Perhaps one of the most problematic psychological traits of humans and other species to analyze by methods of statistical analysis is motivation. Last summer, my colleagues at the University of Minnesota published a joint paper with me that started a new field of science known as Chronosociobiology, which is a study of social systems over time. Our first study was done on studying the motivation of Jehovah’s Witnesses for a 50-year period. We showed in this paper that there was a statistically significant correlation between the amount of time spent by publishers in the field service with both the steady geomagnetic field of the earth and time variables that ranged approximately 11 years in length. Several months ago, we had a thread on here discussing the results of the research work.
In light of the recent publication of the 2001 Service Year data, I decided to spend a few hours updating my work and seeing if I could explain things a little simpler to show the cyclic nature of not only human motivation but also to do a prediction on the activity of the Witnesses for coming years.
Our previous research project determined that the most likely relationship with human motivation is with a form of geomagnetic activity called geomagnetic or ULF pulsations. These are an unusual type of electromagnetic wave that have great time periods that are measured in minutes per cycle. These waves have the ability to create what are called “eddy” currents in brain tissue, and they are now known to be involved in a wide variety of human relationships that include influencing human reaction time to creating visual hallucinations. Simply put, the eddy currents either inhibit or stimulate different parts of the brain and create a state known as LTP or long-term potentiation.
Known excitation mechanisms for ULF pulsations can be grouped into four different classes: (1) plasma instabilities at the boundaries of the magnetosphere; (2) instabilities of the internal magnetospheric plasma distributions; (3) wave generation outside the magnetosphere and subsequent propagation into the magnetosphere; and (4) macroscopic changes of the magnetospheric configuration.
Because of the complex relationship with the geomagnetic field and the specific lack of widespread and long-term records of pulsations by rapid run magnetograms at geomagnetic observatories, scientists must use other established geomagnetic variables to demonstrate relationships with biological phenomena on time scales that extend for decades. Fortunately, there is a established relationship with the geomagnetic field as a whole by means of a variable known as C9.
The Character figures indices C9 has nearly the longest records of all geomagnetic activity. The Character index is generated daily at each geomagnetic observatory in the world. It gives a determination of the level of disturbance at each observatory for each Greenwich day. A number (0,1,2) is assigned depending upon whether the geomagnetic records appear to be quiet, moderately disturbed or severely disturbed. The average over all observatories (over 200 stations) is termed the international character figure Ci. A non-uniform transformation of this average to a scale from 0-9 is called the C9 index and is one of the parameters I used in my study.
I was able to find service year data from Watchtower publications from 1938 to 2001. I created a table that shows the years, number of peak publishers, total hours, the total hours per publisher, and the growth rate. It soon becomes apparent when you look at this table that something unusual is happening. Approximately every 11 years (10.6 years to be exact) there is a sudden downwards trend in the growth rate at which it bottoms out and then starts a climb back up again, to only see the same cycle repeat itself about 10 and half years later. In the link below, I have put this table and highlighted the 5 different crashes in red.
. http://www.geocities.com/skipstarbuck/JWandC9.htm
Next to the growth rate column, you will see the column for C9 that is adjusted to match the Sept-Aug JW calendar. You can easily see a relationship here with the lows of this variable either matching the exact year or coming close to the same year. The C9 cycle has a period length of 10.4 years and is synchronized with the JW growth rate. To show the proper scale, the JW data and C9 data have been put on the same scale (Z-scores).
Why doesn’t it match exactly? The C9 is a record of the entire magnetic field of the Earth and only about 30% of the field intensity is thought to be associated with geomagnetic pulsations. So, essentially it is a rough mirror of pulsation activity. Other variables that I did not include here for the sake of simplicity, measure the speed, density, and cone angle of the solar wind. Sunspots are a measure of solar activity that starts the whole process going with its 11.2-year cycles. We have ways of measuring the energy of the magnetosphere as well, and all of these working together show us the relationships with ULF pulsations and the human motivation data. It is worth noting here that the geomagnetic pulsation cycle is 10.5 years in length for the particular frequencies thought to effect human behavior.
So, the mathematical reliability is above the 95% confidence level, so I feel safe in making some general predictions about JW growth.
We are at peak of the sunspot cycle and have been for the last year. Solar activity will decrease slowly over the next few years but the levels of ULF pulsations will increase, as these cycles are not precisely aligned. The 2002 Service Year for the Witnesses should show an increase larger than the previous year but not by a large amount. 2003 will be an even better year yet with the highest increase they have seen in years, perhaps as much as 5%-6% or more world wide. 2004-2005 will see a lower growth rate with the growth bottoming out at 2007. The potential then is for a break-even point or net loss.
Skipper