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suits everywhere he goes (including, allegedly, while mowing the lawn). His jargon-laden descriptions of his research make it hard to know when hypothesis and theory blend into speculation and conjecture. Since the early 1970s, Persinger has devoted his research to testing the hypothesis that paranormal experiences are illusions created by the brain. Tiny changes in brain chemistry or minute alterations in electrical activity can create powerful hallucinations that seem absolutely real. These misfirings of the brain can occur naturally due to external forces. For example, in his “Tectonic Strain Theory,” Persinger speculates that earthquake activity may generate excessive electromagnetic fields that influence brains, which could go a long way to explaining the New Age nuttiness of earthquake-burdened Southern California.

I am skeptical of this hypothesis, given the fact that such fields weaken by the square of the distance: double the distance from the source and you receive only a quarter of the energy from it. I live in Southern California. Most earthquake centers are tens to hundreds of miles away from population centers, usually out in the deserts surrounding the Los Angeles basin. This strikes me as dramatically different from wearing a helmet that delivers electromagnetic fields from millimeters away. Whether such natural electromagnetic fields occur in strengths high enough to influence brains in the real world remains to be seen, but Persinger does it artificially in his lab. Data collected from these experiments have formed a foundation for computer simulations of paranormal encounters. “We know that all experience is derived from the brain,” Persinger explained in my interview with him. “We also realize that subtle patterns generate complex human experiences and emotions. Thanks to computer technology, we extracted the electromagnetic patterns generated from the brain during these experiences and then re-exposed volunteers to those patterns.”

After our interview it was time to run the experiment. A lab assistant strapped me into the helmet, hooked up the leads to my hands, chest, and scalp to measure brain waves, heart rate, and other physiological activity, and sealed me in a soundproof room where I plopped myself into a comfortable chair that could have been Archie Bunker’s easy chair from the set of All in the Family. Persinger, his assistant, and the camera crew exited the chamber and I settled into cushioned bliss. A voice rang in announcing that the experiment would now begin. Magnetic fields washed over my temporal lobes. My initial reaction was a little giddiness, as if the whole process were a silly exercise that I could easily control, similar to my recent hypnosis experience. I also worried that I might accidentally fall asleep, so I tried to maintain alertness. But remembering how overthinking thwarted my hypnotic efforts, I cleared my head and allowed myself to slump into a state of willful suspension of disbelief. Minutes later, I felt a tug-of-war between the rational and emotional parts of my brain over whether the sense that I wanted to leave my body was real.

“What’s happening to Michael now,” Persinger explained to my producer during the first set of trials, “is he’s being exposed to complex magnetic fields associated with opiate-like experiences such as floating and pleasantness and spinning.” Halfway through the experiment Persinger’s technicians fiddled with some dials to change the electromagnetic patterns. “At this point there is now another pattern being generated along the right hemisphere which tends to be associated with more terrifying experiences.” Indeed, under these patterns volunteers have reported seeing the devil, being grabbed by aliens, and even being transported to hell. As I told Persinger in a postexperiment debriefing for the show, “In the first one, it felt like something went by me.… I wasn’t sure if it was me leaving or somebody or something coming by me. It was very strange. Then, in the second round, there was the feeling of being in waves and that I wanted to come