Esoteric Book Conference 2009

Esoteric Book Conference 2009
September 19 & 20 Seattle Center
[esotericbookfair.blogspot.com]

The Esoteric Book Conference is an annual international event to bring together authors, artists, publishers and bookmakers working in the field of esotericism. In addition to presentations by notable authors and scholars, the conference opens it doors to publishers and booksellers showcasing new & used books as well as rare and hard-to-find esoteric texts. For two days the conference hosts the largest selection of esoteric books under one roof. Contemporary esoteric publishing, finepress book arts and antiquarian texts are offered to augment the libraries of readers, scholars and collectors alike.

This multi-disciplined conference will feature presentations by contemporary authorities researching and working in esoteric currents both East & West. Western Esotericism, Gnosticism, Theosophy, Mythology, Shamanism, Rosicrucianism, Sacred Sciences, Occulture and World Religions are among the subjects to be represented. An esoteric book fair and art show will also be on site allowing education, vending and networking in a unique field of literary, historical and cultural arts.

Call for proposals.

The Esoteric Book Conference is seeking proposals for author presentations, book signings, vending and submissions for the art show. Space is limited at this first annual conference so proposals should be submitted as soon as possible.

Proposals and inquiries may be sent to: ouroboros[at]bookarts[dot]org

Happy Equinox

New writing at ionamiller2009.iwarp.com

xoxo

Retorts cardback

xxx

Retorts on the Soul

Brain science and the search for the self

* 20 March 2009 by A C Grayling
* Magazine issue 2700. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
* For similar stories, visit the Mindfields by A.C. Grayling and
The Human Brain Topic Guides

AFTER John Locke published his Essay Concerning Human Understanding
in 1690, he sent copies to various savants of his acquaintance,
asking for comments and in particular for advice on whether he had
left out anything essential - for if so, he could add it to a second
edition. His correspondent William Molyneaux of Dublin replied that
Locke needed to say something about personal identity: that is, what
makes a person the same person throughout their life.

Belief in the idea of a substantial soul - a "you" that is separate
from your body - was waning. In the absence of this metaphysical
entity as a convenience for underpinning personal identity, what,
asked Molyneaux, makes the retired general continuous with the eager
subaltern of 40 years before, and he with the red-cheeked baby in his
nurse's arms 20 years before that? In response, Locke added a chapter
to his second edition which instantly caused a storm of controversy
and has been famous ever since in the annals of philosophy.

In that chapter Locke argued that a person's identity over time
resides in their consciousness (he coined this term, and here
introduced it to the English language) of being the same self at a
later time as at an earlier, and that the mechanism that makes this
possible is memory. Whereas a stone is the same stone over time
because it is the very same lump of matter - or almost, allowing for
erosion - and an oak tree is identical with its originating acorn
because it is the same continuous organisation of matter, a person is
only the same through time if he or she is self-aware of being so.
Memory loss interrupts identity, and complete loss of memory is
therefore loss of the self.

The divines, represented by Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of
Worcester, took umbrage and attacked Locke for ignoring the immortal
soul. In 1712 The Spectator magazine ran a front-cover demand that
"the wits of Kingdom" should get together in conference to settle the
matter of personal identity and selfhood, because the controversy was
getting out of control. In 1739, when David Hume published the first
volume of his Treatise on Human Nature, he stated that there is no
such thing as the self, for if one conducts the empirical inquiry of
introspecting - looking within oneself - to see what there is apart
from current sensations, feelings, desires and thoughts, one does not
find an extra something, a "self", over and above these things, which
owns them and endures beyond them.

Thus in 50 years the unreflective idea that each individual has an
immortal soul as the basis of their selfhood had changed utterly. For
millennia before Locke, no one had so much as raised the question.
But it was no surprise that the question should suddenly become
urgent as the EnlightenmentMovie Camera dawned, with its central idea
of the autonomous individual who is a bearer of rights and
responsible for his or her own moral outlook; such an idea needs a
robust idea of selfhood, and the philosophers eagerly tried to make
sense of it.

Hume's sceptical view did not prevail. Kant argued that logic
requires a concept-imposing self to make experience possible, and the
Romantics made the self the centre of each individual's universe: "I
am that which began," wrote Swinburne in Hertha, "Out of me the years
roll, out of me God and Man." Without a deep idea of the self there
could be no Freud or psychoanalysis.

So fundamental is the idea of the self to modern human consciousness
that one would expect developments in neuroscience to have a direct
bearing on it. And as Thomas Metzinger argues in his stimulating new
book The Ego Tunnel, reviewed on page 44 of this issue, that is
exactly what is happening - with surprising and often disconcerting
results.

Retorts

Creationists declare war over the brain

* 22 October 2008 by Amanda Gefter
* Magazine issue 2679. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
* For similar stories, visit the Essays , The Human Brain and
Evolution Topic Guides

"YOU cannot overestimate, " thundered psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz,
"how threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it
now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down.
You're gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about... how
Darwin's explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only
scientific way of doing it... I'm asking us as a world community to
go out there and tell the scientific establishment, enough is enough!
Materialism needs to start fading away and non-materialist causation
needs to be understood as part of natural reality."

His enthusiasm was met with much applause from the audience gathered
at the UN's east Manhattan conference hall on 11 September for an
international symposium called Beyond the Mind-Body Problem: New
Paradigms in the Science of Consciousness. Earlier Mario Beauregard,
a researcher in neuroscience at the University of Montreal, Canada,
and co-author of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist' s case for the
existence of the soul, told the audience that the "battle" between
"maverick" scientists like himself and those who "believe the mind is
what the brain does" is a "cultural war".

Schwartz and Beauregard are part of a growing "non-material
neuroscience" movement. They are attempting to resurrect Cartesian
dualism - the idea that brain and mind are two fundamentally
different kinds of things, material and immaterial - in the hope that
it will make room in science both for supernatural forces and for a
soul. The two have signed the "Scientific dissent from Darwinism"
petition, spearheaded by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute,
headquarters of the intelligent design movement. ID argues that
biological life is too complex to have arisen through evolution.

In August, the Discovery Institute ran its 2008 Insider's Briefing on
Intelligent Design, at which Schwartz and Michael Egnor, a
neurosurgeon at Stony Brook University in New York, were invited to
speak. When two of the five main speakers at an ID meeting are
neuroscientists, something is up. Could the next battleground in the
ID movement's war on science be the brain?

Well, the movement certainly seems to hope that the study of
consciousness will turn out to be "Darwinism's grave", as Denyse
O'Leary, co-author with Beauregard of The Spiritual Brain, put it.
According to proponents of ID, the "hard problem" of consciousness -
how our subjective experiences arise from the objective world of
neurons - is the Achilles heel not just of Darwinism but of
scientific materialism. This fits with the Discovery Institute's
mission as outlined in its "wedge document", which seeks "nothing
less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies", to
replace the scientific world view with a Christian one.

Now the institute is funding research into "non-material
neuroscience" . One recipient of its cash is Angus Menuge, a
philosophy professor at Concordia University, Wisconsin, a Christian
college, who testified in favour of teaching ID in state-funded high-
schools at the 2005 "evolution hearings" in Kansas. Using a Discovery
Institute grant, Menuge wrote Agents Under Fire, in which he argued
that human cognitive capacities "require some non-natural explanation" .

In June, James Porter Moreland, a professor at the Talbot School of
Theology near Los Angeles and a Discovery Institute fellow, fanned
the flames with Consciousness and the Existence of God. "I've been
doing a lot of thinking about consciousness, " he writes, "and how it
might contribute to evidence for the existence of God in light of
metaphysical naturalism's failure to provide a helpful explanation. "
Non-materialist neuroscience provided him with this helpful
explanation: since God "is" consciousness, "the theist has no need to
explain how consciousness can come from materials bereft of it.
Consciousness is there from the beginning."

To properly support dualism, however, non-materialist neuroscientists
must show the mind is something other than just a material brain. To
do so, they look to some of their favourite experiments, such as
research by Schwartz in the 1990s on people suffering from obsessive-
compulsive disorder. Schwartz used scanning technology to look at the
neural patterns thought to be responsible for OCD. Then he had
patients use "mindful attention" to actively change their thought
processes, and this showed up in the brain scans: patients could
alter their patterns of neural firing at will.

From such experiments, Schwartz and others argue that since the mind
can change the brain, the mind must be something other than the
brain, something non-material. In fact, these experiments are
entirely consistent with mainstream neurology - the material brain is
changing the material brain.

But William Dembski, one of ID's founding fathers and a senior fellow
at the Discovery Institute, praised Schwartz's work as providing
"theoretical support for the irreducibility of mind to brain".
Dembski's website shows that he is currently co-editing The End of
Materialism with Schwartz and Beauregard.

Meanwhile, Schwartz has been working with Henry Stapp, a physicist at
the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,
who also spoke at the symposium. They have been developing non-
standard interpretations of quantum mechanics to explain how the "non-
material mind" affects the physical brain.

Clearly, while there is a genuine attempt to appropriate
neuroscience, it will not influence US laws or education in the way
that anti-evolution campaigns can because neuroscience is not taught
as part of the core curriculum in state-funded schools. But as Andy
Clark, professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of
Edinburgh, UK, emphasises: "This is real and dangerous and coming our
way."

He and others worry because scientists have yet to crack the great
mystery of how consciousness could emerge from firing neurons.
"Progress in science is slow on many fronts," says John Searle, a
philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley. "We don't yet
have a cure for cancer, but that doesn't mean cancer has spiritual
causes."

