Michael A. Persinger

Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis

Mystical and religious experiences are hypothesized to be evoked by transient, electrical microseizures within deep structures of the temporal lobe. Although experiential details are affected by context and reinforcement history, basic themes reflect the inclusion of different amygdaloid-hippocampal structures and adjacent cortices. Whereas the unusual electrical coherence allows access to infantile memories of parents, a source of god expectations, specific stimulation evokes out-of-body experiences, space-time distortions, intense meaningfulness, and dreamy scenes. The species-specific similarities in temporal lobe properties enhance the homogeneity of cross-cultural experiences. They exist along a continuum that ranges from “early morning highs” to recurrent bouts of conversion and dominating religiosity. Predisposing factors include any biochemical or genetic factors that produce temporal lobe lability. A variety of precipitating stimuli provoke these experiences, but personal (life) crises and death bed conditions are optimal. These temporal lobe microseizures can be learned as responses to existential trauma because stimulation is of powerful intrinsic reward regions and reduction of death anxiety occurs. The implications of these transients as potent modifiers of human behavior are considered.

Characteristics of limbic seizures evoked by peripheral injections of lithium and pilocarpine.

The characteristics and consequences of limbic seizures evoked by single peripheral injections of lithium (3 mEq/kg) and pilocarpine (30 mg/kg) were investigated over a three-year period. The seizures occurred when 3 mEq/kg of lithium was followed 4 to 28 hours later by 30 mg/kg of pilocarpine. The seizures did not occur if the intervals were shorter or longer or if the pilocarpine preceded the lithium. The acute mortality or persistent aphagia and adipsia could be compensated by postseizure injections of acepromazine and a special milk-bread diet. Gender, age and preinjection environmental effects, but not hybrid genetics, influenced the seizure onset latency. Fifty to 100 days after the seizures massive lesions were found in the entorhinal-pyriform cortices, amygdala and selected thalamic groups.

Complex partial epileptic signs as a continuum from normals to epileptics: Normative data and clinical populations

Over a 10-year period, a total of 447 men and 624 women between 18 and 61 years of age were administered an inventory whose items describe experiences that are similar to those evoked by electrical stimulation of the temporal lobes. Empirically determined factors contained experiences of sensory enhancement, affective-dissociation, ego alien intrusions, and literary emphasis. Using this population as a reference, T scores for these clusters were calculated for special normal populations (poets, drama students, false pregnancies) and for clinical groups (post-traumatic stress, anxiety-depersonalization, exotic dissociations, and complex partial epilepsy). Whereas only mild elevations (50 < T < 65) in indicators of temporal lobe signs and symptoms were noted in the special groups, moderate (65 < T < 75) and severe (T > 79) elevations were noted in the clinical populations.

Behaviors of rats with insidious, multifocal brain damage induced by seizures following single peripheral injections of lithium and pilocarpine

Several domains of behavior were measured in rats (n = 465) 10 days to 100 days after induction of limbic seizures by a single subcutaneous injection of lithium and pilocarpine. These rats displayed enhanced intragroup aggression but normal muricide; gustatory neophobia and conditioned taste aversion were virtually eliminated. Severe working and reference memory deficits were evident within the radial arm maze. Both state-dependent memory and possible situation-dependent precipitation of spontaneous seizures were suggested. The behavioral changes were considered commensurate with the multifocal pattern of thalamic, hippocampal/amygdaloid, and limbic cortical damage.

Geophysical Variables and Behavior: XXX. Intense Paranormal Experiences Occur during Days of Quiet, Global, Geomagnetic Activity

25 well-documented (and published by Stevenson in 1970) cases of intense paranormal (“telepathic”) experiences concerning death or illness to friends or family were analyzed according to the global geomagnetic activity (the aa index) at the times of their occurrence. The characteristics of these cases were representative of the general literature and occurred between the years 1878 and 1967. All 25 experiences were reported to have occurred on days when the geomagnetic activity was less than the means for those months. Repeated-measures analyses of variance for the daily aa indices for the 7 days before to the 7 days after the experiences confirmed the observation that they occurred on days that displayed much less geomagnetic activity than the days before or afterwards. These results are commensurate with the hypothesis that extremely low frequency fields, generated within the earth-ionospheric cavity but disrupted by geomagnetic disturbances, may influence some human behavior.

Thermal analgesic effects from weak, complex magnetic fields and pharmacological interactions.

