A Geobiology/Biogeology Session

Before Friday, I never knew what "geobiology/biogeology" is. Some time that afternoon, I got an email from a friend whom I knew at the UUHK and the HKSHP asking me if I would be interested in exploring something related to that unusual sounding word. Along with the email, he forwarded to me the attachment which another friend of his sent him. I had a brief look and learned that it involved measuring the earth's magnetic field and also some exercises purported to assist in making us live long and cure our longsightedness and shortsightedness. Despite some doubt and considering that the course was not expensive, just about $150 and including a meal and that my friend was so enthusiatic that he had already booked it for me in advance, I accepted the offer.

When I arrived outside Exit H at the Yuen Long Station of the West Rail, which I had never previously taken and which took some finding, I discovered a number of people on various parts of the pavement. Each of them were holding two antennae like rod in their hands. They were walking slowly or standing still, each intent on watching the direction in which the two antennae were turning. I saw my friend S, who sent me the email and another girl E, who had attended some of the sessions of the UUHK. The teacher appeared to be a young man in his late 30s or early 40s, slim, long face, straight nose, high forehead, thinning hair, sharp eyes, thin lips but with a smile on his face. He was explaining how we should measure the magnetic gradients. I approached a northern Chinese looking lady, paid for the course and got two of those rods. But I did not know what I was supposed to be doing with them. When E, who had arrived earlier than I did and probably had already been taught how the thing worked, saw my plight. She helped me take off the rubber cap at one end of the rod, take out the folded collapsible antenna, extend it and bend it at an angle of 85 degree, place it on the rip of the metal tube, leaving the upper end of the antennae to hang free to sway in the air from the top rim of the rod, with its bottom hidden inside that rod. The other end was closed by what looked like a transparent plastic ball with diamond-face cuts. She placed the rubber cap over that diamond-cut plastic ball and we were ready for action. 

We were told to walk slowly toward the vertical wall at the inner side of the pavement, holding the two metal rods with the dangling antennae about a foot in front of our body and allow them to steady until they formed two parallel lines and then start walking towards the wall. He said that because our body has a magnetic field, its magnetism will rebound from the wall and when we reach a spot, where there is magnetism, then there will be a reaction which would move the two tips of the antennae and align them in a particular direction. But we must walk very slowly so that the movement should not be attributable to our physical movement nor the force of the wind. At first, I was quite tense and the tips began to move almost the moment I started moving one tiny step at a distance of some 8 feet from the wall. But once I relaxed, I found that I had to approach closer and closer to the wall before there would be a reaction. In the end, when I was completely relaxed, the tip did not move at all even when I was their tips were about an inch from the wall. I saw E also experimenting. When I had finished with various positions, I felt a little bored. E saw this and whispered to me that it was all a matter of the brain waves and electrical activity at the point of contact of our fingers with the surface of the metal rod and that it was nothing special. She had previously spent huge sums of money taking many New Age courses on karma, chakra, energy etc. So I thought what she said made sense. Then she asked me if I was interested in a demonstation. I said yes of course. She then told me she could make the tips of the antennae come together and move apart at will. She actually did. I was astounded. So I too tried to see if I could do so. I put the two metal rods in parallel in front of myself. I then mentally concentrated first with the thought that they should come apart until they align themselves at 90 degrees from their original position and thus form a straight line. To my surprise, they actually started to move apart slolwy until they were 90 degrees from their original position and were aligned in a straight line. Then I told the rods mental to come together again. They did.

I immediately started thinking why that was the case. Very quickly I formed a theory. We know that magnetism is a property of iron. We also learned in our Form 3 physics that when the atoms of the iron are choatic, there is no magnetism but when they are properly aligned e.g. by running a magnet over it,magnetic effects will appear. Applying the same logic, when the iron in the red blood corpuscles in our bloodstream are not aligned, then there will be no magnetism but when they are, magnetic effects will appear. We can through mechanism the operation are not completely known, align the red blood corpuscles in our body streams or particular parts of our blood stream through training. When they are properly aligned, magnetism will appear. The stronger our mental action, the bigger will be the effect because more ions ( atoms lacking in one electron) in our blood streams will be aligned. When we are relaxed, the ions in our bloodstreams will be flowing at random. Hence no magnetic effect will appear. But when we are tensed up for action, they will be highly aligned. Hence magnetic force will vary with the degree of tension of our muscles.

