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January 28th, 2018 
Awake Goy
Wearing a Pretend ‘God Helmet’ Fooled Spiritual People Into Proclaiming Mystical Experiences
January 27th, 2018
They ought to try to convince the test subjects that jet fuel can melt steel.
Via: Newsweek:
The “God helmet” is an odd-looking psychology tool that can evoke mystical experiences in wearers akin to religious visions—despite being nothing more than an elaborate hat. The helmet is purely a placebo and new research shows that self-proclaimed spiritual people are even more susceptible to fall for its illusion than intoxicated people.
The study published online in Religion, Brain, & Behavior found new information to further back previous evidence that a purely aesthetic hat, referred to as a God helmet, can elicit mysterious experiences. This new study, published in December 2017, builds on past research in that it also tested if alcohol consumption played a role in users’ susceptibility to having visions while wearing the God helmet.
“We knew from previous studies that supernatural believers are more prone to placebo brain stimulation-induced mystical experiences than non-believers,” lead study researcher David Maij, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam who focuses on brain cognition and psychology told Newsweek. “We wanted to investigate whether intoxication with alcohol, through lowering cognitive control, would increase people’s proneness to have extraordinary experiences.”
Researchers from the University of Amsterdam had 193 volunteers wear the God helmet for 15 minutes while blindfolded and listening to white noise through earbuds. The volunteers were told that the helmet would electromagnetically stimulate their brains and cause them to have supernatural experiences. However, in reality the helmet did absolutely nothing.
3 Responses to “Wearing a Pretend ‘God Helmet’ Fooled Spiritual People Into Proclaiming Mystical Experiences”
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Source Article from http://www.cryptogon.com/?p=52261
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Loveandlight Says:
January 27th, 2018 at 9:31 am
I know I’m stating the obvious, but one possible conclusion is that accessing higher planes of existence with our minds is more open to ordinary human beings than is generally acknowledged.
dale Says:
January 27th, 2018 at 10:53 am
…with the voice of a cooperative talking pony, maybe
Dennis Says:
January 27th, 2018 at 8:27 pm
Two thoughts:
1. They didn’t use a control; I wonder what a bunch of music festival goers in varied levels of inebriation (and types – they only tested for alcohol) would have reported had they been subject to the same sensory deprivation (no vision, white noise) without the expectancy-raising language inputs.
2. Do ‘supernatural believers’ show increased evidence of placebo effect indicative of an actual improvement in health when, for example, receiving a placebo for a condition?