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What about people in survival situations? How does prayer help people like Stan Praimnath? Koenig replies that belief is the most powerful survival tool in the world. Faith and religion, he says, empower you with “the kind of strength that nothing else that I’ve ever seen can give”.

If you, too, want to feel God’s presence, you might go looking in a dingy basement in the suburbs of Sudbury, an old mining town in Ontario. There you will find Dr Michael Persinger’s neuroscience laboratory. In his underground hideaway, complete with rat, bear and human brains stored in Tupperware, Persinger’s proudest possession is a yellow helmet rigged with magnets and wires. It’s known as the God Helmet.

For 25 years, Persinger has blindfolded people, strapped on the yellow headgear and exposed them to weak electromagnetic fields similar to those generated by cordless phones and computer monitors. He has tested believers, atheists, mystics, even a clairvoyant, and 90% describe experiencing what he calls a “sensed presence”.

If you’re a Christian, that means you may feel the closeness of God or even see an apparition of Jesus or Mary. You may also bask in the warm glow of hope, a sense of significance beyond yourself, or even some kind of force that is guiding or reaching out to you. A handful of people detect ghosts and demons, and one person insisted the devil himself had invaded the chamber.

If you’re a non-believer, you may feel a kind of detachment, as if floating. No matter how you describe it, Persinger says, it’s all the same: “The human brain is the source of all experience.”

He says that in car crashes, earthquakes and other survival situations, people experience “maximum hypervigilance”. That means the right hemispheres of their brains are remarkably active. As a consequence, they’re likely to experience religious thoughts or feel a presence.

Pain stimulates these reactions. So does a lack of oxygen. No matter your religious affiliation or level of belief — or disbelief — your brain reacts almost identically. If you’re fighting for your life, the right side, where both creativity and dreams originate, really lights up. This, Persinger says, is God’s headquarters.

© Ben Sherwood 2009

Extracted from The Survivors Club by Ben Sherwood, to be published by Penguin on Thursday at £15.99. Copies can be ordered for £14.39, including postage, from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0845 271 2135