexts in which people report experiencing this phenomenon and the many levels of connection that operate in them, including energetic, physical, intuitive, emotional, and spiritual as well as intellectual. I discovered in talking with athletes, military men, dancers, educators and students, construction workers, singers, police officers, corporate executives, weekend fishermen, and many others what the experience of collective resonance feels like, what they believe shifted their group into resonance, how significant the experience was for their life or work, and whether a similar sense recurred during the remembering and retelling of their stories.

Bringing this information to light is important, I believe, for two main reasons. First, by having access to examples of collective resonance, readers of the study may be able to recall similar encounters in their own lives, which will in turn raise awareness that it is available to us all and that its effects can be transformative. I also believe that increasing conscious recognition of felt experience actually amplifies the positive energy field around and between human beings and can affect decisions that lead to right action in the world.

Second, by understanding the components of such experiences, methods and practices can be created to help design and facilitate groups in ways that enhance the possibility of the emergence of resonance, again in service of decision-making that moves our societies forward, but also for the intrinsic satisfaction and joy that can heal the wounds already inflicted by a dissonant age.

Collective resonance is, by my definition, a felt sense of energy, rhythm, or intuitive knowing that occurs in a group of human beings and positively affects the way they interact toward a common purpose. The word resonance means “re-sound,” which indicates a flow of vibration between two things, in this case two or more people. This study focuses on this aspect of group dynamics. Greater awareness and amplification of this level of connection between people and between groups and other, larger forces, I believe may help us find our way back to the knowledge and experience of our fundamental connections to one another and our environment and make greater progress toward our common human goals than we have been able to do using idea exchange and analytic problem-solving alone.

The word resonance has been used in many disciplines and in a variety of ways. In the following paragraphs I mention its meaning in the psychological and spiritual realms and focus on its definition in physics. A more extensive review of the literature, including related current research in the organizational arena, can be found in the complete dissertation. I want to note that there are other fields of research and practice in which the concept of resonance is central, most obviously in music, but these are not explored specifically in this research.

In the psychological realm the word resonance primarily connotes empathy and empathic connection. For example, the phrase “I resonate with that” commonly indicates an understanding or acknowledgment that the person has had a similar experience. In the spiritual realm, particularly in the Eastern traditions, resonance is central not only in terms of connection to the divine (through practices such as meditation in which a sense of unity with the universe may be experienced) but to human health and vitality because these philosophies (particularly the Indian, Chinese, and Japanese) are based on a system of energy and energy centers that affect wellness. This inquiry, although remaining open to all the connotations of the word resonance used by its participants, focuses on the physical and energetic aspects of group interaction and how they correlate with the natural laws of physics.

When human beings are in physical proximity, they interact on many levels. One is a rational/cognitive level in which ideas are exchanged primarily by way of words or gestures. The medium of exchange is largely symbolic in that whatever the person is feeling or thinking must be put into a communicable format such as language or facial or hand signals.

Another level of interaction occurs as an energetic connection between two or more individuals. Their bodies are also sending messages to one another through the medium between them—usually air—because each is vibrating constantly and affecting the electrostatic field around them. This vibration occurs because every cell (actually every atom and molecule) in the human body vibrates constantly (Childre & Martin, 1999; Cooper & Sawaf, 1997; Gerber, 2001; Hunt, 1996; Judith, 2001; Leonard, 1978; Lynch, 2000; Pearsall, 1998), and when they are organized into parts of the human body—organs, glands, muscles, and so on—they send rhythmic messages into the surrounding environment as vibrations. Some of these vibrations are audible and many are not, but all are perceptible to other living systems near the person in the form of sound wave interchanges. The human heart, in particular, sends audible vibrations into the surrounding environment but also affects the other vibrating elements within the body, acting as a kind of organizer of the frequencies of the vibrations of the other organs, tissues, and the cells that comprise them.

Each sound wave forms based on a combination of many frequencies. Some of the frequencies are multiples (harmonics) of one fundamental frequency particular to that object (e.g., a human body). Resonance is highest when the fundamental frequency is “heard” but even multiples of that fundamental frequency (harmonics) can create resonance, though the effect will be smaller.

It is the pattern of vibrations that, in the human being, feels most natural, hence, comfortable (and many times, energizing) and might affect the way in which the person ideally operates (by amplification of that state). Within the human system, such a state might be felt as a sense of harmony or being “in tune.” When waves are in tune, or have a fixed-phase relationship, they are “coherent” and build on each other. Meditative states are examples of this kind of resonance within the body and have been advanced as healing practices for cardiac and other bodily dysfunctions.

