Spirituality & The Brain (Home Page)
The Lady Vampire Episode of Paranormal State
The Lady Vampire episode of Paranormal States successfully used the Shakti System (mistakenly calling it a “Shakti Helmet”) to enhance their psychic’s ability to connect with a ghost. Although it’s not sold for this purpose, there is some precedent for using this technology in this way. It’s predecessor, the Koren Helmet, was used in a case study with one individual who was also successful in feeling the presence of a ghost.
The paranormal state effort with this technology, though marred by criticisms that it was ‘scripted’, and wasn’t really ‘reality television’, was interesting in that it was the first use of the technology for this purpose in the field.
This is the first use of this technology as a ‘ghostbusting’ tool, and its success may create new possibilities for the whole field of paranormal investigation.
There was an error in the discussion during that episode. The crew mistakenly referred to Shakti as working with EMF emissions. It doesn’t. It outputs magnetic fields.
Not only is this in error, but it’s also ambiguous in that EMF has several meanings and connotations.
1) Electromagnetic frequencies.
In most cases, electromagnetic frequencies are very high. Microwaves, for example, include waves of 100,000,000,000 HZ – a high frequency. Other electromagnetic frequencies are much lower, like those of radio waves and radio frequencies, but still much higher than the frequencies we experience in our normal lives (audible sounds from 10 to 20 hertz, for example).
Shakti’s signals are irregular ‘bursts’ containing many frequencies, and cannot be said to have any particular frequency, but the signals will ‘average’ to frequencies from 4 to 400 hertz (approx.).
Those entities that are properly termed EMF in this sense (which includes visible light) are varieties of radiation. Shakti uses magnetic fields, which are not radiation. Electromagnetic radiation is composed of photons. Magnetic fields are not. Magnetic fields are not composed of the high-energy particles than can interact with some organic compounds.
2) Electromagnetic fields (1)
The phrase “electromagnetic fields” refers to more than one phenomenon. One is the kind of electrical field that surrounds high-voltage power lines, and is composed of charged particles. Cell phone emissions are an example of such a field phenomena, and some people think these may pose a health risk.
3) Electromagnet fields (2)
This type of EMF refers to magnetic fields created by an electromagnet (though it’s not standard engineer-ese). These are simple magnetic fields created by two poles, and are not composed of ions, electrons, or photons. Fields from an electromagnet are made of the same ‘stuff’ as the earth’s magnetic field or the field you find around a magnet that holds a paper to a refrigerator. The are ‘made’ of ‘lines of force’, and are not ‘EM emissions’. These do not pose a health risk of any kind. This is the kind of magnetic field utilized by Shakti.
Most people have worn headsets that output “Complex Magnetic Signals” – the kind of magnetic field used in Shakti. Stereo headphones. Like Shakti, headphones receive input from an audio source, and the coils in the headphones create magnetic fields that get stronger and weaker as the level of the music changes. However, these are not EMF emissions. Listening to your favorite music through headphones does not have the risks associated with EMF emissions, and for the same reason, neither does Shakti.
Rats have been exposed to this variety of magnetic fields for their entire lives, including while they were in the womb, which were later found to have no negative effects on any tissues, including brain tissues (Full Text).
The Lady Vampire episode included their investigator vomiting after contacting the entity, and some people who saw it prior to its being broadcast drew a mistaken conclusion. Vomiting has happened with contact with negative spirits (whether they are from within the mind or not). It has not been associated with complex magnetic signal technology. Even coincidental incidents amount to about 0.2% (two-tenths of one percent). If we were talking about a single person in time instead of many people in space, it would be like you throwing up once every three and a half years.
(Of course, this glosses over the difference between people with sensitive stomachs and others, but it makes the numbers a little easier for people with fewer math skills to understand)
“During the last 20 years of research involving more than an estimated 1,500 volunteers we have never had an episode of vomiting following or associated with DAC (The DAC is the first complex magnetic signal neural stimulation apparatus) procedures. It is highly unlikely, given the EEG data we collected for Shakti, that it could generate conditions that would encourage emesis.” Dr. M.A. Persinger – Personal communication, 2008
The trailer for the Lady Vampire showed Ryan (the investigator who used Shakti) saying that Shakti was much more powerful that he expected. In all probability, the local environment contributed to his very powerful experience, as well as the quiet state of the geomagnetic field. (Geomagnetic quiet contributes to paranormal experiences, according to the Tectonic strain theory of unusual events. link)
In point of fact, Ryan did two sessions with a 90-minute interval between them. He used the amygdala signal over the front-end of the temporal lobes.
The show’s crew noted the geomagnetic level at the time of the session shown in the “Lady Vampire” episode, and reported it to Shakti tech support. You can check the current Geomagnetic levels through the NOAA.
Other Pages On This Site:
NEURAL STIMULATION:
The God Helmet | Shiva Psychic Technology
Shakti – Magnetic Brain Stimulation
Inventing Shakti
Stimulating My Brain As A Spiritual Path
HUMAN EVOLUTION:
Origins of spirituality in Human Evolution
Role of Mystics and mysticism in Human Evolution.
The Gay Male Brain in human evolution
The Evolution of Human Belief in God
Consciousness | Darwinian Reincarnation
SPIRITUAL
NEUROSCIENCE
Articles on neurotheology, (or – spirituality and religion meet brain science).
Enlightenment And the Brain
Deja Vu | Meditations from Brain Science
Romantic Love and the Brain
The Sensed Presence | God in the Brain
Spiritual Aptitude Test | Sacred Lands
The Spiritual Personality | Archetypes
Out-Of-Body Experiences | Visions
Odd Experiences – Online Poll Results
Podcasts on Neurotheology
OFF-SITE PAGES (OPEN IN NEW WINDOWS).
Different spiritual practices have different effects on the brain.
NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES:
NDEs in Thailand – Discussion | Thai NDE Case histories
Darwinian Reincarnation
Near-Death Experience Screensaver (Entering the Light).
Epilepsy And Near-Death Experiences
BRAIN STUFF:
Glasses For Enhanced Visual Acuity
A Diet For Epileptics?
Sex & States of Consciousness
Hippocrates on Epilepsy
The Terrorist Brain
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