And for Patricia Churchland, a philosopher of neuroscience at the
University of California, San Diego, "it is an argument from
ignorance. The fact something isn't currently explained doesn't mean
it will never be explained or that we need to completely change not
only our neuroscience but our physics."

The attack on materialism proposes to do just that, but it all turns
on definitions. "At one time it looked like all physical causation
was push/pull Newtonianism, " says Owen Flanagan, professor of
philosophy and neurobiology at Duke University, North Carolina. "Now
we have a new understanding of physics. What counts as material has
changed. Some respectable philosophers think that we might have to
posit sentience as a fundamental force of nature or use quantum
gravity to understand consciousness. These stretch beyond the bounds
of what we today call 'material', and we haven't discovered
everything about nature yet. But what we do discover will be natural,
not supernatural. "

And as Clark observes: "This is an especially nasty mind-virus
because it piggybacks on some otherwise reasonable thoughts and
worries. Proponents make such potentially reasonable points as 'Oh
look, we can change our brains just by changing our minds,' but then
leap to the claim that mind must be distinct and not materially
based. That doesn't follow at all. There's nothing odd about minds
changing brains if mental states are brain states: that's just brains
changing brains."
This nasty mind-virus piggybacks on reasonable worries

That is the voice of mainstream academia. Public perception, however,
is a different story. If people can be swayed by ID, despite the vast
amount of solid evidence for evolution, how hard will it be when the
science appears fuzzier?

What can scientists do? They have been criticised for not doing
enough to teach the public about evolution. Maybe now they need a big
pre-emptive push to engage people with the science of the brain - and
help the public appreciate that the brain is no place to invoke the
"God of the gaps".

Time Tunnel

xxx

Proto-Metrology

3500 words

PROTO-METROLOGY
Earth’s Measure is the Golden Key to Precession
By Iona Miller, 2009

Earth’s Epochs

There is a lost wisdom whose traces are found in ancient natural sciences, including cosmology. The Precession of the Equinoxes is a measure of Earth’s rotational axis (celestial pole) in space. Earth moves around in its orbit and rotates on its axis. But that axis creates a third motion of the Earth, relative to the fixed stars. The stars move across the sky at the rate of about one degree per 72 years.

The modern measure of one such cyclic span or period is 25,771.5 years but there are many variables in the calculation. After one full cycle of 25,771.5 years, the positions of the seasons relative to the orbit are "back where they started."

But other effects -- including wobble, torque, magnitude of the Earth’s tilt and gravitational forces of other heavenly bodies -- also slowly change the shape and orientation of the Earth's orbit. These, in combination with precession, create various cycles of slightly differing periods.

Written history does not encompass even one such cycle as mythological history is less than 10,000 years old. Metrology is perhaps 5000 years old but mankind has been systematically observing the sky for at least 50,000 years. Legendary numbers seem to have originated in Sumerian culture as the result of geodesic and cosmological measurements discovered millennia ago, in the mists of prehistory.

The Sumerians mythologized “divine” numbers as time portals. Metrology and chronology go together as soon as we try to take Earth’s measure in the cosmos. It appears the system was observed or discovered through simple arithmetic, rather than contrived. Precession was the ideal prototype, the vast cosmic standard by which all other things were measured.

Mankind has an inherent love of measuring which is the natural basis of metrology. It has pragmatic survival and social value. Ancient metrology is the science whose evidence is encoded and mirrored in the sacred dimensions of the Pyramids, Stonehenge, and other earthly monuments oriented to the heavens. The numerical code lies behind the layouts of temples and cities and systems of measuring time from megalithic Britain to China and even in the Americas. (Scherz)

Measurement was a sacred system of knowledge established in prehistory, based on observations of cosmic cycles. Standards of measure were framed upon universal principles of number and the geophysical dimensions of the ever-turning Earth. There is no starting nor ending point. Celestial time is virtually inconceivable without the Great Cycle.

Immense Movement

Precession is the gradual shift in the orientation of the Earth's axis of rotation, which, like a wobbling top, traces out a conical shape in a cycle of approximately 26,000 years as it maps the heavens. The Sumerian calendar was based on the 25,920 Precession cycles. The Platonic Year was based on the divine number 2160 (1080 x 2). Plato mentions another divine number in his Republic -- 5040 (2520 x 2).

12 x 2160 = 25920
20 x 108 = 2160
36 x 60 = 2160
2160 + 360 = 2520
2160 + 432 = 2592

The key to the comprehensive analysis of general number behavior is found in the concept of "circular unity." Circular unity is an idea demonstrated by the harmonious interaction of the first six numbers. SIX is the first perfect number, being the sum of its first three digits, or 1 + 2 + 3 = 6.

1 x 2 x 3 = 6; 62 = 36; 36 x 3 = 108; 362 =1296 x 2 = 2592.

The Precession of the Equinoxes was first noticed as a slow but steady slippage through the Zodiac of 1 degree every 72 years. A full cycle was a journey of Earth through all the signs of the Zodiac. The equinoxes move westward along the ecliptic relative to the fixed stars, opposite to the motion of the Sun along the ecliptic.

To complete one cycle of the zodiac--a "Great" or Platonic Year--requires 25,920 years. Dividing this sum by 360 yields the number 432, the root of the mythological count of 432,000 years. However, it is not only mythological, or archetypal--it was discovered by centuries of controlled astronomical observation, even prior to written record-keeping.

Numerical Harmonics

Cosmology, horizon-based astronomy, astrology, architecture, navigation, geography, geometry, mathematics, timekeeping, writing, proportion in art, and musical notation were all related to numerical canon . The ancients encoded their knowledge of the world in their sacred monuments and texts as an esoteric code of numbers, formulas, and proportion.

There are cross-cultural links in units of measure related to sexagesimal fractions of meridian degree. All relate fractionally to the Sumerian cubit. Although no measuring devices survive from Sumeria, the varying values of the Sumerian cubit have been accurately established from the dimensions of buildings, the measurement of bricks, and from cuneiform tablets that record these dimensions.

The most widely acknowledged value of the cubit is taken from that of the half-cubit represented as a rule on the statue of Gudea from Lagash, and given as 248mm. The cubit usually divided sexagesimally into 30 fingers is at times divided into 24 fingers as in the rest of the ancient world. This 24th division of the Sumerian cubit is the Megalithic inch. Obviously this digit is the Sumerian value, 24 to that cubit, 25 to the royal Egyptian and 40 to the Megalithic yard. Units were kept standard in the dimensions of permanent stone monuments. (John Neal, 2003)

“The sacred Jewish cubit, that of Moses and Ezekiel, expressed as "a cubit and a hands breadth" refers to the royal Egyptian as the basic cubit. Since a hands breadth is 5 digits, the implication is that 5 such hands comprise the royal Egyptian and 6 the sacred Jewish, this digit is therefore the Megalithic "inch": 15 to the "common" Greek foot, 24 to the Sumerian cubit, 25 to the royal Egyptian cubit, 30 to the sacred Jewish cubit and 40 to the Megalithic yard. There is little doubt that we are regarding a single organization of measurement in what has previously been viewed as quite separate systems.” (Neal)

Ancient religions had pronounced astrological elements, which have defined precessional ages from Taurus through Pisces, and the imminent age of Aquarius. Ancient state temples may have functioned as permanent repositories of standards of measures. Gods, (to whom the temples were dedicated) had characteristic numbers, from which they were indistinguishable.

The exemplar number, 108, is known as the number of the Universe. It also corresponds with the god Brahma, and the seed-syllable AUM or OM. Numbers expressed qualities, not just quantities. Prime numbers figure prominently in the measuring and numerical canons of ancient and modern times.

In the old beliefs, this code, (whose true source is lost in prehistoric antiquity), is always alleged to have a divine origin, from the gods or a god-like man. Lore relating to sacred words or phrases arose, because letters and numbers were interchangable or alphanumeric. The code arises naturally from the inherent structure of arithmetic. This golden code emphasized certain key numbers, which were seized upon by different cultures.

Ancient Metrics

Metrology was the basis for development of both philosophic and scientific attitudes. The divine order of the universe was the central idea of the ancient world, and all belief-systems were enmeshed with it. Metrology provided the foundation of the systematic rational vision of the world. Cosmic order embodied in metrology was the fundamental aspect of ancient thought. Number mysticism was the essential basis of most of their knowledge.

Of course, information about the Universe has always been there, but its availability is limited to those prepared to receive or decode it. Ancient cosmologies were not only models of the physical universe, but representations of a universal mathematical archetype. The numerical canon revealed correspondences between different orders of natural phenomena. Metrology included sacred units for measuring the Universe, units of time, space, weight, and mass (or volume).

Root Gauge

The ancient sacred units of measure come from the principle dimensions of the earth (geodesic or geodetic) and astronomical (or cosmological) constants, such as the Precession of the Equinoxes, and the orbital periods of the observable planets.

Land was measured in Mesopotamia and Egypt by the same “statute foot” we use today. The “geographic foot” is related to the length of a minute of arc at a latitude which corresponds to that found in lands such as northern Egypt. By definition, there are 6000 geographic feet in a nautical mile (one minute of latitude arc on the surface of the earth). 1/10 of a nautical mile is an ancient land measure called the "geographic stade"--600 geographic feet, or 606 (600 + 6) of our common feet. (Stecchini ;Scherz)

Geography developed from metrology. Traders and navigators needed to calculate distances and time for travel. This link between measures of length and time united metrology and astronomy, and led to astronomical navigation. Ancient navigators used a sexigesimal method of dividing the horizon, using six (rather than four) cardinal directions.

Widening Gyre

Ancient linear measures expressed fractions of the earth's dimensions (polar diameter, circumference, radius, meridian circumference), generally in units of 12. Thus, we have 360 degrees of latitude, each of 60 minutes of 3600 seconds.

