| Abstract/Results: | ABSTRACT:
For the past three decades, research in parapsychology has found evidence that psychic experiences may be
related to fluctuations in geomagnetic activity (GMA). Most of this research has used global measures of GMA, but recently Ryan has found that certain classes of local GMA appeared to enhance receptive psi.
He demonstrated that these patterns accounted well for the previously reported relationships between psi
and global GMA. A long-term study is being run with experienced meditators, which will hopefully help to elucidate this effect. Experienced meditators in India scored well on a receptive psi task, and this finding was further investigated in this study.
A free-response design was used in which the participant, after a 15 minute meditation period, attempted to correctly choose a pseudo-randomly selected video clip. The computer programme (PreCOG) chose a target set at random from a pool of 25 sets, and a target video clip at random from the 4 - clip set. PreCOG also randomly selected whether the target would be chosen before the participant saw the set (clairvoyance), or after (precognition). Each participant completed a minimum of 8 sessions (trials) each year. There were 14 participants, all Western Buddhist meditators residing at the Kagyu Samye Ling Tibetan centre in Scotland, or in the nearby village, who had practiced meditation for at least 10 years. Two questionnaires and one psychological test were completed: the Meditation Attainment Questionnaire (MAQ) is a measure of the level of meditation attainment achieved; the Stroop test is a measure of focus of attention; and the Temporal Lobe Experience (TLE) questionnaire assesses temporal lobe lability, which may indicate both a participant‘s propensity for psi-type experiences and the degree to which the person is affected by GMA. Geomagnetic field measurements were supplied by the British Geological Survey‘s Eskdalemuir observatory, which is located 2 miles from Samye Ling. There were three formal hypotheses: 1) Psi scoring for sessions conducted dur ing periods with high band 3 (0.025–0.1 Hz) GMA would be lower than during low band 3 GMA. During the two-year period of this study solar activity was low, and of the 160 sessions run there was only one session with high band 3 GMA. Therefore, no meaning ful analysis could be done.
2) Psi scoring for sessions conducted during high band 1 (0.2–0.5 Hz) GMA would be higher than during low band 1 GMA. Again, due to the low level of solar activity, there were no findings.
3) Years of meditation practice would be positively associated with higher psi scoring. This hypothesis was not supported. In addition, some exploratory analyses were done. Of these, the Stroop, MAQ and TLE failed to show significant correlations, possibly owing to the overall chance psi scoring. A peak of psi scoring was found
in May, supporting earlier findings by Sturrock and Spottiswoode. There were reasonably strong correlations of psi scoring with seasonal change in temperature. There was no effect of lunar phase on psi scoring. A follow - up study for a further two years is in progress.
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Reference:
| Roney-Dougal, S. M., Ryan, A., & Luke, D. (2011). Preliminary study of the relationship between local geomagnetic activity, tibetan buddhist meditation and psychic awareness. In M. Kittenis (Ed.), 54th Parapsychological Association Annual Convention: Abstracts of Presented Papers (pp. 20-21), Curitiba, Brazil: Parapsychological Association
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Abstract