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GEOMAGNETIC FACTORS IN SPONTANEOUS SUBJECTIVE TELEPATHIC,
PRECOGNITIVE AND POSTMORTEM EXPERIENCES
George B. Schaut and Michael A. Persinger
Department of Psychology
Laurentian University
ABSTRACT
This study was designed to test the reliability of
the
observation
that
(spontaneous)
subjective
telepathic
experiences concerning death and crises
days when the geomagnetic activity
was
quieter
than
the
days before or afterwards. Geomagnetic activity (aa index)
at the time of
have
occurred
on
reports :
three major
classes
of
subjective
psi
telepathic-clairvoyant
(n=133),
precognitive
(n=105), and postmortem (n=140) experiences
Highly statistically significant (p <. 001) differences
found between the classes of experiences and
class interactions.
Telepathic experiences
occurred
on
days when the geomagnetic activity was much less than
days on which the precognitive or postmortem
occurred. In addition, the geomagnetic activity
than for the days before or afterward the experiences
for the average of the month or year in which
for
the
cases
other
two
was internally consistent and very similar to
The telepathy-geomagnetic
the
of three other studies.
that
sudden decreases in geomagnetic activity may facilitate the
occurrence or the memory of the occurrence
experiences concerning death and crisis.
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time
by
the
experiences
the
on
days of the telepathic experiences was significantly
lower
and
occurred. This pattern was not found
classes of experiences.
pattern
the
results
The results strongly suggest
some factor
associated
with
or
enhanced
by
transient,
of
telepathic
was
compared.
for
were

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-
INTRODUCTION
Several
studies
(Persinger,
1985a;
1986;
Schaut
&
Persinger, 1985a,b) have shown that
subjective
telepathic
experiences tend to occur on days
when
the
geomagnetic
activity is quieter than the days
before
or after
the
experiences. The effect is quite strong statistically
and
is very
similar
in all
three
studies.
Most
of
the
experiences from the Schaut
and Persinger
(1985)
study
occurred between the years 1920 and 1967 while
those from
the Gurney, Meyers and Podmore analyses (Persinger, 1986a)
occurred between the years 1868 and 1884. More than 98% of
the cases involved episodes of
sudden death,
crisis,
or
illness to friends or family members.
The aa (average antipodal) index of global geomagnetic
activity has been employed in all of
the above studies.
Daily or half-daily values refer to the average amplitude
(in gammas) of geomagnetic activity (Mayaud, 1973) .
This
measure is derived directly
and
quantitatively
from
magnetograms of observatories
in
England
and Australia
(hence the term "antipodal"). This particular measure of
geomagnetic activity was selected because
it provided a
homogeneous quantitative series of highly reliable values
that begins in the year 1868.
In addition, 100
years
of
the data are easily accessible in
the monograph (Mayaud,
1973) or on magnetic tape;
consequent years
are
also
available. The aa index is also strongly correlated with a
variety of more recent geomagnetic activity
indices
that
include dozens' of
measurements
from
tens
of
different
stations throughout the world.
We decided to determine the reliability of the previous
studies by analyzing
the remaining
cases
of
subjective
telepathic-clairvoyant
(T-C)
experiences
that
were
available to us.
These cases had been
reported
in
FATE
magazine;
its format was considered instrumental
for
the
demonstration of the specificity of the geomagnetic
effect
on T-C experiences because both
precognitive
(PC)
and
postmortem (PM) experiences were also included.
Except for
the temporal displacement before or
after
the
event,
descriptions and details
of precognitive and postmortem
experiences are similar to TC phenomena. We considered the
PC and PM experiences as both source ( from FATE)
and
case
controls. If the geomagnetic effect was specific to T-C,
then it should not be evident in the PC or PM cases. If it
were evident in all three classes, then some
non-specific
factor (such as just the display of unusual
experiences)
might be likely.
In the present
study,
we compared
the
three major
classes of subjective
psi
phenomena :
telepathic-clair-
voyance (T-C), precognitive
(PC) ,
and
postmortem
(PM)
experiences,
with
respect
to
the
geomagnetic activity
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during the weeks, months and years in which they occurred.
The study was designed to allow comparison with
previous
analyses and to
allow internal
comparisons
within
subcategories of the major classes. Consequently, we also
compared the geomagnetic conditions during different modes
( impression, image, dream, apparition)
of experiences,
conditions of the putative agent
(death or crisis)
when
appropriate and time of day.