Cross-culturally, ancient units of measure relate proportionately to each other, because the old units (whether Mesopotamian, Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Chinese, etc.) represent fractions of the earth's dimensions. Russian archaeologist Bieliaev, points out that the same weights with the same subdivisions are found in early Rome and India of the third millennium B.C. He traced connecting links to Sumer and Egypt, and found the same units used in medieval Russia.

In ancient times, the Universe meant the observable Universe. For Pythagorean and Platonist thinkers, the patterns of numerical relationships which occur in the processes of arithmetic and geometry were considered the formative influences behind all of nature's phenomena. Numerical patterns were detected in the manifestations and dynamics of nature. Behind this is a philosophy of numbers which express universal relationships.

Although usually superceded by practical arithmetic, there is much to learn from the study of the relationship of number and form. The essence of all matter is dynamic relationships. Number is the 'first paradigm,' the basic ordering principle of nature.

Transient, Eternal or Cyclic?

Many so-called "key numbers of the Solar System" are involved, because key numbers have always stood out for their unique properties. The ancients discovered them through aeons of empirical observations of cosmic cycles. They were capable of observing long-term effects, (such as the precessional cycle), with horizon-based astronomy. Their observations of the divine order were central to the core of their civilizations.

Ancient metrology does provide a clue to what numbers might be interesting to investigate. Syndex II (Miller) follows the clues by using direct observation of natural number behavior in a spiral, rather than interpretation of what is there to be seen. It requires no ancient, alien, or mystical source, no occult doctrine or arcane secret, no ideology. It predicts no "end time." It is simply a graphically revealed "truth."

#108 as the Hindu number of the Universe is a circular totality which encodes the structure of Epochs or Divine Ages. Since the incremental numbers of the ages are multiples of #108, when enspiralled along 108 axes, the characters 0 - 6480 all align along the zero/108 axis -- they share the same neighborhood.

The synchrographic structure of the two ancient Hindu modules of circular unity disclose that the Yugas fall into a perfect tertiary symmetry. The Ages assume a perfect quadric symmetry when spiralled along 108 axes of a number field, array, or matrix. The final number of this synchrograph is 6480. The number of zeros at the end of any astronomical Hindu number is nearly arbitrary. The glyph unifies the two ancient systems.

Sacred Measurement

In antiquity, knowledge of an alphanumerical canon spread throughout the Middle East, to Greece and India, back to the Moslem Empire, and from there into medieval Europe to catalyze the Renaissance. India raised mathematics to a high art with its most revered number 108, the number of OM and the Universe, the number of Brahma.

This number formed the basis of the Ages and Yugas, which are all multiples of this sacred numberword. Yugas include 432, 864, 1296, 1728 and add to 4320. Ages include 648, 1296, 1944, 2592 and add to 6480.

108 is itself 3 x 36--part of the Sumerian sar, 3600, also dubbed the number of the Universe, a unit of Divine Time, a year of the gods (3,600 earth-years). The number of zeros tacked on the end of these cosmological numbers is almost irrelevant, and merely emphasizes their vast importance.

Since 108 is 3 x 36 and both systems mutually include the square of 36 (1296), it becomes evident that the classic 360 degree circular unity is the common denominator of these separate systems (360 degrees of 60 minutes or 3600 seconds each).

According to Neugebauer (1952), "the division of the circumference of a circle into 360 parts originated in Babylonian astronomy of the last centuries B.C. The sexagesimal number system as such is many centuries older and has nothing to do with astronomical concepts."

However, in a far newer work, Sumerian scholar Zecharia Sitchen (1993) differs in opinion, attributing both mathematical astronomy and 360 circular unity to the Sumerians, based on his own cuneiform translations. He also refers to "the role that the key number 12 played in Sumerian science," and the "celestial 72," which comes from the precessional shift of 1 degree. He notes that 120 sars equals 432,000 earth-years. This is the number of the Great Yuga.

The key to Sumerian metrology is not as simple as the sexigesimal 6 x 60 = 360. Even in Sumeria, the sexigesimal system (60-division) was only applied in strictly mathematical and astronomical contexts. The sexagesimal numerical system had a decimal substratum (36 x 10 = 360). In other matters they used 24-division, 12-division, 10-division, and 2-division.

The real key involves the sequence in which prime numbers naturally occur in the baseten continuum. This is demonstated by multipling the third and fourth Holotomes together: 72 x 360 = 25920, a number given for the Precession of the Equinoxes in Sumerian cuneiform records. Clearly, this number relates directly to Yugas and Ages.

72 x 36 = 25920 divided by 2 = 12960;
divided by 3 = 8640
by 4 = 6480; by 6 = 4320
72 + 360 = 432

Contemplation of the numberwheel 108 discloses the complete menagery of "sacred numbers." 864 is 12 x 72, holotomes A and C; 1728 is 24 x 72, holotomes B and C.

Both systems share 362 = 1296.

Mathematical Wisdom

Contemplation of this number wheel discloses the complete menagery of "sacred numbers." The key numbers of ancient metrology and the Holotomic Sequence are found in positions of perfect symmetry (such as the quadratic array of the four-digit palindromic sequence: 1881, 2772, 3663, 4554) where only chaos exists in classical number theory. Nature's behaviors coincide with the most crucial divisions of the synergetic continuum of baseten number.

The main thread of the number concept in the crossroads cultures passed from Sumeria-Akkadia-Babylonia to Phoenicia to Hellenistic (and Hebrew), to Indian to Islamic to European cultures. Key numbers, cosmic cycles, and divine numbers permeate the number concepts of all these cultures. The Greeks and Hebrews had alphanumeric systems which developed into numerology and numberword mysticism.

Number mystics from the Pythagoreans onward considered number 'one' as the Infinite God, the First Cause, the One who transcends all multiplicity. To the Greeks, numbers were divine concepts, ideas in the mind the god who had fashioned the world. God was a great mathematician. In the Hebrew Qabala, the world is made with numbers and letters. In more accurate terms, the characters representing manifestation were alphanumeric.

The SEFIR YETZIRAH, the Book of Creation or Formation (300-600 AD) describes how God created the manifest universe by means of letters and numbers which are the foundation of all things. The letters are part of 'one body,' the alphabet which is an extension of God's own being. All created things, made by means of the letters, are also parts of the one body which is God.

True being for the Hebrew is the 'word,' dabhar, which comprises all Hebraic realities: word, deed, and concrete object. Non-being, nothing (no thing) is signified correspondingly by 'not word,' lo dabhar.

In European magical tradition, the most important of all alphanumeric alphabets is the Hebrew which had 22 letters, all of which were consonants. Vowels were inferred from context Contemplation (theory) and application (practice) is the mystical tradition of Qabala. In this alphabet there are no vowels (our a,e,i,o, and u) represented. The same is true of the older Phoenician (Canaanite) alphabet, from which our own alphabet is descended--by way of the Greek, Etruscan, and Latin alphabets.

All over the ancient orient, in Assyria and Babylonia, as well as Egypt, the word and particularly the word of God, was not only nor even primarily an expression of thought; it was a mighty and dynamic force. The Assyrians and Babylonians conceived of the divine word under the image of a physical-cosmic power.

In Egypt, the power of creating and sustaining everything was traced back to the divine word, the ever-active fluid or ethereal divine substance proceeding out of the mouth of divinity. For example, in Memphis, Ptah is the Creator of the world. The specific organ of creation is 'the mouth which named all things.'

There is an ancient code of numbers and proportion based on metrological standards of measure. Such constants as astronomical Precession, and geodetic measures such as polar diameter provided the basic context. Fractions of the earth's principle dimensions mirrored numerical patterns in the appearance and movement of nature.

These numbers are the vestiges of the Sumerian sexagesimal system and calendar. Earlier measures of astronomy, astrology, and cosmology were usually in units of 12, as were various ancient units of measurement of time.

Constants of Nature

Mankind counted days and the changing of the moon and seasons for millennia before recorded history. As early as 3760 BC, the Sumerians created a lunar calendar. By 2800 B.C., they had worked our a cycle of 19 years which kept it synchronized with the solar year and seasons. Certain years had 12 lunar months, while others had thirteen. This lunar calendar was adapted by the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks and Jews. The Nippur calendar is still the basis of Jewish religious ceremonies. The Hebrew year in 2009 is 5769.

Sumerian astronomy included the concept of "deep time," as recounted in the Enuma Elish, the Epic of Creation. Ancient texts known as the Sumerian King Lists describe the settling of the divine Anunnaki on Earth before the deluge. They list the governorships of the first 10 leaders which lasted a total of 120 sars, or 432,000 Earth-years.

This is a direct source for divine eras in Hindu lore, but they expand the vastness to an overall time span of 4,320,000, and then to a Divine Year or Day of Lord Brahma--4,320,000,000--a thousandfold great yugas. The Sumerian formula is echoed in the Hindu traditions.
From Sumeria comes the ubiquitous concept of a sky divided into 360 degrees of Latitude, 60 minutes of 3600 seconds; 12 month years beginning on Spring Equinox; 12 hours of day and night (2x12=24); 12 signs of the Zodiac, etc.

Sumerian fractions were geared to the principle of repeated halving. Whole unit or natural fractions are important in arranging metrological units. The system based on 60 is evenly divisibly by 2,3,4,5,6,10,15, and 30 eliminating the frequent need of fractions. This naturally leads to grouping higher units in 12, 30, or 60. All these ratios occur in one or another of the parallel systems of units in Mesopotamian metrology. 4320 is one such number; so is 108000.

