Oh! Our Electromagnetic Minds

December 17, 2012November 16, 2017 Rilaly3 Comments

“God isn’t dead,” says a neuroscientist from Canada’s Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, named Michael Persinger. “He’s an energy field, and your brain is an electromagnetic map to your soul.”

To further define this provocative statement, Persinger conducted a series of experiments that caused “cerebral fritzing” in the hemispheres of the brain to generate images. Persinger found that when the right hemisphere of the brain was stimulated in the cerebral region, an area of the brain presumed to control notions of self, a sense of a presence occurred. The frizting then called upon the left hemisphere, the seat of language, to make sense of the presence. What was that presence that the right hemisphere generated? Was it God? In some instances, the left side of the brain told the subject that it was. In other instances, the subject believed they were seeing aliens, some claimed to have seen deceased loved ones, and others stated that they saw a presence, but they couldn’t tell what it was. It all depended upon the person.

In a separate story, of the same theme, a young female believed she was being visited by the lord of darkness: Satan. Every night, at about the same time, this young girl would wake with recurring night terrors, and when her parents came running into the room, she claimed to have seen Satan at the foot of her bed. Her family was worried that their daughter may have been possessed. They called in exorcists and various spiritualists, to rid their frantic young daughter of her horror. After these attempts proved unsuccessful, the family called in doctors to see if these images were occurring as a result of her diet, some psychological malady, or some sort of sleep deprivation. Others believed the visions may have been a natural byproduct of narcolepsy, sleep paralysis, migraines, anxiety disorders, or some form of obstructive sleep apnea. In other words, they thought that her young, active mind was always playing tricks on her, even though they all believed that these visions were very real to her. When no medications, or psychological assistance, proved successful, the family decided to permit an experimental, investigatory group to walk through and see if their very specific ideas about the girl’s problem could help her. The investigatory group walked around the room with an electromagnetic sensor that pinged on an alarm clock that was resting by the head of her bed. They found that her alarm clock’s cord had become frayed, and it was emitting Electromagnetic rays near the girl’s head. The group replaced the clock, and the young girl no longer had the visions.

Want to build the scariest haunted house ever made? Cocoon it inside electrical wires, throbbing with pulses of electromagnetic fields. This will stimulate the cerebral regions of your horrified guests to a point where they may cause them to believe they are sensing a presence. You won’t need to hire sixteen-year-olds to don Frankenstein’s monster masks, and you won’t need to spend hundreds on setting. You can just wire up a rusty, old tool shed and spend a few bucks to insulate the wiring, to prevent injury, and voila! You will have the scariest haunted house man has ever created.

Want to open up a fortune telling booth, or bolster your claim that you are some form of spiritualist that can conjure up the dead for your customers. A little wiring, a conductive floor plan, a little setting here, and some costume designing there to provide aura, and you should be able to convince anyone and everyone that you have a gift.

The thrust of Persinger’s thesis is that it is your brain that creates these images. Images that can titillate, fascinate, and horrify any audience, and when these portions of your brain are stimulated with electromagnetic field-emitting solenoids, in a designated manner, they can be induced to create images that seem surreal to the human mind.

To create this atmosphere in a lab, Persinger used what he calls the “God Helmet”. It has also been called the “Koren Helmet” named after its creator Stanley Koren. Persinger places his subjects in a sensory deprivation tank that has white lab coat technicians on the opposite side of a 500lb. steel wall with a number of dials and switches to provide subtle stimulation through the solenoids inside this helmet.

The God helmet was not designed for the sole purpose of providing a subject with a feeling of God’s presence, but various tests ended up yielding such results.

“Those with a predisposition for God, often believed that they saw God after donning the helmet,” says Persinger. The tests that yielded these results were the ones that generated the controversy and the headlines for Persinger and crew.

In other, related speeches, Michael Persinger spoke about the effects various controlled substances (marijuana, alcohol, heroin, cocaine, and LSD) can have on the various receptors in the brain, and he suggested that these drugs would not have any effect on you if you didn’t already have the proper receptors in your brain for these drugs to stimulate. In the proper setting, electrical stimulation can achieve the same results, he stated.

