Residual Haunting and Pre-Seismic Activity

Residual Haunting and Pre-Seismic Acticity

One of the challenges paranormal investigators face is differentiating between active and residual hauntings. Active hauntings involve an actual ghost, whereas residual hauntings involve psychic echoes or imprints. The two activities exhibit similar traits: both may be linked too unusual fluctuations in electromagnetic fields, both may involve energy siphons from equipment, the surrounding atmosphere (thermal siphons) or even people in order to facilitate manifestations, and both can involve a range of evidence from visible manifestations to EVP phenomena to unusual odors. Strong sensitives may pick up feelings or mental imprints of activity, and those with lesser-honed abilities can sometimes detect vague emanations that lead to unease or discomfort.

It is important to note that most of these phenomena can also be triggered by certain pre-earthquake activity: this will be discussed a bit further on.

In the case of active hauntings, interaction between the entity and humans is possible (although it is by no means certain the entity will want to do it, and there may be limitations on how much a particular entity can interact with the human world.) A residual haunting, by its nature, is unchangeable and non-interactive. It is like a short movie replaying in a constant loop. The most obvious cases are those in which an entity is known to perform the same activity over and over, such as pacing a certain hall or miming an activity they would have performed in their lives.

There are many theories as to how a human event, quite possibly an extremely ordinary event such as a household chore, could come to be imprinted so strongly in an area that, under the right conditions, it can be perceived over and over again.

There is speculation that certain highly emotional events, such as a battle or a violent incident against an individual, can generate so much psychic energy that the event is permanently imprinted on a particular spot. Strong emotions including fear, sorrow, loneliness, despair and anger are all potential triggers for an imprint. When experienced in excess these emotions in many ways transcend the rational mind and stir up something much deeper, more primitive and instinctual. Perhaps they temporarily activate a latent ability to leave behind a psychic record of what is happening at a given point in time.

So let us say that a particularly violent act, such as a murder, took place at a certain locale. The emotion of the victim-terror-and the emotion of the killer-anger-would theoretically be enough to leave a psychic echo.

If a number of people are involved in the same activity-say, a battle in which many people died-this would tend to strongly reinforce the general imprint of the area. In terms of perception by people sensitive to such phenomena, there is a question of whether specific impressions from individuals will be detected, or whether there will merely be an overwhelming but general sense of loss, fear, etc.

Based on personal experience I tend to believe that one is more likely to encounter an overall general feeling, probably because any individual emotions would be overwhelmed by the combined shared emotion. If we think in terms of emotions as having different energy vibrations, an excess of reinforced general emotion such as anger or battle rage would be more easily detected than a more specific vibration, such as one man's fear that he might not see his fiancée again.

In terms of visible manifestations, the strong energy levels involved in the initial event could allow one, or perhaps many images to be imprinted. Again, using the battle scenario, sightings of individual soldiers wandering on a ghostly watch, as well as sounds and even sights of large groups of soldiers, have been reported on battlefields. In some cases, the battles themselves may appear to be reenacted.

There are cases in which a place can be affected by more specific imprints from several individuals. Rather than spots where all-at-once events occur, such as battles, large accidents, etc, these are places where people have undergone strong emotions over a long period of time. Prime examples include prisons, hospitals and mental health care facilities, and group homes such as orphanages, convents, etc.

While you may definitely find a general sense of oppression, anger, or despair in such places, you can also pick up more specific activity: a single entity manifesting in one area, while another entity or entities manifest in another area (for example, a prisoner in his cell, and a guard walking in an entirely different area of the prison). In this case, repetition seems to be a key factor in why the imprint is left: either repetition of a specific activity or repeated experience of a strong emotion such as anger or despondency.

How long a psychic echo lasts varies significantly based on a number of factors. Geological conditions, such as the presence of certain rock layers, are believed to make locales more susceptible to energy imprints. If the imprinting takes place in a sheltered area, such as a cave or a building, it is more likely to linger than if it takes place in an open area where it would be exposed to weather. Storms produce EMFs that could interfere with or erode the imprint, and even gentler forms of precipitation ionize the air. Over time this could also erode the psychic echo.

So how does this relate to earthquakes and pre-quake activity?

Think of residual hauntings as a form of recording. We can use electromagnetic energy to both record sound and images, and access them and replay them. This is how CDs, DVDs and the like work.

