
God helmet - rumcajz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet
======
escape_goat
Michael Persinger, the Canadian psychology professor (Laurentian University,
in Ontario) responsible for popularizing the 'God Helmet', died on August 14th
of 2018. The nature of his work was well within the traditions of
parapsychology, as the name of the device might immediately suggest to the
reader. He was not too modest to publish work on quantum physics in vanity
journals, for instance.

However, he should at least be credited for producing research that invited
the test of replication, rather than evading it, even though attempts to
replicate his findings have failed to date.

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fastbeef
Doesn’t this fall under the same category as electro-allergy? Weak EM field
causing sensory effects in people’s brains.

From what I undestand the keyword arguments against it are “non-ionizing
radiation” and “nocebo effect”.

~~~
AstralStorm
If you propose such weak EM fields have effects, then design an experiment to
show it and disprove alternative explanations, including null result,
tampering, faulty execution of double blinding etc.

Good luck. You're going to need it.

~~~
fastbeef
Was that directed at me? I meant that this will be as hard to prove as
electro-alergy.

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sitkack
With a bluetooth connection and a nice soft diffuse texture, I could sell lots
of these in Cali for 1k a piece. With some Chopra co-branding, 2k.

~~~
captain_perl
You forgot the crystals.

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hprotagonist
huh. hadn’t thought about this since 2007:
[https://slashdot.org/thread/20895057](https://slashdot.org/thread/20895057)

i remember those comments as being relatively sane.

~~~
nerfhammer
fixed link:
[https://science.slashdot.org/story/07/10/08/0340229/scientis...](https://science.slashdot.org/story/07/10/08/0340229/scientists-
deliver-god-via-a-helmet)

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mmjaa
One wonders just how this will proceed once it gets out of the 'junk science'
phase of cargo-cultism, and becomes some kind of valid means of investigating
the spiritual realm posited by various and sundry new-age religions. The
especially jarring statement that participants could perceive 'angels', or
'groups of beings in clusters' is highly alarming in the context of some of
the more controversial religions which aim to enlighten their followers on the
negative effects such things can have on ones life ..

~~~
simonh
>One wonders just how this will proceed once it gets out of the 'junk science'
phase of cargo-cultism...

Given the failures to reproduce the results, it's not clear there is actually
anything there to proceed with. I wouldn't be surprised if electrical
stimulation could produce effects like this, but it's not at all been
established that they actually can.

~~~
pavel_lishin
If you can cram enough electrodes in the brain, you can probably produce any
effect you'd like, but that becomes more of a Descarte's demon/brain-in-a-vat
scenario.