Having thought about my hypothesis, I set about putting it to the test. It was confirmed. When I held the rods very tightly, the tips of the antennae came apart very quickly. When I completely relaxed my muscles at the tip of my fingers holding the rod or when I only touched the body of the metal rod lightly with the minimal contact, the force of the magnetism decreased dramatically ( I have got plenty of practice in relaxing my muscles because of my chi kung practice), the two tips would revert back to their orginal neutral or chaotic state. The more relaxed and the more quickly I relaxed, the more quickly would the straight line tips revert back to their original parallel positions. My theory is that there is skin conductance ( a scientifically proven fact: this is the principle behind the lie detector which actually measures the degree of the tension of our muscle: the higher the tension, the more will the meter move from the normal condition) and when I wanted the tips to move apart, I increased my muscle tension. The mystery was removed. I explained my theory to E. She nodded and told me to keep my discovery secret because otherwise the teacher might think that we were there to sabotage the veil of mysticism he, like so many New Age teachers and gurus, tried to throw over the apparently "strange"and unexplainable phenomena . I kept quiet. But then, Y, another friend from the UUHK, who had heard about our activity there and who had by that time arrived and saw what I did, smiled  knowingly to me about the "mystery"of the antennae.

Next, we were told to go to a shrine about a certain monk somewhere in Yuen Long. It was a pretty out of the way place. The four of us with another member of the learning group took a taxi to that remote place, about a 10-minute walk up a hill. There we were told to measure the magnetic field over a stream. I tried that. There was nothing unusual and I found what he indicated I should find. To me, over a mountain stream, there would be a lot of negative ions, which is considered invigorating and good for health. The presence of more negative ions will set up negative electric charge in the air which we know from physics will have magnetic properties. So it was not surprising that the tips of the antennae would move. After that, we were asked to go in front of a small shrine and told to go there with solemnity and a worshipful heart and ask the spirit there to move the tips of our antennae. For some, it moved whilst for others it didn't. My theory is that if there is a magnetized piece of iron inside the statue or its house, a fact unknown, then a magnetic field may be set up or alternatively, the fact that those moving in front of it were told that it was something solemn would cause a certain tension inside their body and through the action of their mind upon their muscles and in particular the muscles on their hand and finger tips, they would hold it more tightly and then unconsciously caused the relevant movement. I also tried the experiment on the spirit and found exactly what I previously discovered.

Finally we went further up the hill and came to the place where a "high-ranking" monk was said to be buried. We were again told to adopt a worshipful attitude and treat the thing with all due seriousness. We had to remove our shoes before entering the shrine. When I entered, I found some movement of the tips of antennae. Again, my explanation is the same. I discovered quite a large number of metal joss stick containers at the side of the shrine and also at the main shrine containing a statue of the monk. So it was entirely possible that they would have some effect on the magnetic field as also the state of muscular tension and skin conductance of the members. I adopted a neutral attitude. The suggestion was made that if the "spirit" responded, it was a good sign. So this suggestion might in fact have caused the members to wish for its happening. Their will, and hence their muscular tension would thereby be affected. Again the results were ambiguous. The tips of some members moved more than those of the others. My theory is quite simple. The geomagnetism of different places are quite different naturally. Hence we have lightning strikes whereby the positve and negative charges meet to produce lightning. The effect of such strikes can be very dramatic. Houses or trees might be hit if there is an accumulation of postive or negative static electric charges. The temple or shrine might be built over one of such places. If so, then it is the effect of the natural geomagnetic field of particular location and the electric activities going on under the ground there and it has nothing to do with the activities of  "spirits". Alternatively, it was caused by the mental activity and hence the skin conductance of the participating members. Of course, I did not tell the other members about my theory but only to my friends. What I did not like was that the mainland Chinese woman in charge was most emphatic that we should each contribute $100 as "joss stick" money. Originally I had wanted to give perhaps twenty or thirty dollars. But when I discovered she was so greedy, I didn't give her a single cent. 

