Electromagnetic Mind

Reprint of Chapter 5 from Cellular Mind

The electromagnetic force (EMF) is the force of nature that combines matter into more complex forms from subatomic particles to humans, powers all chemical and biological processes, and enables all known forms of communication at every scale of life.  This chapter will discuss the central importance of the EMF at different scales of the universe and will explore evidence of the relationship between the EMF and the human mind.

The smallest scale where the EMF appears is in binding electrons to atomic nuclei to forge the 100+ atoms in the periodic table of the elements.  Atoms are literally held together by negatively charged electrons and positively charged protons attracting each other like magnets.  At the next larger scale, the EMF combines the 100+ atoms into different configurations to form hundreds of millions of molecules.  Every molecule is literally held together by the attractive force between the protons and electrons in their constituent atoms.

At the next scale up we encounter chemistry.  Every known chemical reaction involves negatively charged electrons and positively charged protons attracting and/or repelling each other.  This results in atoms, protons, and/or electrons being exchanged between the interacting molecules, which emerge from the reactions in different configurations of molecules.  Chemistry is literally the science of electromagnetic interactions between atoms and molecules.

At the next scale up we encounter biology, where the EMF combines billions of molecules into complex structures to form cells, organs, and multicellular organisms.  Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) is called the universal energy molecule because it provides the energy to power every life process inside every cell type.  Mitochondria inside cells strip positively charged protons from oxygen and food molecules and attach them to neutrally charged Adenosine Diphosphate (ADP) molecules to create positively charged ATP molecules.  The ATP molecules are then sent to different parts of the cell where the stored energy is released to power molecular movements and chemical reactions throughout the cell.  The interior of cells is highly negatively charged, which allows the positively charged ATP to catalyze chemical reactions and movements that orchestrate the processes of life.  Once the ATP is discharged it turns back into ADP which travels back to the mitochondria to be recharged.  Each of the 30 trillion cells in your body produces and consumes an average of 10 million ATP molecules every second, powering life’s processes like tiny rechargeable batteries inside cells.

At the next scale up the EMF enables all forms of communication occurring within and between living organisms.  Every signal sent within cells, between cells, between organs, through nervous systems, and between brain regions involves the exchange of electromagnetically encoded information facilitated by the attraction of protons and electrons in increasingly complex structures.  For example, each of the 5 human senses are electromagnetic systems at their core.  Specialized neurons in our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin detect different kinds of external world stimuli and create electromagnetic representations of the stimuli which travel through our nervous systems via synapses to be decoded by our brains.

The EMF also enables all forms of manmade communications and information processing systems such as computers, cell phones, satellites, GPS, Internet, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi networks, etc.   Every electrical and electronic device ever developed is designed to control the electromagnetic attraction between the protons and electrons in their structures in highly elaborate and complex ways.

Fact: Electromagnetic forces combine matter into more complex forms from atoms to humans, powers all chemical and biological reactions, and enables communication and information processing.

NASA partnered with researchers to test worm regeneration aboard the International Space Station (ISS) who found that worms sometimes regenerated multiple heads in outer space.[i]   The ISS has an earth-like atmosphere and temperature and is shielded from the extreme radiation of space, leaving the absence of the earth’s electromagnetic and gravitational fields as the sole differences between ISS and Earth environments.  The absence of these fields appears to disrupt cellular communication in regenerating worms, causing some worms to grow multiple heads.

Upon returning to earth, pieces of multi-headed worms continued to regenerate with multiple heads, like the two-headed worms discussed earlier.  The similarity between these two experiments suggests that it was likely the absence of earth’s electromagnetic field, as opposed to its gravitational field, that is influencing these mutations.  The earth’s EM field is created by rotating molten iron and nickel in the inner and outer cores of the earth, protects us from cosmic radiation, keeps our atmosphere from escaping into space, and causes compass needles to always point north.  It may also provide a common ground reference point for communication between cells, just like it does for all manmade electrical and electronic systems, which cannot function without a common ground reference point.

“There is substantive scientific literature demonstrating that physiological regulatory systems in humans and animals are also affected by and even synchronized to environmentally generated fields.”[ii]

Hypothesis: Earth’s electromagnetic field provides a common ground reference point that enables cells to communicate.

