YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND- A weird experiment at University of York has revealed that attitudes towards God and immigration can be changed by transmitting magnetic energy into the brain.

The experiment was conducted to know how brain determines the abstract ideologies and it was accomplished by using a technique named as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). What it mainly did was to shut the significant groups of neurons safely in the brains of volunteers.

The scientists discovered that by doing this the religious beliefs and perceptions have been radically changed. The strength of belief in God decreased by nearly one third and the negative feeling of those volunteers (who felt that way) towards immigrants have been reduced by 28.5%.

Scientists from the University of York claim that people usually turn to ideology when they are confronted with problems.

“We wanted to find out whether a brain region that is linked with solving concrete problems, like deciding how to move one’s body to overcome an obstacle, is also involved in solving abstract problems addressed by ideology,” says Dr. Keise Izuma from the university.

In the experiment, the posterior medial frontal cortex was targeted which is a few inches above the forehead and is linked with detecting and answering problems.

“We decided to remind people of death because previous research has shown that people turn to religion for comfort in the face of death,” adds Dr. Izuma.

“As expected, we found that when we experimentally turned down the posterior medial frontal cortex, people were less inclined to reach for comforting religious ideas despite having been reminded of death,” she concludes.