How we sense when we are being stared at

Brendan D. Murphy, 2012

Sight is energy leaving the person. Leonardo da Vinci

Its not polite to stare

There has been much discussion of the so-called sense of being stared at over the years since it began
being empirically researched. In this article, largely excerpted from my forthcoming book The Grand
Illusion (Vol.1), I will offer some insight as to the energies and forces behind the phenomenon.

As far back as July of 1921 it was reported by the New York Times that Dr. Charles Russ had shown
the Ophthalmological Congress at Oxford that with a properly designed apparatus a person could cause
a solenoid to move by just gazing at it. 1 (See Figure 1.) Page 22234 of the July 30th 1921 issue of the
British medical journal The Lancet featured an article by Russ entitled An Instrument Which Is Set In
Motion by Vision or by Proximity of the Human Body.2 The device he called a sthenometer. (See
Figure 2.) It consisted of a balanced needle suspended by a thread inside a surrounding transparent
shield, preferably made of quartz (although glass worked too). A horizontal dial marked off in degrees
was placed below the horizontally suspended needle. Russ stated that it would instantly respond to
either a gaze or the proximity of a human body.3

Figure 1. Dr. Charles Russ solenoid. British Patent # 124,288. Source: Charles Russ, An Instrument
Set in Motion and whose Motion is Controlled by the Human Eye, i.e., by Vision (March 24th, 1919).
www.rexresearch.com/russ/russ.htm

Figure 2. Dr. Charles Russ sthenometer.

Source: G. Harry Stine, Mind Machines You Can Build, 21.

Many experiments have shown the presence of a non-magnetic spin field around the body, including
over 1,000 conducted and recently reported on by Dr. Buryl Payne.4 Apparently the earliest known
such experiments were conducted by Frenchman Dr. Hippolyte Baraduc who evidently passed away in
the early 1900slittle is known about him. The force field around the bodywhich he reportedly
identified by using a copper needle suspended horizontally by a thread attached to the center of the
inside of a glass domehe dubbed the vital current. 5 Reichenbach and Mesmer found it and called it
animal magnetism. (Baraducs work showed its flow could be modified through focused intent.) This
force has also been referred to as pseudo-magnetism. As a result of several years of research, Russ
believed that there was a transmission of power and force between people when one person looked at
another, attributable to a ray emanating from the eye. 6

Numerous studies into the sense of being stared at reinforce the idea that the act of looking at someone
or something can actually affect the system being observed. According to biologist and paranormal
researcher Rupert Sheldrake, many tests have been conducted in schoolsat least twenty, several of
which have won prizes at science fairs. This research has been popularized through New Scientist
magazine, BBC TV, and Discovery Channel TV, and test procedures have been published on these
organizations websites, as well as on Sheldrakes own (www.sheldrake.org), allowing many people to
participate in the research. Overall, tens of thousands of trials have been run. 7

According to Sheldrake,

The results are remarkably consistent. Typically, about 55% of the guesses are right, as opposed to 50%
expected by chance. Repeated over tens of thousands of trials this result becomes astronomically
significant statisticallyIn experiments in which the same subjects were tested repeatedly and given
trial-by-trial feedback, there was a striking learning effect, with a significant (p=0.003) improvement in
scores with practice (Colwell et al., 2000). In a German school, with repeated testing, some 8 to 9 year-
old children achieved accuracies as high as 90%. 8

The sense of being stared at effect is widely replicable, with many studies yielding positive results. In
Russia the phenomenon has been known for decades. 9

In a student project in Ireland, Susan and Jennifer Brodigan compared the results with pairs of twins as
lookers and starers with the results from pairs of untwinned siblings and people who were unrelated
(subjects/starees were blindfolded and not given feedback). Twins scored significantly higher than
untwinned siblings or unrelated people,10 suggesting stronger psi between twinsa suggestion
common to anecdotal evidence. Noted parapsychologist and bestselling author Dean Radin analysed
the results of variations of staring experiments, constituting 33,357 trials over sixty experiments from
publications cited by Sheldrake and others. The overall success rate was 54.5% as opposed to the 50%
expected by chance, registering odds against chance of 202 octodecillion (thats 2 1059) to one. Even
accounting for an estimated file drawer of six unreported null-result studies, odds against chance
remained absurdly high at 1046 to one. 11There is irrefutably an observer effect on living systems, in
other words. Period.