The mind is another phenomenon that is deeply interconnected with the EMF.  Consider the fact that every tool used by neuroscientists to study mind-brain interactions is an electromagnetic device.  EEGs, MEGs, MRIs, fMRIs, PET scans, CAT scans, and every other instrument used to scientifically probe the mind and brain are based on detecting the electromagnetic activity of neurons.  An estimated 135 billion neurons live in the human brain and nervous system, generating trillions of synapses every second.  Synapses exchange information between neurons and emit information into EM fields that surround the brain and body, fields that are detected by the above-mentioned neuroscientific instruments. 

Synapses form the high-power biologically generated EM fields that are detected by electroencephalograms (EEGs) which are used to correlate the brain’s carrier wave frequencies to various states of consciousness.  Deep sleep correlates to delta waves of 4 Hz or less, meditation and light sleep correlate to theta waves of 4-8 Hz, deep relaxation correlates to alpha waves at 8-12 Hz, normal waking states correlate to beta waves at 13-30 Hz, and excited and/or creative states correlate to gamma waves at frequencies above 30 Hz.  While neuroscientists have mapped these frequencies to various states of consciousness, why and how these frequencies correlate to conscious states remains a complete mystery to neuroscience.

Like the brain, all organs in the human body are electromagnetically active.  All cells communicate and coordinate their activity in the same ways that neurons do, just at lower power, lower bandwidth, and with fewer connections to other cells.  The human body is composed of hundreds of organs, each performing its own unique functions in support of overall organism survival.  All cells and organs are in constant electromagnetic communication to coordinate their activities with other cells and organs of the body.

Cancer provides another example of the deep role the EMF plays in collective cellular behavior.  Cancer cells use the EMF to communicate with neighboring cancer cells, forming a growing multicellular tumor that competes with and consumes other cells of the body.  One group of researchers found that cancer cells communicate with each other via membrane voltages that are 20 mV higher than the membrane voltage of the cells in the organs they attack.  This suggests that cancer cells communicate using a different communication channel, frequency, and/or language than the host cells of organs they infect.[iii]  Other cancer researchers found similar relationships between cancer cells and the electromagnetic field.

“Fifty years ago, tumour cells were found to lack electrical coupling, leading to the hypothesis that loss of direct intercellular communication is commonly associated with cancer onset and progression.  Subsequent studies linked this phenomenon to gap junctions composed of connexin proteins.”[iv]

  When cancer cells infect an organ, they appear to switch the normal cellular communication channel and/or language to the cancer channel and/or language.  This causes cancer cells to communicate and work with other cancer cells to prioritize survival of the tumor cell collective rather than survival of the host organ.   Cancer cells attack and infect non-cancer cells as they strive to survive, grow and reproduce more cancer cells, furthering their species survival odds.  Researchers tested this hypothesis by implanting tumor cells into tadpoles.  They imposed voltages on tumor cells implanted into tadpoles that mimicked normal cell membrane voltages.  This had the effect of blocking the communication between cancer cells and keeping the implanted cancer cells in electromagnetic communication with the uninfected cells of the tadpole, successfully preventing the cancer from metastasizing.[v]  The researchers conclude:

“While the view of cancer as a genetic disorder still largely drives clinical approaches, recent literature supports a view of cancer as cells simply not being able to receive the physiological signals that maintain the normally tight controls of anatomical homeostasis. Cut off from these patterning cues, individual cells revert to their ancient unicellular lifestyle and treat the rest of the body as external environment, often to ruinous effect.”

It is important to note that none of the research cited above specifically discusses cancer cells communicating with one another, so cancer cell communication is an extrapolation based on the view that all cells have minds and communicate with other cells. 

