Open Questions

Open Radiocarbon Dating of the Sudarium of Oviedo

Why It Is Open The published assay came with the laboratory's own caveat that oils absorbed over centuries of veneration could distort the measured age, and that caveat was never tested. No scholar holds a position on what a clean measurement would show, so this is a gap rather than a disagreement: the work was started, it reached no conclusion, and nobody resumed it.

What Would Settle It A repeat assay on material cleaned by a published decontamination protocol, run blind across more than one laboratory, with the sampling location on the cloth recorded. Independent characterisation of the absorbed organic contaminants would show how large a shift they are capable of producing, which is the part the original caveat left unquantified.

Expertise Needed Radiocarbon dating and archaeometry, with textile conservation science for the decontamination protocol.

Question posed in The Oviedo Cloth, Mark Guscin.

Open The Persinger God Helmet Experiments

Why It Is Open 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 Settle It 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.

Expertise Needed Experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience, working with the psychology of religion

Question posed in Sensed Presence and Mystical Experiences Are Predicted by Suggestibility, Not by the Application of Transcranial Weak Complex Magnetic Fields, Pehr Granqvist, Mats Fredrikson, Patrik Unge, Andrea Hagenfeldt, Sven Valind, Dan Larhammar and Marcus Larsson.

Open The Origin of Tituba of Salem Village

Why It Is Open The word carried a wide and shifting range in a Massachusetts court of the period, and the clerks who used it were not making an ethnographic determination. The reconstruction of an Arawak origin by way of Barbados rests on that word plus indirect household and shipping records, and no direct evidence of her birth or passage has been found.

What Would Settle It A study of how colonial Massachusetts clerks used the term across a large corpus of records in the same decades, set against any direct documentary trace of her arrival.

Expertise Needed Colonial American archival history; historical linguistics of legal and administrative usage

Question posed in Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies, Elaine G. Breslaw, Breslaw, Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem.

Open DNA Barcoding of Commercial Myrrh

Why It Is Open The result stands for the modern trade and does not reach the ancient question. No securely dated archaeological myrrh from any trade period has been analysed the same way.

What Would Settle It Genetic or chemical analysis of securely dated archaeological myrrh residue from a known trade-period context, compared against the modern reference barcodes.

Expertise Needed Archaeobotany; archaeological science

Question posed in Deciphering Insights into Commercial Myrrh Species Authenticity from the psbA-trnH Genetic Region, Changhong Cao, Wenting Zhong, Feng Gao, Ying Zhang, Zhiguo Ma, Hui Cao and Menghua Wu.

Open The Identification of Biblical Hyssop

Why It Is Open The identification is reached by inference from later regional usage rather than from an ancient botanical description, and no archaeobotanical remains from a ritual context have been identified to species.

What Would Settle It Archaeobotanical remains recovered from a securely dated ritual context and identified to species, or an ancient description precise enough to fix the referent independently of later regional usage.

Expertise Needed Biblical philology; archaeobotany

Question posed in Identification of Biblical Hyssop and Origin of the Traditional Use of Oregano-Group Herbs in the Mediterranean Region, Alexander Fleisher and Zhenia Fleisher.

Open The Eridu Temple Sequence

Why It Is Open The excavation belongs to the 1940s and its final report appeared decades later; the site has not been re-excavated with modern stratigraphic recording, and there is no published radiocarbon series running through the sequence.

What Would Settle It A new season of stratigraphic excavation at Tell Abu Shahrain, recorded to modern standards, with a published radiocarbon series tying the temple sequence to absolute dates.

Expertise Needed Near Eastern archaeology; archaeological science (radiocarbon dating)

Question posed in Eridu, Fuad Safar, Mohammad Ali Mustafa and Seton Lloyd.

Open The Attribution of the Theban Alphabet to Honorius of Thebes

Why It Is Open The investigation established that the citation Trithemius gave cannot be traced in the works of Pietro d'Abano, and that the one Sworn Book manuscript carrying the alphabet took it from Agrippa, who had it from Trithemius. That closes the route by which the script was said to be medieval. It does not close the possibility that a witness survives somewhere unexamined, and it names nobody as the maker, so the origin of the letterforms is still an absence rather than a settled sixteenth century invention.

What Would Settle It A pre-1518 manuscript carrying the letterforms, found in the Solomonic, ars notoria or alchemical manuscript traditions, or a systematic survey of those traditions returning nothing, which would be a real answer rather than a failure. Failing either, a study of Trithemius's own working papers establishing whether he devised the script himself.

Expertise Needed History of Renaissance occultism; codicology of late medieval Latin magical manuscripts; history of cryptography

Question posed in The Sworn Book of Honorius (Liber Iuratus Honorii), Joseph H. Peterson's edition, Honorius of Thebes; Joseph H. Peterson (ed. and trans.).