Note that the success of staring trials does not depend on a minority of especially sensitive subjects, but
rather represents a general tendency for subjects to score better when they are actually being looked at
than when they are not. The results indicate that the intuitive faculties are innate in our specieshardly
a revelation for frequenters of this website. More than 100,000 trials have now been carried out, and
the results are overwhelmingly positive and hugely significant statistically, with odds against chance of
quadrillions to one, Sheldrake has stated.12
Gravity with a twist

Is there an unseen non-electromagnetic energy unconsciously emitted by an observer at all observed

systems? In quantum theory, nonlocality doesnt allow for the transmission of any detectable
electromagnetic (EM) signals in space-time, but rather, simultaneous correlations. However, the
twisting torsion forces, or spin fields, inherent in the fabric of space (or gravity, or aether if you
prefer) allows for superluminal and instantaneous information transfer without EM energy transfer.
This is interesting given that the physicist Roy Frieden postulates that conscious observation of a
system injects information into it, which thereby interacts with the energy and matter within the object,
and between this and other objects, flowing from one space-time object to another. 13 Torsion fields are
fundamentally information fieldswhich are not directly observable under normal circumstancesand
they are known to transmit information without EM energy. (For more on torsion physics, see my
article Torsion: The Key to a Theory of Everything here: http://blog.world-
mysteries.com/science/torsion-the-key-to-theory-of-everything/)

The postulation of information injection into an observed system by the observer is pertinent in the
sense that even mainstream physics has reached the point of increasingly viewing the universe as a
holographic information processor. * Information is now viewed as even more fundamental than
energy. In this model, information provides the bits that combine to produce what we measure and
experience as matter and energy. The cosmos self-organizes using this information as its building
blocks. It is suggested by David Yurtha scientist and patent holder who, over 25+ years of research,
has read over 4,000 books and research papers on these and related subjectsthat torsion fields are the
mechanism by which the nonlocal holographic field of consciousness mediates the distribution and
organization of information as it self-organizes into energy and matter, thus building the manifest
universe.[xi]

* See my article Attention, Intention, and the Universe as a Conscious Holographic Information
Processor, based on material from Chapter 7 of The Grand Illusion, at http://blog.world-
mysteries.com/science/universe-as-a-conscious-holographic-information-processor/.
Now its personal

Roughly two years into my own conscious journeyfollowing my original metaphysical awakening
I was spending a little bit of time with a Spiritualist church in Sydney. This was mainly for the purposes
of attending a weekly trance mediumship class (primarily to help my quality of meditation, and
hopefully stimulate my psi faculties) and to occasionally observe mediums giving platform readings at
the weekly church services. I also attended a couple of development workshops run by a gifted
clairvoyant I will refer to as D.P. Before we get too far off on a tangent, I will come straight back to the
point. I wanted to test D.P.s clairvoyance, in particular to see if she could perceive mental energy and
manipulations and/or projections of it. She suggested I send some love energy to some point of my own
choosing on a large tree just outside the window of the hall we were usingshe would clairvoyantly
identify the point of contact on the tree.

Making sure there was no possibility for D.P. to physically observe where my head or eyes were
pointing, I silently selected a spot on the tree and mentally beamed some energy at it. Almost
immediately, D.P. (standing with her back to me) exclaimed There! and correctly identified my target,
pointing with no hesitation. She did this accurately and quickly each time we ran this little test. I was
convinced she could see my mental energy and where I was directing it. There were no reflective
surfaces or other aides that might have revealed through ordinary means where I was aiming on the tree
which was large enough that there could be no ambiguity in terms of the accuracy of D.P.s
guesses. This was my first intimate contact with the concept of consciousness energy emanating from
the eyes. It showed me up close and personal that mind undeniably has a visible energy that
clairvoyants perceive as consisting of light (they perceive the light-based aspects or effects of the
energy of consciousness).

