BEYOND BELIEF: EXPLORING INTERACTIONS AMONG MIND, BODY & ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Thirteen experiments conducted by four participants over five months explored interactions among mind, body, and aspects of the local, global, and cosmic environment. Specifically, the effects of mental intention on the level of background ionizing radiation was studied, along with physiological correlates of success at the mental task and possible effects of the local magnetic field, planetary geomagnetic field, and sunspot number. The basic experiment continuously measured background radiation at a fixed site using a computer-monitored Geiger counter. At random intervals, a tone sounded. This tone was a signal for a person to mentally intend the count rate returned by the Geiger counter rate to be as low as possible. The mean of the mentally "treated" samples was compared against the mean of control (non-treated) samples to see if differed in accordance with the instructions.
Outcomes of seven experiments were in the predicted direction; three were significant at p < .05. Time series analyses of experiments supporting the mental influence hypothesis revealed that the background radiation level dropped in accordance with task instructions only during the treatment periods. Adjacent control periods showed no similar drops. Background radiation levels unexpectedly rose significantly above the background rate twenty seconds after the treatment period. An experiment investigating physiological and local magnetic field correlates suggested that blood volume pulse, heart rate, and the local magnetic field responded differentially in successful vs. unsuccessful trials. Analysis of geophysical and geocosmic factors on the days of the experiments indicated that the absolute level of background radiation was significantly related to success in the experiment, as were days with low sunspot numbers. The overall mean effect size for the mental intention task was less than one standard error from a null effect (es -.0106 ± .0108), but mean effect size adjusted on the basis of the sunspot number on the day of each experiment was more than two standard errors from zero (es -.0226 ± .0108).
Overall, the results suggest that future studies investigating subtle mind-body interactions should monitor physiological as well as local, global and even cosmic environmental factors that are often overlooked or ignored as inconsequential.
KEYWORDS: Intention, radiation, psychophysiology, magnetic field, geomagnetism, sunspot number.