Theory Soup



I have to admit that my questions and correlations seem to take me to a place that I’m certain others must have visited; the realm of tectonics/geology/paranormal/human minds. I don’t think this is a new observation by man, or else Stonehenge and Machu Pichu might never have been built. The question is, what theories are out there?

Here are some theories I’ve found that can perhaps tie together the findings I’ve had on haunted sites in my last post pertaining to paranormal clusters. You can look these theories up in Wikipedia for more info:

“Tectonic Strain Theory”
The brainchild of Michael Persinger, a researcher in cognitive neuroscience. This hypothesis ties together such phenomenon as UFOs, religious experiences, and other paranormal experiences. Persinger argued that strain within the earth's crust near seismic faults produces intense electromagnetic (EM) fields, creating bodies of light that some interpret as glowing UFOs. Alternatively, he argued that the EM fields generate hallucinations in the temporal lobe, based on images from popular culture, of alien craft, beings, communications, or creatures. When you hear TAPS talking about EMF causing hallucinations, feelings of being watched, and such, this is what they’re talking about.

“Electromagnetic Field Theory of Consciousness”
This theory was proposed by Susan Pockett, Johnjoe McFadden, and E. Roy John. This theory says that the electromagnetic field generated by the brain (measurable by electrocorticography) is the actual carrier of conscious experience. Locating consciousness in the brain's EM field, rather than the neurons, has the advantage of neatly accounting for how information located in millions of neurons scattered throughout the brain can be unified into a single conscious experience (sometimes called the binding problem): the information is unified in the EM field. In this way EM field consciousness can be considered to be 'joined-up information'.

“Quantum Mind Theories”
Quantum mind theories are based on the premise that quantum mechanics is necessary to fully understand the mind and brain, particularly concerning an explanation of consciousness. This approach is considered a minority opinion in science, although it does have the support of the well-known Roger Penrose, who has proposed a quantum mind theory in conjunction with Stuart Hameroff. Karl H. Pribram and Henry Stapp have also proposed variations.

What intrigues me most about these theories out there are the ties with EMF and the mind. As a ghost hunter, I’ve found interesting things in EMF readings in places I wouldn’t have expected to find readings. It’s always made me wonder. Perhaps what we can conclude from this is that our consciousness uses EMF to function, perhaps even beyond the parameters of our body when we pass, in which case measuring the fields might be helpful. Our only problem there is that EMF is everywhere and it’s hard to get a controlled place to observe the activity. Unless you find a nice haunted cave somewhere, it could be quite hard with our present instruments to take accurate measurements and make conclusions about ghostly activity. I do own a KII meter and I must admit that I’ve never ever had it go off during interviews. It’ll go off if you hold it right up to electrical, but sitting on a table in the middle of the room, it won’t do a blessed thing. Is it possible that when Jason and Grant from TAPS (aka “Ghost Hunting” show) use it and get answers, they’re talking to spirits or could their own brains be such that they can actually emit enough EMF to set off the sensor? I guess we'll always wonder if the ghosts are outside or internally generated.

Lots of questions, lots of theories. Some day, someone’s going to tie it all together into something we can not only weigh and measure but repeat and control. I can hardly wait!

Comments

  1. Me too, I would love to understand this fascinating phenomena.

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  2. Sandra;
    It seems like the more I dig, the more I learn and the more I have questions, but I do think everything has a common theme and since it occurs in the physical world, I have to believe it's all science-based. Even if it were proven to be spiritual, that would have to be a form of life and science too. It's really got my thinking. I'm hoping to find more examples and do more in-depth studies of places and find what might be fueling these conditions, like looking for other granite areas with a Native American history and see if they report similar events-what precipitates it? Hmm...

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  3. autumnforest, i agree with you on this...seems like sometimes it has to do with something physical & sometimes i think there ARE true hauntings vs just strange things...what do you think of the taos hum? i havent thought of that for years!

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  4. Libby;
    Yeah, the Taos hum. I've been meaning to make a trip to NM to hit a few sites that I think will be very haunted and I really wanted to try out the hum and see what that's about. My guess is that it probably is something in the geology and conditions there. That some people hear it and some don't doesn't surprise me one bit. you take 10 people to a ghost hunt and only 2 of them might hear the same thing and everyone else doesn't hear it. Everyone's tuned better in different ways, some folks are more sensitive through their skin, others through their ears, others intuitively. I would guess if it's a high-frequency pitch, it might be hard for folks with sensorineural hearing loss to hear (those who maybe played drums or in a band or got damage to their ears earlier in life). When I check that out, I'll definitely be doing a post on it. I think my next project when weather cools off in AZ again (does it ever???) is to do some dowsing where the HoHoKam canals are. I'm hoping to find out if they follow leylines or if there's anything unusual about them. A lot of people report activity along the old waterways and I know there's something going on there.

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  5. I definitely agree with both Marbella and Libby-I dont know if we will ever understand it but we can keep trying! and I do think EMF does have a lot to do with these experiences. I think it is great that that theory and others put consciousness outside of the brain -because that is where it seems to be following a lot of experiments -and I also believe that there are "true" hauntings-hauntings that are just "recordings" and also hauntings that we ourselves create subconsciously-very very interesting Autumnforest-best to you as always!!

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  6. Hey Devin;
    I always enjoy hearing your opinion. Hope you enjoy the next one I'm about tp post.

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