More EMF Experiments

Over the last several weeks I've done two more experiments using the EMF detector in conjunction with zodiacal evocations. Even though one trial was a failure, the other was a success and it seems like the first trial wasn't just a fluke. Obviously a lot more research needs to be done before any firm conclusions can be drawn, but we're off to what looks like a decent start.

Trial 2

This trial was performed by myself and two other magicians, one very experienced and one beginner.

Baseline EMF in the temple was very low when we started this one, around .05. The room's baseline is usually between .1 and .2 so for whatever reason there wasn't much background radiation for this trial. It was in the evening, whereas the others we've done have been in the afternoon, so that might have had something to do with it. I was surprised enough by this lower reading that I may do a study at some point to try and establish the baseline fluctuations in the temple for different days and times.

The detector jumped highest as we were doing the conjuration, but only up to around a .18. Checking after the ritual I found that it had dropped back down to around the original .05 reading. Even though this is a large percentage increase in the field, given that .18 is within the normal baseline range I am nonetheless considering this trial a failure as far as detecting an entity goes. I also noticed that the cold I usually feel over the altar when the spirits manifest was reduced for this trial.

Trial 3

This trial was also performed by myself and two other magicians, but this time both of the other magicians involved were very experienced.

Baseline EMF when we started this one was about .12, within the normal range that usually find when doing random sweeps with the detector. This ritual was performed late in the afternoon and ran into early evening.

For this trial the detector did jump above .4 as we were doing the conjuration, setting off the detector. It did not jump as high as the first EMF trial that my group conducted, topping out at around .41. Still, since .4 is the threshold that I'm aiming for this trial qualifies as a success. The sense of cold for this trial was substantially stronger than for the previous trial. After we closed down the ritual, I checked the temple again and got the same .12 reading that I had gotten before.

Conclusions

So far it seems as though in all of these cases there has been elevated EMF when the entity summoned is supposed to manifest. In two of the three experiments so far this elevation has reached the threshold for success, .4, selected because (1) it is twice the usual background reading and (2) it is the alarm threshold for the detector in high-sensitivity mode. The second point is important because when we're doing the conjuration we don't want to be constantly looking at the detector - we just want the alarm if the EMF is high enough.

The "cold spot" effect so far seems to correlate with the level of EMF. Whether this is because I'm sensing the EMF and my nervous system is interpreting it as cold or because the entity produces both cold and EMF is hard to say. Some sort of thermometer would probably be useful here to measure if the cold is physical or not, but the challenge there would be to work out some way to incorporate it into the altar arrangement without disrupting other ritual actions. Ghost hunters use digital thermometers, but I've read some criticism of using them to detect cold spots suggesting that they only work well to detect temperature on surfaces.

With a sample size of only three trials I have a long way to go before I have enough data to demonstrate that this method will work reliably as a physical test for the success of an evocation. But so far the trials seem to be going well.

UPDATE: In the interest of consistency in reporting these trials I have decided to give each of them a unique sequence number rather than numbering them within each article. So the trials here are now numbered 2 and 3 rather than 1 and 2, since the initial trial took place before these did.