On one hand is the neurological research of M.A. Persinger, at the Laurentian University, inquiring into the claimed effects of minute electromagnetic signals, such as those observed in the geomagnetic field, upon human consciousness and perception. On the other hand, we have R.G. Jahn's work in the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program, which looks into the anomalous information transfer between humans and the environment, as claimed to be seen in psychokinesis and remote viewing experiments. The research goals and methodologies differ, and the resulting reports couched in different terminologies, but the similarities are what is really important. Both scientists are exploring unconventional information pathways connecting the human brain (consciousness) and the environment. The pathways are open in both directions.
First, we quote the summary from a recent Persinger paper. The jargon may be technical, but one can readily visualize the human brain immersed in a sea of signals -- nominally electromagnetic but possibly of other sorts.

"Contemporary neuroscience suggests the existence of fundamental algorithms by which all sensory transduction is translated into an intrinsic, brain specific code. Direct stimulation of these codes within the human temporal or limbic cortices by applied electromagnetic patterns may require energy levels which are within the range of both geomagnetic activity and contemporary communication networks. A process which is coupled to the narrow band of brain temperature could allow all normal human brains to be affected by a subharmonic whose frequency range at about 10 Hz would only vary by 0.1 Hz."

Second, Jahn sees a remarkably similar information channel, but of a cryptic nature, connecting humans to the environment in PEAR's psychokinesis and remote viewing experiments. In describing his model of this information channel, Jahn writes:

"Like physical light (energy) and elementary particles (mass), consciousness (information) enjoys a wave/ particle duality that allows it to circumvent and penetrate barriers and to resonate with other consciousness and with appropriate aspects of the environment. Thereby it can both acquire and insert information, both objective and subjective, from and to its resonant partners."

The immense body of empirical data amassed by Jahn's PEAR laboratory certainly suggests the existence of an all pervading information transfer medium that is independent of space and time.
Persinger relies upon a different corpus of research: neurological experiments as well as scores of his own studies of the effects of the geomagnetic environment upon human perception and consciousness.

Both Jahn and Persinger write of information flow. The ideas of brain matrices and resonance's are not too dissimilar. Persinger relies upon the electromagnetic medium; Jahn's is not specified.
Jahn and Persinger are visionary regarding their research. It is perhaps well to reproduce Persinger's warning:

"Within the last two decades, a potential has emerged which was improbable but which is now marginally feasible. This potential is the technical capability to influence directly the major portion of the approximately six billion brains of the human species without mediation through classical sensory modalities by generating neural information within a physical medium within which all member of the species are immersed."

Experimental Induction of the "SENSED PRESENCE"

Down the millennia, a few individuals in all cultures have claimed they have been visited by spirits, gods, angels, or extraterrestrial entities. C.M. Cook and M.A. Persinger associate these visitations with the phenomenon of "sensed presence" or the awareness of an extrapersonal, incorporeal entity. Cook and Persinger assert first that the so-called "sense of self" is a construct of the brain's left hemisphere -- the side usually associated with language. Second, they hypothesize that a "sensed presence" (spirit, god, etc.) is really only a fleeting right-brain homologue of the left-brain "sense of self," something like a transient shortcircuit between brain hemispheres that probably travels along that interconnecting conduit called the "corpus callosum."
Repairing to their laboratory at the Laurentian University, Cook and Persinger asked subjects to press a button when they felt a "mystical presence." Unbeknownst to the subjects, they were occasionally exposed to weak magnetic fields. More often than chance would allow, mystical presences (button pushes) correlated with applications of magnetic fields.

Comments. It is difficult to decide whether sensing an unseen presence is fundamentally different from the sense of being stared at by a real person! The implication of the above experiments is that magnetic fields can induce "mystical presences." Magnetic fields are everywhere and the explanatory possibilities here are endless.

An ESP Experiment
Balanovski and Taylor have assumed that the many purported extrasensory phenomena are very likely effected by electromagnetic forces -- the only known action-at-a-distance force they believe could be involved. Therefore, they assembled a wide variety of very sensitive electromagnetic instruments (antennas, EM probes, skin electrodes, magnetometers, etc.) and tried to find electromagnetic fields associated with people claiming paranormal abilities. Despite the high sensitivities of the apparatus, no ESP-connected electromagnetic fields were detected.

The Bottom Line?

EMFs definitely cause measurable biological effects on consciousness, but could these effects be caused by a unlikely agent? For example, one of the characteristics of orb phenomena is that they seem to generate ELF electromagnetic fields. These same fields are also found in areas that are reportedly haunted, like a residual haunting. Could apparitions just be perceptual then, a illusion created by a external agent? Footsteps, smells and other phenomena associated with hauntings could be nothing more than a hallucination, provided by the environment or other external source. Perhaps there are more to orbs then what meets the eye.