Ever since James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helix of DNA in 1953, thus launching the field of molecular biology, there’s been considerable study, research, and speculation about this elemental form of life. According to Watson, Crick walked into a pub on February 28 of that year and proclaimed, “We have found the secret of life,” which in some sense has proven to be true. The implications of this discovery have had far-reaching effects, in both scientific and metaphysical fields.

Gregg Braden, in his book The Divine Matrix, cites some fascinating research that supports the notion that DNA is what connects us all at a very fundamental level. Although the studies described were done with human DNA, it’s easy to extrapolate from them to assume that the DNA of all life-forms would behave similarly. The idea that we’re all connected in some intangible web of life is something we’ve heard over many, many centuries from mystics and indigenous peoples, and now the experiments that Braden cites give scientific credibility to what, up until this century, was a spiritual/metaphysical idea.

The first experiment was run by Vladimir Poponin and his colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences and was described in a paper that appeared in the U.S. in 1995. Poponin called it “The DNA Phantom Effect,” suggesting that DNA directly affects the physical world through a field of energy. His team set out to test the behavior of DNA on light particles called photons (particles that represent a quantum of light but have zero mass). They removed all of the air from a vacuum tube so that only photons remained inside and then measured their location. As expected, they were scattered about randomly inside the chamber.

Next, samples of human DNA were placed inside the closed tube with the photons. When the DNA was introduced, they got a surprising result: the particles arranged themselves differently—the photons were no longer in a random arrangement! Through some unseen force, the DNA was influencing the photons to shape into regular patterns. As Braden writes: “There’s absolutely nothing in the tenets of conventional physics that would allow for this effect. Yet in this controlled environment, DNA—the substance that composes us—was observed and documented to have a direct effect on the quantum stuff that our world is made of! [author’s emphasis]”

Another astonishing and unexpected discovery was made when the DNA was taken out of the container. The scientists assumed that the photons would return to their random positions; however, they remained in the same order, as if the DNA was still in the tube! Questions still remained, but it seemed as if the DNA left behind some mysterious force after the physical substance was removed, or that the DNA continued to exert an influence now that it had been introduced to these particular photons. This experiment suggests that some sort of universal energy field exists, and our cells and DNA somehow influence matter through this mysterious energy. Just as many traditions have told us throughout our history, we have a direct effect on the physical world.

Another experiment Braden described demonstrated that human emotion has a direct influence on the cells of our body and the way they function. In 1993, the Army designed experiments to find out whether a connection of some sort remained when emotions and DNA were separated—a notion that modern science would conclude was impossible. For the setup, the scientists collected DNA by swabbing the inside of a volunteer’s mouth. These samples were then taken to a separate room in the same building and placed in a chamber designed specifically for the experiment—where the electrical activity of the DNA could be measured to determine if there was any response to the emotions of the donor, who was segregated in a room hundreds of feet away.

The researchers showed the donor various videos—ranging from graphic images of violence, to erotic images, to comical images—which were designed to stimulate a variety of emotional responses in the subject. While this was going on, the DNA in the other room was measured electrically to see how it would respond. The measurement of time for the cell’s response and the subject’s were both synchronized to an atomic clock. The study revealed that whenever the donor experienced an emotional response or reaction, the cells and DNA also showed a reaction at the exact same time even though they were separated by hundreds of feet. A follow-up study was done, this time with much greater distances between the donor and his cells—at one point by 350 miles—and the results were identical. The time between the donor’s reaction and the cell’s response was zero. In other words, in both sets of experiments, the donor’s reaction and the electrical spike of the DNA occurred at precisely the same time!

The implications of this are mind-boggling. When we make any kind of contact with someone, part of our DNA is left with that person, and vice versa. So how many people in the world are carrying some of our DNA? What about organ transplants? I’m not sure of the answers to these or other questions that this raises, but what we can conclude is that our physical matter exerts a powerful influence on the world around us, that we are all connected at a very fundamental level, that cells and DNA communicate through this universal energy field instantaneously, and that our emotional process continues to affect our cells even when they’ve been deposited somewhere else.

Dr. Steven D. Farmer is the author of the best-selling Animal Spirit Guides, Power Animal Oracle Cards, Messages from Your Animal Spirit Guides Oracle Cards, Power Animals, Sacred Ceremony, Messages from Your Animal Spirit Guides guided meditation CD, and the soon-to-be-released Earth Magic: Ancient Shamanic Wisdom for Healing Yourself, Others, and the Planet (Feb 2009). He’s also host of his own radio show, The Shamanic Hotline on HayHouseRadio.com. Dr. Farmer is a shamanic practitioner, ordained minister, and former psychotherapist, offering workshops on various shamanic topics and private consultations.. He makes his home in Laguna Beach, California. For further information, go to www.DrStevenFarmer.com