Breathing with the Earth
267
small and then diminishes rapidly. However, extremely low frequency
(ELF) transmissions have a peculiar property. Because of their interaction
with the ionosphere, even weak signals in this frequency range (from 0.1
to 100 cycles per second) travel all the way around the world without
dying out. If an innate frequency selector is operating within this band,
reception should be the same anywhere on earth.
At this time the DC perineural system and its electromagnetic fields
provide the only theory of parapsychology that's amenable to direct ex-
periment. And it yields hypotheses for almost all such phenomena ex-
cept precognition. Telepathy may be transmission and reception via a
biologically programmed channel of ELF vibrations in the perineural
system's electromagnetic field. Dowsing may involve an unconscious
sense of the electromagnetic fields of underground water or minerals, an
idea given some support by Russian experiments in the 1960s. Nikolai
N. Sochevanov, now with the USSR's Ministry of Geology, found that
the accuracy of forty professional dowsers diminished by at least three
fourths when he wound a current-carrying wire around their wrists or
brought a horseshoe magnet near their heads.
Biological semiconductors even offer a possible basis for the aura often
reported around living things by "sensitives." There has long been specula-
tion that this "halo" might be some manifestation of an electromagnetic
biofield. The ability of high-voltage (Kirlian) photography to produce an
image very much like descriptions of the aura has aroused hope that the
technique might render some aspect of psychic phenomena visible in a way
that would be conducive to experiment. Because of this possibility, our lab
investigated Kirlian photography during the mid-1970s.
We obtained beautiful pictures that seemed to vary in response to
changes in the health of the test organism. However, the method failed
one crucial test. If the Kirlian halo actually reflected the biofield or some
other basic aspect of life, it should have disappeared when the organism
being photographed died. Alas, it did not. The image remained the
same as long as the water content of the corpse remained constant. We
found the images were entirely due to a simple physical event, a corona
discharge. This occurred when a high-voltage electric field broke down
the air molecules between the two condenser plates of the Kirlian appa-
ratus. The amount of water vapor in the air changed the voltage at
which this happened, and on color film produced coronas in different
colors and sizes. We found no evidence that the Kirlian image was re-
lated to the living state. Nor did we find that it could serve as a "screen"
on which might be reflected some invisible field or aura, another pos-
sibility that had been suggested.
This is not to say that the aura occasionally perceived by some people