The Greek astronomers adopted this system, and so did their followers in India, the Islamic Empire, and Europe. Much of the mathematical knowledge commonly ascribed to the early Greek philosophers was already known to the Egyptians and Mesopotamians centuries before the rise of Greek civilization. However, the Greeks preserved and spread this knowledge. They were the first to consider mathematical concepts as abstractions not part of the real world, but of the idealized "sacred space" of the human mind.

There is some evidence of ancient India having direct contact with Sumeria around 2500 B.C. This is difficult to document, but not to deduce. However, nevertheless, Hindus contributed the final step to mathematical astronomy, namely, the use of the place value notation for the smaller decimal units. This is where we get our divisions of 60, 24, 12, and 2.

As we have shown elsewhere, these are closely allied to the HOLOTOMIC SEQUENCE: 12 - 24 - 72 - 360 - 2520, etc. These numbers are the vestiges of the Sumerian sexagesimal system and calendar rooted in Precession cycles and natural number dynamics.


REFERENCES

Berriman, A.E. (1953) Historical Metrology

Knorr, W. R. (1985), The geometer and the archaeoastronomers: on the prehistoric origins of mathematics. Review of: Geometry and algebra in ancient civilizations [Springer, Berlin, 1983; MR: 85b:01001] by B. L. van der Waerden. British J. Hist. Sci. 18 (1985), no. 59, part 2, 197--212. SC: 01A10, MR: 87k:01003.

Michell, J. (1981), Ancient Metrology,

Miller, Iona and Robert Marshall (1998), SYNDEX II, A synergetic revisioning of number dynamics in light of ancient metrology and modern cosmography www.geocities.com/numeronom...dexii.html

Scherz, Old World Units of Measure Found in the Layout Geometry of Prehistoric Earthworks at Newark, Ohio By Dr James P Scherz www.midwesternepigraphic.org/scherz.html

Sitchen, Zecharia (1997), When Time Began, Avon; New York.

Scars to Freedom Concert, Palm Springs March 28th

Dear Friends,

After outgrowing our first Scars to Freedom venue set for Saturday, March 28th, we have moved to the Palm Springs Air Museum to accommodate a military fly-over.

Our line-up currently includes: Megadeth, Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood MAC, Bobby Brown & Heads of State, and Aaron Lewis of Staind.

Additionally, First Lady Michelle Obama will be providing remarks as Mary Hart announced Friday night on CBS's Entertainment Tonight. A copy will be posted on our website soon.

Our sponsors to date include PepsiCo, Entertainment Tonight, Rolling Stone, Ticketmaster, Mix Radio 100.5 FM, and KDES 104.7 FM. Both radio stations will do 60-second promos 10 times per day for the 10 days leading up to the event. Additionally, each station will give away a pair of tickets during next week's morning drive time.

Participating celebrities include Jack Black, Jason Davis, Brittny Gastineau, Lisa Gastineau, Mary Hart, Paris Hilton, Queen Latifah, Sofia Milos, Michelle Obama, Gary Sinise, Suzanne Somers, Carrie Underwood and a yet to be mentioned major A-list celebrity.

If you are a Veteran or Troop, see online email sign-up for FREE admission.

We have V.I.P. tickets available today for $200.00. This will give you access to the pre-concert hors d'oeuvres, Ed Hardy fashion show, and the silent and live auctions that you won't want to miss.

General admission tickets to the concert are $75 and can be purchased in person at our Scars to Freedom office, by phone at 888-837-0470, online at www.scarstofreedom.com or at www.Ticketmaster.com

Our newly remodeled website (donated by Jeremy Tillman of Tillman Strategic Communications) is updated daily - check often for new celebrity participants.

Please be so kind as to circulate this updated e-mail to all of your business and personal contacts, not only in the Palm Springs and southern California areas, but around the country and the world.

Thank you for your support!

Joelle Martin Leath, V.P., Scars to Freedom, Inc.

Geomagnetics 2

Human Effects

We know that the iron core of our earth vibrates at 40 Hertz (40 pulses per second.) Our earth's crust has a different vibrational speed at around 7.5 Hertz. When we are at the height of our brain thinking activity we record roughly 40 Hertz and in meditative states a 7.5 Hertz low brain activity. This draws a direct correlation between the earth’s core environment, the earth's outer crust environment pulse rate and our upper and lower end brain function.

Rhythmically changing electric, magnetic and electromagnetic fields are ubiquitous in our environment. Some of these fields are natural; others are produced by household appliances and technologies. Many people are adversely affected by natural and/or artificial energy fields (clinically termed weather or electromagnetic sensitivity). Often affected individuals do not recognize the sources of their ailments.

There is positive correlation between EEG and geomagnetic activity. Disturbances in geomagnetic fields (e.g. caused by solar and terrestrial magnetic storms) have been correlated with the onset of a variety of disorders, including heart attacks, increased blood pressure, seizures and strokes. Also, decreases in nocturnal melatonin, enhanced anxiety, heart rate, sleep disturbance, psychiatric admissions (Persinger), light sensitivity, SIDS, depression, suicide and sudden death. www.electric-fields.bris.ac.uk/ge...pdf

Persinger has conclusively demonstrated that electromagnetic fields can trigger mini-seizures. Geomagnetic fluctuations have been studied in this regard. Abnormalities in the temporal lobes (TLE) caused by genetics, injury, or infections can lead to amplification of "spiritual" characteristics in the personality.

Are some people predisposed to psychism, mystical visions, or religious zeal? What lies at the root of the personality to drive the "seeker" in a spiritual quest? How does one come by an intensely personal, even idiosyncratic perception of paranormal effects or presences, such as gods or demons, aliens or nature spirits? Are we hardwired for religious beliefs? Or do some of us just have more magnetite in our bodies?

Temporal lobe seizures mimic or perhaps even embody certain essentially religious experiences -- God Experiences. This tendency may be reinforced by a kindling process potentiating pathways to the amygdala and other parts of the brain. Emotional tone and multisensory content of these experiences is dependent on which lobe and portion of the temporal lobes become unstable and subject to seizures, clinical or sub-clinical.

The phenomena which appear pathologically in TLE can also appear in the general population, and are often even encouraged by the practice of meditation. The union of brain science and theology is called neurotheology, which studies all related religious and spiritual phenomena and their neurological roots. We might also look to the magnetic environment for subtle triggers. (Miller, 2003, neurotheology.50megs.com/whats...9.html )

If magnetic force is strong enough, TLTs can be kindled in normal individuals. Among the most electrically unstable portions of the brain, the temporal lobes are quite sensitive to extremely low magnetic frequencies (Persinger). Persinger has tickled the temporal lobes of enough individuals to define the parameters of electromagnetic shifts on brain function. Medical use of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to relieve psychological symptoms such as depression indicates that the mind may be an electromagnetic field.

There is a continuum of temporal lobe lability or sensitivity, and even normal individuals have sub-clinical microseizures frequently, particularly during REM or dreams. The full-blown effects of such electrical storms are seen in petit mal and grand mal seizures of epilepsy.


Epileptic seizures propagate across the brain through a process called “kindling.” Nerve signals are amplified exponentially, resulting in a chaotic electrical storm that can entrain more than one brain area. For example, in temporal lobe epilepsy, spreading includes the temporal lobe, underlying limbic structures and hippocampus; all of them fire in an overexcited manner, especially if serotonin levels are low.

Epilepsy is triggered by different parts of the brain. Behavioral changes immediately preceding an epileptic seizure indicate what portion of the brain is the focus of the seizure. Electrical lability, or seizures in the temporal lobes do not usually cause physical convulsions, unless they propagate to the motor regions.

Not all those with intense spiritual experiences have temporal lobe epilepsy. Meditators often sit for years before experiencing the slightest tingles or visions of light. But often once manifestations begin, they increase in frequency and tend to stabilize. They can come as sounds, smells, intense feeling, visionary landscapes or forms of living entities, or amorphous lights. These inner experiences feel as real or seem more real than external perception.

The temporal lobes host many structures and functions including memory, orientation of self in space and time, interpretations of meaning and emotional significance, organization of audio and visual patterns, smell, and language. Local discharges can be potentiated by specific memory recall or extremely low biofrequency magnetic fields penetrating brain tissue.

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is accompanied by classic personality changes. Though some researchers disagree, attributed characteristics include the following: loss of humor; intense affect; moodswings (peaks or highs, depressions, distortions, aggression); suggestibility; existential anxiety; neophobia; hypergraphia; an intense active interest in dreams, religion and philosophy; reports of psi experiences. Supreme faith is placed in the validity of subjective experience. Unusual experiences are assigned special personal meaning. They accept logical incongruities, displaying a rigid core of private beliefs.

This later spiritual interest can be rooted in subjective experiences of a variety of phenomena kindled by electrical instabilities in the brain. They include, but are not limited to depersonalization, time distortion, anxiety or panic, floating or falling sensations, peripheral imagery, a sense of presence either sacred or malefic, apparitions, downloading of memory sequences and false memory confabulations or fantasies, voices and visionary experiences ranging from heavenly to hellish, and a panoply of psychophysical manifestations.


Psi Is a Geomagnetic Field Correlate

Paranormal experiences (sensed presence, time distortion, information acquisition, death crisis, eccentric thinking) can be "induced" by a variety of fields. They are associated with geomagnetic activity or lack of it and neuronal activity of the temporal lobes. Sources of stimuli range from chaotic activity to field effects. Paranormal beliefs are related to paranormal experiences, often substituting for traditional religious beliefs.

We live in a dense soup of natural and artificial magnetic fields induced by electric charges moving through electric fields. Each event we experience as humans is centered in its own electromagnetic field. Psi phenomena [healing, telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, remote viewing, psychokinesis, poltergeists, hauntings] are complex field effects. A field is a matrix, a region of influence that invisibly connects two or more points in space or time with visible, informational or energetic effects.