“So, I can get stoned using electromagnetic stimulation?” Persinger says he is often asked when he speaks to college students. “You can,” Persinger responds. “Electrical stimulation can trigger specific parts of the brain in the exact same manner a chemical can trigger specific parts of the brain. But,” he warns, “Excessive electrical stimulation of certain parts of the brain can provide some of the same deleterious effects that chemical triggering can, or any excessive, exterior triggering for that matter.”

Speaking of drugs, Persinger believes that electromagnetic testing could do away with the need for pharmaceuticals over time. What are most drugs and pharmaceuticals but chemical triggers that let the brain know that it needs to assist the body’s healing process more. To help mask the pain of a sore wrist, until the body can find a way to heal it, the brain sends out prostaglandins. When the brain doesn’t provide enough prostaglandins, or it doesn’t provide them soon enough to our satisfaction, we take Aspirin. Michael Persinger thinks this same procedure can be accomplished in an electromagnetic manner, so that we don’t have to take aspirin, chemotherapy for cancer, or antibiotics in general. “We could make EM wavelength patterns work the way drugs do. Just as you take an antibiotic and it has a predictable result, you might be exposed to precise EM patterns that would signal the brain to carry out comparable effects.” As with controlled substances, if our brain did not have the proper receptors for these pharmaceuticals to trigger, their effect on our body would be negligible.

“Whether through Electromagnetic or chemical enhancement, we’re all looking for ways to assist what the brain does to help heal the body,” Persinger explains. “Among more sensitive individuals, tests show that their skin will turn red if they are led to believe that a piping hot nickel has been placed on their hand. That’s a powerful psychosomatic effect of the brain on the body. Suppose we could make it more precise?”

In his published paper “The Tectonic Strain Theory as an Explanation for UFO Phenomena,” Persinger maintains that around the time of an earthquake, changes in the EM field can spark mysterious lights in the sky. A labile observer, in Persinger’s view, could mistake such a luminous display for an alien visitation.

Persinger maintains that environmental disturbances –ranging from solar flares and meteor showers to oil drilling– can be documented to correlate with visionary claims, including mass religious conversions, ghost lights, and haunted houses. He says that if a region experiences enough mild earthquakes, or other causes of change in the electromagnetic fields, this may explain why one specific spot becomes known as sacred ground.

“One classic example was the apparition of Mary over the Coptic Church in Zeitoun, Egypt, in the 1960s,” he continues. “This phenomenon lasted off and on for several years. It was seen by thousands of people, and the appearance seemed to precede the disturbances that occurred during the building of the Aswan High Dam. I have multiple examples of reservoirs being built or lakes being filled, and reports of luminous displays and UFO flaps. But Zeitoun was impressive.”

“Might it surprise anyone to learn, in view of Persinger’s theories, that when Joseph Smith was visited by the angel Moroni before founding Mormonism, and when Charles Taze Russell started the Jehovah’s Witnesses, powerful Leonid meteor showers were occurring?”

“One might think Christians would be upset that this professor in Sudbury is trying to do with physics what Nietzsche did with metaphysics –kill off God. One might also think that devout ufologists would denounce him for putting neuroscience on the side of the skeptics.” {1} But Persinger claims that the purpose of his experiment is not to suggest that God doesn’t exist, or to disprove alien visitations. He claims that his argument concerns the notion that certain EM fields may be tinkering with our consciousness. He claims that most of those individuals that founded various religions may have experienced some sort of EM intrusion in their enlightening experiences. Other than the Smith and Taze Russell experiences mentioned above, there is the Saul of Damascus transformation that occurred following a bright flash of light. Persinger’s theory suggests that that experience may have occurred to Saul, later Paul, as a result of a minor seizure or a strike of lightning. Moses seeing the burning bush, may have been as a result of Moses being close enough to lightning striking that bush that receptors in his brain may have heard the voice of God coming from that bush. Persinger doesn’t appear to want to damage these stories in lieu of what these men went on to accomplish following the initial experiences, but he does believe that there was an electromagnetic element to these stories that has never been explored before. The element is what Persinger calls electromagnetic spirituality. These ideas, and others, have given rise to a field called Neurotheology. Though neurotheologists do not have specific concerns related to the validity of their subject’s belief, they do seek to determine what’s happening in the brain during a religious experience without apology.