Remember that I also spoke about imprints in terms of vibrations earlier. All electromagnetic energy, including the visible spectrum, has specific vibration rates, or frequencies. Just as you can access music on a CD or movies on DVD through a laser, residual haunting phenomena might be activated by unusual fluctuations of EMFs.

Normally, such a psychic echo would exist at a vibration rate that would put it beyond the range of detection by most people. In the physical world, this is known as the property of free oscillation, which means an object or system has a specific, naturally occurring vibration rate. However, it's possible to alter this rate and generate forced oscillation, meaning an outside force acts on the object or system and changes its vibration rate.

So if you have a sudden burst of energy, it's possible for residual psychic echoes to "activate"-to change vibratory rates and become discernible visually and/or audibly, as well as the more subtle forms of manifestation which affect people on emotional or psychic levels. Whether there is an actual manifestation in terms of a group of photons representing an image, or whether our mind picks up the image and projects it onto our physical surroundings, is unanswerable ata this point. But if it is merely a mental projection, it would quite possibly require less energy, and would fit in with the amount that could be generated in an area by pre-seismic activity.

There is a growing amount of data showing that prior to an earthquake, there are unusual electromagnetic surges.

Paraquake's sister research effort, The Thera Project, has established a link between specific solar activity and earthquakes (Schulenberg, 2005; Schulenberg, 2006). In this case, the phenomena take place immediately before an earthquake.

The Thera data show that in a large number of earthquakes, the Sun emitted either a sweep-frequency radio burst or an X-ray surge immediately around sunrise or just before sunset at the subsequent earthquake epicenter, 24-48 hours before the earthquake. (Sweep-frequency burst frequently propagate in soft X-ray jets). The data is based on short-term studies of 360 consecutive earthquakes in 2004 as well as two long-term studies involving quakes with magnitude > 5.0 in Western China and Tibet over a 20-year period. In the short-term study 82 percent of the earthquakes occurred after a sunrise/sunset sweep-frequency burst or X-ray burst, in the Tibet quakes the rate was 72 percent and in the Western China quakes the rate was 84 percent.

The same solar events occurred in the sunrise/sunset timeframe before several major historical quakes as well, including the Northridge and Loma Prieta quakes in California, the Sumatra quake of 2004 which generated the killer tsunami, Japan's Kobe earthquake, and the disastrous 1985 Mexico City earthquake.

What is pertinent to the discussion of residual hauntings is how solar events can affect the Earth itself. Large-scale solar events can cause dramatic shifts in the ionosphere and upper atmosphere, generating electro-jet disruptions that create reciprocal currents in the earth. These currents have a definite effect on power grids, and have been responsible for numerous outages, most famously one which knocked almost all of Quebec into the dark in the late 1980s.

The correspondence between solar activity and earthquakes found in the Thera research indicates a similar reaction may be taking place at a localized level during less energetic solar events (the correspondence occurs when the specified solar events occur around sunrise or sunset; this is a time when localized ionosphere conditions are already in flux and may lend themselves to small-scale electro-jet disruption more easily).

Induced ground currents could provide a source of EM energy that would allow residual psychic imprints to "activate". This would be especially true in buildings with a decent amount of conductive metals, such as copper piping. While you wouldn't get a huge amount of current, you might get enough to power up a psychic imprint. Note that in this case, the scene of the residual haunting would not necessarily have to be in a seismically active area, but it would certainly help since rocks under tectonic stress tend to be more electro-conductive (Madden and Mackey; Freund, et al)

Other research directly involving seismic areas shows a strong tendency towards intermittent electro-magnetic spike ahead of earthquakes. For example, ELF pulses have been associated with impending earthquakes. Seto et al noted a strong spike in ELF emissions in Japan hours before the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake in Taiwan, as well as two earthquakes in Japan's Miyagi prefecture. Geo-electric pulses (in ranges over 200 KHz) increased strongly in another study, reaching a peak of about 100 times their normal levels days before seismic and volcanic activity in another study in Japan (Hashimoto et al); a long-term predictive effort in Greece known as VAN has focused on pulsed signals of less than 1 MHz transmitted through realignment of electric dipoles in stressed areas of the earth (Varotsos et al). Atmospheric changes which affect higher-frequency EM radiation have also been noted ahead of earthquakes: one study found anomalous propagation of FM radio frequencies at about 80 MHz which indicated disturbances in the local ionosphere regions (Sakai et al)

As cited in other Paraquake articles, the defect electron propagation model proposed by Freund is also a potential source of electromagnetic energy which could cause psychic imprints to activate, providing residual hauntings. Charges moving upward through rocks could result in an overall positive charge on the Earth's surface in an area about to be hit by an earthquake.

