The Million Dollar Experiment is now up to $112,628.84 in manifested money, spread across 487 public participants. As previously mentioned this is NOT a controlled scientific experiment. It is an exploration of the intention-manifestation process.

My personal results are now at $16,540.42. Just today I received a check for $10,000. I only learned this money was coming about a week ago, so it was totally unexpected before that. My paternal grandfather (the last surviving of my four grandparents) passed away some time ago, and apparently there was an inheritance that was split between my Dad and his three siblings (my grandfather owned some valuable stock). Although they certainly didn’t have to, my parents decided to share some of that inheritance with my brother, my two sisters, and me. Obviously my siblings and I were all very grateful for their decision.

In other news, three readers of this site recently got together to surprise me with an unexpected — and extremely generous — gift. They had been following my polyphasic sleep experiment and committed to doing it themselves after previously failing to last more than a few days. They made it to the 30-day point and were very excited by the results. So unbeknownst to me, they decided to pitch in to surprise me with a gift. They secretly contacted my wife through her web site, told her their budget, and together they figured out what to get me. My wife knew I was planning to buy a new flat panel computer monitor, but she didn’t know what kind I was planning to get. One day a 19″ Dell flat panel monitor arrived in the mail for me along with a very nice letter. My wife finally spilled the beans and confessed the secret that she’d be holding onto for so long. I was blown away — overwhelmed with a feeling of gratitude.

I’m using the new monitor right now, and I love it! I sent a personal thank you to those generous readers. I especially love the anti-hibernation logo. Thanks again for the monitor, Tynan, Manish, and Neetu! One thing that’s interesting about polyphasic sleep is that even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. Even if you don’t do it perfectly (and who does monophasic sleep perfectly every night anyway?), you’re still going to gain a lot of hours each week. It’s ironic that some polyphasic sleepers will beat themselves up for sleeping six hours instead of only three. 🙂

But there’s more…. I had already bookmarked the page for a flat panel monitor I had picked out and was going to buy. After I setup the gift monitor, out of curiosity I went to look it up to see what the specs were — such a geek! — and to my surprise I discovered it was the exact same model I had bookmarked. My wife didn’t know which one I’d picked out though. She told me she really just guessed. Amazing…

But it gets even stranger. I had already decided to buy that monitor and bookmarked the ordering page at Dell. The only reason I didn’t buy it right away was because I was having a problem with my bank account. One day I noticed that some of my routine ACH transactions were being declined. I called my bank’s customer service number and was informed that my account was set to “blocked” status. But they couldn’t tell me why because the block was installed by the branch, so I’d have to call the branch directly to find out. But this was a weekend, and the branch was closed, so I had to wait until Monday to get through. When I called the branch on Monday, I was told that a foreign check I had deposited bounced, and when they tried to return it to me in the mail, it was returned to them because they didn’t have my current address. So some overzealous bank person decided that warranted blocking my entire account. I couldn’t use the ATM machine or make deposits or withdrawals until this block was removed. What’s especially strange is that I’m absolutely certain I gave them my address change when I moved in January. I remember submitting it to them. But even if I hadn’t, there was a mail forwarding order in place which is supposed to last a full year, so the returned check should have been forwarded to me anyway even if it was mailed to my last address. Furthermore, I have an online account with this bank that’s been in active use for years, so they could have just sent me a message via their own messaging system to ask me to update my address info. A very unlikely series of customer service failures had to occur for them to block me from accessing my entire account over something so trivial. There was plenty of money in the account, but I was blocked from accessing it. In any event I wasn’t particularly troubled — how hard could it be to give them my current address info and get the block removed?

However, when I tried to update my address with my bank, I was met with all manner of almost incomprehensible incompetence on the part of my bank. I had to call a different number to submit my address change… fine… Then was told I couldn’t submit it over the phone. I’d have to submit it online, but my online access was blocked as well. Then my online access started working again, even though the customer service rep told me it couldn’t possibly work, so I submitted my address update online anyway. Then I was told it would take 2 days to process. It took significantly longer, but it was eventually processed. Then I had to call the branch to remove the block. I did so and was told the block was removed but that it would take 48 hours to go through. When I tried to use the ATM machine to make a deposit after about 72 hours, I found the block was still in place. I called the branch back and was again told the block would be removed, but that it would take 48 hours to go through. Once again it didn’t work. Then I called the branch again and found that the person I’d been talking to all along and who was responsible for fixing this problem had just gone on vacation. Argh!

This insane process went on for three weeks — too many details to retell. All the while I was unable to get access to my money or use my bank check card to make purchases. I could still use a credit card for personal purchases, but this account was used for my business transactions. All my business ACH transactions were declined, but I was able to switch those to another account. Fortunately none of my checks bounced; for some reason my bank saw fit to honor those. I had no real cashflow problem, since I had plenty of money in other accounts, and my wife had full access to her accounts. And since no checks bounced, I never actually incurred any out-of-pocket penalties or serious business problems. Aside from the frustration of dealing with what seemed like an overwhelming amount of incompetence from my bank, the only real downside was that I couldn’t make any business purchases, including the monitor I had decided to buy. If it was an urgent purchase, I could have just used a credit card, but I wanted to keep it in my business account, and it certainly wasn’t an urgent purchase. Plus it seemed like a fix to the problem was always just around the corner. But after a couple weeks, I began thinking that some supernatural force didn’t want me to get access to my money. That seemed a more likely explanation than the almost unreal series of delays over what seemed a completely trivial matter. Even my wife was shaking her head at the ridiculous obstacles I kept running into trying to get this problem resolved.

Finally the gift monitor arrived, and my wife confessed to me that she was hoping the whole time that I didn’t buy a monitor for myself before this one arrived. I thought to myself, “Mon Dieu! This whole time you’ve been putting out the intention that blocked me from getting access to my bank account!”

The next day I was (surprisingly easily) able to get the bank branch manager on the phone, and she effortlessly removed the block in a matter of minutes. I was able to deposit my backlog of checks (totaling nearly $4500) and use the ATM the very next day. After that the account has been working perfectly as usual.

I had a very long talk with my wife about how we must direct our intentions P-O-S-I-T-I-V-E-L-Y, never to block someone from doing something. I told her she’d better focus her intentions on attracting abundance, not blocking or delaying it, even if it is for a surprise. She agreed, and I think it was the next day that my parents informed me about the gift money.

I’ve been utterly blown away by this whole intention-manifestation process. And my experience hasn’t been unique. I’ve been hearing similar stories from a number of others who are participating in the MDE. After just 52 days, I’m already 1.65% of the way to $1 million.

As previously mentioned I actually began attempting to manifest money during the summer, so technically I had a big head start. It started with pennies, then moved to other coins, and soon it was tens of dollars. Then it progressed to three figures, and then four figures at a time. Now I just had the first five-figure sum arrive. It seems like some kind of progression, as if I’m able to manifest larger and larger sums of money as I’m able to put more and more faith into this practice. And I certainly don’t discount the possible effect that hundreds of people could be having collectively… with all of us focusing on manifesting wealth for each other for the highest good of all.

I’ve been seeing others following a very similar same pattern. For many people this experiment begins with many days of manifesting absolutely nothing. Then you might begin to find pennies and other coins on the ground. Several people have found paper money lying in the street. This may continue for a few weeks. Be patient and just keep putting out the intention. Allow the increase in manifested money to come about in its own perfect time. Many of those who’ve started with pennies are now in the $100-1000 range. I’m sure that within the next 90 days, we’ll be seeing more people break into the four- and five-figure ranges.

One thing I feel that is helping me is to express gratitude to the universe whenever I manifest money. If you find a penny on the ground, acknowledge that it came about as a result of your intention, and say a private “thank you” to the universe (or God… or consciousness… or whatever source you believe provided it). I believe that gratitude strengthens the intention-manifestation connection because you’re acknowledging your manifestation. You’re saying, “Yes, this was manifested money.” When in doubt I tend to err on the side of giving credit to the universe. Why the heck not? It certainly does me no harm to say “thank you” and to feel grateful at every possible occasion.

Skeptics (i.e. non-manifesters) will be able to come up with all sorts of reasons why I’m just fooling myself. It’s just luck. It’s a coincidence. I would have received the money anyway. As I see it though, I have over 16,000 reasons to ignore them. Before I started this experiment on November 1st, it certainly wasn’t a normal experience for me to get an extra $16K over a period of 52 days from sources outside my previous income streams. This is all bonus money — it doesn’t even include my regular income from my games business, from Adsense ads, from royalty checks, etc.

What fascinates me is that these sums seem to manifest with virtually equal ease regardless of the amounts. Finding a penny on the ground was no more difficult than receiving a check for $10,000. We simply make it difficult in our thoughts. We expect it must be harder to manifest $10,000 than it is to find a penny, just because the amounts are different. When you subscribe to the old cause-effect model, it is physically harder to manifest larger sums than smaller ones. But with intention-manifestation, the difficulty lies within our own beliefs. It’s no more difficult for the universe to manifest $10,000 than it is to manifest a penny. But it’s hard for us to believe that it’s possible to manifest $10,000, and thus we subconsciously block ourselves from receiving it. We have an easier time believing that we’ll find an extra penny today than an extra $10,000. So the universe merely brings us what we believe we deserve. We request a penny, and it says OK.

Will I be able to manifest other five-figure sums and even six-figure amounts just as easily? Who knows? But so far it’s been a lot of fun finding out. And it certainly is gratifying to consider that this experiment may have helped put more than $100,000 straight into the wallets of this site’s readers. If you’ve managed to tolerate my writings this far, you should be getting paid for it! 😉

Remember to keep holding the intention — all it takes is 60 seconds a day:

In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way, in its own perfect time, for the highest good of all, I intend $1,000,000 to come into my life and into the lives of everyone who holds this intention.