Persinger claims he can create a religious experience for anyone by disrupting the brain with regular electric pulses. This will cause the left temporal lobe to explain the activity in the right side of the brain as a sensed presence. The sensed presence could be anything from God to demons, and when not told what the experiment involved, about 80 percent of God Helmet wearers reported sensing something nearby, a presence of some sort.

No matter how one reads the findings of Michael Persinger’s experiments –or the qualifiers he uses to settle the religious mind– the reader can’t help but feel they are conducted with the goal of undermining God, faith, and religion in general. Perhaps it’s our insecure inclinations regarding faith, or the fact that so much of science these days seems obsessed with diminishing God to a point that even the most devout begin to ask serious questions about their belief systems, but it cannot be denied that the role of God in our society is under attack, and the faithful cannot help but be defensive whenever a new scientist poses a new theory of this sort. To the latter, a word of caution may be necessary, for as science continues to progress, your outlier status, as one who refuses to meld the two, could increase.

As Norman Mailer once said: “If God didn’t want us to question His existence, why did He give us a progressive intellect?” Why didn’t He give us the less complex, and thus less curious, brain of the chimpanzee, and be done with it? If God were insulted to the point of damning us in the afterlife every time we questioned Him, why did He give us a degree of brainpower that exists somewhere between His and the chimpanzee’s? We could speculate, and debate, the reasons for this, and we would all end up in the same spot where we began. We could also spend all day speculating whether there is a grain of truth to Persinger’s theories on the electromagnetic capabilities of the brain, and the results of his experiments, but it’s hard to imagine that God would be insulted, or even aggrieved to the point of damning those involved in exploring the mind for answers, and thus using the gift of the mind He gave them, to its fullest extent.

Ace Frehley’s book: No Regrets. A Review

December 21, 2011January 26, 2024 Rilaly1 Comment

Ace Frehley has No Regrets. It’s the title of his book. He has no regrets, apparently, about wasting whatever God-given talent he was given, and he has no regrets about doing little-to-nothing to make his “right place right time” moment in history a little better. That’s great Ace, you stuck your middle finger right up into what Gene and Paul have been saying about you, but what about those young fans who defended your legacy for much of their young lives? Do you have No Regrets about all that?

The author of this piece was a fan, a HUGE fan, a KISS fan, and more specifically an Ace Freely fan. The typical KISS fan had their favorite character. Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton was my favorite person and Ace was number two. I still have a soft spot in my heart for the man, but Ace Frehley’s new book No Regrets has even tainted that.

Ace Frehley states that he is clean now, and like so many other rock bios that adorn the shelves of bookstores across America, Frehley takes the vantage point of an outsider commenting on his past debauchery. Alcohol and drugs were the way Frehley dealt with the ups and downs of stardom, but he has No Regrets about this. As comedians in the past (Pryor and Carlin) have done, Ace chooses to laugh at his lifestyle choices. He chooses the “now that I’m clean” theme to detail for us the hilarity of being so out of control that you don’t know what you’re doing. As a lifelong Ace Frehley fan, I found many of the Ace Frehley stories funny, troubling, and disenchanting, but Ace has No Regrets.

The “breath of fresh air” arrives when Ace details for us the tale of KISS. Ace is more honest and forthcoming about the formulation of KISS than any of the other members have been to this point. The reader begins to realize that Ace is going to be the first to tell the story of KISS without a marketing plan. There is no KISS mysticism attached to this version of the story, the KISStory, such as the stories faithful KISS readers have been inundated with by Paul and Gene. This is the KISS story as told by “the fun and spontaneous member”. This is the more “real” version of the story. Unfortunately, the more “real”, Ace Frehley version of the story substantiates many of the charges Stanley and Simmons made against Ace’s apathy and his poor work ethic. The No Regrets book also substantiates the charge that Ace wasn’t particularly elemental in the formulation of the eventual KISS product, that he was basically just along for the ride, and that he has No Regrets about any of this.