A 1991 article in Bioelectromagnetics Magazine is called, "The Solar Wind and Hallucinations, --a possible relation due to magnetic disturbances.” Walter and Steffani Randall recount breakthrough research showing psychophysical correlations with increased GMF (geomagnetic field) periods. Data from the 19th century on hallucinations and magnetic disturbances were found to exhibit a direct and statistically significant correlation. Magnetic influences on the pineal hormone, melatonin, are suggested as a possible source of variation.

Geomagnetic activity is related to mental activity. Research suggests lower geomagnetic activity correlates with increased psi activity such as telepathy and anomalous dreams. Conversely, magnetically stormy days correlate with violent crime, bereavement hallucinations, (sleep) paralysis episodes, psychokinesis and poltergeist phenomena.

This nonlocal field may be enhanced or disrupted by a variety of environmental conditions [Krippner, Persinger, Spottiswoode, McTaggart, Lazslo]. Bursts of creativity in all cultural forms flourish in years of highest solar activity. The same covariance was found between hallucinations and magnetic disturbances.

Geomagnetic Field effects have yet to be conclusively demonstrated. Do geomagnetic fields carry psi information or effect the modulation of brainwave activity? We might suspect field coherence or resonance phenomena. Is this field phenomenon more perceptible in shamanic or altered states of consciousness?

In "Geomagnetic Field Effects in Anomalous Dreams and the Akashic Field," Krippner reports a relationship between geomagnetic fluctuations, lunar cycle, and sunspot activity with anomalous dreams, including telepathic, clairvoyant and precognitive content. Other factors, including the holographic mechanism (vacuum wave interference patterns) of the nonlocal zero-point field may also be influential. In psi tests, "hits" and "misses" are statistically significant relative to geomagnetic fields.

S. James P. Spottiswoode (1997) summarizes in “Geomagnetic fluctuations and free-response anomalous cognition: a new understanding,” as follows:

For some years there has been speculation that anomalous cognition (AC) performance may be correlated with global geomagnetic field (GMF) fluctuations. This idea arose from the work of Persinger (e.g., Persinger & Schout, 1988), who found that anecdotal cases of putative AC occurred on days when GMF fluctuations were significantly lower than on the preceding and following days. Many workers have investigated whether or not this interesting observation could be extended to laboratory anomalous cognition, but with mixed results.

Tart (1988) and Persinger and Krippner (1989) found an association between high-scoring AC trials and low GMF fluctuations, while Haraldsson and Gissurarson (1987) and Nelson and Dunne (1986) did not. In an unpublished meta-analysis, this author collected 1,468 free-response trials from 21 studies, reasoning that the effect, if it existed, would be most easily detected in a large database with high effect size; in fact, the overall correlation was a disappointing -0.0002 (Spearman's [Rho], N = 1,468, ns). The first step to understanding the physics of anomalous cognition will probably be the discovery of physical variables that unambiguously modulate the effect.

Persinger has experimented with weak complex, time-varying magnetic fields applied to the brains of human subjects. Some people are more susceptible to field variance than others. This application has been dubbed EIF or Experience Inducing Fields. Not all magnetic anomalies have implications for experience. Ambient geomagnetic fields are usually considered too weak to initiate but always undergird anomalous events, including hallucination. Neural entrainment confuses the brain into hallucinations it accepts as sensory information). EIF’s are fluctuations on top of the local dynamic field.

Visual hallucinations include circles, ellipses and triangles. Persinger conjectures that geomagnetic activity may enhance the receptivity of the brain to extrasensory signals, noting in particular that sudden decreases in geomagnetic activity may decrease the likelihood of certain types of electrical seizures in the brain. Persinger contends that increases in geomagnetic activity tend to lower seizure thresholds and may even precipitate convulsions in epileptics.

Some scientists (e.g., Radin, McAlpine & Cunningham, 1994; and Adair, 1991) have, however, expressed skepticism that changes in the geomagnetic field would have sufficient strength to produce any physiological effects on the human body at all. As a second possibility, Persinger suggests that lowered geomagnetic activity might enhance the signal carrying the ESP message, which he has speculated may consist in part of extremely low frequency electromagnetic radiation.

Adrian Ryan [2008] reports,

Geomagnetic field measurements were collected from the SAMNET array of magnetometers in Northern Europe. Measurements were selected from the nearest operating magnetometer at the time of each ESP trial; the mean distance between magnetometer and ESP trial location was 126 km (minimum 2 km, maximum 261 km). The sampling interval was 5 seconds until mid-November 1995 and 1 second thereafter. The amplitude resolution of the measurements is 0.1 nT. The field measurements were converted by fast Fourier transform into power within five frequency bands. Pulsations with frequency > 0.1 Hz were found to be highly geographically localized, therefore data for these frequency bands were discarded for all but the 99 remote viewing trials conducted at in York, for which the magnetometer was also located in York.

Two patterns were observed: ESP was found to succeed only during periods of enhanced pulsation activity within the 0.2-0.5 Hz band, but ESP effect was absent during the most disturbed periods of activity in the 0.025-0.1 Hz band.

Analysis of the continuous record of geomagnetic field measurements between November 1996 and March 2005 revealed that activity in the 0.025-0.1 Hz range is strongly correlated with the global index of geomagnetic activity ap, but no such relationship exists between activity in the 0.2-0.5 Hz band and ap, which may account for the overall slight negative correlation between ESP and ap reported in the literature.

As each frequency band of geomagnetic pulsation exhibits distinct seasonal and/or interacting seasonal/daily variation, they make excellent candidates for explaining the associations between ESP and LST that have been reported in the literature. To explore this possibility, the ESP effect size for trials in the database was plotted by LST; the resultant pattern was similar to that found by Spottiswoode (1997a, 1997b). Modeling revealed that this shape was partially attributable to the pattern of ESP results by pulsation activity in the 0.2-0.5 Hz band.

Vortex Phenomena

Naturally occurring electromagnetic waves entrain human brainwaves. Unusual magnetic areas – “hotspots” -- provide mini-laboratories for investigating anomalous geomagnetic effects. They have been honored or feared by primal peoples from the dawn of time. Magnetic vortexes, such as those found in the iron-rich soil of Sedona, Southern Oregon and elsewhere are legendary places where unusual electromagnetic phenomena abound.

Hopi Indians say the earth energy field is damaged in some way. Like many indigenous people around the world who preserve the ancient wisdom, they insist that nuclear testing and the high-tech mining of ‘power places’ is somehow short-circuiting the system – that the "hoop of the world has been broken". In fact, the old people say, "The big blow is going to come again!" (White, 1993)

These hotspot areas of subtle earth energies often have a deep base of crystalline rock. Ten percent of the earth's total magnetic field fluctuates significantly over decade time scales, apparently reflecting the unsteady exchange of angular momentum between the core and the mantle in the velocity field.

Initially a skeptic, electrical engineer, Ben Lonetree <sedonanomalies.com describes iron-rich soil as “focusing” non-dipole geomagnetism that exhibits upward and downward motion. This is a Vortex. Lonetree was able to conclusively demonstrate what others have long conjectured.
[more at ionamiller2009.iwarp.com/whats...8.html ]

During a vortex event, monitoring equipment detects no N-S polarity. Compass instabilities plus upswing and downswing in field intensity can indicate vortex activity. You can catch a vortex in the act of dramatically increasing local field activity by orders of magnitude. Lonetree calls this a “Sudden Magnetic Impulse event.”

When the event passes, a compass will once again behave normally as outflow or inflow ceases. Lonetree has verified his readings by observing Schumann Resonances (SR), difficult to filter from ambient, artificial electronic noise or “smog.” He uses one computer to monitor SR and another to monitor magnetic intensity. Lonetree also makes it clear, despite the pseudo-scientific assertions of others, that SR is NOT rising, as his longterm readings clearly show.


Lonetree made observations, locally and globally, of Schumann Resonances in various areas of Arizona to see if distinctions emerged in the vortex hotspots. Schumann Resonance is 20,000 times less in intensity than the earth’s magnetic field. The SR pulse acts as a "driver" of our brains and might also potentially carry information. Entrainment is a process of synchronization where vibrations cause an object to oscillate at the same rate, affecting psychology and physiology.

He generated spectrographs to, “provide a point of reference to discuss and demonstrate Geomagnetic affects on the first resonance." Each of the seven Schumann Resonances occupies a bandwidth of 1 Hz. In other words, each of the resonances is 1 Hz. wide: 7.83 Hz, 14 Hz, 21 Hz, 26 Hz, 33 Hz, 39 Hz, and 45 Hz.

“Vortex Action” increases the intensity (strength) of correlated SR readings. For example, the 7.83 Hz Resonance increases in strength relative to that of the vortex event. The peak of the magnetic amplitude is coincidental with the peak of SR amplitude.

Certain geophysical conditions also function like amplifiers and speakers, making the natural electromagnetic ‘voice’ of the planet louder. Lonetree’s gut-feeling is that these are not waves of electromagnetic energy, but rather a gentle oscillation of the Earth’s magnetosphere.

This frequency also happens to fall between two of the human brainwaves, Alpha and Theta. There are four altogether: Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Theta. When our brain is functioning restfully in the predominantly alpha/theta zone, we become more relaxed or peaceful. The human brain acts like an electrical circuit called a phase-lock loop. A local external (outside the body) electromagnetic signal, as long as it is stronger than our brainwaves, initiates a resonance effect where the brain locks onto and resonates at that frequency.

