The God Helmet

The God Helmet, or the Koren Helmet as it was called by its inventors Koren and Persinger, is a device that uses temporal lobe stimulation to induce mystical, spiritual or religious experiences - turning humans into the world's first religious cyborgs. Persinger claims that at least 80% per cent of his test subjects feel the presence of someone in the room - angels, deceased persons, or even God.

Unfortunately other researchers were not able to reproduce his results, which to some degree might not be surprising as the strength of signals used by Persinger were only at a millionth of regular magnetic stimulation. It hasn't stopped one of Persinger's group members, Todd Murphy, from commercializing the God Helmet and to keep spreading its gospel.

The God Helmet then got a second life as a placebo tool to ‘elicit’ mystical experiences. In an experiment by Maij et al. at the Dutch music festival Lowlands. Participants were asked to wear a God Helmet - but it wasn't wired up. It turned out through self report that spiritual believers were more likely to have extraordinary experiences - yet alcohol level didn’t impact this.