Remote Viewing: Rouleau excerpt #17

Rouleau writes: The most famous and well-documented example of an individual who could engage in “remote viewing” or a capacity to experience people, places, and events at a distance is the late Ingo Swann. Originally investigated by prominent psychical researchers Hal Puthoff and Russel Targ in the 1970s, Ingo Swann’s remote viewing procedure was supported by U.S. national defense and intelligence agencies with clear military and strategic applications. When Swann engages in remote viewing, he experiences flashes of visual stimuli and words, as well as recognizable images, the sensation of floating, and out-of-body experiences – all known correlates of temporal lobe activation. In one experiment, Swann was asked to remotely view pictures placed in envelopes positioned in a distant room while his EEG rhythms were measured. Just as Puthoff and Targ had originally observed, Ingo Swann’s readings were highly accurate. When he began to concentrate and engage in his remote viewing procedure, bursts of 7 Hz spikes were observed over his right temporal and occipital lobes that strongly correlated with his accuracy scores. MRI scans later revealed structural abnormalities within the same regions of his right hemisphere.

To discern how Swann was receiving information, EMFs were applied to his brain while he was not engaged in remote viewing. Echoing Harribance’s experience, Swann reported spontaneous inductions of his remote viewing experiences when exposed to the applied EMFs; however, some EMF patterns could also disrupt his abilities. Again, the simplest explanation supports the existence of transmissive brain function and an electromagnetic basis of memory and consciousness. The involvement of the right temporal lobe and the conspicuous 7 Hz signature also suggests a potential link to Schumann resonances and the geomagnetic field.

Finally, the lesser-known Ms. Black (anonymized) represents a rare case of an individual who expresses psychokinesis – an ability to move objects by means of thought alone – with associated poltergeist phenomena including electronic, movement, and sound-based events coupled to her own emotional state. The sounds were typically experienced as taps that were linked to real-time fluctuations in geomagnetic activity. Notably, they were typically heard on the left side of her body, and she reported experiencing occasional discharges of light from her left hand – both of which indicate lateralized, right hemispheric brain activations. This is relatively unsurprising given she sustained an impact to the right side of her head during a car accident earlier in adulthood, causing a moderate right hemispheric brain injury.

EEG measurements confirmed an anomalous, high-intensity and high-frequency signal over her right temporal lobe that could be attenuated by sitting in a Faraday cage that significantly reduces local geomagnetic field intensity – suggesting an electromagnetic basis to the phenomenon. The signal was source-localized to the right insula – a region of the cortex that is structurally adjacent and medial to as well as continuous with the temporal lobe.

Ms. Black reportedly developed her psychokinetic ability by learning to rotate a pinwheel by force of concentration alone. In one experiment, she was asked to move the pinwheel while her EEG rhythms were monitored. A strong relationship was identified between the amount of 7 Hz activity she expressed over her right temporal lobe and the rotation of the pinwheel. When she was exposed to a simulated geomagnetic EMF in the laboratory, the 7 Hz signal that was diminished by the EMF-shielding cage spontaneously returned with a paired feeling of distress and unease. Like Harribance and Swann, Ms. Black displayed a prominent right hemispheric functional brain anomaly that could be modulated by electromagnetic fields. However, unlike the highly subjective reports of the former cases, Ms. Black displayed an objective mind-matter interaction, which supports the transmissive model of brain function.

Assuming scientists will one day conclusively validate the existence of psychokinetic activity, a revision of some historical events may be necessary. For example, recalling the near-death experience that inspired Hans Berger to pursue the measurement of “psychic energy”, it is worth considering the possibility that he did not telepathically transmit fear to his sister, but rather that her distress psychokinetically caused the fall that nearly killed him.

Here, I have focused on a small set of cases to demonstrate parallel findings across psi research; however, statistically abnormal performance on tasks related to telepathy and remote viewing have been reliably reported to varying degrees among randomly sampled, otherwise normal people. Indeed, the use of random event generators (REGs) to demonstrate mind-matter interactions in humans has indicated that some individuals can bias random physical systems by concentration alone. Meta-analyses of hundreds of studies examining the effects of consciousness on REGs and the results of falling dice clearly indicates the existence of a genuine interaction between thought and physical systems outside the head.

Consciousness therefore likely extends beyond the brain, supporting a transmissive model over current productive models. Interestingly, EMFs can be used to induce, amplify, and suppress psi task performance among randomly selected individuals. There is also a developed literature on psi phenomena that reinforces the significance of geomagnetic activity and its effects on performance. Geomagnetic storms affect extrasensory perception scores indicative of telepathy among average human participants and are linked to poltergeist phenomena.

Despite independent verification of some specific cases and phenomena, the mainstream rejection of psi abilities as “spooky” or the always-childish “woo-woo” is reasonable given the productive model of consciousness. That is, if brains generate consciousness by endogenous mechanisms that can only interface with the external environment by way of the peripheral nervous system and its control of our musculoskeletal system, psi is a total non-starter because it lacks a realistic mechanism. However, it should be noted that, historically speaking, phenomena which are unexplained because of an incomplete or inaccurate model of the system always seem spooky until an accurate model is adopted. Once a causal mechanism is identified, the phenomenon becomes mundane and post-hoc analyses are often paired with a dense incredulity associated with sentiments such as “How could we have ever thought otherwise?”

Similarly, the survival of consciousness after death is expected to become increasingly mundane as a concept if empirical efforts toward its validation yield compelling results with a defined mechanism. Based upon the three presented cases, psi phenomena are typically associated with anomalous right hemispheric activity with localized activations in the temporal lobe and parahippocampal area in particular. Synchronous brain activity is often reflective of Schumann resonance frequencies with dominant theta rhythms that track psi performance. Finally, actual and simulated geomagnetic fields as well as artificial EMF exposures can modulate psi ability. Together, these findings strongly support the validity of transmissive, electromagnetic models of consciousness. Therefore, the survival of consciousness after bodily death – which is at least partly dependent upon transmissive function – is likely beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

Nicolas Rouleau, PhD, a neuroscientist and bioengineer, is an assistant professor at Algoma University in Canada. He received an award from the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies "An Immortal Stream of Consciousness" in response to its search for "scientific evidence for the survival of consciousness after permanent bodily death." Footnotes and bibliography are omitted from these excerpts from his essay, but the full essay is available online at https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/index.php/contest-runners-up/.