Geophysical variables and behavior: XXXIII. Onsets of historical and contemporary poltergeist episodes occurred with sudden increases in geomagnetic activity

Ambiguous Origins and Indications of “Poltergeists”

The phenomena traditionally attributed to recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis is shown to be inherently comprised of vague sensory and environmental stimuli. The ambiguous nature of these experiences precludes any definite supposition as to their source of origin or whether there is only one causal mechanism. Further, many of the so-called paranormal effects are fully comparable to known psychophysical phenomena. Consequently, it is argued that this hypothesis as an explanation of poltergeist-like experiences is premature and unjustified.

Case report: a prototypical experience of 'poltergeist' activity, conspicuous quantitative electroencephalographic patterns, and sLORETA profiles - suggestions for intervention

People who report objects moving in their presence, unusual sounds, glows around other people, and multiple sensed presences but do not meet the criteria for psychiatric disorders have been shown to exhibit electrical anomalies over the right temporal lobes. This article reports the striking quantitative electroencephalography, sLORETA results, and experimental elicitation of similar subjective experiences in a middle-aged woman who has been distressed by these classic phenomena that began after a head injury. She exhibited a chronic electrical anomaly over the right temporoinsular region. The rotation of a small pinwheel near her while she 'concentrated' upon it was associated with increased coherence between the left and right temporal lobes and concurrent activation of the left prefrontal region. The occurrence of the unusual phenomena and marked 'sadness' was associated with increased geomagnetic activity; she reported a similar mood when these variations were simulated experimentally. Our quantitative measurements suggest people displaying these experiences and possible anomalous energies can be viewed clinically and potentially treated.

Contextual mediation of perceptions during hauntings and poltergeist-like experiences: a replication and extension

This study is a replication of the experiment by Lange, Houran, Harte, and Havens (1996 on contextual variables, in which hallucinations appear to be affected by the environmental context. These contextual variables are influential in the reporting of haunting and poltergeist-like episodes. This study extended the previous study by adding new factors of time of day, climactic conditions, and emotional feelings. These were analyzed for a different sample, looking for further congruency between experiential content and the context. The sample (N=8431 were reports found on the Internet and in one book. The Lange, et al. study was replicated in that contextual variables were identified in 99.2% of the reports, the content of the reports was judged to be consistent with the nature of the contextual variables in 58.8% of the reports, and contextual variables were related to the percipients' state of arousal and the modalities of experience.

Hauntings and poltergeist-like episodes as a confluence of conventional phenomena: a general hypothesis

Hauntings and poltergeist-like episodes are argued to be products of contagious reactions to ambiguous environmental or cognitive events. In particular, evidence suggests that the subjective and objective effects reported by percipients are the function of independent, nonparanoraml etiologies whose constitutions have been previously established and described. According to this multivariate model, the labeling of ambiguous events as "abnormal" or "paranormal" initiates the reactive process which is subsequently sustained by perceptual contagion, i.e., flurries of paranormal observations due self-reinforcing attentional processes.

Contextual mediation of perceptions in hauntings and poltergeist-like experiences

The content of perceived apparitions, e.g., bereavement hallucinations, cannot be explained entirely in terms of electromagnetically induced neurochemical processes. It was shown that contextual variables influential in hallucinatory and hypnotic states also structured reported haunting experiences. As predicted, high congruency was found between the experiential content and the nature of the contextual variables. Further, the number of contextual variables involved in an experience was related to the type of experience and the state or arousal preceding the experience. Based on these findings we argue that a more complete explanation of haunting experiences should take into account both electromagnetically induced neurochemical processes and factors related to contextual mediation.

Geophysical variables and behavior: LVIII. Autonomic activity, hemolysis, and biological psychokinesis: possible relationships with geomagnetic field activity

Several recent reports have indicated significant relations between extrasensory perception (ESP) experiences and performances and the Earth's geomagnetic field (GMF) activity. ESP experiences are reported more frequently, and accuracy of laboratory ESP is more accurate, on days of relatively quiet GMF activity. On the other hand, there are indications that a complementary paranormal process, psychokinesis, may be enhanced by high GMF activity. We conducted retrospective analyses of possible relations between GMF activity and (a) electrodermal activity (as an index of sympathetic autonomic activity), (b) rate of hemolysis of human red blood cells in vitro, (c) attempted distant mental (i.e., psychokinetic) influence of electrodermal activity, and (d) attempted distant mental (psychokinetic) influence of rate of hemolysis. For each of these four measures, high activity was associated with high GMF values, while low activity was associated with low GMF values. The relations were statistically significant for three of the four analyses and showed a consistent trend in the fourth.

Geophysical Variables and Behavior: XLIV. Days of Subjective Precognitive Experiences and the Days before the Actual Events Display Correlated Geomagnetic Activity

Precognitive experiences concerning consequent events have been hypothesized to be alterations in temporal perception. All such experiences ( n = 156) that contained the days, months and years for the experience and the event were included from a published data base. Only 40 cases met the methodological criterion of having a temporal discrepancy between the experience and the event of equal to or more than 4 days. For two subsamples (discrepancies of 4–14 days and 15 to 2,000 days), both parametric and non-parametric analyses showed intermediate strength (0.50) correlations between the global geomagnetic activity on the day of the experience and the activity that would occur during the two days before the actual event.