Click here to support the Daily Grail for as little as $US1 per month on Patreon

Electromagnetic Effects of Death

By Gregon

Stumbled across this fascinating dissertation by Farnoosh (‘Faith’) Nouri, titled “Electromagnetic aftereffects of near-death experiences“:

The purpose of this quantitative study was first to investigate the comparative incidence of electromagnetic aftereffects (EMEs) during the past year among near-death experiencers (NDErs), people who experienced a close brush with death without an NDE (CBrs), and people who reported never having experienced a close brush with death (LCErs). The second purpose was to investigate a possible change in EME incidence among the three groups before and after a critical life event. The third purpose was to investigate the relationship between the reported overall depth and specific components of the subjective experiences of people who have had a close brush with death–NDErs and CBrs–and their reported incidence of EMEs.

…Findings from this study show that NDErs have a strong possibility of experiencing electromagnetic interferences when close to electromagnetic devices such as cell phones, computers, lights, and watches after their NDEs. This phenomenon can be a stressor in the lives of NDErs and their families and friends.

You can download the full dissertation as a PDF from here. Note that Nouri’s advisor on the dissertation was respected NDE researcher Janice Holden, past-President of the International Association of Near-Death Studies (IANDS), who I’d imagine would have provided some good insights and criticism on this particular topic.

Real effect, or just a crazy self-confirming idea that NDErs take to after their experience?

Greg
Editor
Greg is the owner-editor of The Daily Grail, as well as the author of a number of books including Stop Worrying, There Probably is an Afterlife.
Related

4 Comments

  1. Ive just had a flick through
    Ive just had a flick through and think he is underestimating the complexity of the subject (from the skeptical point of view).

    His NDE group has only 12 people in it with events more recent than 20 years ago, yet he is making conclusions about mobile phones and computers. He relies on perfect memory recall, or that the recall is averaging the same across this control and comparison groups, but is this fair? The point of a control group is that it very reasonably corresponds to the group you are testing. His numbers are so small that effects are going to be exaggerated when he tries to normalise his control against his test group (there are some big differences in his control such as 68% of NDE’s being before the technology he is testing compared to 39% of controls).

    Technology changes. He has not asked in his questionnaire what technology people are using. With such small numbers the difference between 5 tape loading Spectrum’s and 5 BBC Micro’s in your control group or NDE group could skew peoples perception. Did his control group skip Windows Millenium and the NDE’s not? He never asked. Experience of technology is not easily normalised across small groups of people, as we all know. How is he dealing with changes from 12 month contracts to 18 or 24 month contracts for mobile phones if he never found out when people got their mobile phone. What would happen to your data if your control group looked after their phone like normal, but 50% of your NDE group had their mobile phone in their pocket or handbag when they had a serious (car?) accident? Again, he seems not to have even asked for the history of these electronic devices, just assuming that they are the same across his groups, but the groups differ so is it possible that the electronic devices history differs? If you are under stress are you more likely to hit the desk next to your laptop in a moment of frustration or slam the lid more firmly. DO you put the bag down harder, or walk more briskly knocking it into more? Who knows? But is it safe to assume the device history is the same? The education looks generally similar for all groups, but I don’t see the degree types listed. If the control group has a few more people with degree’s in computer science might that affect the frequency of computer problems? He never asked what peoples education was in – he should have normalised it; your qualifications do change the way you interact with the world and an ability to repair computers definitely changes the frequency of problems you will have with them – that is the whole point of it. He doesn’t seem to have asked about income, which would change the quality of the equipment you had access to – again something he could have looked at from another angle if he had bothered to ask what types of equipment people had a problem with. I think the assumption that all technology (and peoples experiences and memories of it) will average over all people over several decades was a big mistake.

    Obviously he can work around some of this. He can disclude data from irrelevant time periods etc, but his sample size is already small and attempts to correct start to look like digging a hole when the questionnaire might have been alot (by that read me jumping up and down shouting ALOT from the top of a mountain) more detailed.

    And why no graphs?………………. Please please please – graphs people.

    1. geNDEr confusion
      [quote=daydreamer]Ive just had a flick through and think he is underestimating the complexity of the subject (from the skeptical point of view).

      His NDE group has only 12 people in it with events more recent than 20 years ago, yet he is making conclusions about mobile phones and computers. He relies on perfect memory recall, or that the recall is averaging the same across this control and comparison groups, but is this fair? [/quote]

      And by ‘he’ and ‘his’, I’m sure you mean ‘she’ and ‘her’. 😉

      1. Oops
        [quote]I’m sure you mean ‘she’ and ‘her'[/quote]

        I do now!

        Does anyone know whether men and women stereotype the nebulous gender guess differently? The name looked male to me, which certainly isn’t the same as saying it should have done. My bad. Sorry.

  2. Without any of the above three
    I would be very interested to know why some people (me being one of them) are more influenced by electro-magnetic or geo-magnetic effects than other people without being prodded into the effect by any of the above 3 happenings.

    Do we have more magnetite in our bodies than ‘normal’ people? Or are we simply more sensitive to its effect, and if so why?

    Anybody know?

    Regards, Kathrinn

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Mobile menu - fractal