Perhaps two or three years later I found myself with an intuitive and clairvoyant girlfriend (surprise,
surprise). Out of the blue one day, while riding a tram in Melbourne, she made the comment that my
eyes were emanating light in a way she had never seen before. I didnt get much more information than
that out of her, but again an independent source had presented me with the notion that there is indeed a
bio-energy that radiates from the eyes.
Etheric energy and torsion

In standard occult terms, we can identify this energy we speak ofor its light-based aspects at least
as etheric/pranic/chidepending on the framework you want to reference (there are many other names
we could add to the list). (I spell ether without an a to indicate the personal etheric field, and use
aether with an a to indicate the general transpersonal fluid-like aetheric medium which creates our
entire realityalso referred to as the physical vacuum/space-time/implicate order, etc.)
Note that the human mind-field (aura) has different qualities to it. Some (in particular, Russian
scientists) refer to it as a torsion fieldsince every individual particle spins, thus generating a torsion
field of its own, and a collective aggregate torsion fieldwhile others, such as Jay Alfred 15 emphasise
the plasma-like quality of its light-emitting particulate constituents by referring to it as magnetic
plasma (magma for short). To acknowledge both elements, I sometimes refer to the mind-fields as
torsion-plasma fields.

Torsion fields arising from the spin-spin interactions within the vacuum/aether/implicate orderthough
we cant see themare ultimately the most fundamental aspect, since they are ultimately responsible
for organizing undifferentiated information into what we think of as light and matter. Author Sol
Luckman succinctly refers to prana/chi/orgone, etc., as the light-based aspects of torsion fields. To
illustrate the point: the vortices of light interpenetrating the human body and energy fields, as described
by clairvoyants, are created by the spin frequencies of the chakras; the light is a secondary effect, not
the primary organizational force.

Everything spins, from galaxies to quarks, meaning that everything generates its own torsion waves and
field. It is the spin currents arising from the vacuum/aether/implicate order that then create all matter,
light, and polarity. Russian scientists have established that every electromagnetic expression is
accompanied by a torsion aspect (See TGI 1 and/or Torsion: The Key to a Theory of Everything),
therefore, any plasma-like configuration (say, an astral or etheric body) has an aggregate torsion field
by definition. The significance of linking torsion to our subtle bodies and therefore our consciousness is
that torsion fields cannot be shielded by natural substances, and even most man-made ones, with the
exception of aluminium. Therefore neither can our consciousnessas thousands of rigorously
controlled scientific experiments have shown. 16
Reich and the visual ray

The scientific genius and pioneer Wilhelm Reich re-discovered etheric particles (or prana) and called
it orgone (pronounced as organ). His device, the orgone accumulator, was a simple, layered solid-
state structure that actually succeeded in harnessing free orgone energy. It not only generated
anomalous temperature increases from out of nowhere, but, rigged in a particular way, it could run a
25-volt motor indefinitelythus slaughtering the sacred cow (to borrow David Wilcocks phraseology)
known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. For his troubles in breaking new scientific ground
which could have benefitted the whole of mankind, Reich was persecuted by the U.S. government and
A.M.A., jailed, and ultimately died under the strain of it all while incarcerated. (Such is life in the land
of the free.)

What matters for us here, as veteran UFO and orgone researcher Trevor James Constable notes, is that
orgone/etheric energy is actually physical rather than spiritual. It is mass-free and non-
electromagnetic but still part of our space-time reference frame in that it can even be perceived by
people with ordinary vision. (Metaphysicists such as Charles W. Leadbeater referred to these particular
particles as vitality globules. 17 ) When we can tap the energy of the etheric plane, we discover
negentropytime-reversed effects that orthodox science cannot explain. This is where free energy
resides, as Reich and many, many others have shown.

