Sunday, June 24, 2018

Are We Giant Magnets?


I recently came back from Las Vegas after attending two remote viewing conferences.  I gave a very brief presentation at the Applied Precognition Project (APP) conference on the topic of PK - psychokinesis, which is the ability to move physical objects using only the power of the mind.  I have been able to bend all kinds of cutlery for many years now using PK, and had a great success at the APP mini-conference last October when I successfully bent a solid steel rod after about 10 minutes.  As I explained in an earlier blog, it is a fascinating process whereby the person sets their intention for the metal to bend, communicates this intention to the metal item, then releases the power of their human will.  The metal will, if it so chooses, begin to heat up and, within a very brief window of time, become malleable like chewing gum and can be easily bent with very little pressure. 

I was asked by Marty Rosenblatt, the director of APP, to come back and bend an even thicker steel rod in front of the assembled audience and video camera.  I managed to actually break a spoon and a fork in half two nights before my presentation at an informal PK party with the APP group.  However, somewhat predictably, I could not bend the rod during the presentation.  I say "predictably" because PK is a very, very, very subtle mental state that requires one to completely release the ego.  That means you must surrender the idea that you are the one controlling the metal.  The metal decides if it wants to bend.  It also means that performance anxiety - which is a fear of not controlling the outcome - will adversely affect one's ability to surrender the ego. 

That was all fine with me.  I understand the whims of PK. 

About four days later, while attending the International Remote Viewing Association (IRVA) conference at the same hotel, I met for several hours with a board member of the Society for Scientific Exploration.  We were totally engrossed in our conversation as we sat in the hotel restaurant - a casual cafĂ©-style restaurant with diner-quality food. 

After a few hours of chatting, I noticed that the knife and spoon that I had been continuously gently touching without any thought, had suddenly decided to magnetize themselves.  The base of the knife and the stem of the spoon were suddenly so magnetic that you could pull one around by moving the other.  I was sure they had not started out that way.  I mentioned it to my lunch companion, an aerospace engineer.  She dismissed it with the logical explanation that many restaurants actually use equipment, like magnetic cutlery catchers, designed to ensure that spoons, forks and knives don't get thrown out in the garbage by accident.  This equipment uses a giant magnet to capture the cutlery.  Some dishwashers also use these kinds of magnets.  The net result is the cutlery becomes slightly magnetic over time. 

Being relatively scientific, we decided to test this theory.  We decided there was only one way to know if this was the case (besides asking the waitress who was unlikely to know) - by testing another piece of cutlery.  If they used a magnetizing piece of equipment it would affect all of the cutlery in the restaurant equally. So I walked over to another table and grabbed a knife from an unused place setting.  I placed the new knife next to the magnetized spoon.  They did not magnetically cling to each other.  No attraction.  That implied, according to my companion, that only the original knife and spoon were likely magnetized - a kind of a fluke.

I decided to do one more little test.  I removed the original magnetized knife and replaced it with the non-magnetized knife.  I put it next to the magnetized spoon and continued to gently handle them for several minutes while we continued chatting.  Sure enough, just as I thought, the second knife became magnetized to the spoon.

What can one conclude from this?  As my companion said, "Well, it's obviously you causing it to magnetize."  Why would a human being be able to magnetize previously un-magnetized cutlery?  The human body would have to operate like a giant magnet. 

As it turns out, the human body radiates all kinds of very subtle magnetic fields.  The relatively new scientific/medical field of Biomagnetism, pioneered by David Cohen, of MIT and Harvard Medical School.  According to intro to his speech at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth University, "Biomagnetism is the phenomenon where magnetic fields are produced by the living things, especially by the human body; (different from magnetic fields applied to the body, called magnetobiology). The body's magnetic fields are very weak, and are measured with the sensitive detector called a SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device), usually in a magnetically shielded room, which excludes most external disturbances. There are about 160 laboratories around the world where fields from various parts of the body are measured; most measure the magnetic field from the brain, called the magnetoencephalogram, or MEG. The MEG shows complementary information to the electroencephalogram (EEG), and is producing valuable new information about the normal human brain."

Anyone who has experienced any type of "transcranial magnetic stimulation" (as I have) understands that magnetic fields applied to areas around the human brain will induce all kinds of unusual sensations and physical experiences.

Of interest is the fact that the magnetic fields of the heart and brain are so infinitesimal that it takes a SQUID device to detect them.  So how could a person make a large object like a knife magnetic? 

This is quite different from the claim of some people to be "human magnets" who seem to be able to make all kinds of ferromagnetic objects, as well as non-ferromagnetic objects made of wood, plastic, and glass, stick to their bodies.  Those claims are said to involve the stickiness of the skin, but not magnetism. 

Certainly, it is also different from people who seem to have some kind of personal charisma - often called a magnetic personality - that does not seem to involve ferromagnetism. 

Many animals have an ability called "magnetoreception" (birds, bats, ants, mole rats, sharks, rays, etc.) but the current consensus is that humans don't have this ability to sense magnetic fields in the atmosphere.  Anyone who works with the martial arts or energy healing (as I do) generally develops a subtle sensitivity to electromagnetic fields.  So, I don't agree with that, but that's a different ability. 

But what about causing metallic items to magnetize?  What is that?