We
were
particularly
interested in the internal (replication) consistency of the
two collections of FATE cases.
METHOD
Data Base
All
first person reports concerning
telepathic-
clairvoyant (T-C), precognitive (PC), and . postmortem
(PM)
experiences that contained
the day,
month
and
year of
occurrence
were
recorded from
our
library
of
FATE
magazines.
Most of the 234 issues were
published
between
of
reports
were
the years 1965 and 1985. The collection
completed
in two series
( replications) .
The
first
replication, which was
published elsewhere
(Schaut
&
Persinger, 1985b), involved
57
T-C,
56
PC, - and
75
PM
experiences.
The second (replication)
study
involved
75
T-C, 49 PC, and 65 PM cases.
Procedure
Each report was coded according to the following
£
para-
meters: hour (if given) , day,
month, year, sex
of
or
the
percipient (reporter) , classification
(T-C,
PC,
PM
experience) , mode of experience (feeling/impression, image,
dream, or apparition), and general geographical location of
the percipient (continent). The classification
code
also
indicated if the experience involved sickness,
crisis or
death.
Case Characteristics
For the T-C
experiences,
the
£
putative agent's
situations at the time of
the experiences were sudden
sickness (n=12), life-threatening crises (27), and death
(n=94).
For the PC experiences, crisis was involved with
42 cases and death occurred in 63 cases.
Chi-square
analyses
indicated that
there
was
no
statistically
significant (p>.05) differences between study 1 and study 2
with
respect to frequencies of class type,
sex
of
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percipient (reporter) , crisis/death condition or mode;
81%
of the percipients were female.
There
was
significant
(p <. 001) difference between mode (4 levels) and the
class
of experience (x =119.50, df=6) ;
this
was due
to
the
the
disproportionate number of apparitional forms (83%) in
PM experiences compared
to the
T-C (28%)
and PC (25%)
experiences. However, there was no significant difference
between the proportion of different modes between
tele-
pathic and precognitive experiences only.
Modes
for
T-C
and PC experiences were not influenced by sex, crisis/death
condition, or month of occurrence but they were associated
with time of day (x "=10.16, df=3, p =. 02) . Dreams (62%) and
apparitional (75%) experiences were more likely
to
occur
between midnight and 0600 hrs ( local time) than impressions
(36%) or images (31%) . Impressions and images
were
more
frequent during
the
other
hours
(0700
to
2300) .
Comparisons of all
three classes with
respect
to
the
temporal specificity of reports: 1) specific hour,
2)
day
1 x2
vs night, or 3) the date, demonstrated no significant
=4.30, df=4) differences in distribution.
Thus, reports of
the specific time of the experience did not differ
between
the three classes of phenomena.
Geomagnetic Activity
AA values for the appropriate hemisphere in which
the
case occurred (north or south) were coded for the
3
days
before, 3 days after and the day of the experiences.
The
mean aa value for the month and for the year in which
the
experience occurred were also coded. For
those
cases
in
which there was an hourly specification, simply the
value
for the day of the experience was used. For those cases in
which the specific hour
was specified, adjustments
were
made between local and universal time by using combinations
of half-day values.
This procedure has
been discussed
previously (Schaut & Persinger, 1985b) .
The primary design employed
multivariate
analyses of
variance
(MANOVA)
which
allows
repeated
(dependent)
measures
to be
combined
with
factors
(non-repeated
measures) .
In this instance, the
repeated
measures
were
the 7 successive days of aa values or the aa values for the
day, month and year in which the experience occurred.
The
main factors were classes of experiences and replication.
Other main factors that
were considered before analyses
began were class of experience and crisis vs
death
situations and class of experience (for T-C and PC) and the
mode of the experience.
MANOVA
were
selected
because it allows
a
dynamic
(temporal) comparison of changes
over
time
between
geo-
magnetic conditions for separate classes or
conditions
of
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experiences. Our previous analyses indicated that
inter-
actions (Persinger, 1985a;
Schaut
&
Persinger,
1985a,b)
between the day of the experience and
the
type
of
experience were the key phenomena.
The rationale
for
selecting the key day (day of the experience) and the three
days before and the three days after
the experience
was
based upon both theoretical and empirical reasons.
First,
geomagnetic activity within 1+1 days
is usually
highly
correlated (>0.60) or dependent; beyond three days,
there
is little correlation (days
are
independent) .