Resonance is also the phenomenon of the transmission of vibrations from one vibrating body to another in the absence of any contact with each other. This process can be understood as the impact of one vibration on another. Sympathetic vibration and forced resonance are terms for the phenomenon of resonance when the vibration of one body is altered by the vibration of something external to it (Nagata, 2002). In other words, bodies vibrating in close proximity affect one another in potentially different ways. One way is that the stronger of the vibrations overpowers, in a sense, the weaker signal, as in the case of the heart’s vibration regulating the other parts of the human system. Another is a situation in which the natural resonance of two or more vibrating bodies “lock into phase” or entrain with one another to produce a kind of harmony or coherence between them that not only feels natural but actually amplifies their connection. In physics, two sound waves of approximately the same frequency (or harmonic of the other’s frequency) will eventually entrain, or come together, and cause an increase in the amplitude of the wave. The energy transfer within the resulting system is considered optimal because the energy that comes to and from each oscillating (vibrating) body is natural to it. Itzhak Bentov (1988) called this a resonant system.

It is worthwhile to mention, at this point, the concepts of consonance and dissonance, which are related to but not the same as resonance. Consonance means “harmony; accord or agreement, harmony of sounds; a simultaneous combination of tones conventionally accepted as being in a state of repose” (Nichols, 2001, p. 435). Dissonance, defined by the same dictionary, is “disharmony; inharmonious or harsh sound, discord, cacophony; simultaneous combination of tones conventionally accepted as being in a state of unrest and needing completion; unresolved; discordant chord or interval” (p. 570). Unlike consonance, in which two or more frequencies combine to create harmony, resonance occurs when the wavelengths are exactly the same, that is, when two wavelengths of similar frequencies come together as one. I think it is interesting to note that in physics, dissonant waves are regarded as incomplete, unresolved, and seeking completion (or repose), whereas resonant waves are defined as having attained a state of rest.

Applying the laws of physics to human interactions, one might wonder what are the effects of two or more individuals interacting with one another when the resulting “system” is resonant. What, exactly, does this resonance feel like to the individual human beings involved? How is it experienced and where (in the body)? What is the “product” of such gatherings? In what situations do they occur? What is meant by resonance when it is applied to human energy in group situations, especially natural resonance? These are some of the questions that arose for me as I read about the physical properties of resonance. They prompted this inquiry on the phenomenon I call collective resonance.

As mentioned earlier, my own definition of collective resonance is a felt sense of energy, rhythm, or intuitive knowing occurring in a group of human beings that positively influences the way they interact toward a common purpose. I believe that experiences of collective resonance are common but are not often brought to conscious (cognitive) awareness. They are felt experiences of synchronous connection, as in the physical sense, that affect the energy exchange in a situation and influence the outcome of whatever purpose the group is gathered to achieve. I believe that they are felt in a very powerful way although, again, they may go unnoticed in the course of a daily routine that is dominated by intellectual interchange and unrelenting activity. References are made regularly to awareness of this energetic layer of interchange in random or offhanded remarks, usually in other contexts, and these returned to me as I explored more deeply the stories within which these phenomena are reported to have occurred.

Approach

This study highlights collective episodes of resonance. This is because it is embedded in the domain of organizational systems, a domain in which I, as author, am a participant as a consultant and researcher. My interest is in resonance as a group phenomenon and how a deeper acknowledgment and understanding of it can inform the way that we as human beings can live and work together for a greater good. I do, however, expand the traditional definition of “organization” in this work to include any kind of group that interacts together toward a common purpose. Some group experiences described herein were work groups in the traditional organization development sense whereas others were not. Examples are groups whose purpose was to have a good workout, reach a particular meditative state, win a game, learn about a topic, give a performance, or enjoy a leisure activity together. I intentionally chose this design because my purpose was to explore a little-known domain. I think it is vital and ultimately more beneficial to the organizational systems field of inquiry and practice, where I believe it will have significant application, to stay as open as possible to reported characteristics and value of experience in many different venues. It is the essential constructs of experiences of collective resonance that I wished to illuminate, and I found commonalities in the way such energetic exchanges are described that transcend the type of situation in which they occur. In this way the study also models a holistic approach to the topic and can later be evaluated for its service to the organizational world.

Although there has been inquiry in the organizational learning arena into deeper levels of human connection in group situations in the works of Bohm (1980, 1985), Isaacs (1999), Senge (1990), and others that acknowledge a “felt presence” in groups (a kind of implicate order that resides in the collective and informs it), they stop at the level of intra- and interpersonal interactions (how to do and be in groups so that maximal learning can take place for individual and group effectiveness), in my opinion. Briskin et al.’s (2001) study explored the field of collective intelligence and set the stage for this one in that it uncovered experiences of rhythm, sound, and movement in felt experiences in groups. This suggests that there is a physical level that coexists with rational or psychological exchange and understanding. Although a pilot study that I conducted on this phenomenon in a single group experience from multiple perspectives was initially titled An Inquiry Into a Phenomenon of Collective Intelligence, I renamed it An Inquiry Into a Phenomenon of Collective Resonance to highlight the physical and energetic aspects of such experiences, not the intellectual ones. The current study, likewise, attends to these elements of experience. My approach, then, highlights both the collective and the resonant aspects of collective resonance.

