Why did the Klingbeils' inventiveness with Consciousness and Prayer take so long to be noticed?

One reason is that some pioneers, artists and inventors have a gruelling time articulating what they have originated. The following excerpt might help explain.
"The first concept of an idea is one thing--the working model is another, and as
every inventor knows, popular acceptance--still another." (From Short Stories of Science and Invention by Charles Kettering.)

Until late 1995, experimenting with prayer was generally a taboo subject and a heresy. Prayer was indeed a normal part of human functioning and existed in all societies.
The Klingbeils wondered how they could help shift the paradigm so "scientists and society" would research prayer, spirituality, and consciousness. I asked the Klingbeils, "Why do suppose your research has not interested many in the scientific community?"

The Klingbeils replied:

"It's understandable considering these reasons:

1) The general resistance to something new about testing thought.
2) We are from a religious, not a scientific tradition. Thus, we are perceived
as not having the credentials to do science [because of our spiritual
overtones.]
3) We have formed our own vocabulary to fit our test designs.
4) We are self-funding, not associated with an institution.
5) We and our concepts have stretched people's credulity."

Fortunately, point 5 above, is changing because a number of researchers are now testing thought and prayer. The Spindrifters paid a social price of receiving criticism and experiencing a loss of many friends for testing prayer before it was considered
all right to do.

The following explains Bruce Klingbeil's conviction that our modern culture asks
for better evidence of spiritual phenomena.

A person who has a spiritual healing, the healing is proof for him. Personal proof in one's life is important. Repeating the testimony about the healing may reach people who are already personally convinced of healing by prayer. Healing is part of their spiritual belief systems.
Someone with a physical belief system hears the same testimony and says, “You can't prove that's what happened,” and that's probably true, the testifier probably can't prove it. If the [skeptical] questioner is sincere, he is only reflecting our culture's scientific orientation. Our culture is both religious
and scientific, but today's culture is more influenced by science than religion. We who have religious mindsets should learn to speak the language of our culture.
In our scientific age testimonies of healing, by a wide range of healers and
by the healed, isn't modern scientific proof. It's valid for the individual, but calling our testimonies the only proof we need often sounds stupid to people trained in science. They understand how proof is determined.
A deeply felt testimony may be beneficial to repeat to someone who needs
to hear it. I don't mean to take anything away from a person's testimony or
his personal experiences of God, but our culture has changed. Since the 1950’s, our culture has changed its basis of thought from religion to science. People of faith know that a great deal of change has happened, but not many of them know that we all accept a number of scientific values today that weren't in our thinking before. This unconscious acceptance of science is
a huge change!

       Testimonial evidence given by witnesses of spiritual healings and psychic
       experiences is considered as "soft evidence" by scientists. Scientists look for
       something to measure. They rarely accept a person saying, "Here is a true story
       of what happened." John Klingbeil comments on the use of both soft and hard
       evidence.

The one place testimonial evidence might be helpful is when it corroborates what was measured in a test. My dad and I have
been aware of the mathematical ways to analyze data which doesn't fit into the common methods of determining proof. There is a method of analysis called meta-analysis which takes into account
all the evidence, the failures and the successes, this can include testimonial evidence, and the anecdotal experiences of consciousness that people have had. All these things are factored in. Meta-analysis hasn't hit the big time in science yet, but consciousness researchers are finding it useful.

THE APPLE THAT PLUGGED IN THE WALL
Bruce and John Klingbeil followed the personal computer revolution from the beginning. Bruce and John were proud that their early version of the Apple II computer had a low serial number. They perceived the Apple as "a tool for number crunching our data" as John put it in 1978. In fact Bruce and John felt that without the personal computer crunching and arraying the data the experiments of prayer could never have been done with acceptable scientific accuracy.
The father and son had a vicarious feeling of kinship with Apple founders Steve Wozniak and Steven Jobs. Those two Steves
started in a family garage. They caused a revolution. Bruce and John Klingbeil started in a kitchen in a townhouse. Their revolution would be quieter. In 1980, John's first book was called The Quiet Revolution. This book explained the experiments up to that point. The Klingbeils' revolution was to discover ways to show that people's prayers and thoughts conveyed subtle healing-effects to simple biological organisms. The Apple computer was also used to analyse how John's consciousness affected the order of numbers in a random number generator test and on electronic circuits.

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