Secondly,
several previous studies
( Persinger,
1985a;
Schaut
Persinger, 1985a,b) have shown that more than +3 days
from
the key day,
geomagnetic
values
are
usually
not
significantly different from the mean values of the month.
Because assumptions
of
homogeneity
of
variance
are
occasionally violated with
geomagnetic
indices
(from
outlier values; i.e., geomagnetic storms) , log
transforma-
tions of the daily, monthly, and yearly
aa
values
were
completed;
MANOVA designs were applied
to
these
values.
Repeated measures for specific classes of experiences: were
completed separately to verify the results
of
the
MANOVA
and to more clearly delineate the temporal
pattern
of
aa
class
values; a posteriori correlated t-tests for . within
comparisons and independent
t-tests
for between
group
comparisons were used. As an additional
verification
and
data check, non parametric: repeated
measure
(Friedman's)
and non-repeated measure
(Kruskal-Wallis)
were . completed
for the different classes. This is a routine procedure
our laboratory in
order to
control
for
possible
non-
linearities within data. All analyses were completed
in
with
SPSSX software on a DEC 2020 computer.
The means and standard errors of the mean of the daily
aa indices for the three days before, the three days after
and the days of the experiences as well as the averages for
the month and years in which the experiences occurred
are
shown in Figure
1.
Multivariate analyses of variance
(MANOVA) of the seven repeated measures (7 successive daily
aa values) and two factors: the
three
classes
of
experiences (telepathic, precognitive, and postmortem)
and
the two replications (one vs two) demonstrated no signifi-
a
cant difference (F(1,372) =0.56, p>.01) between replications
but
highly
significant
(F (2, 372) =11.20,
p <. 001)
difference between classes of experiences. The results
of
the MANOVA were similar for the log (base 10)
transforma-
tions of the aa values (F (2,372) =10.67, p <. 001) .
both
T-C experiences occurred when the aa activity of
the
week
A posteriori analyses (Scheffe's set at p <. 05) on
the raw scores and log transformations indicated
that
the
(X+S. E.M. = 19.3+0.9) was lower than the values
for
either
the PC (24.2+1.1) or PM (22.8+1.0) experiences
which
did
not differ from each other. The results were identical for
both absolute values and log
transformations.
Nonpara-
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f
:)
ed
re
ne
he
n.
es
th
he
aic
20-
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TC
(n=133 )
PRECOG
(n=105 )
PM
301
(n =140)
MEAN DAILY aa INDEX ( in gammas)
25
20
15
10
-
5
-3
0
+3
MY
-3
0
+3
M
-3
0
+3
MY
DAYS BEFORE, AFTER OR DURING (O) THE EXPERIENCE
Figure 1:
Mean daily
values
(in
gamma)
of
the
aa
(antipodal) index of global geomagnetic
activity
for
the
three days before, three
days
(PM)
after
and
the
days
of
telepathic (T-C), precognitive (PC), and postmortem
subjective experiences. n refers to the number of cases in
each class of experience. M and Y refer to the means
the aa values
for the
months
and years in which
the
error of the mean.
of
experiences occurred.
Vertical bars indicate
+1
standard
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metric analyses (Kruskal-Wallis)
indicated
that
the
geomagnetic activity was also quieter during
the week
of
the T-C cases (mean ranks=161)
than
for
the other
two
classes (ranks 213, 200) of experience (x == 15.41, p <. 001) .
By far the most striking effect was
the
statistically
significant class by days interaction.
This
was
evident
for both normal (F (12,2332) =4.30, p <. 001)
and log
trans-
formed data (F(12,2232) =4.42, p <. 001) .
A
posteriori
con-
trasts indicated that
this
interaction
was
Que
to the
quieter geomagnetic conditions
on
the
day
(X=S.E.M. =
13.9+1.0) of the T-C experiences compared to
the days on
which the PC
(26.+2.2)
and PM
(27.5+1.9)
experiences
occurred. None of the other interactions
(replication by
day;
class
by replication by
day)
were
significant
statistically. There was also no significant
difference
between days (F (6,2232) =2.50, p>.01) . Differences
between
normal aa values on just the days of the experiences
were
highly significant (F(2,375) =28.33, p <. 001).
