Hood, Bruce - Supersense

I think that an audience responds as it does to the Fred West cardigan demonstration because most of us would treat the cardigan as if were imbued with evil. In the same way that some of us revere holy sites, priests, and sacred religious relics, we also shun places, people, and objects that are taboo. To do that, however, we have to attribute something more to them than just their physical properties. They must transcend the natural and become supernatural to elicit a disgusted response from us.

WATER COOLER CONVERSATIONS

I have just finished reading Quirkology by the British psychologist Richard Wiseman. 12It’s an enjoyable collection of curiosities and factoids about human behaviour, from the search for the world’s funniest joke to studies on finding the best opening line when speed-dating. The book is filled with examples harvested from psychological studies, which provide the curious sort of material that people love to discuss in so-called ‘water cooler conversations.’

At the end of the book, Wiseman reports the outcome of a series of ‘experimental’ dinner parties at which people were asked to rate a list of factoids described throughout the book on a scale from 1 (‘Whatever’) to 5 (‘When does it come out in paperback?’). He identifies the top ten factoids that people found most interesting. Here are just the top three most interesting facts. In third place was:

The best way of detecting a lie is to listen rather than look – liars say less, give fewer details, and use the word ‘I’ less than people telling the truth.

In second place was:

The difference between a genuine and a fake smile is all in the eyes – in a genuine smile, the skin around the eyes crinkles; in a fake smile it remains much flatter.

Guess what the number-one factoid was?

People would rather wear a sweater that has been dropped in dog faeces and not washed, than one that has been dry-cleaned but used to belong to a mass murderer.

Now you know why people find this one of the most curious facts about human nature.

WHAT NEXT?

They say that hindsight gives you 20/20 (perfect) vision, and in the cold light of day it is easy to dismiss our reactions to cardigans and pens as irrational when we have all the facts in hand. Whether we knock on wood, wear special tennis shoes, believe we heard a ghost, or avoid objects that may be contaminated with evil, the supersense can be found in many of us.

Some of us are better than others at controlling these thoughts and urges, but we should recognize that they are natural. I think that those with a strong supersense believe that there is more to the human body than simply the physical and that there is a soul or spiritual essence that can leave the body. These are self-confessed supersensers who talk about ghosts and spirits and consult with mediums. However, many of us just feel uncomfortable at the mention of the supernatural. Maybe this is an urge inside most of us that we have to suppress.

I think belief can operate with the same intuitive reasoning that helps us to understand the natural world by letting us make rapid decisions that feel right. The supersense is about these thoughts and behaviours and how they work to bind us together through a belief in invisible forces or essences. They don’t all have to be about unearthly experiences. We can use the supersense to connect with each other. Our physicalizing of the spiritual explains our need for contact with those we want to be intimate with, but it also explains how we can castigate others as unclean.

Over the coming chapters, I will tell you unsavoury facts about individuals that will repulse you and make you feel queasy. Such negative reactions reveal that we behave and think as if we can connect with others at a physical level. This in turn produces feelings and emotions that have real consequences for behaviour. In some societies, we may force others to sit on different seats on a bus or keep a certain distance from contact. Segregation and apartheid have been the shameful attempts of some societies to instigate supernatural beliefs about the subjugated members of a group. Such thinking, however, also enables us to see ourselves as connected to our family and ancestors, giving a sense of origin and direction. It explains why heirlooms and birthplace are objects and locations that give us a deeper sense of connection with the past. I think that we do all these strange things because we are social animals bound together by our sense of physical connection. Our thoughts and behaviours extend our individual selves to the group because being a social animal requires reaching out to and connecting with others. Giving gifts, exchanging objects, owning possessions, and making pilgrimages are all examples of our need to make physical connections with others. These connections are not all permanent, but I believe that they are helped by supernatural thinking as we form new bonds and break others. This need is so basic that I am sceptical that rational reasoning could ever get us to abandon it.

Such thinking provides a fertile ground for belief in supernatural phenomena. If you willingly believe in the supernatural, then you are in good company. In a US Gallup poll conducted in June 2005, more than one thousand adults were asked whether they ‘believed, were not sure or did not believe’ in the ten phenomena listed here. 13The percentage of believers is reported in parentheses. Take a look at this list. Do you believe any of these phenomena are real?

Extrasensory perception (ESP) (41%)

Haunted houses (37%)

Ghosts (32%)

Telepathy (31%)

Clairvoyance (26%)

Astrology (25%)

Communication with the dead (21%)

Witches (21%)

Reincarnation (20%)

Spiritual possession (9%)

Taken together, most American adults (73 per cent) believed in at least one of the items, while only one quarter (27 per cent) did not believe in any of them. I know what you’re thinking: ‘Crazy Yanks, they’ll believe anything. We’re not so gullible here in Europe.’ Maybe you, the reader, don’t believe in any of these paranormal phenomena, but another Gallup poll conducted on 1,000 Brits at the same time as the US study revealed that we should not be so smug. 14We are just as likely to believe in haunted houses (40%), astrology (24%), communication with the dead (27%) and the possibility of witches (13%). As a nation, we have no right to point the mocking finger at our American cousins. Yes, they are more religious but we are no more rational. For those of you curious to see how highly you score on paranormal beliefs, there is a self-assessment questionnaire in the Reader’s Notes on page 274.

These figures have hardly changed over the last fifteen years and are more or less the same as those produced by the polls conducted in 1990, 1991, 1996, and 2001. Here’s my prediction. The figures will be much the same five years from now, and five years after that. I would happily place a large bet on that. I am not a psychic. People are just remarkably consistent and predictable.

To prove this, let me demonstrate my psychic power to read your mind. I bet that you, the reader, also believe in at least one of the items from the list. Go on, be honest. How do I know? First, there is a good chance that you are one of the 73 per cent of the general population who believe. Also, sceptics generally don’t bother to read books like this one. In contrast, believers and those who are not so sure want to know whether there is any truth to any of these notions. They understand that their beliefs are considered flaky, and they want to find out whether there is any evidence for things that seem so possible.

There are two reasons to read on. First, supersense is in us all, and I hope to prove that to you over the coming pages. Second, the idea that supernatural beliefs are a product of our own mind design makes it necessary to rethink the origin of beliefs. By examining the evidence mostly from developmental psychology, we can see how such beliefs could emerge in the growing child and how they could continue to influence our thinking as adults even when science tells us to ignore them. This is important, because the development of such notions has relevance to the claim that culture and religions are primarily responsible for creating supernatural belief in the first place.