Scope

Thirty-two contexts in which collective resonance was reported to have occurred are included in this study. Although I interviewed 34 individuals, three described one particular situation and were interviewed together. In selecting the contexts, I emphasized maximum variety to discover whether there were common themes and to encourage readers of the dissertation from all walks of life to relate to the experiences. It was important to me that the results not be perceived as representing a particular group of people or a certain mindset, background, or other categories of membership.

The group situations included three or more individuals gathered together for a specific purpose. The study excludes groups that were formed for illegal or violent purposes, such as street gangs. Although resonance can occur between two individuals, this inquiry was directed to experiences of group resonance because it lies in the domain or organizational systems, as mentioned earlier. The findings are intended to help guide those working with or living within group situations.

Collective Resonance Contexts

Following are the 32 collective resonance contexts and a brief identification of the person interviewed from that group:

1.      A construction crew working together over a period of years building homes in rural Maine. The interview was with one of the crew members.

2.      The volunteer effort based at St. Paul’s Chapel in lower Manhattan that was organized to support the relief workers searching for victims and cleaning up in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 disaster at the World Trade Center. This project lasted for nine months. The interview was with one of the coordinators of that effort.

3.      A strategic planning retreat in which two recently merged social service agencies with different organizational cultures met to create a vision of their future. The interview was with the human resources director of the new, merged, agency.

4.      A United States Air Force unit stationed in the Philippines for many months evacuating military personnel and their families and guarding the abandoned base after a volcano eruption. The interview was with a sergeant in the unit.

5.      A Friends meeting for worship in the Quaker tradition. The interview was with a church member who is also a consultant, author, and facilitator of corporate management groups. This person spoke of collective resonance in both contexts.

6.      A small soup shop where employees work together efficiently to serve customers at very busy times (e.g., lunch time). The interview was with the manager of the shop.

7.      A family context in which one member, a young woman, was dying of breast cancer, leaving two children, numerous siblings, parents, and extended family. The woman, desiring a conscious dying process, asked her friend, my interviewee, to be present at family gatherings and situations surrounding the various phases in her three-year ordeal. She described several of these gatherings as collective resonance.

8.      The campaign team of a United States senator’s run for the presidency. The interview was with the manager of the campaign team.

9.      A dance class. The interview was with a new member of the class.

10.  A police officer in an arrest situation at gunpoint with seven suspects. The interview was with the officer.

11.  A high school English class. The interview was with the teacher.

12.  A five-year effort to establish a new children’s museum from conception to opening of its doors. The interview was with three core members of the founding team.

13.  A deep-sea fishing expedition with six men. The interview was with one of them.

14.  Women’s groups gathered for different purposes related to women’s issues. The interview was with the facilitator of these groups.

15.  A community-building effort between blacks and whites in rural Mississippi in the mid-1970s. The interview was with a member of the consultation team that conducted the project.

16.  A group of craniosacral therapists learning technique involving the energy of dolphins in the waters of the Caribbean. The interview was with a cofacilitator of the training.

17.  The offensive line of a football team. The interview was with a lineman.

18.  A group of international political and business leaders gathered to discuss peace initiatives throughout the world and their lack of success. The interview was with a cofacilitator of this group.

19.  An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The interview was with a member of the organization.

20.  A workshop for corporate executives on developing breakthrough leadership skills. The interview was with a magazine editor who observed and wrote an article on this process and later participated in another workshop.

21.  A graduate school intensive course on a particular psychotherapeutic technique. The interview was with the creator of the technique and founder of an institute that provides clinical services and education.

22.  The same graduate school intensive course as above. This interview was with one of the students in the course.

23.  Two thought-leader gatherings designed to exchange ideas and dialogue on issues important to the participants. The interview was with a corporate consultant who was a member of one group and facilitator of the other.

24.  Three people, relative strangers, stranded on a sailboat in the fog on a planned weekend sail to Nantucket. The interview was with one of them.

25.  An ongoing evening study group meeting designed for dialogue and meditation on Christian values. The interview was with a group member.

26.  A college male a capella singing group. The interview was with a student member and pitch for the group.

27.  Large corporate gatherings designed as retreats for strategic planning. The interview was with the creator of the particular technique used, one of the original founders of the professional field of organization development.