Inflow and outflow are intermittent with typical events lasting 90 seconds to 2 minutes – a spike in magnetic activity. Twisted, rotating spiral or circular lines of magnetic force enter and emerge from the earth in specific local areas. They can be monitored electronically with Fluxgate detectors, induction coils or proton precession magnetometers, measuring the strength and direction of the local field.

Vortex activity causes trees to grow in gnarled and twisted patterns, creating other observational and perceptual clues to their existence, beyond the subjective. They are also purported to have unique psychophysical effects on certain individuals, mostly relevant to health and well-being.

We are complex electrodynamic, rather than chemical beings. We are subject to natural and artificial EM fields. SR frequencies coincide with human brain waves. There is a strong correlation between human behavioral disturbance or enhancement and geomagnetic field turbulence.


Hot Spot Alpha

One of the effects of meditation is to "quiet the mind" to facilitate the "free-run" (or silent thalamic periods) that allows entrainment by natural geophysical rhythms. This tuning or "magnetoreception" is mediated by the pineal gland, (30% of its cells are magnetically sensitive), and organic magnetite-containing tissues.

Up-flow Vortexes are said to boost healing, creativity, visions, spiritual skills, exhilaration, and expand consciousness. Many claim to experience increases in UFO sightings and presence. Places labeled as a magnetic vortex are areas of inflow energy. Some claim an area labeled an electric vortex is an area of up-flow energy.

Lonetree laudes the virtues of magnetically-supercharged brainwave entrainment. With his spectrographic evidence, he knowledgeably declares, “Sitting on top of a magnetic outflow while the first Schumann Resonance promotes a state of Alpha / Theta is an experience you will never forget!”


References
REFERENCES


ADAMS, M.H. (1986). Variability in remote-viewing performance: Possible relationship to the geomagnetic field. In D.H. Weiner & D.I. Radin (Eds.), Research in parapsychology, 1985 (p.25). Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.

ALDRICH, T. E., ANDREWS, K. W. AND LIBOFF, A. R., 2001. Brain cancer risk and electromagnetic fields (EMFs): Assessing the geomagnetic component. Archives of Environmental Health, 56 (4) , 314-319

BARTSCH, H., BARTSCH, C., MECKE, D. AND LIPPERT, T. H., 1994. Seasonality of pineal melatonin production in the rat: Possible synchronization by the geomagnetic field. Chronobiology International, 11 (1), 21-26.

BELOV, D. R., KANUNIKOV, I. E. AND KISELEV B. V., 1998. Dependence of Human EEG spatial syncrhonization on the Geomagnetic Activity on the Day of Experiment. [article in Russian]. Ross Fiziol Zh Im I M Sechenova, 84 (8), 761-774.

BERGIANNAKI, J.-D., PAPARRIGOPOULOS, T. J. AND STEFANIS, C. N., 1996. Seasonal pattern of melatonin excretion inhumans: relationship to day length variation rate and geomagnetic field fluctuations. Experientia, 52, 253-258.

CAMPBELL, W. H., 1997. Introduction to Geomagnetic Fields. Cambridge University Press. [This book is an introduction to geomagnetism suitable for those who are not familiar with the field, with an emphasis on external fields.]

DIMITROVA, S., STOILOVA, I. AND CHOLAKOV, I., 2004. Influence of local Geomagnetic Storms on Arterial Blood Pressure. Bioelectromagnetics, 25, 408-414.

FEIGIN, V. L., NIKITIN, YU, P. AND VINOGRADOVA, T. E., 1997. Solar and geomagnetic activities: Are there associations with stroke occurrence? Cerebrovascular Diseases, 7, 345-348.

GOLDWATER, P. N., 2003. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: a critical review of approaches to research. Arch. Dis. Child., 88: 1095-1100.

GORDON, C. AND BERK, M., 2003. The effect of geomagnetic storms on suicide. S Afr Psychiatry Rev 6, 24-27.

HSU, JEREMY, (2008), “Sloshing Inside Earth Changes Protective Magnetic Field” "There are these changes in the South Atlantic, an area where the magnetic field has the smallest envelope at one third [of what is] normal," said Mioara Mandea, a geophysicist at the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany. www.space.com/scienceastr...th-core.html

Jacobs, J. A., 1987. Geomagnetism Volumes 1, 2 and 3. Academic Press. [Volume 1: history of geomagnetism, instrumentation, overviews of main and crustal fields. Volume 2: origins of the Earth's magnetic field and that of the moon and other planets. Volume 3: rock magnetism, palaeomagnetism and the ancient magnetic field behaviour, conductivity structure of the Earth, indices of geomagnetic activity, magnetic field characteristics during solar quiet conditions.]

Jacobs, J. A., 1991. Geomagnetism Volume 4. Academic Press. [This volume covers the solar-terrestrial environment including the solar wind, the Earth's magnetosphere, magnetopause, magnetotail, ionosphere, pulsations, plasma waves, magnetospheric storms and sub-storms, auroras.]

KAY, R. W., 1994. Geomagnetic Storms: Association with Incidence of Depression as Measured by Hospital Admissions. Brit J Psychiatr, 164: 403-409.

KRIPPNER, STANLEY, “The Akashic Field and Psychic Dreams” - Persinger conducted an analysis of reports of telepathy and clairvoyance from a popular magazine. He found that these reported experiences were more likely to occur when the global geomagnetic activity was significantly quieter than the days before or the days after the experience. A day characterized by slow, predictable variations in the field is referred to as a "quiet" magnetic day. These were the days that were associated with reports of telepathy and clairvoyance (Persinger, 1985). About the same time, Marcia Adams (1986) studied the relationship between quiet magnetic days with success in clairvoyance experiments that had been conducted in another laboratory, finding a positive connection. A day of sudden and large field changes is referred to as a magnetically stormy day. Persinger noted a tendency for reports of poltergeist and haunting experiences to occur on these days (Persinger, 1989). Psychokinesis (in other words, anomalous effects on distant objects or activity) has been studied in the laboratory under psi task conditions. One analysis of these experiments has indicated a tendency for them to occur most frequently on magnetically stormy days (Braud & Dennis, 1989).

Krippner, Stanley, “Geomagnetic field effects and anomalous dreams”

Krippner, S., & Persinger, M. (1996). Evidence for enhanced congruence between dreams and distant target material during periods of decreased geomagnetic activity. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 10, 487 - 493.

Krippner, S., Vaughan, A., & Spottiswoode, S.J.P. (2000). Geomagnetic factors in subjective precognitive experiences. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 64, 109-118.

Lockman D (2002) Galvanizing ghosts: geomagnetic fields may be the culprit - Anomalous Experience

Merrill, R. T., M. W. McElhinny and P. L. McFadden, 1996. The Magnetic Field of the Earth. Academic Press. [This book is an introduction to geomagnetism suitable for those who are not familiar with the field, with an emphasis on internal fields and palaeomagnetism.]

Lonetree, Ben and Iona Miller (2004), “SIREN SONG OF THE EARTH: Investigating Vortex Theory & EM Signals with Ben Lonetree,” Nexus Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 2 Feb/Mar ’05, Int’l; Mar/Apr ‘05 North America. ionamiller2009.iwarp.com/whats...8.html

Miller, Iona and Richard Alan Miller (2003) "Schumann's Resonances and Human Psychobiology," NEXUS Magazine, Vol. 10; No. 3 (April-May, 2003).

Miller, Iona (2003), “Fear and Loathing in the Temporal Lobes,” neurotheology.50megs.com/whats...9.html

Mithen, Steven (2004). After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA.

Persinger, M.A. (1985). Geophysical variables and behavior: XXX. Intense paranormal activities occur during days of quite, global geomagnetic activity. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 61, 320 - 322.

Persinger, M.A. (1989). Psi phenomena and temporal lobe activity: The geomagnetic factor. In L.A. Henkel & R. Berger (Eds.), Research in parapsychology 1988 (pp.121 - 156). Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.

Persinger, M.A., & Krippner, S. (1989). Dream ESP experiments and geomagnetic activity. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 83, 101 - 116.

Persinger, M.A. 1979. "Possible Infrequent Geophysical Sources of Close UFO Encounters: Expected Physical and Behavioral-Biological Effects." In R.F. Haines (Ed.), UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral Scientist. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, pp. 396-434.

Persinger, M.A. 1983. The Effects of Transient or Intense Geomagnetic or Related Global Perturbation Upon Human Group Behavior." In J.B. Calhoun (Ed.), Perspectives on Adaptation, Environment and Population. New York: Praeger, pp. 28-30.

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Persinger, M.A. Transient geophysical bases for ostensible UFO-related phenomena and associated verbal behavior? Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1976, 43, 215-221.

Persinger, M.A. Geophysical variables and behavior: III. Prediction of UFO reports by geomagnetic and seismic activity. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1981, 53, 115-122.

Persinger, M.A. Geophysical variables and behavior: IV. UFO reports and fortean phenomena: temporal correlations in the central U.S.A. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1981, 53, 299-302.

Persinger, M.A. Geophysical variables and behavior. VII. Prediction of recent European UFO report years by nineteenth century luminosity and solar-seismic variables. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1983, 56, 91-95.

Persinger, M.A. Geophysical variables and behavior. VIII: Specific prediction of UFO reports within the New Madrid states by solar-geomagnetic and seismic measures. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1983, 56, 243-249.

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Persinger, M.A. The tectonic strain theory of luminosities (UFO reports): determining optimal temporal, spatial and intensity parameters. Pursuit, 1983, 1, 21-35.

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Persinger, M.A. & Derr, J.S. Geophysical variables and behavior: XIX. Strong temporal relationships between inclusive seismic measures and UFO reports within Washington State. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1984, 59, 551-566.

