Hood, Bruce - Supersense

In our culture in the West, most supernatural beliefs, such as those surveyed in the Gallup poll described in chapter 2, are regarded as questionable, even though the majority of people believe at least one. Adults may even deny supernatural beliefs but, as we noted earlier, so long as no one mentions the word ‘supernatural’, adults are quite happy to entertain notions of hidden patterns, forces, and essences. In the 1980s, researchers interviewing women in Manchester about their supernatural beliefs found that they had to drop the term ‘the supernatural’, as this was generally met with negative reactions. 52However, as soon as the term ‘the mysterious side of life’ was used, the interviewees showed decided interest and were eager to talk. These women, mostly retired, happily went on to recount multiple experiences of ghosts, precognition, and feeling the spirits of the dead. They regarded these experiences not as supernatural but rather as mysterious.

We have become increasingly aware that supernatural thinking is something to be embarrassed about. We may even hide our superstitious behaviour when there are others around. Three out of four adults will avoid walking under a ladder if they think they are unobserved. 53If they see another adult do it first, they are much more likely to walk under the ladder. If we do not think that we are being watched, we are more likely to act superstitiously. Students were even less likely to cheat when they were told casually that the exam room was said to be haunted. 54

Children may not offer an imaginary pencil to an adult, but if left alone, they will check a previously empty box after they have been asked to imagine that it contains ice cream. 55Even though they know it is just a pretend game, they are still not certain that the ice cream did not somehow materialize inside the box. In another study, four-to six-year-olds were told about a magical box that could transform drawings into pictures. 56All children denied that such a magical transforming box was possible. However, several days later all of the children tried out the magical spell when left alone with the box and were clearly disappointed when they opened it to find the same drawing inside. This suggests that children do have some expectation of what is and is not possible but are open to the testimony of others. Here is where storytelling and the role of culture can influence children who are uncertain.

Children may not conjure up cookies, pencils, and imaginary friends, but that may be because they understand the limits of their own abilities. They may be less sure about the extraordinary power of others or mysterious magical boxes. This is where culture steps in to shape our beliefs. Again, others’ testimony becomes important in supporting supernaturalism, and this is particularly powerful on the playground. In one of the largest extensive surveys of beliefs, Peter and Iona Opie studied more than five thousand British children. Among the various playground activities of games and songs were a mixture of supernatural beliefs relating to oaths and superstitions. The Opies noted that children distinguished between superstitions that were ‘just for fun’ or ‘probably silly’ and others that were taken as given. Here the Opies noted the presence of the supersense in those practices that were unquestionably accepted:

Others, again, are practised because it is in the nature of children to be attracted by the mysterious: they appear to have an innate awareness that there is more to the ordering of fate than appears on the surface. 57

The other remarkable finding was that children mostly shared the beliefs of their friends but as they became adolescents they increasingly took on the beliefs of their family and elders. The fragmented folklore of children gave way to the traditional beliefs of the culture as they became adults. This may partly explain the pattern of emerging religious beliefs that we saw in the last chapter, where seven-year-olds were mostly creationist in their understanding of the origins of life on earth but older children had started to migrate toward formal religious beliefs or scientific accounts, depending on the family environment.

WHAT NEXT?

So far, the proposal on the table is that the origins of supernatural beliefs can be traced to children’s misconceptions about nature. However, this picture is missing a very important piece of the puzzle. No man is an island. We are social animals adrift in an ocean of people. Modern humans have the scientific name Homo sapiens , or ‘thinking hominid’, but as Nick Humphrey has pointed out, the label for modern humans is more appropriately Homo psychologicus . 58Most of our brainpower and the skills that separate us from other animals derive from our capacity to be psychological – to assume that others have minds and reason. This is why we are social animals. We have evolved to coexist in groups, to predict others, to communicate, and to share ideas. All of these skills require a mind sophisticated enough to recognize that others have minds too.

Children’s misconceptions may be intuitive and not taught, but they feed into a cultural context to become folklore, the paranormal, and religion. We know that social environments are important in providing these frameworks of belief, but they only exist in the first place because of the supersense. As children discover more about the true nature of the world, they increasingly understand that many of their intuitions are wrong and would only be possible if the supernatural were real. But when others share the same sorts of misconceptions, such beliefs become socially acceptable, despite the lack of evidence or what rational science might say.

In the next chapter, I examine how the supernatural becomes increasingly plausible when we enter the social domain. As Homo psychologicus , our social nature depends on our ability to be mind-readers. Each of us is capable of understanding and predicting what others will think and do because we have an intuitive theory of mind. We understand that other people have minds that motivate what they do and what they believe. In the same way that we have intuitive theories of the physical world, humans also have an intuitive theory of the mental one. However, unlike the physical world, where science can objectively verify our beliefs, the mental world is still one of the greatest mysteries that we all take for granted on a daily basis. What is the human mind? How does it work? How does something that is not physical control a physical body? We rarely stop to ask these questions because the mind is so common. Our minds are who we are. It’s only when we lose them or they become disturbed that we become acutely aware of how mysterious the mind really is. That mystery is fertile ground for a supersense.

CHAPTER FIVE

MIND READING FOR BEGINNERS

ONE OF THE supernatural powers that I have often thought would be handy is the ability to read other people’s minds. Imagine what fun you could have knowing what people really thought about each other. You would know who fancied you (if anyone) or which two people were having an illicit affair in the office. It could make you the most insightful judge or considerate seducer. All the secrets that we try to hide from each other would be out in the open. There again, maybe ignorance is bliss and it is better not to know what others think, especially if those thoughts of others are less flattering about ourselves than we would wish.

We can all mind-read to some extent. Not telepathy or Vulcan mind-melding. That’s the stuff of fiction. Rather, we instinctively try to figure out what’s on each other’s minds. Whether it’s winning an argument, negotiating a deal, or serving a customer, all of us recruit our mind-reading skills on a daily basis to infer what others are thinking. We consider what their beliefs might be and guess at which emotions they are experiencing. We want to know ‘where they’re coming from’. In this way, we anticipate and manipulate others through mind-reading even though we never have direct access to their private thoughts or feelings.