It should be noted that tectonic stress generally builds over a long period of time. Effects such as heightened EM pulses would have to reach a certain threshold to be of interest to (and detectable by) seismo-electromagnetic researchers, but we can expect the activities would be taking place at a lower level for a longer period of time before that, perhaps providing just enough energy for psychic imprints to become detectible as residual hauntings.

As noted in the section on Earthquake Lights, when EM activity reaches a certain level in a given area it is possible that both residual as well as active, intelligent entities will be able to manifest, perhaps not entirely of their own will. A certain EM saturation point could be reached well ahead of any earthquakes, allowing both psychic imprints and actual entities to accrete the energy needed to manifest.

This effect is similar to the way people can accumulate a static charge simply by walking across a carpet in cold, dry weather. Pre-earthquake lights such as floating orbs (visible to the eye, not the type found only in photographs) and the unusual fires reported either at ground level or hovering in the sky could be markers indicating the presence of a strong psychic imprint and designating places which might bear more intense investigation.

We should note that proximity to the impending earthquake epicenter is not necessary for there to be sufficient EMF activity; the study by Seto et al involved observations taken in Japan of signals related to an earthquake in Taiwan, hundreds of miles away. It is possible that quake-related EM currents reach sufficient levels even further away than that to allow an increase in residual haunting activity.

A final point must be discussed to balance this summary. While in theory, residual hauntings could derive enough energy from pre-seismic changes in earth currents and EM fields to "activate" and/or replay, there is evidence the same conditions can also affect sensitive individuals and perhaps create an impression that there is some sort of paranormal activity taking place. This is based on results of laboratory tests, performed by Dr. Michael Persinger, which indicate that inhomogenous magnetic fields can trick the brain into "sensing" unusual phenomena. While it is important not to totally discount this evidence, it should be noted that there are some shortcomings to his procedures and conclusions about how EM fields can influence people's perceptions.

However, even if it turns out that skewed perceptions from magnetic field anomalies are responsible for all cases of residual hauntings, tracking reports of paranormal activity would be a fascinating way to study geomagnetic changes related to earthquakes!

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Sources:

Freund, Friedemann; Takeuchi, Akihiro; Lau, Bobby; Post, Rachel; Keefner, John; Mellon, Joshua; Al-Manaseer, Akthem: Stress-Induced Charges in the Electrical Conductivity of Igneous Rocks and the Generation of Ground Currents: TAO, Volume 15, No. 3, September 2004, 437-467

Hashimoto, Hiroshi; Enomotol, Yugi; Tsutsumi, Akhito; Kasahara, Minoru: Anomalous Geo-Electric Signals Associated with Recent Seismic Activities in Tsukuba and Volcanic Activity at Mount Usu in Hokkaido: : Seismo-Electromagnetics; Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling: TerraPub, 2003 77-80

Madden, Theodore; Mackie, Randall: What Electrical Measurements Can Say About Changes in Fault Systems: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA: April 1996, Volume 93, 3776-3780

Sakai, Kurt; Ito, Tetsuya; Takano, Toshiaki; Shimakura, Shin: The Basic Research of Anomalous Propagation of FM Radio Broadcasting Wave Related to Earthquakes: : Seismo-Electromagnetics; Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling: TerraPub, 2003 259-262

Schulenberg, Keith: Effects of solar generated ionosphere disturbances on imminent earthquake strike zones during passage of the solar terminator: Presented at the International Workshop on Seismo-Electromagnetics in Tokyo, 2005

Schulenberg, Keith: Correlation Between Time-Specific Solar Activity and Subsequent Earthquakes: Presented at the Western Pacific Geophysical Meeting in Beijing, 2006

Seto, Masahiro: Murayama, Kenji; Kitamura, Yasuo; Watanabe, Tomiya: Observation of Seismo-Genic ELF Magnetic Field Variations and Seismo-Electromagnetic Currents in a Power Transmission System: : Seismo-Electromagnetics; Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling: TerraPub, 2003 69-75

Varotsos, P.; Sarlis, N.: A Review of the Recent VAN Efforts: The Explanation of SES (Seismo-Electric Signals) Properties : Seismo-Electromagnetics; Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling: TerraPub, 2003 131-146