The
variance
of aa values for T-C cases only was significantly less on
the key day compared to the other two classes (Bartlett Box
F=34.36, p <. 001). However, a Kruskal-Wallis test indicated
a highly significant difference between
classes
for
the
mean ranks of the values (x =59.54, p <. 001) .
Additional MANOVA were completed to determine
if
the
days of the experiences for the three classes were
different from the monthly and yearly values. A posteriori
correlated
t-tests
indicated
that
the T-C experiences
occurred on days (X+S.E.M .= 13.9+1.0)
that were signifi-
cantly quieter than the months (20.9+0.5)
or
the
years
(21.3+0.4) in which they occurred;
however , there
was no
values for the month and the years in which the
T-C cases
significant (p).05)
difference
(t=0.80)
between
the aa
occurred.
Similarly, there were no significant differences
between
the
values
for
aa
the days
on
which
the
precognition or
apparitional
cases occurred
and
their
monthly aa (22.9+0.8, 21.9+0.6, respectively) or yearly
aa
values (22.6+0.5; 22.4+0.4, respectively) .
The aa
values
for the months and years
in
which
the T-C experiences
occurred were not significantly different (p).05) from
the
aa values for the months and years in which the PC and PM
experiences occurred.
We reasoned
that
if
the
relative " decreases
in
geomagnetic activity on the days of T-C. experiences were
strong, the effect should be evident if we simply compared
the differences in
aa
values
between
the
days
of the
experiences and
the
months
in
which
they
occurred.
the
Consequently the absolute aa
value
of
day
of
each
experience was subtracted from the mean monthly value. The
Means and standard errors for these differences for each
class of experiences were: T-C (-6.8+0.9), PC (+3.4+2.0) ,
And PM (5.6+1.8). One-way analyses of variance indicated a
highly significant
(F (2,377)=17.82,
p <. 001)
difference
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between the groups. A posteriori Scheffe's set
at
P <. 05
indicated that the effect was due solely
to the relative
decrease in geomagnetic activity during T-C experiences
compared to both the PC and PM experiences
that
did not
differ from each other. Calculations of relative changes
for each case (key day aa value minus
the monthly mean)
divided by the monthly
mean and multiplied by
100) )
demonstrated values of -32+4.1%, 14.4+9.4%, and 28.2+5% for
the three classes, respectively (F=21.36, p <. 001) .
To determine the strength
of
the repeated measure
(daily aa values) differences between days for the classes
of experiences separately, both parametric and non-para-
metric repeated analyses were
completed .
The T-C cases
demonstrated highly significant (p <. 091)
repeated
measure
differences
(F=4.36,
df=6.792;
x -= 34.33,
df=6);
A
posteriori
tests
indicated that only
the
day of
the
experiences was
significantly different
than
the
other
days. For the PM cases,
a
significant
repeated
measure
2
effect also occurred
(F(6,834)= 5.70, p <. 001;
x == 30.32,
df=6, p <. 001).
A posteriori (contrast) correlated t-tests
demonstrated that for apparitional experiences, the day
of
the experience was significantly more active relative to
two to three days before the experience (2.70<ts<3.75,
df=139).
There were no significant (p>.05)
repeated
measure differences for the precognition experiences
(x2 =
6.13, df=6; F=1.76, df=6,734).
Further tests were completed to determine the
internal
consistency and cross-reliability of the
results.
These
analyses were completed as log 10 transformations of the aa
values in order to reduce
the possible distortions
. from
extreme outlier values. The first step was
to
determine
the internal reliabillity of the most significant
effect:
the marked, decreased geomagnetic activity on the days of
T-C experiences compared to the days before and afterwards.
As shown in Figure 2A, the two replications are almost
identical. The experiences occurred when
the geomagnetic
activity became suddenly quieter compared to the days
before and afterwards. :
Cross-reliability with other analyses are shown in
Figure 2B. Here the geomagnetic activity on the days of,
the three days
before
and
the
3
days
after
the
T-C
experiences are shown for the 17 new cases
that
contained
specific dates from the Stevenson (1970) collection and for
the 78 major cases that contained specific dates
(between
the years 1868 to 1885) from the Gurney, Myers and Podmore
(1886) series. Monthly and yearly aa values
for
each
of
these collections are also displayed. As can be seen,
in
all three studies, the T-C experiences occurred on days
when the geomagnetic activity became
suddenly quieter
compared to the days before and afterwards.
In addition,
the days of the T-C experiences were also quieter than the
average monthly or yearly
aa
values.
