The God Helmet

[Cramulus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet

Researchers developed a helmet that stimulates parts of the brain using "complex" magnetic fields ("approximately as strong as those generated by a land line telephone handset or an ordinary hair dryer, but far weaker than that of an ordinary refrigerator magnet and approximately a million times weaker than transcranial magnetic stimulation").

This causes some people to feel a "presence".

Some people report mystical experiences. Others report dizziness. Nobody's really been able to replicate the study, but let's put that aside for the moment. Let's say it's true, and that have identified the part of the brain involved in mystical experiences, and figured out backdoor ways to stimulate it. What does this mean? What happens next?

[MMIX]

  so looking at the chi phenomenon from a slightly different angle . . . when I was first reading up about chakras - yeah wildly different countries/energies/whatever/whatever - and trying to do those exercise thingies I was sent for an MRI scan. So they give you a radioactive drink and then bombard you with magnetic doohickies. So I'm lying there and when the magnetic torus gadget gets to my root chackra Bang - off it goes. So I mentioned this to the radiographer in a conversational way and he was totally unsurprised YES it turns out that this is a common phenomenon during scans, and is thought to be a side effect of the radioactive isotope you drink . . .  well lets just say I'm not convinced. But I can't find any refs to it online - I suspect that there is a scientific explanation here which relates to the body's electrical/magnetic makeup - thoughts . .  and how does it relate to chi . . .

[Doktor Howl]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet

Researchers developed a helmet that stimulates parts of the brain using "complex" magnetic fields ("approximately as strong as those generated by a land line telephone handset or an ordinary hair dryer, but far weaker than that of an ordinary refrigerator magnet and approximately a million times weaker than transcranial magnetic stimulation").

This causes some people to feel a "presence".

Some people report mystical experiences. Others report dizziness. Nobody's really been able to replicate the study, but let's put that aside for the moment. Let's say it's true, and that have identified the part of the brain involved in mystical experiences, and figured out backdoor ways to stimulate it. What does this mean? What happens next?

I eliminate everyone who knows about it (sorry, Cram, nothing personal) and GET RICH LIKE ASTRONAUTS by BEING GOD.

[Cramulus]

Oh yeah, if it's repeatable, then the way to monetize the "empirically verifiable religious experience" is like a new frontier of commerce. It will also allow all sorts of zany new religions to pop up - "the church of people who climbed a mountain and then jacked off while wearing the god helmet".

My first reaction to reading this was a sort of disappointment that this lends itself to a highly reductive explanation of religious experience.

but as an aside, I want to see two people wearing god helmets fight each other in a steel cage.

[chaotic neutral observer]

Some people report mystical experiences. Others report dizziness. Nobody's really been able to replicate the study, but let's put that aside for the moment.

I'd stop there.  It doesn't appear that this can be reproduced with a double-blind study; the effects are the same whether the device is powered up or not.

In other words, if you put on a lab-coat, place a sciencey-looking hat on someone's head, and tell them it will affect their brain, they'll believe you.

[Doktor Howl]

Some people report mystical experiences. Others report dizziness. Nobody's really been able to replicate the study, but let's put that aside for the moment.

I'd stop there.  It doesn't appear that this can be reproduced with a double-blind study; the effects are the same whether the device is powered up or not.

In other words, if you put on a lab-coat, place a sciencey-looking hat on someone's head, and tell them it will affect their brain, they'll believe you.

This is how Mad Science works.  You never saw Victor Frankenstein using this double-blind garbage.  No.  It was just "THROW THE SWITCH, IGOR!"  And then hilarity ensued.

[Doktor Howl]

Oh yeah, if it's repeatable, then the way to monetize the "empirically verifiable religious experience" is like a new frontier of commerce. It will also allow all sorts of zany new religions to pop up - "the church of people who climbed a mountain and then jacked off while wearing the god helmet".