In several experiments, robust analgesia (equivalent to about 4 mg/kg of morphine) in male rats to thermal stimuli following exposures to weak (1 microT) complex magnetic fields was explored. The analgesia occurred when patterns of magnetic fields with burst-firing-like configurations were presented for 30 min once every approximately 4 s. The analgesic effects were intensity dependent. A different frequency-modulated pattern produced analgesia more quickly. The analgesic effects following exposure to the burst-firing magnetic fields were augmented conspicuously by preinjections of morphine (4 mg/kg) or agmatine (10 mg/kg), but blocked by naloxone (1 mg/kg). The results of these experiments suggest that rational design of the temporal structure of weak magnetic fields may be a novel, inexpensive, and reliable technique for elevating thresholds to some classes of painful stimuli.

Electroencephalographic validation of a temporal lobe signs inventory in a normal population

Abstract In two separate experiments 61 18- to 35-year-old part-time university students were given the Personal Philosophy Inventory (PPI) that contained items that infer temporal lobe lability. Alpha activity seconds per minute during a 10-min recording (equal intervals of eyes opened or eyes closed) were obtained from the temporal and occipital lobes for each subject. Positive, intermediate strength correlations were obtained between the total numbers of different temporal lobe signs as measured by the questionnaire and both the average amount (eyes closed) of the variability in α activity from the temporal but not the occipital lobes. The results support the construct validity of the temporal lobe signs inventory and suggest that a continuum of temporal lobe lability (as inferred from both experimential and electroencephalographic criteria) exists within the normal population.

Increased photon emission from the head while imagining light in the dark is correlated with changes in electroencephalographic power: Support for Bókkon's biophoton hypothesis

Bókkons hypothesis that photons released from chemical processes within the brain produce biophysical pictures during visual imagery has been supported experimentally. In the present study measurements by a photomultiplier tube also demonstrated significant increases in ultraweak photon emissions (UPEs) or biophotons equivalent to about 5×10(-11)W/m(2) from the right sides of volunteers heads when they imagined light in a very dark environment compared to when they did not. Simultaneous variations in regional quantitative electroencephalographic spectral power (μV(2)/Hz) and total energy in the range of ∼10(-12)J from concurrent biophoton emissions were strongly correlated (r=0.95). The calculated energy was equivalent to that associated with action potentials from about 10(7) cerebral cortical neurons. We suggest these results support Bókkons hypothesis that specific visual imagery is strongly correlated with ultraweak photon emission coupled to brain activity.

Psychophysiological Effects of Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic Fields: A Review:

Extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic field-waves, defined in this paper as occupying the frequency band of .01 to 100 Hz, are associated with geomagnetic disturbances, weather perturbations, electrical appliance discharges, and possibly seismic movements. ELF electromagnetic phenomena have been recorded as sinusoidal-like wave forms or as ELF pulses of short duration from higher frequency (10 to 100 kHz) waves. Although natural ELF electrical component intensities range from less than 1 mV/m to slightly more than 1 V/m with magnetic components less than a μ gauss and calculated power densities of 10−8 watts/m3, these waves can propagate long distances without appreciable attenuation and penetrate housing structures. Theoretically, it has been calculated that energy available from ELF phenomena can contribute to neuroenergetic functioning and protein-lipid activity. Correlational and experimental data indicate that ELF fields can influence reaction time, timing behavior, ambulatory behavior, oxygen uptake, endocrine changes, cardiovascular functions, and precipitation-clotting times of colloids. Possible mechanisms of ELF-organismic interactions are discussed.

Biophoton emissions from cell cultures: biochemical evidence for the plasma membrane as the primary source.

Photon emissions were measured at ambient temperature (21°C) in complete darkness once per min from cultures of 10(6) cells during the 12 h following removal from 37°C. The energy of emission was about 10(-20) J/s/cell. Of 8 different cell lines, B16-BL6 (mouse melanoma cells) demonstrated the most conspicuous emission profile. Acridine orange and ethidium bromide indicated the membranes were intact with no indication of (trypan blue) cell necrosis. Treatments with EGF and ionomycin produced rapid early (first 3 h) increases in energy emission while glutamine-free, sodium azide and wortmanin-treated cells showed a general diminishment 3 to 9 h later. The results suggested the most probable origin of the photon emission was the plasma cell membrane. Measures from cells synchronized at the M- and S-phase supported this inference.