In one particular story, Ace says that the producer of the KISS album Destroyer, Bob Ezrin, began pushing Ace to come up with guitar solos for the songs on the album. Ace complains that the pushing was counterproductive for what Ezrin failed to understand is that the spontaneous nature of artistic creation cannot be pushed. This, for me, is the most illustrative moment in the Ace Frehley story. He is, at this point in his career to today, one of the most revered guitar players for his creative solos. To keep the train-a-rollin’ he either works his solos out in his downtime, or he does nothing. Ace’s lone contribution on a majority of the KISS songs to that point was a brief solo between verses, and he couldn’t even come up with that by the time KISS’ Destroyer album came out. At this point in the story, I would’ve been mentally lambasting Gene and Paul for presumably leaving out some necessary details of the story. That’s not the case here of course. This is Ace telling the story. As I said, it’s all troubling and disenchanting, but he had No Regrets.

The question that this reader has for Ace, on this particular issue, is, “How much time, between albums, did you have to work on these spontaneous solos?” Spontaneity can be generated on the spot, of course, but how much better would those solos be if by the time you entered the studio, you had a pallet from which to choose? Talented artists, of which I think Ace is one, know better than to do nothing for months and then expect some sort of divine inspiration to strike when they need it. Most who depend on spontaneity for a living know that they have to hone the muscle constantly. Artistic creations take time, devotion, and discipline.

I’m not a blind fan don’t get me wrong. I recognize KISS music for what it is. I don’t put it on par with Monet or Picasso in the world of art, but even KISS music takes a degree of involvement, work ethic, and commitment. Ace Frehley was a significant part of a group that put out products that many of us spent our allowance on, but Frehley thought Bob Ezrin pushed the man’s artistic sensibilities a little too hard, because Ezrin didn’t understand the gentle process of artistic creation. In this gentleman’s disagreement, we have the artiste named Ace Frehley who many have charged, and Ace basically substantiated in his book, had a very poor work ethic and chose to party when he wasn’t in the studio versus Bob Ezrin. Ezrin, to that point, worked with Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, and Lou Reed. Ezrin went onto produce albums for a wide array of artists including: Pink Floyd, Hanoi Rocks, Deep Purple, and many others after Destroyer. Even fan boy here, who wants to take Ace’s side in this episode, cannot side with him. My educated guess, based on the characterization of Ace Frehley by others, and by Ace Frehley in this book, is that he arrived in the studio totally unprepared, and Bob Ezrin got mad at him for it. Ace then got mad at Ezrin for getting mad at him about it. Yet, Ace Frehley has No Regrets.

Few have questioned Frehley’s God-given gifts, but he apprently did little to formulate and finesse the gifts that were given to him. What were you doing between albums Ace, other than touring? The answer: Sex, drugs, and alcohol. No Regrets. You read Ace detail this portion of his story, and you realize that Ace may have been paying a little bit too much attention to his press clippings. He may have been listening to those adoring fans that put him on a pedestal. He may have thought there was a degree of mysticism to his art that couldn’t arise as a result of a request from a meager human, but it had to be waited for in the manner of some divine artiste. Say what you want about Gene and Paul, and many have (Ace does in this book in good ways and bad), but Gene and Paul knew there was nothing divine about what they were doing. They simply worked their tails off for the legacy they eventually achieved (and I cringe a little taking Simmons and Stanley’s side here).

