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Brusewitz-2013

Göran Brusewitz

Conscious Connections   

About parapsychology and holistic biology

VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Saarbrücken, (2013)


Pages 50 to 55 copied with kind permission of the author (5.12.2016)


"Göran Brusewitz, Master of Science in Psychology, has been President of the Swedish Society for Psychical Research for more than 20 years. He has followed the research in parapsychology, psychoenergetic systems and consciousness and arranged conferences with leading scientists. He is a member of the international Parapsychological Association."


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"Navigation among animals
Navigation among animals is one of the few phenomena in this book that is established, the capacity among animals, including birds to navigate (e. g. Presti & Pettigrew, 1980), a fact that even established journals like Nature (also e. g. Frankel, Blakemore & Wolfe, 1979 in Science) now accept and acknowledge, even though the researchers still discuss what mechanisms are involved.

One research group in Europe is in favour of the idea that smell is the mechanism birds use to navigate, while e.g. Rupert Sheldrake (1999) believes e. g. pigeons to be linked to their home by a direct connection through a morphic field which gives a kind of pull towards the home position (personal communication, 2010-06-24). Sheldrake has found that pigeons sometimes use the sun's position, sometimes a magnetic sense and that they sometimes may use smell. But none of these explains navigation, he has found. The connection through amorphic field also occurs in migratory birds, according to Sheldrake. The official position, he continues, is always to try and explain it in terms of magnetism because otherwise it would be a mystery. But a magnetic sense cannot possibly explain navigation, it can only explain a compass and possibly, if they can measure the dip of the earth's magnetic field, give information on latitude, but not longitude. He is also a biologist, a researcher typical for integrating biology and parapsychology.

Further support for the idea of birds having a magnetic sense comes from cases where birds are lost in their flight. Alerstam and Högstedt are two Swedish biologists, who believe that birds are born with a compass sense (Lundegard, 1983). Alerstam at the University of Lund now directs a group, and summarizing their research on their website (Alerstam, 2010). "For orientation, animals have access to a number of biological compasses, based on information from the sun and the related
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pattern of skylight polarization, stars and the geomagnetic field. Research within the framework of CAnMove focuses on the functional characteristics of different compasses as weIl as on their interrelationship and calibrations. To navigate, animals use a number of additional cues apart from their biological compasses. Cues and migration strategies that have been shown to be of importance for navigating animals are: geo-centered information, or maps based on geomagnetic field gradients and odours, and ego-centered information, such a keeping track of the animals own movements (path integration)".

A study by Walcott (2005) indicates the controversy on pigeons navigation to be because they seem to use multiple cues. Experienced pigeons use the sun as a preferred compass. "When it is not available, they rely on magnetic cues.

Researchers in Germany and New Zealand have in experiments with robins discovered (Snaprud, 2010) that they can sense the earth's magnetic field with their eyes and thereby navigate, as reported by the most established and respected scientific journal in Sweden. In the retina in their eyes, there is a special pigment that in very weak light can react on magnetic fields. Even when cutting off the nerve between the upper half of the bill and the brain the birds could navigate, as written in the report in Nature. The researcher Henrik Mouritsen, professor in neurosensoric at the University of Oldenburg in Germany believes the crystals of the mineral magnetite in the upper part of the bill can detect small local variations in the earth's magnetic field and is apart of a kind of "map-sense". A study by Beason (2005) demonstrated a "sensitivity to characteristics of the Geomagnetic field that can be used for navigation, both for direction finding (compass) and position finding (map).

The avian magnetic compass receptor appears to be a light-dependent, wavelength-sensitive system that functions as a polarity compass and is relatively insensitive to changes in magnetic field intensity. The receptor is within the retina and is based on one or more photopigments. A second receptor system appears to be based on magnetite and might serve to transduce Iocation information independent of the compass system."

As for other animals, it is now well-known that bacteria do have iron crystals functioning as magnets (Frankel, Blakemore & Wolfe, 1979; also in Scientijic American, March 1978). Sharks are also known to create electrical currents when swimming through the geomagnetic field. The field they create is varying in relationship to the geomagnetic field, enabling them to find the right direction (Ryan, Oceanus). Also salmons (Lundegärd, 1981) have been shown to use the magnetic field to navigate. Other animals with a magnetic sense are carrier pigeons (Leask, 1977; Walcott, Gould & Kirschvink, 1979; Walcott & Green, 1974).

So far, very few experiments have been performed to investigate whether man too is in possession of this capacity. The British zoologist Baker (1980,1981) made experiments, indicating that man is able to use some kind of magnetic sense to navigate and find the right direction. Some of his students were unable to navigate when they had a magnet on their heads which at random could be tumed off and on and thus change the magnetic field around their heads. Of course, these experiments have to be replicated, so they are still preliminary.