Persinger, M.A. Geophysical variables and human behavior: XVIII. Expected perceptual characteristics and local distributions of close UFO reports. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1984, 58, 951-959.

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Persinger, M.A. Geophysical variables and behavior: XXII. The tectonogenic strain continuum of unusual events. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1985, 60, 59-65.

Persinger, M.A., & Derr, J.S. Geophysical variables and behavior: XXIII. Relations between UFO reports within the Uinta Basin and local seismicity. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1985, 60, 143-152.

Michaud, L.Y., & Persinger, M.A. Geophysical variables and behavior: XXV. Alterations in memory for a narrative following application of theta frequency electromagnetic fields. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1985, 60, 416-418.

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Geomagnetism Geoscience Australia maintains a national network of geomagnetic observatories, which are part of a global network. It aims to 'promote public safety through the provision of compass and magnetometer calibration information, and help mitigate the potential hazardous effects of magnetic storms on radio and satellite communications, radar, global positioning system (GPS), spacecraft, powerlines and pipelines'. Geoscience Australia's geomagnetism site provides geomagnetism data, information and reports. It includes Australian geomagnetic reference field values, minute values, geomagnetic indices, real time magnetograms from the Canberra observatory, and the Australian Geomagnetism Report (PDF format, Adobe Reader required).
www.ga.gov.au/geomag/index.jsp


USGS GEOMAG Realtime Readings - geomag.usgs.gov/realtime/
Because the Earth’s magnetic field is complicated in space and time, because it has such a variety of causes and affects, and because it is of both scientific interest and practical importance, the USGS Geomagnetism Program has, for over a century, monitored the field through a network of magnetic observatories and conducted scientific analysis on those data.

Geomagnetics and YOU

Earth's geomagnetic field makes the compass work and protects the biosphere from cosmic radiation. The field has existed at least three billion years, although it fluctuates in strength and at times reverses polarity. When the field strength drops too low, life on Earth is imperiled by radiation. Substantial changes in the field happen as quickly as within only a thousand years at times, although stable periods of hundreds of thousands of years also occur. Temperature patterns within the lower mantle influence both the stability and intensity of the field. Complete geomagnetic reversals on average occur every 200 thousand years-- but the last one was 780,000 years ago. Massive changes in or on the Earth, including extinction events, follow a 26.6 million to 30 million year cycle over the last 250 million years. The solar system crosses the relatively dense galactic plane every 30 million years.

For humans, fluctuating geomagnetic effects lead to increased liminality and anomalous experiences. Field effects include hallucination and temporal lobe microseizures. As Earth’s field continues to weaken in certain areas, we can expect more reports of dramatic psychophysical phenomena emerging at an increasing rate.



IS EARTH DRIVING US CRAZY? FLIPPING OUT OVER GEOMAGNETISM
Geomagnetic Field Effects,
Paranormal Potential & the Biophysics of Anomalous Experiences

By Iona Miller, March 2009

Earth Energy State: Electromagnetism connects the entire Solar System in a profound way. Earth's geomagnetic field intensity, a dipole-dominated field, is dropping slowly but steadily. Earth's field is losing energy. At some time in the distant future -- Geomagnetic Zero Point -- the deep Earth reactor will stop spinning, melting magma, creating the aura of Earth’s geomagnetic field, and turn cold. The atmosphere will be relentlessly stripped away by the force of the solar winds, until our planet becomes a gamma ray bombarded husk like Mars. But long before that happens, we can expect normal reversals in the polarity of our magnetic field.

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) is a new ultra-sensitive single atom counting method to determine the concentrations of the most relevant long-lived cosmogenic radionuclides. These isotopes are deposited chronologically in the archives of our earth, such as trees, polar ice, lake and deep sea sediments. By measuring their concentration profiles, which in most cases is possible with AMS only, information on past changes in solar activity, geomagnetic field and earth climate can be obtained over long time intervals.

Geopsychopathology: The geomagnetic field fluctuates continually. The geodynamic model has fractal properties. Even minor fluctuations in earth fields are related to psychophysical anomalies in human beings. Geomagnetism underlies and perturbs the human brain, cognitive/affective and sense perceptions. One study (Dimitrova and Stoylova) indicated that "most of the persons examined irrespective of their health status could be sensitive to the geomagnetic changes, which influence directly self-confidence and working ability." Another (Starbuck, et al, 2002) finds that motivation is influenced by geomagnetics. For some individuals and in certain locations on the globe, effects are even more pronounced and open the realm of paranormal experience. Locations with a negative effect are called geopathic stress zones because they interfere with normal immune function. They became places to avoid.

Sacred Places Attuned to Nature: The field arising from magnetic materials in the Earth's crust varies on all spatial scales and is often referred to as the anomaly field. A knowledge of the crustal magnetic field is often very valuable as a geophysical exploration tool for determining the local geology. In prehistory, our ancestors survived geomagnetic reversals, which may be the source of some creation myths. Indigenous people identified mythical locations of geomagnetic anomalies and amplified their highly-charged effects by building sacred sites for healing, dream incubation, vision quests, and as portals to deeper levels of the spirit world. Some of these vortex sites remain active. Modern research (Hild, 2006, "Places and States of Mind for Healing") confirms evidence of psychophysical effects opening a deeper awareness of the interplay of spirit and matter through weak electromagnetic interactions of Earth's telluric and cosmic fields.


Turbulence & Polarity Transitions

Climate Change: Unexpected escalation of climate change demonstrates that perturbations in natural cycles can lead to cascades of cataclysmic change related to complex dynamics. Our climate is degrading much faster than most of us thought. Likewise for the ocean-conveyor, methane traps, and other threats to human survival. One small change, such as mantle-held flux, can disrupt a system already in motion, ultimately leading to cataclysmic results. Very little is known about the behavior of the magnetic field during the transition from a superchron (long periods without reversal) to a mixed polarity state, though we can imagine intense auroras surrounding the globe. Supernova gamma ray events, galactic superwaves (Laviolette, 1986) and cometary showers have been linked with geomagnetic excursions. Complex cycles of climate migration and Earth crust instability share 1) the sun-earth relationship, embedded in the solar system, 2) solar heliopsphere and bow shock of geomagnetic field, 3) Earth's connection to our galactic center plasma fields.

Polarity Intervals: Long before pole reversal-- or more accurately, geomagnetic reversal -- we might plausibly expect an amplification of experiential effects. Recognized phenomena might escalate in ratio with fluctuations even prior to ‘tipping points.’ Ecological cataclysm looms [Lovelock (2009) The Vanishing Face of Gaia] and geomagnetic cataclysm is also a possibility. In Australia around 28,000 B.P., a wandering di-pole event signaled sudden 3x expansion of the magnetic field. Some postulate a geomagnetic excursion around 12,500 B.P. that sent tribal villagers in the Levant back to nomadic life. (Mithen, 2004)

Paleomagnetosphere: Anomalous inclinations in the South Pacific are also recorded in the geological record for 2,500 and 12,500 years ago. (Lund, et al) There is also evidence of high-energy particle bombardment at the same time, associated with extinction events. 12,000, 32,000, 43,000 and 70,000 yrs ago the reduced magnetic field rendered Earth especially vulnerable to cosmic rays. Whether geomagnetic excursions admit cosmic radiation or the gamma blasts cause the excursions is uncertain. There have been some indications that geomagnetic reversals may occur astonishingly fast-- such as within only a matter of months, according to one location of 16 million year old lava flows.

Magnetic Cataclysmic Variable: Geomagnetic reversal is chaotic in nature. Large oscillations of directions precede or follow reversals, showing waveforms with amplitude amplified by the decrease of the dipole. There is no apparent preferred location for the virtual geomagnetic poles (VGP). Asymmetry between pre- and post-reversal phases is a dominant characteristic, indicating the importance of field regeneration to initiate a new stable polarity interval. Virtual Dipole Moments show as reversed (R) polarity, intermediate-normal-reversed (I-N-R) change and subsequent normal (N) periods. There is no way we can predict it. Yet, it is a normal pursuit of science to identify and extrapolate future scenarios, including geomorphology. The goal is to anticipate and mitigate effects on humanity and the biosphere. We are challenged not by single alterations but a complex confluence of unstable systems. This is not to say, “The End is coming,” but to identify phenomena, which might arise along the way to major earth changes. It is permissible to ask, "What if..."

Chaotic Dynamics: Geomorphological systems containing bifurcations have both deterministic (universal and necessary) and probabilistic (historical happenstance) elements. They have more than one solution (configuration) and this fact calls into question notions of process domains leading to the development of characteristic forms. They possess varying degrees of susceptibility to change induced by fluctuations. They respond differently to local, regional, and global fluctuations. Geomagnetic Field (GMF) is one of these parameters. When meteor impact occurs there may be a time lag from initiating event to actual field reversal of many thousands of years. During part of the interim the field may measurably weaken down to a certain plateau. Then, after perhaps more thousands of years have passed at or near the plateau, a relatively sudden reversal may take place. There is evidence for extraordinarily rapid change of the geomagnetic field during a reversal.

Global Field Effects

HiPsiFi: The brain is affected by geomagnetic fields. Fluctuating geomagnetic effects can lead to increased liminality and anomalous experiences by perturbing the human mindbody. Liminality is a dissociative weakening of the threshold between our rational and irrational minds and is relevant to paranormal experience, both "life-potentiating" and "life depotentiating."

Field effects include "creative" and "toxic" hallucinations and temporal lobe microseizures [Krippner and Persinger]. Liminality is mediated by the temporal lobes and modulated by fields. These experiences may changes one's beliefs or worldview. Weird, strange, ambiguous or supernatural events are assigned a high reality value. This is not to say all strange events are reduced to field effects. Some things remain mysteries.

