@hazlin from what i recalled he had signed up for the study as a student.

given i have read many of these studies—you are allowed to lie to students in the USA. europe commonly does not allow you to do so. which is why things like the Koren helmet have such a probelmatic result over there.

in the USA they told people they were doing relaxation exercizes. the actual study was to pulse the temporal lobe. in some subjects this made them "see god." the replications in Sweden however told everyone it was the god helmet and they were doing an experiment to make them see god, so people came in already primed with expectations (and sweden is heavily atheist, so they practically set it up for a negative bias)

so knowing how psych operates, they may have just said its some random psych study and then proceeded to be strategically abusive.

he pretty much went from some cool math nerd to total spook death after that point. its kind of sad, but also not like it couldn't have happened to nicer people kind of thing :comfywoozy: