AMES, Iowa – Toes will be curling around the world on Dec. 22, when two California activists encourage everyone to have an orgasm while concentrating on world peace.

The event, known as the Global Orgasm for Peace, is the product of deliberation between two peaceful protesters, Donna Sheehan and Paul Reffel of Marshall, Calif. The pair are hoping everyone will be able to influence the socio-political climate by keeping peace on their mind while climaxing in unison with fellow activists around the world.

Sheehan and Reffell co-founded the anti-war organization Baring Witness, a worldwide collective of peace activists who are well-known for spelling pro-peace messages with their nude bodies. Their tactics of peaceful protest are aimed at making a statement about the direction the United States is headed and to encourage a conscious, collective movement by people to change the course, Sheehan said.

The roots of this movement are deeper than pleasure and peace. The organization has partnered with Princeton University’s Global Consciousness Project, which measures outcomes of random number generators to look for correlations between physical events and human consciousness.

“We are inspired by the GCP [Global Consciousness Project] as a scientific way to measure and honor our efforts,” Sheehan said.

Princeton researchers run a network of random event generators positioned around the globe, which produce a continuous sequence of completely unpredictable numbers. Experiments have shown the number sequences become slightly nonrandom when people are in a state of coherent group consciousness. Results show that human consciousness can be measured to have a global effect on matter and energy during widely watched events, such as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Indian Ocean tsunami. There have also been measurable results produced by mass meditations and prayers.

“We wondered how we could help to change the energy of the world through human consciousness and intent. We wondered what would be the greatest sudden input of great energy — physical, mental, spiritual — into the energy field around the earth to try to change this negative field we have going on right now,” Reffell said. “We came up with the idea of a synchronized global orgasm, hoping that if people could concentrate during and after that time of peace and love, it could be turned into conscious intent for peace on earth.”

The war in Iraq is the seventh war Sheehan has lived through, and was the inspiration for she and fellow protesters to take off their clothes and spell out “peace” on the grass in Marshall. Within five minutes of the demonstration, their message had gone around the world.

“It made a difference for those of us who did it — by lying peacefully on the earth and feeling the oneness of humanity,” Sheehan said. “Both men and women participated; all ages, shapes, sizes and persuasions.”

The idea for the Global Orgasm for Peace, Reffel said, came about from news that the United States was deploying more ships for the Persian Gulf equipped with anti-submarine warfare technology, which he said implies future confrontation with Iran — the only country to have submarines in the Persian Gulf.

“We hope that we will see a return to diplomacy rather than gunboats, and we will be able to see it [the effectiveness of the movement] on Princeton University’s Global Consciousness Project at Noosphere.princeton.edu,” Reffell said.

Iowa State University student R.J. Green, senior in biology, is a member of one of the Facebook groups for the event, which has more than 1,000 members from across the globe.

“We should all strive for world peace,” Green said. “It’s a complicated enough place without having conflict over who has the superior god or religion or lifestyle.”

David Schweingruber, associate professor of sociology, said he believes the movement may be more about publicity than policy reform.

“Global Orgasm seems like a media-savvy idea. A social movement trying to get its message out can gain media coverage and public attention with a new or unusual event like this one,” he said.

Schweingruber was skeptical of how effective the event could be in influencing public policy.

“Marches and rallies can demonstrate to policy makers and the public that large numbers of people support some position. Presumably Global Orgasm will be less visible,” he said. “However, that is probably not its point. A good social movement will have a mix of tactics and strategies.”

More information about the project and organization can be found at Globalorgasm.org.