High EMF, Brain Damage, & The Stone Tape Theory

No Christian demonologist or lay investigator should ever leap to a preternatural explanation before obtaining a complete mental, physical, and environmental profile from the person seeking help. Likewise, the researcher should never be predisposed to believing that all claims are the product of deceit. It is a fact that not all parapsychological experiences will be preternatural or diabolical. Careful researchers must learn to look beyond the phenomenology of the experients. 

EMF Research & Parapsychology

Humans react to the environment in a variety of ways. The known, neuropsychiatric symptoms of high Electro-Magnetic Frequencies (EMF) are:

• Headache
• Memory loss
• Loss of balance
• Tremors
• Depression

According to Dr. Brandon Massullo, Clinical Therapist and Parapsychologist in Northeast Ohio, in his research with the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, UK, found that individuals will usually fall into the categories of either being sensitive, or non-sensitive to their surroundings. The former will usually report more preternatural, haunt-type experiences. A study of the amount of electromagnetic radiation in a given location also seems to point to an increase in such claims. That is, there tends to be more experiences reported in high EMF areas than in lower EMF areas. 

It is well documented that overdoses of RF-EMF can cause changes in the central nervous system-including neuronal cell apoptosis, and changes in the function of the nerve myelin and ion channels that adversely effect living beings. Among the symptoms of these changes are paranoid states and the feeling of being watched. In the extreme, it can lead to auditory and visual hallucinations in concert with low frequency audio vibrations. Contrary to popular belief, overhead powerlines and bad wiring in a breaker box are not required for these deleterious effects to occur. Indeed, it can happen to certain susceptible individuals with the use of mobile phones. However, electromagnetic frequencies created by high voltage wires and other electrical sources help to debunk myths that people or things are haunted, as the noted neuroscientist at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, Dr. Michael Persinger has pointed out in his own research.

Anomalous Psychologist, Dr. Christopher French, of Goldsmiths University of London College, conducted experiments to test EMF theory, which, while inconclusive, produced decidedly interesting effects. There were seventy nine people recruited for the experiment. They were told that they would be spending time in a cool, dimly lit space. They were told that they may also experience some weirdness; feel a presence; a tingling; or other strange sensations. A computer was used to drive twin coils, hidden behind the walls of the room which generated EMF impulses of up to 50 microteslas. They also pumped in extremely low frequency, minus 20 Hz infrasound waves that were well below what humans could detect aurally. French’s volunteers were exposed to these factors, and the resulting effect was that most reported at least some strange sensations, dizziness, and terror.

Brain injury, and abnormalities may account for at least some of the paranormal experiences that have negative connotations that emphasize some aspect of death to others or the dissolution of self. These experiences of death to crisis are reported to occur predominately at night, particularly between 2:00, and 4:00 AM. Sensing some outside presence is also more common during this nocturnal period. According to the late nineteenth-century researcher W.P. Spratling, the hourly incidence of temporal lobe seizures may reflect a shared variance within the human brain. If it is true that structure dictates function, then one would expect classes of experiences to be associated with specific areas of the brain. Both the occurrence of paranormal experiences, and the rates of incidence are associated with specific types of neuronal activity within the temporal lobes. Patients who display complex, and partial seizures within the temporal lobes—particularly near the amygdala, and hippocampus—report more frequent paranormal experiences. Moreover, there appears to be a continuum of temporal lobe sensitivity along which all human beings are distributed.

According to Baland Jalal in an article for Scientific American titled Sleep Paralysis and the Monsters Inside Your Mind, cultural beliefs may effect how physical symptoms are interpreted. Those who have an occult worldview may be more prone to interpreting biological responses as paranormal. The phenomenon known as sleep paralysis is caused by a mechanism known as REM Rebound. Typically, an individual has gone without sleep for longer, and longer periods of time, and as a result, that person’s biological clock has been thrown out of sync to the point where sleeping, and waking; dreams, and nightmares have become blurred. During REM, people typically have intensely life-like dreams. To prevent one from acting out those dreams, the body characteristically induces paralysis. When these neurochemicals are thrown into imbalance, the individual is thrown into a paradoxical state. They are not asleep. They are not awake. Dreams, and nightmares become plausible hallucinations. They believe themselves to be surrounded by fanged monsters; ghosts; demons; gray, almond eyed aliens. This is exacerbated by cultural beliefs such as those by various proponents in Egypt who believe that sleep paralysis is caused by a Jinn (“genie”). In South America, Indigenous people believe that the malady is the work of a type of witchcraft known as ‘segatelelo.’ In Turkey, ignorance of medicine, and natural science leads to the belief that the afflicted person is being menaced by otherworldly creatures known as the karabasan.

Restligeist

Finally, the most controversial explanation for hauntings that does not involve demonic activity, the Restligeist. Used synonymously with the phrase ‘place memories,’ the term ‘restligeist’ is considered to be a fake, German loan word that is popular with the paranormal community. It is derived from the German root ‘restlich,’ and the word ‘geist.’ Put both together, and the translation comes out as ‘residual spirit.’ This is considered to be purely an environmental effect with no intelligence, or personality involved. According to adherents, an emotional charge is detonated into the surroundings via some tragic accident—a violent argument; a contretemps; an act of vengeance; murder—and as a result, under certain unknown environmental conditions, a kind of auditory, and visual holograph is created. Usually, this will manifest itself as some replay of a past event, but the majority of the time it is auditory only. This effect became popularized in 1972 by a BBC television drama called The Stone Tape written by Nigel Kneale. The central idea being what if a house had memory? The concept has actually been around for quite some time. As early as the nineteenth-century, intellectuals, and researchers like the polymath Charles Babbage, Eleanor Sidgwick, and Edmund Gurney pondered the notion. In his 1883 The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, Babbage referred to the air itself as a vast library that contained every word that has ever been said along with every mortality, and every unfulfilled promise. The once president of the Society for Psychical Research, Eleanor Mildred Sedgwick considered that a haunting may in reality be something about the actual building itself. In concert with the human brain, illusions may result. One of the founding members of SPR, Frederic W.H. Myers referenced Sedgwick at length in his own analysis Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death. More recently in the 1960’s, parapsychologist Dr. William Roll coined the term ‘Psi Zone’ as a means of explaining the interaction between stored energy, and the electrochemical makeup of the human mind. Roll, who created the acronym SRPK (spontaneous recurring psychokinesis), believed that stored information could only be accessed by those individuals who were psychologically predisposed to being receivers. The Stone Tape speculation has its detractors, most notably Geologist Sharon Hill of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry who has been very quick to point out that this is hardly a theory when the means of data storage, and retrieval have yet to be discovered. However, considering the limitations of science, place memories may very well end up being among the most significant explanations for preternatural activity.

Tracy Garnett holds a BA in English, with a minor in Radio & Television from Northern Kentucky University. He also holds certification in Parapsychology from the Koestler Unit at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and is a trained Lay Demonologist.