by Adrian Ryan
Journal of Scientific Exploration
Abstract
A database of 343 free-response ESP trials conducted at centers in the U.K. was constructed in order to test the hypothesis that the relatively fast varying components of geomagnetic activity, geomagnetic pulsations, might be driving the reported associations between ESP, geomagnetic activity and local sidereal time. Local geomagnetic field-strength measurements taken at 1-second intervals during 99 trials, and at 5-second intervals during 244 trials, were converted by fast Fourier transform into power within five frequency bands. Two patterns were observed: ESP was found to succeed only during periods of enhanced pulsation activity within the 0.2-0.5 Hz band, but ESP effect was absent during the most disturbed periods of activity in the 0.025-0.1 Hz band.
The pattern of ESP effect by local sidereal time was similar to that found by Spottiswoode (1997b), and this shape was found to be attributable to the pattern of ESP results by pulsation activity in the 0.2-0.5 Hz band.
The observed patterns were demonstrated to have excellent explanatory power in terms of accounting for findings previously reported in the literature.
Extended Abstract
A database of free-response ESP trials was constructed in order to test the hypothesis that the relatively fast varying components of geomagnetic activity, geomagnetic pulsations, might be driving the associations between ESP, geomagnetic activity and local sidereal time (LST) reported in the literature. The database comprised trials for which local, high time-resolution measurements of the geomagnetic field were available, and to reduce noise in the analysis a further criterion was applied: considering each condition within each study, only conditions with an ESP effect size greater than an arbitrary threshold of 0.15 were included. A total of 343 trials qualified: 244 ganzfeld sessions (204 from the University of Edinburgh, 40 from the University of Northampton) and 99 remote viewing sessions from the Museum of Psychic Experience in York, U.K. Geomagnetic field measurements were collected from the SAMNET array of magnetometers in Northern Europe. Measurements were selected from the nearest operating magnetometer at the time of each ESP trial; the mean distance between magnetometer and ESP trial location was 126 km (minimum 2 km, maximum 261 km). The sampling interval was 5 seconds until mid-November 1995 and 1 second thereafter. The amplitude resolution of the measurements is 0.1 nT. The field measurements were converted by fast Fourier transform into power within five frequency bands. Pulsations with frequency > 0.1 Hz were found to be highly geographically localized, therefore data for these frequency bands were discarded for all but the 99 remote viewing trials conducted at in York, for which the magnetometer was also located in York. Two patterns were observed: ESP was found to succeed only during periods of enhanced pulsation activity within the 0.2-0.5 Hz band, but ESP effect was absent during the most disturbed periods of activity in the 0.025-0.1 Hz band. Analysis of the continuous record of geomagnetic field measurements between November 1996 and March 2005 revealed that activity in the 0.025-0.1 Hz range is strongly correlated with the global index of geomagnetic activity ap, but no such relationship exists between activity in the 0.2-0.5 Hz band and ap, which may account for the overall slight negative correlation between ESP and ap reported in the literature. As each frequency band of geomagnetic pulsation exhibits distinct seasonal and/or interacting seasonal/daily variation, they make excellent candidates for explaining the associations between ESP and LST that have been reported in the literature. To explore this possibility, the ESP effect size for trials in the database was plotted by LST; the resultant pattern was similar to that found by Spottiswoode (1997a, 1997b). Modeling revealed that this shape was partially attributable to the pattern of ESP results by pulsation activity in the 0.2-0.5 Hz band. Opportunities for confirmation, and potential theoretical and practical implications are discussed. REFERENCES Spottiswoode, S. J. P. (1997a). Apparent association between effect size in free response anomalous cognition experiments and local sidereal time. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 11, 109-122. Spottiswoode, S. J. P. (1997b). Geomagnetic fluctuations and free-response anomalous cognition: a new understanding. Journal of Parapsychology, 61, 3-12. |
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