28.  A spiritually based movements class using ancient sounding and movement exercises. The interview was with a member of the class.

29.  Groups of people in which music, sound, and vibration are used as a facilitation technique to uncover themes important for their work together. This interview was with the creator of this technique and facilitator of the groups.

30.  A retreat for business leaders to discuss a new business paradigm, gathered in the weeks after September 11th. The interview was with a cofacilitator of the retreat.

31.  A meeting of the coresearchers of a doctoral dissertation research project that inquired into the transformational journeys of business leaders. These eight people had been interviewed in depth and narrative poems had been created about their lives. This meeting was designed to share these poems and to enable further transformation among people who, for the most part, had never met. The interview was conducted with the doctoral student researcher.

32.  A 10-week graduate course on leadership involving storytelling. The interview was with the professor and cocreator of this course.

The parameters around the diversity of these experiences were:

• Some were spontaneous, and others were planned;

• Some were small gatherings, and some were very large;

• Some were work-oriented, and others were volunteer, academic, athletic, or leisure-based;

• Some were gender-specific, and others contained mixed genders;

• Some were speaking or dialogue-based, and others were centered on physical movement;

• Some were conducted in silence, and others were organized around or involved sound;

• Although all had a purpose for the gathering, some were task-oriented with specific and measurable goals, and for others the raison d’etre was the gathering itself;

• Some occurred in difficult or dangerous situations, and others were in pleasant ones;

• Some were intellectual in nature, and others were body-based; and

• Some were specifically spiritual in intent, and most occurred in secular situations.

Rationale

Several factors motivated and informed this study. First, there was a desire, on my part, to uncover occurrences of this phenomenon to confirm my suspicion that they are more prevalent than assumed because they exist below the level of conscious awareness. This proved to be the case as evidenced by the relative ease with which I was able to locate participants for the study. I ended up with more potential interviewees than I was able to accommodate for this research,

and I continue to gather stories that emerge from readers of the work. This “bringing to awareness” illuminates unarticulated experiences that are more widely occurring than we know and encourages further study and thought by giving the phenomenon credibility because of its prevalence.

Further, uncovering the diversity of types of collective resonance experiences that people report is important in that it shows itself to be a phenomenon to which many different kinds of people in many kinds of group settings can relate. As the common elements of collective resonance experiences begin to be uncovered, the relevance of the phenomenon and its accessibility to many types of people in many types of organizations may become clearer.

The bringing to conscious awareness of felt experience may have the effect, perhaps, of doing something else: that is, strengthening the field of resonance existing between individuals and groups on a broader scale. Knowing how we resonate with one another on energetic and vibrational levels and with larger fields of intelligence, we may be able to engage our minds more consciously in the vibration, which could serve to actually strengthen the field, much as the two wave forms of similar frequency mentioned earlier entrain, or “lock into phase” with one another, oscillating at the same rate and increasing in amplitude. We already know how human beings flow, or resonate, with an activity in which they are engaged (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). This paper can be seen as being about flow experiences between people and how collective flow may interact with larger fields. Also, because the act of retelling the incident of collective resonance in the interviews resulted in a recurrence of the felt phenomenon in almost all of the interview situations, that occurrence itself strengthens the existing field. This aspect, though not measurable in traditional ways, was a motivating force in this study.

Although the above factors serve to broaden our understanding of this phenomenon by involving more and different experiences, another intent was to deepen existing awareness and work in the theory and practice of organizational systems. There are already individuals and groups working to understand this arena. By identifying and elaborating on the components and characteristics of these experiences, I hope to contribute to giving form to this effort. Greater understanding, it is my hope, will help establish this field of inquiry, create tools for academics and practitioners to use to cultivate collective resonance more consciously in group situations, especially those that make important decisions that shape the future of our world, and give rise to new questions that will give direction to further research.

Our selves, our organizations, and our world, I believe, have gotten out of balance, out of harmony. One of the key elements of systems theory is balance: all parts are essential to optimal systemic functioning, and a state of harmony keeps it together. The key element in the Eastern philosophical traditions is harmony or balance. In my opinion, we have put too much emphasis on cognitive processes to make decisions and solve problems—the rational, linear part of our human systems, personal and organizational. We have ignored a vast resource, our physical selves, which continually access information from the environment surrounding us and inform our work together. To learn from this resource we need to begin to listen deeply to ourselves, to others, and to the universe around us.

By bringing attention to, and, I hope, action toward using our physical selves to access other sources of intelligence, we can work toward achieving a state of health. We can bring into better balance the logical, rational, and linear mind-sets and the intuitive, feeling, energetic ones. The word health means “whole” or “wholeness,” which is the ideal state to which we aspire personally, in groups and organizations, and as a world.