Pranic/orgone energy is something I have spent much time observing in its free state in the atmosphere.
It looks like a soup of highly energetic bright pin-points of light which wriggle and spiral through
the air before vanishing from sight. Many of you have probably seen it too. The primary source of this
life-energy is indeed the sun, locally speaking. Spend long enough observing and you may find that
these particles will cover the expanse of your visual field, at which point it will create the effect of a
moving web of life energy that feels strangely internal while yet looking external to you. To my way
of thinking, this is because your own etheric double (and visual ray) is composed of the very substance
you are observing in free form in the atmosphere.

We all have an etheric or vital bodyof that we can permit no reasonable doubt, due to the large
amounts of empirical evidence available proving it. It is an exact holographic energetic duplicate of the
physical body, and, according to Constable, it is also the source of the beam of mass-free orgone/etheric
energy that emanates from our eyes. Constable states, as someone who verified Rudolph Steiners
remarks on the matter: Departure of a ray of energy from the human eye is an integral part of the
process of vision. Thus, the visual ray of orgone energy is literally an extension of your consciousness
out beyond the confines of the body. It acts like a radar, only a more sophisticated one that both imparts
to and receives information from whatever it interacts withthis includes inert matter as well as
living systems. Constable states that, with some practise, you can physically feel this beam of energy
cruss your hands as you pass it back and forth over them in a darkened room. 18

There is other good, if indirect, empirical evidence for a non-EM ray of energy which can be directed
from our bodies to a selected target, as I detail in TGI 1.
Being stared at

When the visual info-energetic beam/ray contacts the etheric body of another living being, it is detected
by the recipients own etheric/orgone field. A meaningful interaction then takes place, as subconscious
levels of awareness process the exchange of information and energy, and the observed organism
assesses the event, perhaps even scanning for a potential threat. Empirical research has revealed not
just that people are statistically more likely to feel like someone is staring at them when they actually
are, but that the very act of looking creates subtle physiological effects that are not even registered
consciously.

Compelling experiments known as Distant Mental Influence of Living Systems or DMILS have been
carried out by psychologist William Braud at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto,
California, and anthropologist Marilyn Schlitz, Research Director for the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
They have repeatedly shown that if a watcher simply attends fully to a watchee whose physiological
activity is being monitored, then the watcher can influence the distant watchees autonomic galvanic
skin responses. In four separate experiments involving seventy-eight sessions, one person staring
intently at a closed-circuit TV monitor image of a distant participant, influenced the watchees
electrodermal (galvanic skin) responses. In these cases no techniques of intentional focusing or mental
imaging were used by the influencer. He or she simply stared at the watchees image on the video
screen during the 30-second trials, which were randomly interspersed with control periods.

In these studies, Braud and Schlitz discovered something even more interesting than this telepathically
induced effect on our unconscious system. They found that, while they were being stared at, the most
shy, anxious and introverted people had the largest unconscious electrodermal responses, meaning they
reacted with significantly more stress to being stared at than did the sociable and extroverted people.
19 Quiet introverts may possess, or have developed, a higher sensitivity to the consciousness or at least
the direct attention of others.

Interestingly, decades ago, the electrochemist Douglas Dean discovered by using a plethysmograph that
when someone concentrates on the name of a person with whom he or she has an emotional tie, the
distant subject registers a measurable change in blood pressure and volume in his/her finger (showing
autonomic nervous system activation). Dean found about one in four people to have this sensitivity. 20
Thus, we can see that even without directly observing a living systemand therefore not contacting it
with our visual raywe can still influence it merely by thinking of it, especially if there is an
emotional component present in the thought to amplify the signal. This supports the idea that
torsion/scalar fields in the aetheric medium can and do interact with one another outside the standard
restrictions of the electromagnetic space-time reference frame, and can do so at speeds far beyond that
of ordinary light (superluminally). The aetheric medium is effectively a totally integrated medium that
has a ubiquitous nonlocal character. Everything is interconnected at vastly superluminal speedseven
instantaneously. (In a more complete version of this article to later be made available at
www.brendandmurphy.com, I elaborate on superluminal information transfer and torsion field
technology used to facilitate instantaneous communication.)
Could there be an electromagnetic component to the sense of being stared at?