These
differences
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STEVENSON ( n = 17)
FATE (n =133)
1.25
GMP
(n= 78)
O STUDY 2 ( n =75)
1.20
LOGIO OF DAILY aa INDEX
1 25
Y
1.15
1 15
110
-
1
5)
1 05
1
1.05
0 95
100%
0 85 >
-3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
-3
-2 -1 0 +1 +2 + 3
MY
DAYS BEFORE, DURING (O) AND AFTER
THE EXPERIENCE
Figure 2:
A)
Log (base 10)
transformations
mean aa values for the three days before, three days
of
the
and the
days
of
subjective telepathic experiences
after
replication 1 (n=57) and replication
for
transformations of the mean aa values for the days
2
during,
(n=75).
B)
Log
before and after telepathic experiences from the Stevenson,
present and Gurney, Myers and Podmore
(GPM)
GPM series occurred between the years 1868 and 1885.
series;
the
(M) and years (Y) in which
for the log transformation of the aa values for the months
Means
the experiences
occurred
are
shown for each data
base.
Vertical
lines
indicate
+1
standard error of the mean.
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1
..... ...
1
1
· STUDYI (n =58)
1 35

Approved For nelcast
were highly statistically
significant
(Persinger,
1985a;
Persinger, 1986a) .
Because the chi-square analyses of T-C and precognitive
cases indicated
that more T-C cases
involved
putative
agents who were dying compared to crises/sickness, MANOVA
were completed for the seven days as function
of
the two
classes of experiences (PC vs T-C) and whether
the
agent
was dying or ill/in crisis) .
There
was
no
significant
difference between
the condition
of
the
agent
(F (1,222) =1.80; p>.05) or class by agent interaction (F<1).
Again, there was
a
highly
significant main
difference
(F (1,222) =11.74;
p =. 001)
between
the
two
classes
of
experiences
as
well
as
the
class
by day
interaction
(F (6,1332)=2.88, p =. 009).
Four modes of experiences had been designated
in
this
study: impression/feeling, image, dream,
and apparitions.
To determine if the modes of
the
T-C
experiences were
differentially associated with the aa index of geomagnetic
activity, MANOVA was completed for the seven days (key day
+3 days) and the mode factor (four levels) .
There
was
a
significant (p =. 002) mode difference (F=5.06, df=3,129) and
not surprisingly highly significant
(F=4.60; df=6,774;
p <. 001) differences between daily aa values; there
was
no
significant mode by day interaction. The day
differences
were due solely to the
relative
decrease in geomagnetic
activity on the day of the T-C experiences
(regardless
of
mode) compared to the days
before
or
afterwards.
The
significant effect (K-W X =12.40, p =. 006) between modes was
due primarily to the higher
overall geomagnetic activity
during the week in which T-C experiences involving
dreams
occurred relative to those involving apparitional displays.
We wondered whether or not T-C cases
that contained
the
specific hour of the experience might
demonstrate
a
more
enhanced geomagnetic effect than
those
that
referred
to
only the date or
to a day vs night dichotomy.
These
results were interesting in light of the
hypothesis
that
the decreased geomagnetic activity might facilitate the
memory of the T-C experiences rather than their
occurrence
(D. Scott
Rogo, personal
communication) .
MANOVA
demonstrated no significant difference between
cases
with
different temporal specificity (F<1) .
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DISCUSSION
The results of this study replicate and
extend
the
conclusions of other analyses. Quite clearly,
subjective
T-C experiences concerning death, crisis
or
unexpected
illness have tended to occur when the geomagnetic activity
was less than the days before or after
the experiences.
The V-shaped relationship of the geomagnetic activity
during the period of the T-C experiences
from FATE
is
similar in both direction and magnitude
to
two previous
studies (Persinger, 1985a; 1986). Like these studies,
the
FATE
weeks and the days of the experiences from the
collection were quieter than the months
or
the
years
in
which the experiences occurred
(although
the
latter
two
were not different from each other) .
This
suggests
that
the geomagnetic factor involved with T-C experiences exists
in the order of days rather than months or years.
The major additional feature of the present study
is
the direct comparisons of three major classes of subjective
psi experiences: T-C, precognition (PC), and postmortem
(PM) phenomena. The latter two types of experiences were
used as source (FATE) and case controls. PC and PM reports
were source controls because
they originated within
the
same potential editorial and selection biases
as
the
T-C
class. Reports of PC and PM experiences were case controls
because they involved similar themes
(death or crisis) ,
hours and months of occurrence and gender proportions.
