The Frequency-Effect Register

A number in hertz predicts nothing by itself. Source, waveform, field strength, receiver, exposure, and outcome make the claim.

This register separates effects that earlier frequency literature often collapses.

The same number can describe an endogenous neural rhythm, an acoustic pulse, an applied electric field, an applied magnetic field, the modulation envelope of a microwave signal, or a statistical recurrence. Numerical overlap creates a lead. It supplies no transfer mechanism.

Every entry must answer:

source → carrier and waveform → coupling path → dose → receiver → measured effect

Evidence Labels

Measured means the carrier and response are directly observed.

Supported means controlled studies establish an effect while magnitude and boundary conditions remain under study.

Unresolved means a testable correspondence or early result exists without reliable causal replication.

Historical claim means the assertion matters to the genealogy but lacks a source record strong enough to function as established evidence.

Endogenous Neural Rhythms

EEG bands describe electrical activity generated by neural populations. They are observations of the receiver, not instructions that an external signal automatically writes into it.

Delta, approximately 0.5–4 Hz — measured. Slow-wave sleep commonly contains high-amplitude delta activity. Delta also appears in pathology, development, attention, and task-related coordination. It does not mean unconsciousness in every context.

Theta, approximately 4–8 Hz — measured. Theta participates in memory, navigation, cognitive control, and drowsy or meditative states. Function depends on source region, task, phase relation, and species.

Alpha, approximately 8–12 Hz — measured. Alpha becomes prominent during relaxed eyes-closed wakefulness and participates in sensory inhibition and attentional gating. It is not a universal frequency of calm.

Beta, approximately 13–30 Hz — measured. Beta participates in motor control, prediction, maintenance of current sensorimotor state, and active cognition. Calling it “the anxiety frequency” discards most of its function.

Gamma, conventionally above 30 Hz — measured. Gamma-band activity participates in local processing and coordination. Muscle activity and other artifacts can contaminate scalp measurements. Gamma correlates with several conscious processes; it is neither consciousness itself nor a spiritual rank.

The bands interact. Cross-frequency coupling often carries more information than power in one band. See The Human Chord.

Auditory Rhythm and Sound

Auditory steady-state response — measured. Repeated sound can produce phase-locked neural responses at the stimulation rate and its harmonics. The effect demonstrates neural tracking of rhythm.

Rhythmic drumming — supported as state induction. Controlled work finds that repetitive drumming can change subjective state and temporal experience. A 2026 EEG study found stronger theta-range neural tracking associated with stronger drumming-induced altered experience. The complete induction includes rhythm, duration, attention, expectation, imagery, and participant susceptibility.

Binaural beats — mixed and protocol-dependent. Presenting slightly different tones to the ears produces a perceived beat. Reviews find inconsistent evidence that the beat reliably entrains the intended EEG band. Binaural audio can still contribute to relaxation and state training as one part of a protocol.

Reference pitch claims — unresolved and generally unsupported. Music tuned around A=432 Hz differs physically from music tuned around A=440 Hz. Universal healing or harmful effects have not been established. Composition, interval structure, timbre, loudness, performance, expectation, memory, and context usually carry more explanatory weight than the reference pitch alone.

Cardiovascular Resonance

Approximately 0.1 Hz cardiorespiratory resonance — supported. Slow breathing near an individual’s resonance frequency, often around 4.5–6.5 breaths per minute, can increase respiratory sinus arrhythmia, heart-rate variability, and baroreflex gain.

This is a real resonance because the oscillators, feedback delay, intervention, and response are defined. It should not be relabeled as Schumann entrainment. Similar rates do not erase different carriers.

Electric and Magnetic Stimulation

Transcranial magnetic stimulation — established intervention class. A rapidly changing magnetic field induces electric current in neural tissue. Target, pulse shape, intensity, repetition rate, coil geometry, and participant state determine the effect.

Transcranial alternating-current stimulation — active research. Weak alternating current applied through the scalp can modulate neural activity under some conditions. Effects are generally small, state-dependent, and vulnerable to peripheral sensory confounds.

Power-frequency magnetic fields at 50/60 Hz — exposure is measured; health effects depend on dose and endpoint. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies extremely low-frequency magnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic, based chiefly on limited evidence concerning childhood leukemia at chronic elevated exposure. This classification does not mean that the frequency itself is poisonous or that every grid-powered environment produces the same effect.

