Out of Body Experiment
Michael Shermer travels to Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada, to strap on the “God Helmet” in neuroscientist Michael Persinger’s lab that duplicates out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, alien abductions, and other paranormal phenomena.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:38 am
Skeptic that I am, I naturally needed to learn more about this “God Helmet” experiment. Unfortunately, the experiment itself has been debunked, ‘Electrical brainstorms busted as source of ghosts’ – Naturenews 2004 http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041206/full/news041206-10.html
It’s really either time to remove this video or at least add a few sentences about how a double blind study failed to reproduce the same results. You may have simply been duped by the power of suggestion. Expecting to sense something under the magnetic effects of the God Helmet, you did.
-solon
April 23rd, 2011 at 4:47 pm
The experiment has not been debunked at all. Persinger has published a couple of papers debunking the debunkers. It turns out that the experiment trying to reproduce the god helmet’s effects were set up wrong, so they didn’t end up with the right fields. Persinger: “They didn’t replicate it – not even close”. Persinger is still at work, and still doing experiments. It just goes to show you that when one scientist is trying to duplicate another’s work, the first one has to have some control over the experiments – but never, of course, have contact with the subjects. Persinger has done scores of experiments, and the so-called debunkers did only one. It wasn’t just what the experimenters were expecting, either. They have published stuff where their expectations were not confirmed. They got results, but not the ones they thought they were going to get. Shermer’s experience was more than just expectation. He couldn’t know what to expect.
The god helmet may not be a portal to the divine, but it’s more than just expectation. When many experiments say ‘yes’, and one says ‘no’, the skeptics will always believe the one that says no.
May 29th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Hi solon and also another skeptic,
I do not think that this video needs to be removed, yet I would like to share that Dr. Persinger is not necessarily engaging in only science, but in metaphysics, too.
Metaphysics is a form of non-science. A pseudoscience.
Dr. Persinger is free to explore what ever he has a passion for and in whatever means he has available to him, yet let us not forget:
Dr. Eugenie Scott:
“Science is limited to explaining just the natural world. Science is limited to natural cause. Science cannot test explanations involving supernatural cause.”
That is all I can think to share of and add to this dialogue.
Best wishes,
demetrios b.
August 10th, 2011 at 5:35 am
http://adf.ly/2FvCb life after death