Neither the PC nor the
PM
experiences demonstrated
the
geomagnetic pattern that
was
displayed
by
the
T-C
experiences.
Although the geomagnetic patterns around the days
of
the T-C, PC, and PM experiences differed markedly,
there
may be some global geomagnetic factor in
the
latter
two
classes. The most obvious possibility occurs with the PM
experiences. Both parametric and
nonparametric analyses
indicated that PM experiences
(which
were
primarily
postmortem apparitions) occurred during periods
when
the
geomagnetic activity
was increasing;
the days of the
experiences were in fact significantly more active than the
two to three days before the experiences. However, this
elevated activity was not exceptional because there were no
differences between these days and the monthly or yearly
averages.
This means that the PM experiences
were more
likely to have occurred when geomagnetic activity increased
following a lull (quiet period) in geomagnetic activity.
"The' significance of this pattern is not clear. It
may
reflect
as
suggested by D.
Scott ..
Rogo
(private
communication) and E. Staton Maxey (private
communication)
that
more people die
during
periods
ò. f
increased
geomagnetic
activity.
Because
more
than
half
of
the
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numbers of PM experiences occur within 3 days
(Persinger,
1974a) of the empirical event (the death) , these
phenomena
would simply be more frequent because deaths
are more
frequent. Indeed there is some evidence
that
increased
incidence of myocardial
infarction
(Malin
&
Srivastava,
1983;
1979) and crisis/accident-related deaths (Persinger,
Persinger & Nolan, 1984)
may occur
during increases in
geomagnetic activity. This explanation assumes that the PM
experiences are independent of geomagnetic activity and
that the importance of this global
factor
is
to
simply
increase the incidence of mortality or crises.
An alternative explanation is that enhanced geomagnetic
activity actually contributes
to
the PM
experiences.
Several studies suggest that the electrical lability of the
human brain may be influenced by
some
factor associated
with geomagnetic activity. Rajaram and Mitra (1981) have
shown that epileptic seizures occur more frequently during
periods of increased geomagnetic activity;
the pattern is
obvious
for
both monthly analyses and during special
(eclipse) conditions. The most frequent type of epilepsy
in the adult population is temporal lobe or complex partial
forms. Even in normal subjects, small
microseizures are
particularly likely during sleep, especially during rapid
eye movements (REM) because of the
intimate
role of the
hippocampus in the dream process.
Several empirical studies (Hess, Urech, & Wieser, 1982)
involving depth electrical recordings indicate
that
the
temporal lobe is particularly labile during dream periods
and hence may become susceptible to environmental
factors
(Persinger, 1985b) ;
day-night differences in the suscepti-
bility of rodents to magnetic fields
are
well
documented
(see Kavaliers & Ossenkopp, 1985, for
latest
references) .
It is interesting that the hourly
lobe epileptic seizures is very similar to
of subjective spontaneous psi experiences.
This pattern is
evident
even
for
the hourly occurrence of
epileptic
seizures (Spratling, 1904) that occurred during
the
last
century, before the introduction of modern anti-convulsant
drugs. One factor that is
known
to exacerbate
temporal
lobe unstability are the corticosteroids and ACTH levels of
the
blood (Stevens,
1982) .
They are elevated during
periods of stress, such as following the death of a family
member or friend.
The variance of the daily aa
values for
the
PC
experiences was conspicuously and statistically higher than
for the T-C and PM experiences. One initial explanation is
that
the
label of precognitive
experiences
contains
phenomena of heterogeneous sources.
We also suspect
(D.
Lewicki
&
M. Persinger, unpublished data)
that
some
accommodation must be made for the geomagnetic activity on
the day of the experience compared to the day of the event.
This is an important consideration and will be used to test
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the hypothesis that PC experiences tend to occur
when
the
geomagnetic activity is similar to what the activity
will
be on the day of the event. This effect
would
support
a
more traditional (temporal dimensional)
interpretation of
PC experiences.
The general trend of the slope in geomagnetic
activity
over days for PC experiences is still positive.
