PsyPost: Fake ‘God Helmet’ can elicit extraordinary experiences — especially among ‘spiritual’ people

Some people report “extraordinary experiences” after wearing a skateboarding helmet with inactive wires attached to it — particularly those who describe themselves as spiritual.

That’s according to a new field study in the journal Religion, Brain & Behavior, in which Dutch scientists took a so-called God Helmet — a placebo brain stimulation device — to a music festival.

“From previous studies, we knew that the God Helmet is able to elicit authentic extraordinary experiences (i.e., ‘feeling of a presence’; ‘out-of-body’ experience) in a minority of the subjects we test,” explained study author David Maij of the University of Amsterdam.