In the 1970’s biophysicist Fritz Popp coined the term “biophoton” to describe the photon emissions that are generated by living tissues:

“Biological phenomena like intracellular and intercellular communication, cell growth and differentiation, interactions among biological systems and microbial infections can be understood in terms of biophotons.”[vi]

Other researchers drew similar conclusions on the ubiquity of electromagnetic activity in living matter: “Ultra-weak emissions of biophotons are representing one of the chief characteristics of life.”[vii]  Hammerschlag and Levin discuss the fact that all cells throughout the bodies of multicellular organisms are constantly emitting and absorbing biophotons, facilitating many biological processes:

“Numerous nonneural electrical fields have been detected and analyzed, including those arising from patterns of resting membrane potentials that guide development and regeneration, and from slowly varying transepithelial direct current fields that initiate cellular responses to tissue damage. Another biofield phenomenon is the coherent, ultraweak photon emissions (UPE), detected from cell cultures and from the body surface. A physiological role for biophotons is consistent with observations that fluctuations in UPE correlate with cerebral blood flow, cerebral energy metabolism, and EEG activity…Low-frequency EM fields have also been proposed to interact with DNA by accelerating the movement of electrons within the helical arrays of base pairs.”[viii]

All living cells are constantly emitting and absorbing very low power electromagnetic energy.  The laws of electromagnetism dictate that electromagnetic energy emitted from nearby sources will seamlessly combine to form an integrated electromagnetic field that surrounds both sources.  This means the biophoton emissions from cells in multicellular organisms will collectively form an integrated and unified electromagnetic field that surrounds and pervades the bodies of the multicellular organism.  This body-wide electromagnetic field functions as a communications substrate that some researchers are now calling a “biofield”.   In addition to a unified body-wide biofield, electromagnetic theory suggests that localized biofields will form around every organ in the body, creating a nested hierarchy of integrated electromagnetic fields that pervade the bodies of multicellular organisms. 

“Biologically generated fields are a spatially distributed set of forces and physical properties that have the capacity to encode information and exert instructive influences on cells and tissues capable of perceiving and being modified by them.  As such, biofields complement molecular processes as key contributors to what biophysicist Mae-Wan Ho, PhD, describes as global coherence—the multilevel integration of diverse biological activities across time and scale.  In her view, global coherence—the defining quality of living organisms—accounts for their most salient properties such as long-range order and coordination, rapid and efficient energy transfer, and extreme sensitivity to specific signals.”³⁶

Albrecht-Buehler found that organelles inside cells use biophotons for a variety of purposes.  For example, centrosomes were found to emit and absorb infrared photons to detect the cell’s orientation relative to other cells, including cells they are not in direct physical contact with, creating the cellular equivalent of a radar system.[ix]^,[x],[xi]  Perhaps this is how the Xenobots discussed earlier in the book were able to navigate a maze without eyes and how stem cells are able to work together to build and connect organs inside developing embryos.  Radiobiologist Charles Sanders believes that DNA is the central actor in cellular biofield communication, as DNA appears to transmit large amounts of information to other parts of the cell and to other cells:

“Cells and now whole animals may communicate with each other by electromagnetic waves called biophotons. This would explain the source of the bystander phenomenon. These ultra-weak photons are coherent, appear to originate and concentrate in the DNA of the cell nucleus, and rapidly carry large amounts of data to each cell and to the trillions of other cells in the human body. The implications of such a possibility can be wonderfully important.”[xii]

Muehsam and Ventura found that biophotons play a fundamental role in regulating the dynamics of cell division and gene expression.[xiii]  Other researchers speculate that non-coding DNA biophoton emissions may play a role in controlling cell metabolism, cell communication, and gene expression, citing the observed coherent electromagnetic interactions between separate sections of DNA.[xiv]  Yet another group of researchers believes that mitochondria are the primary source of biophoton emission within cells:

"All living cells of plants, animals and humans continuously emit ultraweak biophotons in the optical range of the spectrum, which is associated with their physiological states and can be measured using special equipment.  The intensity of biophotons is in direct correlation with neural activity, cerebral energy metabolism, EEG activity, cerebral blood flow and oxidative processes…The main source of biophotons derives from the oxidative metabolism of mitochondria."[xv]

Cell-to-cell communication does not even require the cells to be in the same physical body.  Kucera and Cifra found that two cell cultures placed in separate side-by-side test tubes or petri dishes up to 4 cm apart have been shown to exchange biophotons with each other through a glass barrier separating them.[xvi]  The experiments show significant correlations in growth rate, gene expression, and other parameters between the cultures.  The effects remain when measures are taken to chemically isolate the cultures, such as capping the test tubes to create separate physical environments.  The interactions disappear when a barrier is placed between the cultures that blocks the specific frequency of the exchanged biophotons. 

