GENDER DIFFERENCES IN A MAGNETIC FIELD

Abstract

A Tibetan meditation system of 1882 suggested a way in which self awareness in student monks could be facilitated by using a bar magnet suspended NORTH UP over the crown of the head. This suggestion led to the design, in the present study, of a double-blind test of magnetostatic perception in meditators using a bar magnet oriented either NORTH UP, SOUTH UP, or ABSENT. Effects were evaluated with a questionnaire having five experiential categories, physical, emotional, mental, extrapersonal (parapsychologic), and trans personal.

Two weak magnetostatic fields with strengths of 14 gauss (1.4 milliTeslas) and 140 gauss (14 milliTeslas), measured at the crown of the head, were used. Analysis of experiential data collected in three experiments revealed significant and consistent differential patterns of gender-related responses. Experiential subcategories which showed gender by magnetic field interactions included:

Experiment I: (1) Physical Energized, 92) Physical Sensory Perturbations;

Experiment 2: (1) Physical Energized, (2) Emotional Enegized;

Experiment 3: Using a different protocol and analysis procedure, similar results were found.

Major contributors to the interaction were: (1) Physical Energized, (2) Physical Body

Perturbation, and (3) Physical Passive.

The consistency of gender-related differential response patterns in these three investigations raises a question of gender based differential responses to "electromagnetic environmental pollution."