God helmet

The God helmet, originally called the Koren helmet, is an experimental apparatus built from a modified snowmobile helmet fitted with solenoids positioned over the temporal lobes to generate very weak magnetic fields. It was developed by the researcher Stanley Koren together with the neuroscientist Michael Persinger to study creativity, religious experience and the effects of mild temporal lobe stimulation. Persinger reported that many of his subjects experienced mystical states or altered consciousness while wearing the device, most often describing a sensed presence in the room that they interpreted as an angel, a deceased person, or God. The device remains highly controversial, since Persinger's claim that around eighty percent of participants experienced a sensed presence has not held up in independent testing, with a 2005 Swedish study finding no relationship between the magnetic field and any reported religious or spiritual experience and pointing instead to suggestibility, and other researchers have produced similar experiences using inactive sham helmets, suggesting the effect is psychological rather than caused by the magnetic field itself.