Open The Ergot Hypothesis of the Eleusinian Kykeon

Why It Is Open The proposal was made in 1978 and has been argued over since without anything being settled, because the argument runs from the reported effect back to a cause that would produce it rather than from evidence of the cause. Nothing ancient describes the drink as intoxicating, and the delicate preparation the chemistry requires is nowhere recorded. The initiates kept the oath for roughly two thousand years, so the documentary route may simply be closed.

What Would Settle It Residue analysis for ergot alkaloids on a vessel securely associated with the rite, from the sanctuary itself rather than from the wider site. Failing that, a text describing the preparation. If neither is ever available the honest answer is that the question is undecidable, and saying so is a real finding rather than a failure.

Expertise Needed Classics; ancient history; archaeochemistry; mycology

Question posed in The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann and Carl A. P. Ruck.

Open Gallium

Why It Is Open The discoverer gave the patriotic reason, that he had named the element for Gallia, the Latin name for France. The coincidence that gallus is Latin for a rooster, and that his own surname, Lecoq, is French for the rooster, was pointed out at once and has been repeated ever since. Whether the second reading was intended, quietly enjoyed, or only ever imagined by other people cannot be settled from the naming announcement, which offers the patriotic reason alone.

What Would Settle It A statement of intent in Lecoq de Boisbaudran's own correspondence or working papers. Failing that, the question concerns a private intention and may simply not be answerable.

Expertise Needed History of chemistry, and French archival work on the Lecoq de Boisbaudran papers.

Question posed in Periodic Table: Gallium, Royal Society of Chemistry, History section of the gallium entry.

Open Thulium

Why It Is Open Published crustal abundance estimates put both at roughly half a part per million, and the two sit within the uncertainty of each other. Sources disagree about which is lower, and several simply assert one without stating a figure.

What Would Settle It A modern determination of both abundances by the same method with stated uncertainties, so the comparison is like for like.

Expertise Needed Geochemistry, specifically crustal abundance measurement.

Question posed in Rare Earth Elements: Critical Resources for High Technology, Gordon B. Haxel, James B. Hedrick and Greta J. Orris, Pages 2 and 4.

Open Ekpe

Why It Is Open Ekpe was already a mature, fully graded institution by the time the earliest outside observers described it, so their accounts date contact rather than founding, and Cross River oral tradition does not preserve a single founder or a securely countable founding year.

What Would Settle It Comparative Ejagham and Efik oral-tradition fieldwork or an archaeological or documentary find independently datable to a period before the earliest colonial-era accounts, tying an early stage of Ekpe's grade structure to a place and an approximate century.

Expertise Needed West African historical anthropology and oral tradition studies

Question posed in Voice of the Leopard: African Secret Societies and Cuba, Ivor L. Miller.

Open Ogboni

Why It Is Open Ogboni is described in the scholarship as having developed alongside Oyo's own political institutions rather than being founded by a named person at a datable moment, and no Yoruba historical or oral source names a founder.

What Would Settle It Oyo court-history research or archaeology tying Ogboni's earth-veneration role and its check on royal power to an identifiable stage of Oyo's own political consolidation.

Expertise Needed Yoruba political history and religious anthropology

Question posed in The Yoruba Ogboni Cult in Oyo, Peter Morton-Williams.

Open Sarmoung Brotherhood

Why It Is Open The Sarmoung Brotherhood is known only through Gurdjieff's own narrative in Meetings with Remarkable Men and the accounts of those who took the story from him. No traveller, ethnographer or historian outside that circle has independently located or documented such a body.

What Would Settle It An independent nineteenth or early twentieth century record, travel account or local Central Asian source naming a body matching Gurdjieff's description, unconnected to Gurdjieff's own circle.

Expertise Needed Central Asian history and the history of esoteric movements

Question posed in The Harmonious Circle: The Lives and Work of G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, and Their Followers, James Webb.

Open The Way International

Why It Is Open The Way International is registered as a church under US tax law and is therefore exempt from filing the Form 990 annual return that discloses a tax-exempt organization's finances; ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer confirms none is on record. A private data aggregator's revenue estimate circulates but names no methodology or analyst, so no reliable total was found.

What Would Settle It A voluntary published financial statement from The Way International itself, or investigative journalism that obtains and verifies its actual revenue or asset figures despite the church exemption.

Expertise Needed US nonprofit and religious organization tax law, and investigative journalism covering new religious movements.

Question posed in Way International, Organization Profile (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer).

