Perhaps the most striking example of the interaction and relationship between spiritual experiences and the architecture of the human brain, is the so-called “God-helmet”. This is an apparatus developed by a Canadian Professor and researcher into cognitive neuroscience named Micheal Persinger. (Persingers Website at Laurentian University).
Essentially, this apparatus is placed on the head of person and stimulates their brain with fluctuating magnetic fields. Solenoids are placed over the temporal lobes, or in a circle around the head which includes the prefrontal cortex and the temporal lobes.
Many of the people (80%) who undergo this stimulation report at very least the sensed presence of another person in the room with them, when in fact no other person is present. Approximately 1% of the subjects report a “full blown” experience of “God”. Other reactions vary along a spectrum from the simple ‘sensed presence’ to the ‘god experience.’
According to Persinger, each person who has an experience withe the “God Helmet” tends to describe the nature of the experience in language and metaphors familiar to their own religious inclination. A Christian may describe being in contact with a loving Jesus, a Hindu may recount communion with Shiva, and a Buddhist presumably would describe a sensation of Nirvana. We all carry cultural and normative narrative structures that we use to make sense of what we encounter, and fit our experiences into our expectations.
Persinger got his direction from a study of patients with Temporal lobe epilepsy. Patients who experience partial epileptic seizures, in particular seizures with foci in the amygdala and hippocampus, report more frequent paranormal-like experiences than the general population. According to Persinger “Distortions in subjective time, the sensed presence of another sentient being, out-of-body experiences, and even religious reveries have occurred during spontaneous seizures.” See:
The Role of the limbic system in experiential Phenomena of temporal lobe epilepsy. Pubmed.
Apparently then, internal stimulation can be strongly correlated to what Micheal Persinger calls a “paranormal experience”.
So, if patients whose temporal lobes are being internally stimulated report a high incidence of ‘god experiences’, what happens if you stimulate the same systems with an external source?
It seems as though many people may in fact already have experienced external stimulation long before the “God Helmet” experiments. Activity in the earths geomagnetic field has been linked to reports of apparitions. Transient electrical instability inside the temporal lobes, caused by large scale changes in the earths field show a strong association with reports of lost loved ones returning or visiting. People who had had a recent loss seem to be especially sensitive, and when geomagnetic activity also increases, the contributing factors worked together to induce a hallucination of the loved one returning.
“The days on which the experiences occurred displayed significantly greater (mean increase = 10 gamma) geomagnetic activity compared to the days before or afterwards.” Increased geomagnetic activity. Pubmed.
So why not try to artificially induce the same activity?
Persinger decided to apply complex but weak electromagnetic fields to individuals and see what they reported. When specific complex magnetic fields were applied to the right hemisphere, people began reporting the ‘sensed presence’ of a sentient being. It seems to work best on individuals who score high on tests for temporal lobe sensitivity. The wiring is in place.
He also discovered that many that are commonly held as “haunted places” show increased electromagnetic disturbances.
“The conspicuous overlaps between (non-convulsive) complex partial epilepsy and many episodes of poltergeists and haunts are expected in light of the direct stimulation of the observer’s brain by the transient, intense magnetic fields and the liability of temporal lobe structures.” Variables Pubmed.
WIRED Magazine does an interesting story on the helmet, “This is your brain on God.” The author, who himself underwent the experience of being an experimental subject, decides that something occured, even if he isn’t quite sure what.
Richard Dawkins, on the other hand, experienced nothing. Here is a short clip, taken from a BBC Horizon Documentary, showing Dawkins completely failing to experience the divine.
