That science ‘in the box’ literally has a different reality going on than science ‘out of the box’ is confirmed by Pert. After she left the NIH to pursue private development of Peptide T, she ran into a 360 degree wall. Discouraged to the point of ill-health, she found herself exploring alternative healing procedures and the mind-body connection. This lead to the investigation of how emotions physically affect the body and her ground-breaking work, as explained in Molecules of Emotion. Much to her own surprise, Pert hit the alternative healing lecture circuit where she began to engage the likes of Deepak Chopra – people working in an entirely different paradigm.

With a foot in both camps, is her work bridging the gap between mainstream and alternative science? In a nutshell – no - although she grants that some scientist’s wives are “sort of catching on.” Aside from that, “it’s beyond a cynicism,” she says.

“I mean I go back to the NIH - I have lots of friends still there and I go to attend scientific meetings. And most people don’t even know that I have this other life. That’s what’s so weird. It’s … like they can’t even see it. It’s two different realities.”

Intrigued by the dichotomy, Pert conducted an informal “scientific survey” about two years ago. She stood in a hallway at the NIH and asked everybody coming by, “What do you think of Deepak Chopra?” The results were revealing. “I asked the first ten people,” she says. “Nine of them had never heard of him.”

Bridging the gap

If cross-pollination between scientific paradigms by well respected scientists isn’t bridging the gap, what can?

Popular demand from the general public.

The people of the United States ultimately pay for all the research that goes on in this country, whether through taxes to the government or through consumer spending and private investments. The incredible rise in the popularity of alternative medicine and healing modalities in the last 20 years has prompted the development of an entirely new industry in this country. In 2003, U.S. citizens spent $4.4 billion on alternative medicine supplied by over 900 companies. This does not include the additional tens of billions spent on alternative and complementary therapies used by over 60% of the population.

“If the general public – as it did do with alternative medicine vis a vis conventional medicine [can] put their own money on the line … if the general public sees this connection between the inner and the outer and they want more of that kind of research to be done,” says Tiller, “they have to, and they can, push that issue with their congressmen and senators and so on. The people can cause change in our society which will eventually, in the long run, move things out of the box.”

Industry is the other great doorway to change. At the cross-roads between dying oil-based technologies and the development of clean technologies, there is a lot of money to be made. Robert Krupa, CEO of Century Development International, out of Farmington, MI is making the leap with a new sparkplug design.

The FireStorm sparkplug apparently increases the air-to-fuel efficiency ratio to such a degree that automobiles using the plugs can increase gas mileage up to 50%, while decreasing emissions to such an extent that car manufacturers will no longer need to install catalytic converters and emission control units.

Robert Krupa, CEO of Century Development International, inventor of the FireStorm sparkplug

But Krupa, a former products engineer with General Motors, has not been able to get the FireStorm into production even though it’s been patented since 1996. Why? According to Krupa, part of the reason is “NIH,” or the “not invented here” syndrome. Spark plug companies are reluctant to embrace a technology invented in some guy’s basement rather than their own multi-million dollar labs. And another real block is durability. According to Krupa, testing by Bosch labs in Germany indicate the FireStorm does not need to be replaced during a vehicle’s engine life. “When they found that out,” says Krupa, “they said, ‘We don’t want to work with you. We want repeat sales.’”

If it is a difficult haul developing something as mundane as a new sparkplug, imagine the hurdles Tiller faces manufacturing a bio-feedback device he has developed, which can literally measure the level of intent during a meditative state. A magnetic analogue of a voltmeter, Tiller’s unit represents the Holy Grail of alternative science: a device capable of measuring the effects of consciousness on the fabric of the physical universe. That variations of his IIED (Intention Imprinted Electrical Devices) “technology” have stupendous industrial potentials is the icing on the cake and may provide the development funding he needs.

Let’s say [you have] a chemical or a pharmaceutical process in which you make a whole bunch of isomers and you only want one of them,” says Tiller. “And the others just get in the way, and the yield of the one you want is small. Well, you can imagine using intention with one of these devices to condition the space where the chemical or a pharmaceutical process is going on.

“You can enhance the yield of the isomer you want and diminish the yields of those you don’t want, so it is easier to extract the one you want which means you make an awful lot more money.”

Price, potentials and payoffs

The march into the realms of new science and technology is a journey. The price it demands doesn’t seem to vary too much: nothing less than everything - from letting go traditional thinking and beliefs, to losing money, to letting go positions of traditional power. And yet, as painful as the price can be, the potentials are fabulous to the point of skirting the edges of where imagination can take us. Wealth, a healthy, harmonious population living in a pristine world, and new horizons await us.