Transliminality is a consciousness variable. Regardless of their initiating source, transliminal excursions are like brief trips to the Land of Oz. Transliminality is related to ungated temporal lobe functioning which conditions mystical, religious and "high weirdness" events. Those with higher transliminality, an index of neurological interconnectedness, will experience more perceptual anomalies. (Thalbourne, 2002)

Tiny magnetic field fluctuations can have dramatic effects. Some fluctuations are sudden and unexpected. If the GMF should destabilize, scientists tell us magnetic fields of flux both entering and flowing from the Earth would become much more randomized. That is not to say it will happen in our lifetimes, but that it can happen and surely will at some point in the future.

As Earth’s local and global fields continue to weaken, can we expect more reports of strange psychophysical phenomena emerging at an increasing rate? Known effects of geomagnetic pulsation include synesthesia, anomalous cognition and [lucid] dreams, psi events, and paranormal phenomena as well as heart attack, depression and suicidal tendencies.

Can ambient magnetic fields lead to disregulation of the mindbody creating magnetic hallucinations? Is our sanity at risk as the Earth’s field fluctuates more and more? Is Earth driving us crazy?


South Atlantic Anomaly

Incredible as it seems, the magnetic field occasionally flips over. Reversals are random events. But marked field fluctuations such as the South Atlantic anomaly (magnetic field intensity 60% of predicted value) precede them. In the last 20 years, the planet's magnetic field intensity has decreased by 1.7%, and in South Atlantic by 10%. In the last two hundred years, Earth's magnetic field decreased 10% in intensity.

The South Atlantic Anomaly (SSA) is above South America, about 200 - 300 kilometers off the coast of Brazil, extending over much of South America and the nearby portion of the Van Allen Belt. It is a weak spot in the geomagnetic field, Earth’s protective bubble. The envelope here is 1/3 of normal. As the geomagnetic field continues to weaken, the inner Van Allen belt gets closer to the Earth, with a related enlargement of the SAA at given altitudes. (Hsu)

Sudden fluid motions within the Earth's core can alter the magnetic envelope around our planet. Researchers have just begun to detect such rapid magnetic field changes taking place over just a few months.

The magnetic field in the inner core is opposite the polarity of the outer core. This stabilizes the field against a tendency to reverse more frequently. The last major reversal in the field took place about 780,000 years ago. A flip in the north and south poles typically involves a weakening in the magnetic field, followed by a period of rapid recovery and reorganization of opposite polarity. Some studies in recent years have suggested the next reversal might be imminent, but the jury is still out. Weakening of Earth's overall magnetic field by 10 percent over the past 150 years might also point to an approaching field reversal.

Earth Is A Dynamo

Earth itself acts as a magnet. The Earth's magnetic field extends about 36,000 miles (58,000 km) into space, generated from the spinning effect of the electrically conductive core that acts something like a giant electromagnet. In earlier geologic history the field was 20 times stronger. Movement of the liquid and the solid parts of the Earth's core generate an electric potential, making the planet a sort of an electric generator. We have evolved in the presence of this magnetic field, the magnetosphere that also protects us from solar radiation.

But the evidence of deep time shows the geomagnetic field changes rapidly and frequently. Paleomagnetic records show that the dipole polarity of the geomagnetic field has reversed many times in the past. Geologic evidence from Steens Mountain, Oregon reveals a detailed record of magnetic reversal with shifts of up to 6 degrees per day. The mean time between reversals is roughly 200,000 years with individual reversal events taking only a couple thousand years.

Convection in the fluid outer core is continually trying to reverse the field. However, the solid inner core inhibits magnetic reversals because the field in the inner core can only change on the much longer time scale of diffusion. Only once in many attempts is a reversal successful. This is probably the reason the times between reversals of the Earth's field are long and randomly distributed.

Considerable literature exists on the biological effects of magnetic fields. Organisms respond to natural and artificial magnetic fields of various intensities, frequencies and directions. Geomagnetic fields are also influential in mass extinction events. Field deprivation and geomagnetic field variations can produce anomalous psychophysical effects. The geomagnetic field modulates biological and artificial magnetic fields.

Geophysics

The magnetosophere is a highly stable field constantly bombarded by energetically charged solar particles (solar wind). Normally, some days are magnetically stormy, while others are calm. Earth's magnetic field is currently changing dramatically as part of its normal cyclic behavior. Is the observed decrease of the dipole moment indicating a future polarity transition? What would be the effects of such a drastic change on system Earth? What positive or negative effects on our biosphere or even humans can be expected?

Affected by weather, the Moon and sunspots, regular daily and monthly fluctuations occur in the Geomagnetic Field (GMF). Fluctuations in the level of the GMF, a quasi-static magnetic field, and geomagnetic storms have been associated with a number of health effects and disorders in scientific literature for more than 50 years. Changes in the geomagnetic field have deviated from the predictions of the original International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) coefficients.

Pole Position

When will our compasses fail? Scientists from the Institute for Geomagnetism at the Russian Academy of Sciences say the Earth's magnet poles are gradually drifting towards the Equator, with the field intensity falling slowly, but steadily. The latter reaches zero point in about 2,000 years, which would be a disaster for living organisms. The rate of changes happening to the planet's liquid core, however, could mean that the polarity shift is going to happen much sooner. en.rian.ru/analysis/200...16577165.html

No one would have believed a hundred years ago that the South and the North could switch places. Nevertheless, in 1906, research revealed that in the past magnetization of some rocks was opposite to that of the present day.

In 2001, an international polar expedition revealed that in the recent seven years the North magnetic pole shifted around 300 km (186.4 miles). Currently, it is drifting 40 km (24.85 miles) a year from the Canadian Arctic shelf towards Russia's Severnaya Zemlya islands. Scientists predict the North Pole could eventually be found in the South Atlantic, site of an extensive anomaly area with the magnetic field intensity at around 60% of the predicted value.

What are the dangers of such massive fluctuations? Russian scientists include our anti-radiation protection falling, with space flights becoming impossible and energy-dependent systems, including mobile phones and satellites, failing. Solar and space radiation would affect the genome of the organisms inhabiting the Earth, causing some of them to become extinct, and others to have a much larger per cent of mutations. Taking into account the solar flares, accompanied by extremely powerful electrojet currents, life is likely to become impossible on Earth before the full magnetic field collapses.

Sounds terrible. But it isn't imminent, though possible. Recent reports say that in the last 90 million years, the magnetic poles changed around every 500,000 years, with no total extinction or mass genetic mutations of living organisms taking place. The atmosphere remains a reliable guarantor of the Earth's biosphere.

On the other hand, scientists haven't established so far if the changes happening to the geomagnetic field are reversible. Nobody has ever found out why the Earth's history has seen times when the magnetic poles remained unshifted as long as 50 million years.

Pole Reversal

We know about pole shift from an examination of the geological record -- the magnetic poles reverse without the axis of the Earth flipping in any way. We can read the evidence of many magnetic reversals in the relentless march of the seabed floor. Valkovic links massive faunal extinctions with polarity reversals in earth’s geomagnetic field. He assumed that the concentration factor for essential trace elements is dependent on the magnetic field.


When lavas are deposited on the Earth’s surface, and subsequently freeze, and when sediments are deposited on ocean and lake bottoms, and subsequently solidify, they often preserve a signature of the ambient magnetic field at the time of deposition. This type of magnetization is known as 'paleomagnetism'. Sediment samples from Chalco Lake, Mexico "shows low frequency components with characteristic periods of 10,500, 3200–3400, 2900–3000, 1400–1500 and 800–900 years. In phase oscillations of inclination and intensity records point to drifting non dipole field anomalies." (B. Ortega-Guerrero and J. Urrutia-Fucugauchi, 1997)

Careful measurements of oriented samples of faintly magnetized rocks taken from many geographical sites allow scientists to work out the geological history of the magnetic field. We can tell, for example, that the Earth has had a magnetic field for at least 3.5 billion years, and that the field has always exhibited a certain amount of time-dependence, part of which is normal variation. Part of the cycle is an occasional reversal of polarity; the magnetic field occasionally flips over! The same effect occurs spontaneously in 3D computer models of the Geomagnetic Field. A similar reversal happens to the Sun every 11 years.

The geomagnetic poles are currently roughly coincident with the geographic poles, because the rotation of the Earth is an important dynamical force in the core, where the main part of the field is generated. Occasionally, however, the variation becomes sufficiently large so the magnetic poles end up being located rather distantly from the geographic poles. The poles have undergone an ‘excursion’ from their preferred state.

We know from physics that the Earth’s dynamo is just as capable of generating a magnetic field with a polarity like that which we have today, as it is capable of generating a field with the opposite polarity. The dynamo has no preference for a particular polarity. Therefore, after an excursional period, the magnetic field, upon returning to its usual state of rough alignment with the Earth’s rotational axis, could just as easily have one polarity as another.

The consequences of polarity reversals for the compass are dramatic. Nowadays, the compass points roughly north, or, more precisely, the north end of the compass points roughly north at most geographical locations. However 780,000 years ago, the polarity was reversed, so a hypothetical compass pointed roughly south. Before that reversed state the polarity was like that which we have today, and the compass would have pointed roughly north, and so on. The timings of reversals forms the so-called 'geomagnetic polarity timescale'.

During a reversal the geometry of the magnetic field is much more complicated than it is now. A compass could point in almost any direction depending on one’s location on the Earth and the exact form of the mid-transitional magnetic field. There is no apparent periodicity to reversals. They are random events, happening as often as every 10 thousand years or so, and as infrequently as every 50 million years or more.