Michael Persinger

Most of Persinger's published articles involved with consciousness have focused on the persistence of experiences reported by individuals who display complex partial epilepsy within the normal population of people who are creative, subject to frequent paranormal experiences, or who have sustained a mild impact of mechanical energy to the cerebrum.[22][23][24] One of his notable experiments, spanning about three decades, involved a helmet ("the God Helmet"), whereby weak physiologically-patterned magnetic fields were applied across the temporal lobes of hundreds of volunteers. The research received wide media coverage[9][10][11] with high-profile visitors to Persinger's laboratory including Susan Blackmore and Richard Dawkins reporting positive[17] and negative[12] results respectively.

Experiences often associated with mystical reports such as out-of-body-experiences, intrusive thoughts, and the sensed presence were reported by hundreds of volunteers over decades of studying the phenomenon, which were not associated with the subjects' suggestibility.[25][26][27][28] Subsequent theory and quantitative electroencephalographic measurements supported the contention that the sensed presence of a "sentient being" could be a normal brain-based prototype for god experiences or related mystical phenomena and was actually the left hemispheric awareness of the right hemispheric equivalent to the left hemispheric sense of self.[29] Similar experiences were reported by people who had applied Todd Murphy's technology.[30] However, other researchers either could not replicate or only partially replicated the experimental effects with variations of the helmet.[31][32][33][26] In 2014, Tinoco and colleagues[26] reported an independent replication of an experimental protocol which measured verbal behavior associated with field exposures using the helmet configuration.[34] In an earlier study by Richards and colleagues, semantic memory was similarly affected by applications of weak magnetic fields over the temporal lobes.[35]

Regarding Persinger's claims, the psychologist Richard Wiseman has written they have not been replicated and the "scientific jury is unconvinced".[13] The research has also been criticized by psychologist Craig Aaen-Stockdale, writing in The Psychologist.[14] Other researchers have criticized Persinger for insufficient double-blinding and argued that there was no physiologically plausible mechanism by which his device could affect the brain.[15][36] Persinger responded that the researchers had an incorrect computer setup[37] and that many of his previous experiments were indeed carried out double-blind.[37] Both claims are disputed.[16]

One of Persinger's lifelong endeavors has been to establish a mechanism underlying geophysical-behavioral correlates using experimental simulations.[38][39][40][41][42][43][44] The Tectonic Strain Theory (TST) developed by Persinger and John S. Derr predicted that luminous phenomena and associated physical effects were produced by manifestations of tectonic strain that often precede by weeks to months seismic events within the region.[45] Persinger argues that the labeling of these manifestations such as unidentified flying objects (UFOs) has changed over the centuries and reflects the characteristics of the culture despite a common mechanism.[46][47] The support for the theory was primarily correlational.[48][49][50][51] Persinger considered the temporal contiguity of reports of unidentified luminous phenomena preceding local seismicity due to injections of fluids a quasi-experimental support for the hypothesis.[45] Alternative models, developed by Persinger and David Vares, were quantified for interaction between quantum values and specific magnitude earthquakes, global climate variations, interactions with population densities, discrete energies as mediators of disease, and processes by which human cognition could be covertly affected by Schumann Resonances and geomagnetic activity.[52] The hypothesis was recently criticized by a blogger.[53]

Persinger has stated that he studies parapsychological phenomena because "the ultimate subject matter of science is the unknown".[1] He believes that verifiable spontaneous and experimental types of parapsychological phenomena are physical and associated with non-local interactions between human brain activity and geophysical processes.[3] For example, he claimed that the moderate strength correlation between geomagnetic activity at the time of a precognitive experience and what the geomagnetic activity would be two to three days before the event indicated that energetic antecedents before the event, not the event itself, was being discerned.[54] During the 1980s, Persinger stated that both experimental and spontaneous cases of "telepathy and clairvoyance ("remote viewing") were more likely when the global geomagnetic activity was lower than the days before or afterwards.[55] Measurement of the brain activity of "psychic" individuals such as Ingo Swann[56] and Sean Harribance[57] revealed unusual electrical brain patterns in the right hemisphere (parahippocampal region), increased photon emissions from the right cerebral hemisphere, and small decreases in the intensity of the geomagnetic field when the details of their experiences were most accurate.