Open Twelve Tribes

Why It Is Open Twelve Tribes operates roughly 40 largely self-governing communities internationally with no found central financial disclosure; only a single town's property assessment, Plymouth, Massachusetts at more than 7 million dollars, was located, which describes one community's holdings rather than the movement's total.

What Would Settle It A consolidated accounting, whether voluntary or produced by investigative journalism, of Twelve Tribes' property and business holdings, including its Yellow Deli restaurant chain, across all of its international communities.

Expertise Needed New religious movement studies and communal economics, and investigative journalism covering Twelve Tribes' individual communities.

Question posed in My Time with the Twelve Tribes (Plymouth Independent, 2026), Lucia Thomas.

Open NXIVM

Why It Is Open NXIVM operated as a for-profit company rather than an audited nonprofit, and its collapse proceeded through a criminal racketeering prosecution that produced restitution to named individual victims and forfeitures by named individual defendants, Keith Raniere and Clare Bronfman among them, rather than a receivership or audit of the organization's own combined assets.

What Would Settle It A receiver's accounting, bankruptcy filing, or investigative reporting that totals NXIVM's corporate assets, real estate holdings and revenue as a single organization, distinct from the personal restitution and forfeiture figures tied to individual defendants.

Expertise Needed Corporate and criminal law concerning multi-level marketing and racketeering prosecutions, and investigative journalism covering NXIVM's business structure.

Question posed in Keith Raniere Ordered to Pay 3.5 Million Dollars in Restitution (Associated Press via Global News, 2021), Tom Hays.

Open Word of Faith Fellowship

Why It Is Open Word of Faith Fellowship is organized and recognized by the IRS as a church, a category exempt from the Form 990 filing that would otherwise make its finances checkable, and it has never published its own financial account. The only dollar figures the public record holds are a fraudulent unemployment claims total tied to individual members and a federal investigation into alleged abuse, neither a statement of the church's own assets or revenue.

What Would Settle It A voluntary financial disclosure, a court-ordered accounting from a future civil or criminal proceeding, or investigative journalism that totals the church's property, cash holdings and revenue as an organization, distinct from the individual-level fraud figures already on record.

Expertise Needed Nonprofit and tax law concerning church filing exemptions, and investigative journalism covering Word of Faith Fellowship's internal finances.

Question posed in Word Of Faith Fellowship Inc, Organization Record (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer).

Open The Family International

Why It Is Open The Family International restructured in 2010 into a decentralized, largely non-communal network of individual members and associated organizations across many countries, has historically discouraged outside employment, and by a named scholarly account has never been wealthy as an organization; it has never published a single consolidated financial statement covering that network.

What Would Settle It A consolidated financial statement, investigative accounting or scholarly financial study totaling assets, property and revenue across The Family International's associated national entities and organizations, rather than the qualitative account of financial constraint currently on record.

Expertise Needed Sociology of religion and investigative journalism covering new religious movements' financial structures and cross-border nonprofit networks.

Question posed in Children of God / The Family International (CDAMM, 2021), Eileen Barker and Sarah Harvey.

Open Sarmoung Brotherhood

Why It Is Open The whole account descends from Gurdjieff's own writing and from what he told pupils. The Armenian manuscript he names has not been produced or identified, no location has been established, and no independent traveller, official or scholarly record of such a body has been found for a region that was heavily travelled and reported on. Positions divide between a traceable synthesis of available currents, a real but unnamed Sufi lineage, and a deliberate literary device, and no evidence has been produced for any of the three.

What Would Settle It Identification of the Armenian source named in the account, or of any manuscript using the name; archival work in Russian, Ottoman and British records of Central Asian travel for the relevant years; and comparative study of the movements against documented Sufi and Central Asian practice by scholars with access to both.

Expertise Needed History of Central Asian Sufism; Armenian manuscript studies; the academic study of Western esotericism

Question posed in Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.

Open Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God

Why It Is Open The commonly cited figure of about 778 dead is assembled from counts taken at the Kanungu church and several satellite grave sites, not from an identified register, and the victims at the satellite sites were killed over a period of months before the fire. Credonia Mwerinde and Joseph Kibwetere were sought and never produced. The Ugandan investigation was not completed, the remains were never comprehensively examined, and no identification exercise was carried out, so the total and the fate of the leadership are both unresolved rather than disputed.

What Would Settle It Forensic examination and DNA identification of the remains recovered from the Kanungu site and the satellite graves, matched against surviving relatives, together with release of the Ugandan police investigation file and the 2000 post-mortem records.

Expertise Needed Forensic anthropology and forensic genetics; Ugandan criminal records and archival research; history of religion in East Africa.

Question posed in World Religions and Spirituality Project, David G. Bromley (founding director) and the profile authors of record.