This magnetic sense for animals is unconscious. Animals can concentrate on what is most important - to very fast detect dangers. They can consciously, with their eyes, control where they are and between these visual controls, keep a rough sense of direction with the help of the magnetic sense. This sense can be compared to another sense we have, a more accepted one, the sense of time.

Dowsing
Another phenomenon that might be based on electricity is dowsing. Regarding this phenomenon, most established researchers are quite convinced that it can be completely explained by suggestion. On the other hand, even more people, many of them having experiences of their own, are quite
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convinced that you can find water, but also other kinds of matter, like oil or iron-based materials, using an L-rod or V-rod. As long as no basic research has been done to investigate this topic, the confusion will stay. !t's justified to ask if all persons with their own experience of finding water or minerals are all mistaken. Some references are often mentioned in the literature to support the hypothesis that (some) humans are sensitive to small variations in the magnetic field (Harvalik, 1978; Rocard, 1964a, 1964b, 1981; Chadwick and Jensen, 1971), but also in the former Soviet Union, where there have been a big interest, with many big international conferences (e g Williamson, 1979). Sceptics however argue that many or all of these studies have shortcomings. In the case of research said to have occurred in the former Soviet Union, it must be pointed out that western science mostly is not very weIl informed of it and that it finds this research to be very strange. Another kind of difference can be noted in the attitude to these phenomena between Germany/France and Sweden, leaving it rather open whether to take these phenomena seriously. Besides, the research that will follow is still to be checked for, the German research by Professor Balck and the Swedish about a psi -track.

Leif Engh is a Swedish scientist quoting research on dowsing in his PhD-thesis. This was followed in 1982 by a separate investigation in the Lummelunda caves on the island of Gotland. He came to the conclusion it was possible to find water with the divining rod, both deep and close to the surface. They also checked if the L-rod responses were due to disturbances in the geomagnetic field, but they could not confrrm any such disturbances. Engh was open to other explanations to the responses than autosuggestion and sensitivity to small variations in the geomagnetic field. He mentions the possibility that the human body might have receptors sensitive to magnetism. But, he concludes, for the majority of dowsing responses, other explanations are needed. One is physical, the other has a connection to parapsychology. According to the physical theory, man is sensitive to changes in the surrounding magnetic field, even smaller than so far has been detected. He argues that it might be possible that certain organs or areas of the body are influenced by very small changes in the eternal magnetic field than hitherto known (Dillschneider, 1978).

Dowsing along the psi-track
One application of dowsing is the so-called psi-track, a capacity an artist in Sweden, Göte Andersson found in the beginning of 1990. He claimed he was able to visualise an object at some distance, an object that then would be found by a dowser finding the track to the object.

He published a book in Swedish about his experiments (Andersson, 1994), and two established scientists, Jens Tellefsen, Ph D, physicist and Nils-Olof Jacobson, MD, psychiatrist, did separate experiments (Jacobson & Tellefsen, 1994). Andersson continued to do experiments, especially after getting in touch with a boy, who claimed he could see the aura, an energetic field around the human body, a claim Andersson by experiments could verify. In his latest publication, Andersson (2009) summarizes the experiments from his first book, and describes new experiments. He also answers and refutes the critical comments he has received (Jerkert, 2003), most of them being unfair, and a few words are worth mentioning about this criticism. The main argument in the criticism from the sceptical Jesper Jerkert, former President in the Swedish sceptical group, is his opinion that the objects to be found with this technique were not hidden with any random rnethod. This argument shows how he is not being careful in reading the report, Anderssan comments, since he has descriptions of many experiments where more random conditions were used, e. g. a mechanical machine to throw things, used for training clay-pigeon. This device threw out a disc, ca 10 cm in diameter. The throwing out could be varied in various angles, not always straight on, otherwise this criticism would be justified. The little disc was in a green colour, in order to go well with the surroundings. A little object that the "sender" was to "send to", was attached with tape on this disc
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and was thrown on a meadow with grass, with the area 100 x 100 meter. Tellefsen who operated this device closed his eyes when the object was thrown, so no-one knew where the object landed.

Another criticism is the difficulty in not being able to evaluate the experiments with statistics, and not having used a forced-choice-type of study. Jacobson answers and refutes this criticism, but Jerkert does not accept his comments, primarily because he does not accept the overall explanation, the study was a preliminary one. The review by Jerkert shows all weaknesses and uncertainties a work of this kind necessarily must have, Jacobson replies. The purpose however was not to finally get the evidence for the existence of the psi-track. Instead, Jacobson continues, they show the discovery of an up to then not documented phenomenon, and a first attempt to study it under gradually more controlled conditions. The field research (literally!) was carried out during five weekends during two years. This makes it obvious that the conditions were changed during the process, aspects that Jerkert is far away from accepting. He does not comment on it at all. Of course, Tellefsen and Jacobson had the intention to make a final, definitive experiment under strictly, standardized conditions as in a laboratory, but this was not possible, due to time, finances etc. Instead of doing nothing, they did what was possible. Two points of criticism are clearly not justified (the method hiding the object being not random and the objects not being quite invisible after being bidden); some other points can have same adequacy. Jerkert regards it possible to totally dismiss this phenomenon, but since he mixes adequate criticism with unjustified and pays no attention at all to the basic circumstance of the experiments being the first attempts, with conditions that can be changed, his position can be dismissed. He is not at all the person to in all way criticize these experiments. Many comments of his are quite valuable, as does Jacobson agree on, but his dismissing ofthe study can be dismissed.

Andersson comments the energetic phenomena he has done experiments on, that probably seem very strange to established science. Nevertheless, these phenomena are of a type that can be investigated with scientific methods, single-blinded, but also to a great extent with double-blind methods. A great step in his research was meeting the boy he calls Pontus. Under the headline "The anatomy of the invisible", he describes his experiments with the boy, who at that time was 16 years old. He claimed to have quite extraordinary visual perceptions, which enabled him to observe the aura, the psi-track that other persons created, strange thought forms, and energy systems in and around the physical body unknown to science."

It all started with Göte getting the idea to "concentrate my thoughts on expanding his aura, to find out if the diving rod responded at a distance from my body. My father tested agin, but the aura did not seem to be expanded. I got the strange idea to see what happened if I concentrated my thoughts at a distance, at a chair 4 meters away. Could my father get a response with his rod on the chair? Arthur regarded his idea to be rather crazy, but still tried it over the empty seat on the chair. To our big surprise there was a strong response. He tried again, to make sure that this was not only coincidence. This time the response was even stronger." In the research project carried out in the beginning of 1990s by Jacobson and Tellefsen (1994), 40 double-blind experiments were carried out, out of which Andersson regarded at least 30 "to be really successful".

At first, the experiments dealt with sending (thoughts) to targets in the immediate surroundings. These tests were accompanied by tests to investigate if it was possible to direct the psi track to target places rnany miles away. Andersson believes the function of the psi track in nature and in our lives is an energetic phenomenon that provides the basis for telepathy, clairvoyance and other paranormal phenomena:"The psi track is, according to me, the energetic source of these phenomena."
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Andersson then meets the boy Pontus, who claims he is able to see "the aura". Assisted by Pontus Andersson is able to investigate the possible relation between "the aura" and the psi track. Pontus turned out to be sensitive to magnets and in a test he was able, 50 times out of 50, to determine what magnetic pole was faced to him and in situations when Pontus was turning his back to Andersson. Other investigations. concerned some kind of field or energy around human beings, that was directly connected to what is called "the aura" or what Andersson calls "biologically magnetic field" (or "energy field" or "energy system"), that were established in each of both parts of the body.

He went on to do double blind tests with the magnet, in order to avoid Pontus getting subliminal, unconscious body signals from Andersson, which points to the fact that Andersson is very careful with how to perform the tests, and that he is paying attention to important scientific methodology. Pontus' ability to observe specific visual phenomena around the human body was tested with positive results in further tests with participation of Erik Karlsson, retired physics professor of Uppsala University, who lives in the same area during summer-time.

Double-blind experiments with a magnet close to the observed person's body strongly indicated that the boy - with some concentration - could distinguish effects of the magnetic field direction. However, that particular experiment does not prove the existence of Andersson's "psi-track", but only Pontus' exceptional visual ability.

Andersson continues to do research on the structure of the psi track, various colours and spirals, even tests at a distance. In many instances he was also able to help finding people who were lost all by using the psi -track.

German research on dowsing, locating objects, and special zones
Recently, a German physicist, Professor Balck, reported research on the psi-track, a research that also opens up for another area called radiesthesi. For a long time he has been doing the basic field research, the first stage to be done when exploring a new phenomenon, following a quite reasonable and acceptable methodology. Now, 2010, after three years, the research can be described as "ordinary" (personal communication, 2010-05-01). "With many experiments you are allowed to talk about a sensory system that has been known to mankind for many hundreds of years. But not only humans posses this ability, animals do use it too." (personal communication, 2010-05-01). He also did important experiments with interaction of flowing water (Balck, 2010b), modulated magnetic fields within the range of brainwave frequencies and sensory perception in the brain. In many tests he started from an unknown place and found the direction to a known place (Balck, 2010c). He also made experiments in (FB: to) Washington and Gran Canaria (Balck, 2010d resp 2010e).

