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MAGNETIC INTERACTIONS
An energetic communicator is a person who has the ability to connect his electromagnetic field to the electromagnetic field of a living being in order to read it.
By reading, we mean understanding the pattern of the field and identify the main emotional events and trauma that created this pattern and the approximative period during which this pattern was launched.
This ability helps to understand the root cause of psychological struggling and emotional challenges. It can also assist to make diagnosis and find the root cause of a condition.
ENERGETIC COMMUNICATION
An Overview of Research Conducted by the HeartMath Institute
The first biomagnetic signal was demonstrated in 1863 by Gerhard Baule and Richard McFee in a magnetocardiogram (MCG) that used magnetic induction coils to detect fields generated by the human heart. A remarkable increase in the sensitivity of biomagnetic measurements has since been achieved with the introduction of the superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) in the early 1970s. The ECG and MCG signals have since been shown to closely parallel one another.
In this section, we discuss how the magnetic fields produced by the heart are involved in energetic communication, which we also refer to as cardioelectromagnetic communication. The heart is the most powerful source of electromagnetic energy in the human body, producing the largest rhythmic electromagnetic field of any of the body’s organs. The heart’s electrical field is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain. This field, measured in the form of an electrocardiogram (ECG), can be detected anywhere on the surface of the body. Furthermore, the magnetic field produced by the heart is more than 100 times greater in strength than the field generated by the brain and can be detected, in all directions, using SQUID-based magnetometers.
The heart’s magnetic field, which is the strongest rhythmic field produced by the human body, not only envelops every cell of the body, but also extends out in all directions into the space around us. The heart’s magnetic field can be measured several feet away from the body by sensitive magnetometers. Research conducted at HMI suggests the heart’s field is an important carrier of information.
BIOLOGICAL ENCODING INFORMATION
Every cell in our bodies is bathed in an external and internal environment of fluctuating invisible magnetic forces. It has become increasingly apparent that fluctuations in magnetic fields can affect virtually every circuit in biological systems to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the particular biological system and the properties of the magnetic fluctuations. One of the primary ways that signals and messages are encoded and transmitted in physiological systems is in the language of patterns. In the nervous system it is well established that information is encoded in the time intervals between action potentials, or patterns of electrical activity. This also applies to humoral communications in which biologically relevant information also is encoded in the time interval between hormonal pulses. As the heart secretes a number of different hormones with each contraction, there is a hormonal pulse pattern that correlates with heart rhythms. In addition to the encoding of information in the space between nerve impulses and in the intervals between hormonal pulses, it is likely that information also is encoded in the interbeat intervals of the pressure and electromagnetic waves produced by the heart. This supports Pribram’s proposal discussed earlier that low-frequency oscillations generated by the heart and body in the form of afferent neural, hormonal and electrical patterns are the carriers of emotional information and the higher frequency oscillations found in the EEG reflect the conscious perception and labeling of feelings and emotions. We have proposed that these same rhythmic patterns also can transmit emotional information via the electromagnetic field into the environment, which can be detected by others and processed in the same manner as internally generated signals.
HEARBEAT-EVOKED POTENTIALS
A useful technique for detecting synchronized activity between systems in biological systems and investigating a number of bioelectromagnetic phenomena is signal averaging. This is accomplished by superimposing any number of equal-length epochs, each of which contains a repeating periodic signal. This emphasizes and distinguishes any signal that is time-locked to the periodic signal while eliminating variations that are not time-locked to the periodic signal. This procedure is commonly used to detect and record cerebral cortical responses to sensory stimulation. When signal averaging is used to detect activity in the EEG that is time-locked to the ECG, the resultant waveform is called the heartbeat-evoked potential.
