Here is a relevant quote by one of the more popular 'fringe' icons in the field of consciousness study:
"Looking for consciousness in the brain is like looking inside a radio for the announcer." ~ Nassim Haramein
The highly subjective and speculative debate in this thread right now is getting us nowhere- we need a common language in order to proceed, i.e. science in a form that we can all relate to- ENERGY, so these metaphors of radios and antennae and such I think are necessary. Consciousness is fundamentally an interface of energy fields, so it only seems natural to me to tackle this debate of MXE's high variance of effects using the same kind of language.
So it's not about belief, it's about what I feel, as I said- note the word 'phenomenologically'. I know I'm not alone in what I feel, not after reading so many other people talk about the phenomenology of consciousness in terms of energy fields, waves, quantum mechanics etc. That is what creates the bridge between the subjective and the objective.