Vincent Reddish is also mentioned by Balck to have performed fundamental research about dowsing (Raloff, 1995), former at the Astronomy Department at Edinburgh University, and in the May Physics World from the United Kingdom Institute of Physics reported that he could get dowing rods to rotate whenever they pass over or under a linear stretch of pipe, cable, or telephone line. In Physics World, he concludes (Raloff, 1995) that his results "may be explained by supposing that linear structures interact with a radiation field to produce standing waves and that these induce a charge on the ground which is conducted through the body" in such a way as to ultimately affect the rods". Annadeo Sanna, the director of the Society for the Scientific Investigation of Parasciences, SSIP in Rossdorf, Germany however claims that a simpler explanation is enough the "ideomotor reaction" that can accompany wishful thinking. It is unclear from this source if controlled experiments caring for wishful thinking have been done. The problem seems to wait for such experiments. Jeffrey Keen is also mentioned by Balck to be a scientist with a lot of good physical expenments (Keen, 2010). Both Keen and Reddish use, according to Balck, their sensory ability to measure position and lengths.
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On his web-site (Balck, 2010a) he describes the experiments he has done, inspired by the report of Jacobson and Tellefsen. Most of the experiments were done in order to collect observations and experiences. Some experiments could confirm and test previous findings, while others couldn't. "First of all, however, there were two types of experiments of seemingly different topics, but now there is the belief that they belong together as they seem to have a common ground. These are: resonance phenomena and psi-track. " He continues, "After the investigations of N.O. Jacobson and J.A. Tellefsen it should be possible to produce traces by mental means, which can be sought and pursued by dowsers. The trace pursuer and the trace maker may or may not be one and the same person. In different tests, the researchers found that it is possible to regain hidden objects, if a "sender" lays out a trace from a "sending position", by thinking intensively about the object from that position. After sufficient "thinking time" of some minutes a trace should have been established between the "sending position" and the position of the object, which can be pursued by sensitive persons (dowsers) in the usual way. Even if the "sender" has left his location, the trace will remain for some time." Prof. Balck thinks there exists a relationsbip between the psi track and the capacity homing pigeons, migratory birds, salmon and other animals have, by which they find their target.

As a general comment to this rather new research of Professor Balck, is it of course a shortcoming not to have any studies published in a peer-reviewed journal, to have the research examined and reviewed by others. Questions to Professor Balck and Jeffrey Keen about studies that eliminate the possibility of the "ideomotor response" to explain the response from the dowsing rod are commented by Balck (personal communication, 2010-05-21), saying that "the discussion should not be about the moving of a rod, but, what are the sensors in our body and how are they connected to our unconscious mind?", and from Keen (personal communication, 2010-05-20) "More than 10 years ago I, like many advanced researchers in the UK, stopped worrying about how rods work. We have demonstrated that the mind interfaces with the structure of the universe/information field. My approach is to use dowsing to discover the structure of space-time - by discovering universal constants. I now only use rods for very crude dowsing, most of my research uses device-less dowsing to an accuracy of better than ±2mm. For example, some of my recent published papers http://vixra.orglauthor/Jeffrey_S_Keen have shown why there are variations in dowsing measurements, and in so doing I have discovered many interesting effects relating to fundamental physics".

In this German tradition, the concept "earth radiation" is far more established than in Sweden. Dowsers claim that there exist small passages or net, that are harmful for the health, for animals and for humans. Earth radiation is regarded as pseudoscience in Sweden, but it is established in many areas on the European continent. Research about these passages was performed in the 1980s by Hans-Dieter Betz and Herbert König (1989; Betz, 1995). They investigated and found that dowsers do react to these passages, and that these passages are connected to special locations. The dowsers are talking about two kinds of zones, Curry and Hartmann zones. Most dowsers are quite convinced that these zones do exist, but almost no research has been investigating the question.


References:

Alerstam, T. (2010). www.canmove.ekol.lu.se/o.o.i.sl/9307.2010-04-27.

Andersson, G. (1994). Psi-Sporet. En studie av ett grundläggande psi-fenomen (The psi-track. A study of a basic psi
         phenonenon), Nyköping: Nyköpings Tvärvetenskapliga Bokförening.

Andersson, G. (2009) Psi-sparet II och Okända energisystem i och runt levande varelser. En studie av psi-fenomen
         (The psi-track II and Unknown energy systems in and around living beings. A studyof psi phenomena)
          Författares Bokmaskin (Authors book-machine).

