Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Issue Contents

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The Solar Wind And Hallucinations

"Data from the 19th century on hallucinations and magnetic disturbances were found to exhibit a direct and statistically significant correlation. The aa magnetic index over the period 1868-89 and concurrent visual hallucinatory activity were found to covary...Magnetic influences on the pineal hormone, melatonin, are suggested as a possible source of variation."

Annual variation of hallucination frequency versus geomagnetic activity

W. and S. Randall, the authors of the foregoing abstract, are in the Department of Psychology at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. An obvious question: Where could they have found reliable data on hallucinatory events between 1868 and 1889? Answer: Phantasms of the Living, by those old stalwarts of psychical research: E. Gurney, F. Myers, and E. Podmore, as reprinted by University Books in 1962.

"Within these pages, every visual hallucination with the month of occurrence was used in the correlational analysis (a total of 49)...All the visual hallucinations were of human or "humanoid" forms, typically recognized as a dead or dying friend or relative."

(Randall, Walter, and Randall, Steffani; "The Solar Wind and Hallucinations -- A Possible Relation Due to Magnetic Disturbances," Bioelectromagnetics, 12: 67, 1991. Cr. S. Jones)

Comment. Bioelectromagnetics is one of the thousands of journals we have not explored. Someone else should get busy! However, we must point out that the 49 visual hallucinations represent a very small sample severely limited to only those experiences that happened to have been submitted to the English Society for Psychical Research.

From Science Frontiers #95, SEP-OCT 1994. � 1994-2000 William R. Corliss

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