The founding series reported the effect and a double-blind replication at Uppsala in 2005 did not, finding that measured suggestibility predicted the reported experience while exposure to the field did not. Persinger held that the Swedish exposure protocol differed materially from his own. Neither side withdrew, no further trial has been run under a protocol both would accept, and the God helmet continues to be cited in popular accounts of the neuroscience of religion as though the matter were settled in one direction or the other.
What would resolve this A pre-registered, multi-site, double-blind trial using the field parameters and exposure durations of the original series, with suggestibility measured and entered as a covariate rather than offered as a rival explanation after the fact, and with the analysis plan fixed before data collection.
OpenExperimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience, working with the psychology of religionPehr Granqvist, Mats Fredrikson, Patrik Unge, Andrea Hagenfeldt, Sven Valind, Dan Larhammar and Marcus Larsson, Sensed Presence and Mystical Experiences Are Predicted by Suggestibility, Not by the Application of Transcranial Weak Complex Magnetic Fields