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Michael A. Persinger (born June 26, 1945), is a
cognitive neuroscience
researcher and university professor. He has worked at Laurentian University, Canada
since 1971 .
Early
life
Dr. Persinger was born in Jacksonville, Florida and 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.
Research and academic
work
Dr. 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.
During the 1980s Dr. 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 claimed 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]
Michael Persinger has also contributed to research into the Miracle of the sun at Fatima and
other Marian
apparitions. He theorized that the stimulation of the
cerebral-temporal lobe may have been the actual cause of the Marian
apparition phenomenon. He believes the religious content of the
experiences many have been a result of their obsession with
religious themes and their lack of education. He has contributed to
2 papers about The Miracle of the Sun. [2]
Tectonic
Strain Theory
Dr. 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, he argued that 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 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 Dr. 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. [3]
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.[4]
See also
References
- ^
Electrical brainstorms busted
as source of ghosts, BioEd Online, 2004-12-09
- ^
Joaquim Fernandes, Fernando Fernandes and Raul Berenguel, Fatima
Revisited 2008 p.1-8,79-86
- ^
Unidentified Atmospheric
Phenomena - Seeing the light, Fortean Times
- ^
Paul Devereux "Earthlights Revelation" 1989: pp 59-115
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