This may
support a second hypothesis that PC experiences
tend
to
occur
during slow,
gradual increases
in
geomagnetic
activity. These changes in activity could have
become
a
learned cue (Persinger, 1979)
through
processes
that
facilitate unusual associations between
subtle and overt
environmental events. The processes would be due
to
the
deepened and widened affect of the experients
because
of
their enhanced temporal lobe
lability
(Persinger, 1985b;
Persinger & Roll, 1985).
Regardless of the interpretation of these patterns, the
results indicate that the T-C geomagnetic relationship
is
not likely to be an artifact of either general psi
"experiences"
or reporting.
Most
of
the' experiences
occurred long
before
the geomagnetic
hypothesis
was
developed. In addition,
the FATE
cases
are
remarkably
similar in general characteristics to
the
cases
of
more
accepted data
basis.
The classic
argument -that
FATE
readers (or publishers) simply reiterated
traditional
T-C
experiences is not supported.
The critical data
in
the
present
study were the
dates
of
the
experiences.
Geomagnetic activity on the days of T-C experiences
was
similar to that of the days of T-C experiences
from
other
sources.
These dates were not
an experiential
artifact
since both PM and PC experiences did not
demonstrate
the
pattern.
The next step is to determine the mechanism/s.
Living
systems
can respond to geomagnetic variations
of
the
magnitude that were involved in
the present
study.
As
reviewed by Ossenkopp and Barbeito (1978), homing capacity
of pigeons is adversely affected by
increased
geomagnetic
activity;
quiet geomagnetic periods facilitate homing
sudden,
enhanced geomagnetic
activity interferes
with
and
probably
migration behaviors.
One hypothesis
is
that
subtle natural electromagnetic phenomena that act
as
directional
and informational
sources.
That
sudden
both
enhancement of natural electromagnetic noise can
interfere
with communication between members of
a
species
is
well
documented.
Fish
that communicate
by
interorganismic
emission of ELF and VLF electric fields demonstrate marked
deterioration in social communication and behaviors
during
local thunderstorms; presumably the sferics generated
by
the local storms masks the subtle oranismic signals.
There is strong but not conclusive evidence that human
beings may respond to geomagnetic
variations
or
to
the
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stimuli generated by
them (Persinger,
1974).
A
recent
study by Subrahmanyam et al. (1985) has
suggested
that
human beings can respond to slow electromagnetic variations
that are similar in magnitude (5 or 50 gamma)
to
the
continuous pulsations (Pc) of the geomagnetic field.
They
found discriminable changes in both electroencephalographic
and subjective experiences when field
frequencies
between
0.01 Hz and 20 Hz were presented;
maximum
effects
were
noted with 0.01
Hz and 0.1
Hz
fields. Of particular
interest was the enhanced effect of
these exposures
when
the volunteers were facing or lying north compared
to
the
other three major directions.
Similar patterns were
found
with non-human animals.
If this effect is replicated
then
two important and
perhaps crucial conclusions are relevant for psi research.
First, human beings can respond,
both
at
subjective and
objective neurobehavioral
levels,
to
natural-intensity
electromagnetic fields. Secondly, human beings respond to
frequencies (or more appropriately, periods)
that
are
commonly associated with geomagnetic fluctuations.
They
may occur for hours to days
(and
sometimes
weeks)
with
periods ranging from a
few
seconds
to several
tens
of
minutes.
There is a potentially rich source of signals that
are
correlated with geomagnetic activity or that
occur
within
these low frequency ranges (Campbell, 1967).
In
addition
to the traditional ELF fields that are generated within the
ionosphere-earth
cavity, there are
ULF
(ultra
low
frequency) stimuli.
Many of them occur
as
continuous
pulsations (Pc) .
For example, Pc 1 variations have defined
periods of 45-100
sec (0.01 Hz)
and 150
to
600
sec,
respectively. Whereas the typical amplitude values of Pc l
are in the order of 1 gamma, the values for Pc 4 and
Pc
5
are 10 and 100 gamma, respectively.
We expect that psi experiences, like other
behaviors,
should be influenced by the subtle, complex stimuli
within
the environment. The sensitivity of the living system and
the complexity of these stimuli
are just now becoming
apparent.
Even
one assumes
that psi potential or
experiences are homogeneous in time and space, the role of
the human being as
the neurobehavioral
detection system
cannot be ignored.
Whereas the occurrence of psi may be
geomagnetic field independent, the results of
the present
study suggest that at least the detection of psi stimuli is
affected by the geomagnetic condition.
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