According to recent studies on paranormal belief in a number of major American demographics, between 55% and 75% (depending on which study you read) of the U.S. population believes in paranormal occurrences. With the popular resurgence of belief in the paranormal happening nationwide we see that many believe in paranormal phenomenon but are less sure about the mechanics and causation of these manifestations.

            Unfortunately, it would seem that for the public at large, the explanation and substantiation of paranormal phenomenon has been unaccountably and undeniably dropped into the careless, palsied hands of the quacks and buffoons who create TV “reality” crocumentaries. For a moment, let’s move beyond the bright lights of the circus-like atmosphere produced by the façade of dramatic television sensationalism and take a serious look at what paranormal manifestations are made of.   

This is Your Brain

            I’m sure that at one point or another you have seen a person in a cartoon with a light bulb that appears over their head when they get an idea. That euphemism is more accurate than you may know. Your brain runs on a regulated 60 Hz electrical pulse that is created by your heart (see Haunted Times Magazine Vol. 1, Issue 1, Fall 2005 pp. 9 article: The Origins of Ghosts) and the electrical pulse that is being generated is equivalent to a constant 12 watts of electricity - enough to power a flashlight!   

            Dr. Janusz Slawinki, a Polish physicist, has proposed that this electrical current within the body builds at a geometric rate becoming exponentially charged to more than 1000 times that of the normal rate when DNA is decaying. What this potentially means is that for a brief period of time after death the decaying body can produce nearly 12,000 watts of electricity. Slawinki, writing in the Journal of Near Death Studies, commented that a dying organism emits what he termed a “light shout,” a burst of bioelectricity that is more than one thousand times greater than at the normal resting state.    

First Things First: The First Law of Thermodynamics

            The bioelectric energy released from the human body at the time of death, as cited by Slawinki, is subject to the same laws of physics that all other types of Electromagnetic energies are. One of these laws, the First Law of Thermodynamics, states that energy in any form is infinite but not necessarily cyclic. This means that energy, no matter what form it takes, will always maintain mass, a specific gravity, and will be infinite in nature, meaning that it can not be destroyed; only changed from one form to another. The whole thought behind the First Law of Thermodynamics is fairly simple and straightforward as it states: “The change of energy in a thermodynamic system is equal to the heat transferred minus the work which is done.” More simply stated one could say: “Energy can not be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one state or form to another with a certain small percentage being lost as heat energy.” This would mean, in a sense, that the 60 Hz bioelectric impulses from your heart cannot be destroyed; only changed. With this answer we now have another question: What happens to this bioelectrical charge as it is released when the reaper comes knocking – do we all become ghosts?

            Although the normal bioelectric field in the body, now exponentially multiplied, is transformed in both configuration and existence due to the lack of a physical body not everyone becomes a ghost. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that “…energy is dispersed from a core source and will radiate outward from that source until it is acted upon by another force.” Sometimes however, for whatever reason, during this dispersion the Second Law of Thermodynamics is circumvented and the energies do not radiate back into the environment upon death. When the Second Law of thermodynamics is circumvented the bioelectric energy coagulates in the local environment until it becomes self-aware again and thusly becomes a ghost. Now the real questions are how and why is the Second Law of Thermodynamics circumvented?

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