Ace chastises the KISS bassist Gene Simmons throughout the book as a man who took the KISS product a little too seriously throughout the process of building it. Ace talks about how he couldn’t do it. The movie KISS Meets the Phantom is an example of the “KISStory” that Ace admits he basically sat out. He looks good in hindsight for having sat that one out, because the movie is generally considered a bomb. Ace talks about how he didn’t enjoy making the album “The Elder”, and how he generally sat that one out too. Ace then talks about how he wasn’t much of a part of the making of the album Destroyer either. The latter is a little more painful to him, as evidenced in his words, but this may be due to the fact that Destroyer is generally considered to be KISS’ best album. Hindsight shows Ace regretting that he wasn’t a greater part of the successes, but he doesn’t mind telling us he had little to nothing to do with that which is generally considered less successful artistically and financially. How convenient.

Ace condemns Gene as a business man who has no friends. He says Gene needs to cut loose and have a beer every once in a while. To be fair to Ace, he does thank Gene and Paul for everything they built, and he’s not as negative as I thought he would be. I read where Gene leveled Ace in many areas, and I expected the return fire to be explosive. He pounded home the point that Gene has no friends by saying that the Gene Simmons Roast only had comedians in it (and family members), but he doesn’t have as many negative things to say about Gene as this review and others may lead one to believe. The point he’s trying to make is Gene isn’t very fun, warm, or an extreme joy to be around. Ace knows Gene better than most, and he makes an informed analysis, but I don’t really care that much. I met Gene once, and he was very nice, but who cares? Gene could argue that he devoted his life to an enterprise that a lot of people really enjoyed. Whatever talents in life Gene was granted, he made the most he could out of them. When the final epitaphs are written, the idea that Ace had a ton of friends, and he was a fun-loving, good time rock-n-roll dude, sometimes at the expense of his dedication to his craft, will prove a testament to his character, but Gene’s dedication to his craft, at the apparent expense of human relationships, will prove just as vital to his legacy. As Ace once sang, it was, “Two sides of the coin, which one should I choose.” Thanks in part to No Regrets, many hardcore Ace Frehley fans now know which side he chose, and it did some damage to his legacy.

Those of us that were Ace Frehley loyalists for much of our life, have one quick question for Ace. The question is based on the fact that we defended Ace among our friends and those who informed us what Gene and Paul said about him. Why would you write this? Why would you tell the world that you didn’t have as much play in the formulation of this KISS product as we thought you had. Why would you tell your biggest fans that you were basically along for the ride, for much of the time? Why would you say that other than some minor artistic differences, there’s no real huge story to your departure? Or, that you simply got sick of it?’ We know nothing lasts forever, and some of the times good things need to die. Most of us would agree with you that KISS overstayed their time on stage, but your notes on how little it meant to you when it meant so much to us, when we were kids, was a little deflating.

Ace does mention the fact that he may not be alive if he were still in KISS, but it’s clear that that was totally on him by that point. The only one who encouraged Frehley into greater debauchery, Peter Criss, was long gone by the time he quit, and Paul and Gene were basically dry as stated time and again throughout the book. Did Ace envy the success Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash had with his autobiography? Did he know that his story was similar, and he wanted a piece of that pie?

In a promotional interview for this book, Ace did on The Today Show, Ace talked about how proud he was to add published author to his list of accomplishments. That’s great, some of us thought, and it’s a laudable goal for any high school dropout. The question is what did you accomplish? What did you publish? Was it a novel, a short story collection, or bio that detailed for the American public a dossier of artistic accomplishments? What this published author managed to have published was a tome of a wasted opportunity, a waste of talent, and a largely wasted life. My guess is that Frehley saw all of acclaim and sales that went to Guns and Roses guitarist Slash and realized that his story was similar. It’s as entertaining as Slash’s was, and it’s received as much praise, but at what price?

The reader is left with the idea that Ace led a blessed and lucky life, but when it came to actually working, and finessing that gift to even greater heights, Ace got artificially turned on and tuned out. Ace will undoubtedly receive a lot more praise for being “more real” with his story, but those of us that considered ourselves true fans wish he had been a little less real to keep the myth of Ace Frehley alive. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun (and in spots a funny) read, stories of debauchery always are, but it’s also a little sad and disenchanting.