Despite the fact that we are emphasising a non-EM form of hyperdimensional energy (torsion) as
the primary culprit behind someone being able to detect the gaze (or thoughts) of another, there was an
experiment conducted by Dr. Colin A. Russ fairly recently and reported in Anthropology of
Consciousness in March, 2010, that deserves a mention. Briefly, Russ was looking for an
electromagnetic basisin the ELF 140 Hz range, from 1100 microvoltsfor the evil eye, as well
as the sense of being stared at. Using a high-impedance electrode in an EM-insulated environment, his
results did indeed show that the extremely-low-frequency (ELF) EM signal coming from the eyes was
stronger in amplitude in certain frequency ranges than that emanating from the rest of the skull, even if
only detected at shor,t range.

While ELF EM signals suffer extremely little attenuation as they propagateand therefore may
conceivably be involved in local staring effectsRuss acknowledges, however, that the small EM
signals he measured cannot account for the fact that the sense of being stared at can be transmitted
through, for instance, CCTV cameras to distant people. He points out that his results obviously do not
rule out other non-EM emissions functioning in tandem with the detectable EM frequencies, and
mentions the possibility of Sheldrakes non-EM morphogenic fields, which we have speculatively
identified here and in TGI as torsion/scalar fields: The measurable component of ocular extramission
[radiation] in the 040 Hertz range could be considered to be a special limited instance of the larger
theoretical category of morphogenic fields. 21

Nonlocal staring effects require a little more conceptual flexibility than the local variety. Why does
looking at someone through CCTV monitorsor even just thinking about themaffect them
physically? The fact that consciousness is inextricably infused in the fabric of our being at the primary
[nonlocal and holographic] level of complexity means that the exercise of seeing exerts a
demonstrable effect on whatever we observe because everything is equally and similarly infused with
consciousness that operates in the non-local holographic field as well. 22 As any mystic will tell
you, weand our entire universeare all extensions or projections of an underlying holographic (and
conscious) field of potential, something physicist David Bohm called the implicate order. It is as if the
act of observing produces an instantaneous sense of recognition within the object we observe, because
ultimately subject and object are simply different facets of the same nonlocal holographic
consciousness (all is ultimately one).
Conclusions

While there are many experiments proving beyond rational doubt that people can and sometimes do
sense when someone is looking at them (or thinking about them), even the scientists doing these
important experiments have by and large failed to postulate a convincing causal mechanism for the
phenomenon. It may seem evident to a student of the esoteric that the answer has been staring science
in the face for some time: the etheric/pranic/orgone/chi/vital body known for millennia to seers and
healers alikeand its torsion fieldgenerates a non-EM beam of force (and hyperdimensional/virtual
light) and information that interacts apparently instantaneously (certainly superluminally) with all that
the human observes.

We cannot help but affect any system we observe (this is, in fact, a fundamental premise of modern
physics). Whether we like it or not, we always leave our energetic signature behind, while
simultaneously obtaining information about the target.

Brendan D. Murphy, 2012

About the author:

Brendan D. Murphy is the rising Australian author of the forthcoming science-meets-metaphysics non-
fiction epic The Grand Illusion: A Synthesis of Science and Spirituality (Vols 1 & 2), and a
contributing writer for several popular alternative magazines and websites. While
www.brendandmurphy.com is under construction, w-m.com readers are warmly invited to visit The
Grand Illusion (TGI) fan page on Facebook for more articles, information, and free book excerpts:
www.facebook.com/The.Grand.Illusion.Books