Then it was time for lunch. We had to take transport back to Yuen Long and from there take a taxi again to where we would have lunch and then continue the second part of the training session. We got on to a green PLB  and then took a taxi to that out of the way house where we were given some simple vegetarain meal. After the meal, we were taught various exercises to move our joints and the muscles of our eyes. In short, we had to move all our joints and some fairly little used muscles whether on our neck, shoulder, neck, waist, wrists or ankles and even fingers. I think some of the exercises are quite useful. Many of those present had already taken the lessons before so he caused them to do demonstrations.  I later learned that our teacher knows German and another foreign language (I was not told what) and also taught tai chi and georomancy or fung shui. During lunch I found certain German books on one of the bookshelves. He also did a kind of physiotherapy for others.

Finally, we went to a place to measure the magnetic lines on the field. We were taken to an unused stretch of road on government land. We entered through a broken iron wire mesh. We were given some strings and were asked to measure the direction of the magnetic grid with the help of a compass to determine which is the north and which the south. We were told that they the distance between the grids would vary by widths of 2 to 2.5 metres apart and that if we did so correctly, all of us would find the result would match. I quickly finished the exercise. The results were confirmed several times over. I felt bored and remember that our teacher said that with the assistance of the two antennae we could find what we are looking for and that his master in German had helped the police to find a buried body in a mystery crime! He said we could use this method to find water, metal and other stuffs. So I experimented. I told myself I wanted to find some purple flower. I had thought of butterflies, grasshoppers and ants because they are small. But then I changed my mind because these things would move and are tiny and they got protective colorings. So I decided on somehing that cannot move. I did not look around and concentrated my attention on the tip of the antennae. When I was near the end of the little experiment trip on a stretch of the road, I lifted my head when there was some movement on the antennae. But I did not find any purple flower. Then E said I was wrong. There, just about three feet in front of me, was actually a little purple flower on a tree! Amazing! Am I psychic? My own explanation is that perhaps my peripheral vision already detected the purple flower because I primed my unconscious attention on a purple flower. So when I was near a purple flower, my mind would then cause certain subtle movement in my body which translated unconsciously into change of electrical skin conductance and a little pressure was then applied unconsciously to the surface of the metal rods which then caused the tips of the antennae to move. But I am not really sure. That is my best explanation!

Then the lessons were over. We went back to the house where we had lunch. We were told there would be another session the following day. But before then, the teacher said hewould  bring us to buy some fresh vegetables at a nearby farm.  But I didn't want to buy. It was too troublesome to carry them around. Neither did I want to attend the following session. I already had my fun. So I left with E, who was of the same opinion, after we made sure that S didn't want to leave with us. On the way, I got talking to E, who was in fact quite talkative. She related to me her personal philosophy and a little of how she came to be what she was and told me various stories about how various New Age gurus in Hong Kong whose courses she had taken and some at considerable expense. I learned quite a bit. The most interesting thing she told me was something called the law of attraction, according to which likes will attract likes. So people who are nice to each other will feel attracted to each other and that luck tend to follow people who radiate positive mental energies about their person and are nice to otehr people and vice versa. I suppose that's just another way of saying bird of a feather flock together but it is something more because it also applies in a negative way. Evil will attract more evil to the perpetrator of evil. So there is a sort of cosmic balance. The evil that we do will eventually be visited one way or another upon ourselves in unexpected ways. She gave me many personal examples of how the law of attraction applied. She also told me that we can sometimes will reality into existence! She also gave me many personal examples. To me, there is something called self-fulfilling prophecies. There is a certain logic to it but it is by no means certain that the law applies universally. There are always exceptions. But it was interesting to learn about a new New Age type of point of view, as she was into that kind of knowledge and apparently knew quite a lot of New Age theories. But I was a bit surprised by two remarks she made about me when we later had dinner at Mongkok.

We orignally just wanted to have a cup of coffee. She said she wanted to continue our discussions on the train journey because she hadn't quite finished what she was trying to tell me when our train reached Mongkok. It was fine with me as I did not have any particular thing to do that evening.We had dinner because by the time we reached Mongkok, it was already about 6 p.m. So I suggested that we might as well have dinner.  We found a small Japanese restaurant close by with which she was familiar because she lives in the area. First she said I was more positive than our mutal friend Y with whom she was very familiar but her second remark caused a tiny shock to me. She said she felt that I was a little bit  like Nietzsche! I did not know why she said that. So I just hammed and horred when I heard that. But I am genuinely puzzled because whilst I am in general quite positive, I do not find myself in any way like Nietzsche at all! Perhaps I would ask her after my talk on the brain tonight.