Baker, R. (1980). Goal orientation by blind folded humans after a long-distance displacement: possible involvement of a
           magnetic sense, Science, 210, p. 555; New Scientist, 18-09-1980.

Baker, R. (1981). Human navigation and the Sixth Sense, Hodder & Stoughton, London.

Balck, F. (2010a). (2010-05-19), http://www.biosensor-physik.de/biosensor/psi-track-000.htm

Balck, F. (2010b). (2010-05-19), http://www.biosensor-physik.de/biosensor/kuehlwasser.htm

Balck, F. (2010c). (2010-05-19), http://www.biosensor-physik.de/biosensor/psi-track-021.htm

Balck, F. (2010d). (2010-05-19), http://www.biosensor-physik.de/biosensor/psi-track-011.htm

Balck, F. (2010e). (2010-05-19), http://www.biosensor-physik.de/biosensor/psi-track-017.htm

Beason, R. C. (2005). Mechanisms of Magnetic Orientation in Birds, lntegrative and Comparative Biology 45(3), 565- 573

Betz, H-D. (1995). Unconventional Water detection: Field Test of the Dowsing technique in dry zones: Part I,
        Journal of Scientific Exploration, nr. 1, 1995.

Betz, H-D and König, H. (1989). Erdstrahlen? Der Wünschelruten Report "Wissenschaftlicher Untersuchungsbericht.

Chadwick and Jensen (1971). The Detection of Magnetie Fields Caused by Groundwater and the Correlation of Such
       Fields with Water Dowsing. Progress Report 78:1. Utah Water Research Laboratory. Logan: Utah State University.

Dillschneider, N. (1978). Einflüsse elektromagnetischer Grössen auf der Menschen, Funkschau, 50:8, p. 334.

Frankel Blakemore & Wolfe, (1979). Magnetite in freshwater magnetotactic bacteria, Science, 203, p. 1355-1356.

Harvalik, Z. V (1978). Anatomic allocalization of human detection of weak electromagnetic radiation: Experiments with dowsers.     
       Physiological Chemistry and Physics 10, 525-534.

Jacobson, N-O & Tellefsen, 1. (1994). Dowsing along the psi track: a novel procedure for studying unusual perception.
       Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 1994.

Jerkert, J. (2003). Psi-späret - en kritik (The psi-track - a criticism), Folkveft, 2, also (in Swedish) 
      www.vof.se/folkvett/20032psi-sparet---en-kritik.

Jerkert, J. (2008). En parapsykolog ser tillbaka (A parapsychologist looking back), Folkvett, 3.

Jerkert, J. (2010). Vad vet vi idag om elöverkänslighet? (What do we today know about hypersensitivity?), Folkvett, 2,

Keen, J. (2010). (2010-05-19). http://vixra.orgiauthor/Jeffrey_S_Keen.

Leask, M.J.M. (1977). A physicochemical mechanism for magnetic field detection by migratory birds and homing pigeons,
          Nature, 267, p. 144-145.

Lundegärd, 1. (1981). (in English): Experiments in Klarälven: Built-in compass helps the salmon coming home,
          Svenska Dagbladet, April 22, 1981.

Presti, D. & Pettigrew, J.O. (1980). Ferromagnetic coupling to muscle as a basis of geomagnetic sense direction in animals,
          Nature, 285, 99 - 101.

Rocard, Y. (1964a). Le signal du sourcier. Paris: Dunod.

Rocard, Y. (1964b). Actions of a very weak magnetic gradient: The reflex of the dowser. I: Barnothy, M. F. (red.),
             Biologieal Effects of Magnetie Fields. Vol. L New York: Plenum, 279-286.

Rocard, Y. (1981). Le signal du sourcier. La Recherche Juillet/Août, 792-799.

Sheldrake, R. (1999). Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals.

Snaprud, P. (2010). Flytttaglar "ser" magnetfält. (Navigating birds "see" magnetic fields).
             Forskniing och Framsteg, Nr 1, Jan-Febr 2010.

Walcott, C. (2005). Multi-modal Orientation Cues in Homing Pigeons, Integrative and Comparative Biology, 45(3):574-581.

Walcott, Gould and Kirschvink (1979). Pigeons have magnets, Science, 205, p. 1027-1029.

Walcott and Green (1974). Orientation of homing pigeons altered by a change in the direction of an applied magnetic field,
             Science, 184, p. 180-182.

Williamson, T. (1979). Dowsing achieves new credence, NewScientist, p. 371, 1979-02-08. "






Literatur:  b-literatur.htm

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