http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QghlTLSX5s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet Pay special attention to the part about Persinger and his God Helmet, 4 minutes in. (religious conservatives have since successfully lobbied to have the apparatus shut down, btw.) There was also an amazing episode of either Dateline, Nightline, or 60 minutes (can't remember which) where one of the reports straps himself in to the God Helmet and you get to watch his reaction. I can't find this clip any where, if anybody can... link it. Discuss.
Well, as far as I know, it's pretty well established that's there's a "religious" part of the brain. You might be interested in reading about dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a drug that causes the user to have religious hallucinations.
? The god helmet is ring of magnets that cause a euphoric, religious like state when placed on the head and activated. This isn't pseudoscience, the thing not only works but has a very profound effect on most people, even skeptics. Useless spam? I'd classify it instead as "an extremely interesting device which provides a great deal of insight into the way that the human mind functions."
Fixed it for you. DMT is released by your brain when you dream, and probably plays a big part in creating dreams.
WTF is a "religious-like state"? An externally selected set of beliefs cannot internally manifest itself. Though people with a truly ludicrous feeling of self-importance might try to claim it can.
It activates the same part of the brain as that in people who have been studied while having "religious experiences." When people say "religious-like state," they mean "we found out what religion does to the brain, and this does something similar."
STCAB, it wouldn't be hard to make a placebo of it. A bunch of fake magnets? Or, put it on someone and not tell them what it does. If someone doesn't know what it does, the placebo effect would be highly variable. For example, they could feel tired, or a pain in their head, or whatever.
Hilarious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzjoKhBklYg Although, this is probably not just the placebo effect, some of this could probably be attributed to the fake doctor acting as an "authority figure".
Placebo effect? Possible, but unlikely... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCVzz96zKA0 http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/persinger.html Then again maybe you're right... http://current.com/items/88832741/richard_dawkins_puts_on_the_god_helmet.htm But the fact is that it has similar effects on people who do not know what the effects are before hand. Why would people report similar bizarre experiences when they are not informed before hand that they are expected to have those experiences? They are only told it will be a religious like experience... Obviously Dawkins knew what the effect would be, but given his stature this seems more of a necessity than any thing. I would be very surprised if Persinger didn't conduct trials where the god helmet was never turned on as a control. It would be pretty stupid if he didn't.
The god-helmet isn't the only thing that produces in people a sensation of the supernatural. Some drugs, notably salvia divinorum often cause their users to have experiences of the other, religious in nature in many cases. This certainly shouldn't be surprising; after all, everything we thing or experience is controlled/related via chemicals and electric signals in the brain. Adjust the chemicals and the signals, and you adjust the thoughts, feelings, and sensations. If you can make someone less depressed, or less schizophrenic, or any number of things, why does it seem so odd that you could make someone have a religious sensation?
What an odd thing to say? If you associate puppies with happyness very strongly, and someone artificially stimulated the happyness part of your brain, you'd probably start thinking about puppies. You don't exactly choose a religion because it makes you feel nothing. And if the area that makes you feel is artificially stimulated... Keep in mind this is artifical stimulus - you have no will power to over come it as much as your will could not stop a bullet from penetrating your skull. This god helmet kind of kills the normal you (as do drugs as well) as much as a bullet would, because both physically penetrate and mess with your brain. Obviously to different degrees, of course. Neuropath by Scott Bakker deals in alot of this stuff.