An interesting set of studies into what goes into belief in the supernatural:
The current issue of American Scientist has an excellent feature article on ‘The Cognitive Psychology of Belief in the Supernatural’.
It argues that our ability to reason about other people’s intentions underlies many common supernatural beliefs. In other words, we have a tendency to see intentions and consciousness even in mechanical aspects of the world.
The author is psychologist Dr Jesse Bering who has been using cognitive psychology to try and understand areas that are traditionally tackled by philosophy, such as belief in souls, causation and existential meaning.
Tradition has it that the supernatural stemmed from an intellectual attempt to figure out reasons for natural events — why did the lighting strike, what does it mean if yesterday it was clear and today it’s raining? This study indicates that interpreting intent is more fundamental than an intellectual exercise, and that might be tied into our ability to interpret intent and emotions from each other.
Interesting.
The actual article is subscription only at the magazine site. The author has (as the Mindhacks post says) kindly offered to forward a PDF to anyone who e-mails him.
Hello Dave,
My name is Paul I. Klein. I live in Fairport, NY which is about eleven miles east of Rochester, NY. About 15 years ago I began to have actual supernatural experiences. I had three of them in four and one half years. These things were real. I am not making this up. They were absolutely amazing things. After the third one I began having them happen frequently. I have a degree cum laude from St. John Fisher College in Rochester. You wouldn’t believe what happened to me. You would, perhaps, have to set your ideas of reality aside before you could hear what actually happened. I don’t know what you would believe so I don’t know what to say. It seems as though you believe that the supernatural actually does not exist. It really does. I am not involved in any religion in any way. I never have been. Attempting to turn the mind into a science negates many elements of what is happening with the mind. But after years of study in psychology people can easily become rigid and unable to even see the amazing and supernatural things that are happening with thought all the time. Please email me if you want. I would like to hear from you.
Paul
I will certainly not argue against the existence of the supernatural — though what’s supernatural and what’s cognitive hiccups in any given instance may be another matter.