Michael Persinger

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Dr. Michael A. Persinger (born June 26, 1945), a cognitive neuroscience researcher and university professor, has worked since 1971 at Laurentian University, Canada.

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[edit] Early life

Persinger, though born in Jacksonville, Florida, grew up primarily in Virginia, Maryland and Wisconsin. He attended Carroll College from 1963 to 1964, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1967. He then obtained an M.A. in physiological psychology from the University of Tennessee and a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba in 1971.

[edit] Research and academic work

Persinger focuses much of his work on the commonalities that exist between the sciences, and aims to integrate fundamental concepts of various branches of science. He organized the Behavioral Neuroscience Program at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, which became one of the first to integrate chemistry, biology and psychology.

Because of the interdisciplinary nature of much of his work, Persinger insists on publishing his techniques and results within the public forum (the scientific literature). Except for $10,000 given to him in 1983 by a researcher from the U.S. Navy who had an interest in magnetic fields and brain activity, his private practice has supported all of his work. Laurentian University supplies only space and infrastructure. Recently, Persinger has received grants from a Canadian SIDS foundation.

During the 1980s Persinger stimulated people's temporal lobes artificially with a weak magnetic field to see if he could induce a religious state (see God helmet). He found that the field could produce the sensation of "an ethereal presence in the room".

Susan Blackmore, a former academic psychologist and parapsychology researcher: "When I went to Persinger's lab and underwent his procedures I had the most extraordinary experiences I've ever had." "I'll be surprised if it turns out to be a placebo effect." [1]

[edit] Tectonic Strain Theory

Pseudoscientific Concepts
Claims:
Related scientific disciplines:
Year proposed: * 1975

Original proponents:
  • Michael Persinger

Current proponents:
  • Persinger and Paul Devereux


Persinger has also come to public attention due to his 1975 Tectonic Strain Theory (TST) of how geophysical variables may correlate with sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Persinger argued that strain within the earth's crust near seismic faults produces intense electromagnetic (EM) fields, creating bodies of light that some interpret as glowing UFOs. Alternatively, the EM fields generate hallucinations in the temporal lobe, based on images from popular culture, of alien craft, beings, communications, or creatures.

Canadian researcher Chris Rutkowski of the University of Manitoba has become a prominent harsh critic of Persinger's Tectonic Strain Theory. For one thing, Rutowski argues, in order to try to accommodate UFO sightings in regions far removed from faults, Persinger has claimed that UFO-like lights or hallucinations can manifest hundreds of miles away from an area of seismic activity. Not only does this place an absurdly great distance between the actual area of tectonic stress and the surmised significant EM field, it also makes the theory unscientific by destroying any possible predictive power. Nearly every place on the planet lies within a few hundred miles of a seismically active area. Rutkowski pointed out severe flaws in Persinger's statistical methodology, since he confused possible correlation (however weak) with causality. For example, one could more easily explain occasional clusters of UFO sightings along earthquake fault-lines by the fact that populations often occur there in higher densities and by the fact that transportation routes often follow major fault lines, such as the San Andreas fault in California.

As with criticisms of Persinger's claims that minute laboratory magnetic fields can invoke hallucinations, Rutowski also points out that Persinger's inferred seismic EM fields would have much less influence than what people commonly experience near electrical appliances like television sets or hair driers. This again raises the question as to why people don't experience UFOs or aliens far more often than they do, or why these hypothetical hallucinations from electrical devices wouldn't drown out any possible contribution from much weaker geophysical fields. Once again, Persinger notes that the magnitude of the EM fields may have less significance than the particular temporal patterns. Furthermore, commentators such as British researcher Albert Budden, has proposed that man-made electromagnetic emissions can (in certain circumstances)generate close encounter-type experiences and has cited possible examples of this effect in his work "Electric UFOs" (Blandford, 1998).

In the UK, Paul Devereux advocates a variant geophysical theory similar to TST, the Earthlights theory. However, unlike Persinger, Devereaux generally restricts such effects to the immediate vicinity of a fault line. Devereux's approach also differs from Persinger's in holding triboluminescence rather than piezoelectricity as the "more likely candidate" for the production of naturally occurring UFOs. Devereux doesn't advocate, as in Persinger's TST, that the phenomenon might create hallucinations of UFO encounters in people, instead proposing an even more radical hypothesis: that earthlights may possess intelligence and even have the ability to read witness' thoughts. [2]

UFO researchers critical of the sesmic stress theory admit that, while, observations of diffuse lights during (and sometimes before and after) very severe earthquakes may give some weak support to some parts of TST and Earthlights theory (see Earthquake lights), they question the ability of fault lines to generate luminous effects and hallucinatory experiences under much less severe conditions(as cited above). Nonetheless, even TST critics such as Rutowski think such theories may hold some promise for explaining a small percentage of UFO phenomena, although they doubt that they can ever offer a comprehensive explanation for the vast majority of unexplained UFO cases. Other UFO researchers (mainly in the U.K) believe this very limited interpretation of the TST is brought into question by the clustering of UFO reports within areas prone to faulting - such as the Pennine region of northern Britain. While acknowledging the drawback's of Persinger's theory, they feel that amended versions of it may account for a significant proportion of "True UFO" reports (Paul Devereux "Earthlights Revelation" 1989: pp 59-115).

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Electrical brainstorms busted as source of ghosts, BioEd Online, 2004-12-09
  2. ^ Unidentified Atmospheric Phenomena - Seeing the light, Fortean Times

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