The heart generates a pressure wave that travels rapidly throughout the arteries, much faster than the actual flow of blood that we feel as our pulse. These pressure waves force the blood cells through the capillaries to provide oxygen and nutrients to cells and expand the arteries, causing them to generate a relatively large electrical voltage. These pressure waves also apply pressure to the cells in a rhythmic fashion that can cause some of their proteins to generate an electrical current in response to this "squeeze." Experiments conducted in laboratory have shown that a change in the brain’s electrical activity can be seen when the blood-pressure wave reaches the brain around 240 milliseconds after systole.
There is a replicable and complex distribution of heartbeat-evoked potentials across the scalp. Changes in these evoked potentials associated with the heart’s afferent neurological input to the brain are detectable between 50 to 550 milliseconds after the heartbeat. Gary Schwartz and his colleagues at the University of Arizona believe the earlier components in this complex distribution cannot be explained by simple physiological mechanisms alone and suggest that an energetic interaction between the heart and brain also occurs. They have confirmed our findings that heart-focused attention is associated with increased heart-brain synchrony, providing further support for energetic heart-brain communications. Schwartz and his colleagues also demonstrated that when subjects focused their attention on the perception of their heartbeat, the synchrony in the preventricular region of the heartbeat-evoked potential increased. They concluded that this synchrony may reflect an energetic mechanism of heart-brain communication, while post-ventricular synchrony most likely reflects direct physiological mechanisms.
BIOMAGNETIC COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PEOPLE
We have found there is a direct relationship between the heart-rhythm patterns and the spectral information encoded in the frequency spectra of the magnetic field radiated by the heart. Thus, information about a person’s emotional state is encoded in the heart’s magnetic field and is communicated throughout the body and into the external environment.
Figure 6.3 shows two different power spectra derived from an average of 12 individual 10-second epochs of ECG data recorded during differing psychophysiological modes. The plot on the left was produced while the subject was in a state of deep appreciation, whereas the plot on the right was generated while the subject experienced recalled feelings of anger. The difference in the patterns and thus the information they contain, can be seen clearly. There is a direct correlation between the patterns in the heart rate variability rhythm and the frequency patterns in the spectrum of the ECG or MCG. Experiments such as these indicate that psychophysiological information can be encoded into the electromagnetic fields produced by the heart.
BIOMAGNETIC COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PEOPLE AND ANIMALS
Farmers and attentive observers know that most cattle and sheep, when grazing, face the same way. It has been demonstrated by means of satellite images, field observations and measurements of deer beds in snow that domestic cattle across the globe and grazing and resting red and roe deer align their body axes in roughly a north-south direction and orient their heads northward when grazing or resting. Wind and light conditions were excluded as common determining factors, so magnetic alignment with the earth’s geomagnetic field was determined to be the best explanation. Magnetic north was a better predictor than geographic north, suggesting large mammals have magnetoreception capability.
We also have found that a type of heart-rhythm synchronization can occur in interactions between people and their pets. Figure 6.11 shows the results of an experiment looking at the heart rhythms of the subject named Josh (age 12 at the time of the recording) and his dog, Mabel. Here we used two Holter recorders, one fitted on Mabel and the other on Josh. We synchronized the recorders and placed Mabel in one of our labs.
Josh entered the room and sat down and proceeded to do a Heart Lock-In and consciously radiate feelings of love toward Mabel. There was no physical contact and he did not make any attempts to get the dog’s attention. In Figure 6.11, note the synchronous shift to increased coherence in the heart rhythms of both Josh and Mabel as Josh consciously feels love for his pet.
Another example of an animal’s heart-rhythm pattern shifting in response to a human’s shift of emotional states is shown in Figure 6.12. This was a collaborative study with Ellen Gehrke, Ph.D. who consciously shifted into a coherent state while sitting in a corral with her horse, neither touching nor petting it. When she shifted into a coherent state, the horse’s heart rhythm pattern also shifted to a more ordered pattern.
In other trials, very similar shifts in horses’ HRV patterns were seen in three out of four horses’ heart rhythms. One of the horses that did not show any response was well known for not relating well to humans or other horses.