Radiofrequency heating — established. Sufficient RF energy heats tissue. Nonthermal biological effects remain an active and contested literature whose interpretation depends on dosimetry, modulation, replication, and exposure conditions.

Microwave auditory effect — measured. Pulsed radiofrequency energy can produce perceived clicks or sounds through thermoelastic pressure waves generated in tissue. Carrier frequency alone does not determine the effect; pulse energy, duration, repetition, geometry, and safety limits matter.

Schumann Resonances

The Earth–ionosphere cavity supports electromagnetic resonances with a fundamental near 7.8 Hz and variable higher modes. Their existence is measured.

The overlap with EEG bands is also measured as arithmetic. Direct entrainment of human neural activity by ambient Schumann fields remains unresolved. Ambient fields are extremely weak, and a receiver or amplification path must bridge the field-strength gap. Controlled exposure at a similar frequency is not automatically evidence that the natural ambient signal drives the effect.

Claims that 7.83 Hz guarantees wellbeing, that frequencies immediately below it cause depression, or that frequencies immediately above it cause agitation trace largely to historical Puharich–Beck materials rather than a replicated clinical dose-response literature. They remain historical claims.

See Schumann Resonance.

Geomagnetic and Sidereal Claims

Geomagnetic sensitivity — active research. Human neural responses to rotated Earth-strength magnetic fields have been reported under controlled conditions. Replication, individual variation, and functional significance remain open.

Geomagnetic correlations — unresolved. Studies report correlations among geomagnetic activity, cardiovascular outcomes, mood, sleep, and other variables. Solar, seasonal, environmental, and analytical covariates complicate causal interpretation.

Local sidereal time and anomalous cognition — unresolved. Spottiswoode reported variation in free-response anomalous-cognition effect size by local sidereal time. This is a timing correlation, not an ELF exposure frequency. It belongs in the anomaly ledger until prospectively replicated under fixed analysis.

Removed from the Evidence Layer

Several claims previously presented here as documented do not meet the register standard:

fixed psychological effects at 6.00, 6.26, 6.67, 10.8, or 11 Hz;
the Schumann fundamental as a proven baseline of human wellbeing;
60 Hz as a demonstrated displacement of a biological 7.83 Hz carrier;
a direct one-to-one map from EEG bands to Gateway Focus levels;
the claim that the Soviet Woodpecker produced riotous behavior through a particular ELF tone;
the claim that telecommunications rollouts caused influenza, SARS, or COVID-19;
a galactic alignment proven to modulate a consciousness channel.

Some remain research leads. None belongs under “documented frequency effect” without a reproducible carrier–dose–response chain.

Submission Standard

A new entry should include:

source and carrier;
carrier frequency and modulation or pulse structure;
amplitude, field strength, or sound-pressure level;
duration, geometry, and distance;
receiver and baseline state;
controls and blinding;
measured outcome;
replication status;
adverse effects;
the smallest claim the evidence actually supports.

Frequency is a rate. Information is a pattern carried through variation. Meaning emerges in a receiver. Effect requires coupling.

References

Frey, Allan H. “Human Auditory System Response to Modulated Electromagnetic Energy.” Journal of Applied Physiology 17, no. 4 (1962): 689–692. https://doi.org/10.1152/jappl.1962.17.4.689.

Gordon, Yaniv, et al. “Neural Tracking at Theta Predicts Drumming-Induced Altered States of Consciousness.” Scientific Reports (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-37700-x.

Ingendoh, Roman M., et al. “Binaural Beats to Entrain the Brain? A Systematic Review.” PLOS ONE 18, no. 5 (2023): e0286023. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286023.

International Agency for Research on Cancer. Non-Ionizing Radiation, Part 1: Static and Extremely Low-Frequency Electric and Magnetic Fields. IARC Monographs, vol. 80. Lyon, 2002.

Lehrer, Paul M., and Richard Gevirtz. “Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback: How and Why Does It Work?” Frontiers in Psychology 5 (2014): 756. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00756.

Thut, Gregor, and Carlo Miniussi. “New Insights into Rhythmic Brain Activity from TMS–EEG Studies.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 13, no. 4 (2009): 182–189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2009.01.004.

Wang, Connie X., et al. “Transduction of the Geomagnetic Field as Evidenced from Alpha-Band Activity in the Human Brain.” eNeuro 6, no. 2 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0483-18.2019.