I am thinking what you would get would be the last 10 minutes of the the last episode of season 1 of Preacher.

[Doktor Howl]

On a serious note, though, the only replication of the experiment was done by a woo-meister (see source 13 on the wikipedia page).

I am disappoint.  I would have made a GREAT god. 

[Cramulus]

I am thinking what you would get would be the last 10 minutes of the the last episode of season 1 of Preacher.

fill me in?

[Doktor Howl]

I am thinking what you would get would be the last 10 minutes of the the last episode of season 1 of Preacher.

fill me in?

The story takes place in a town in Texas called Anneville, formerly known as Ratwater.

Everyone in the whole town is a scumbag.  Anyway, in the last ep, it becomes known that God has been missing for an unknown length of time, and that heaven is a mess (angels are even dumber than humans).

Then they do what you'd expect from a repressed, hateful society when the repression is removed.  Wholesale murder, and then the town is leveled in an explosion not prevented by the frustrated plant operator, on account of he had a heart attack banging a hooker.

[chaotic neutral observer]

I did some googling on Michael Persinger, the originator of this God Helmet thingy.  Here are a couple choice quotations:

The space-time characteristics of the axonal action potential are remarkably similar to the scaled equivalents of lightning. The energy and current densities from these transients within their respective volumes or cross-sectional areas are the same order of magnitude. Length–velocity ratios and temporal durations are nearly identical. There are similar chemical consequences such as the production of nitric oxide. Careful, quantitative examination of the characteristics of lightning may reveal analogous features of the action potential that could lead to a more accurate understanding of these powerful correlates of neurocognitive processes.

Our primary assumption is that consciousness and its variants of mystical states can be expressed as quantum phenomena, as predicted by Niehls Bohr and others. If consciousness and thought are coupled to electron movements, then a macroscopic manifestation should be congruent with the magnetic field strengths associated with neurocognitive activities. Access to the information within the movements of an electron, its fundamental charge, and the photon emissions associated with changes in electron movements, would allow mystical states and the information with which they are associated to have alternative interpretations that recruit the fundamental properties of space-time and matter.

...it's just so...beautiful.

[Doktor Howl]

I did some googling on Michael Persinger, the originator of this God Helmet thingy.  Here are a couple choice quotations:

The space-time characteristics of the axonal action potential are remarkably similar to the scaled equivalents of lightning. The energy and current densities from these transients within their respective volumes or cross-sectional areas are the same order of magnitude. Length–velocity ratios and temporal durations are nearly identical. There are similar chemical consequences such as the production of nitric oxide. Careful, quantitative examination of the characteristics of lightning may reveal analogous features of the action potential that could lead to a more accurate understanding of these powerful correlates of neurocognitive processes.

Our primary assumption is that consciousness and its variants of mystical states can be expressed as quantum phenomena, as predicted by Niehls Bohr and others. If consciousness and thought are coupled to electron movements, then a macroscopic manifestation should be congruent with the magnetic field strengths associated with neurocognitive activities. Access to the information within the movements of an electron, its fundamental charge, and the photon emissions associated with changes in electron movements, would allow mystical states and the information with which they are associated to have alternative interpretations that recruit the fundamental properties of space-time and matter.

...it's just so...beautiful.

That's LMNO-level writing, only for "science".

[Faust]

I would hope it has the same effect as the Total Perspective Vortex

https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex

Showing each wearer the full infinite magnificence of creation and their own inconsequential role in it causing lovecraft level horror and existential crises

[Doktor Howl]

I would hope it has the same effect as the Total Perspective Vortex

https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex

Showing each wearer the full infinite magnificence of creation and their own inconsequential role in it causing lovecraft level horror and existential crises

Fun fact:  If you give me three facts, I can extrapolate a complete description of the universe from those three facts.

It will be absolutely wrong, but this is the Trump era and I did it, so it's PERFECT.

[altered]

I can do this too, but my version is just gross and awful and not even I like it.