“There is a large number of experimental reports (over 400 papers published from 1920s onward) which describes signaling between chemically separated cell cultures proposed to be mediated by light or other electromagnetic radiation…These texts suggest that cells may utilize certain regions of the electromagnetic spectrum for signals.”

The heart generates the highest intensity biofield, which is detectable several feet from the body using MCGs.  Humans and animals have been found to synchronize heartbeats up to 5 feet apart, providing a human-scale equivalent to the electromagnetic communication between the samples in the test tubes. 

In summary, scientists have recently discovered a very low power biofield that surrounds and pervades multicellular organisms.  The biofield functions like a wireless Internet connecting every cell of the organism’s body, enabling its cells to communicate and coordinate their activity.  CMT believes the biofield also enables the minds of the individual cells to combine to form multicellular organism minds, which is the central hypothesis underpinning CMT.

Hypothesis: Individual cells collectively generate a unified biofield that surrounds organisms and enables cells to combine their minds to form the more complex mind of multicellular organisms.

[i] Morokuma, J. et al. 2017.  Planarian regeneration in space: persistent anatomical, behavioral, and bacteriological changes induced by space travel.  Regeneration, June 13, 2017.

[ii] Hammerschlag R, Levin M, McCraty R, Bat N, Ives JA, Lutgendorf SK, Oschman JL. Biofield Physiology: A Framework for an Emerging Discipline. Glob Adv Health Med. 2015 Nov;4(Suppl):35-41.

[iii] Payne SL, Levin M, Oudin MJ. Bioelectric Control of Metastasis in Solid Tumors. Bioelectricity. 2019 Sep 1;1(3):114-130.

[iv] Aasen T, Mesnil M, Naus CC, Lampe PD, Laird DW. Gap junctions and cancer: communicating for 50 years. Nat Rev Cancer. 2016 Dec;16(12):775-788.

[v] Levin, M., 2021. Bioelectric signaling: Reprogrammable circuits underlying embryogenesis, regeneration, and cancer. Cell, 184(8), pp.1971-1989.

[vi] Popp 2003. Popp FA. Properties of biophotons and their theoretical implications. Indian J Exp Biol. 2003 May;41(5):391-402.

[vii] Biophotons: a clue to unravel the mystery of life. Bajpai R. Meyer-Rochow VB (ed. 2009). Bioluminescence in Focus - a collection of illuminating essays. Vol. 1. Kerala, India:  Research Signpost. pp. 357–385.

[viii] Hammerschlag R, Levin M, McCraty R, Bat N, Ives JA, Lutgendorf SK, Oschman JL. Biofield Physiology: A Framework for an Emerging Discipline. Glob Adv Health Med. 2015 Nov;4(Suppl):35-41.

[ix] Albrecht-Buehler, G. etal. 1992. Rudimentary form of cellular "vision".  PNA 89 (17) 8288-8292 Sept 1992.  

[x] Albrecht-Buehler, G. etal.  1994. Cellular infrared detector appears to be contained in the centrosome.  Cytoskeleton, Vol 27, Issue 3. Pages 262-271.  1994.

[xi] Albrecht-Buehler, G. etal.  2005. A long-range attraction between aggregating 3T3 cells mediated by near-infrared light scattering.  PNA 102 (14) 5050-5055.  March 2005. 

[xii] Sanders CL. Speculations about Bystander and Biophotons. Dose Response. 2014 May 19;12(4):515-7.

[xiii] Muehsam D, Ventura C. Life rhythm as a symphony of oscillatory patterns: electromagnetic energy and sound vibration modulates gene expression for biological signaling and healing. Glob Adv Health Med. 2014 Mar;3(2):40-55

[xiv] Rattemeyer M, Popp FA, Nagl W. Evidence of photon emission from DNA in living systems. Naturwissenschaften. 1981 Nov 1;68(11):572-3. 

[xv] Rahnama, M., Tuszynski, J.A., Bokkon, I., Cifra, M., Sardar, P. and Salari, V., 2011. Emission of mitochondrial biophotons and their effect on electrical activity of membrane via microtubules. Journal of integrative neuroscience, 10(01), pp.65-88.

[xvi] Kučera, O., Cifra, M. Cell-to-cell signaling through light: just a ghost of chance? Cell Commun Signal 11, 87 (2013).