In the medieval past, people would routinely employ "cunning folk" or "service magicians" to help them. They were much more effective, rational, and ethical than many spiritual practices today.
Thank you, Brian. Oh how I wish I could share it with my neighbors and friends, and generally everyone to some degree, without losing their friendship, or even acceptance. For example, at the time, and "after" the pandemic, even the question "Have you been vaccinated?" been barred from conversations. Even in formal, medical environments like hospitals, questioning an attending nurse, or other caregivers, if they were vaccinated, was met with a blank look and silence. The question about the COVID-19 vaccine remains in the category of "personal" information. Three of my immediate neighbors, college-educated, and some in professional positions, stated on different occasions "I do not believe in science". Starting from this general statement, all levels of belief in the supernatural are normal.
One time, I questioned my friend about her religious beliefs, and her answer "One has to believe in something", was enlightening.
Enjoyed reading this essay. I'm not one for anything mystical, superstitious, religious, astrological, etc, largely because they so very obviously don't deliver on their promises. However, I'm looking at a large rose quartz sitting on the bookshelf. I'm guessing someone gave it to me for it's "love" properties but now, after reading about Madagascar mining, I am horrified. This world ---heartbreaking and stupid.
Ah. This brought me back to the beginning of the pandemic. I was 12, almost 13 at the time and still in the midst of major depression with psychosis symptoms that had landed me hospitalized. Some hospitals horrific, others I credit with my life. But in that time I was extremely susceptible to just about everything TikTok was pushing. I remember being a firm believer in “shifting”, a trend in which you project your consciousness into an alternate reality of your own design. It was “scientific” because we know the universe is expanding/infinite and therefore you must be able to script up your Harry Potter fanfiction and then go literally live it. This sounds just as insane as it is looking back, but when I tell you that this concept had a firm grasp on all of my friend groups I mean it. You could’ve asked any tween or teen that frequented social media about it at the time and I guarantee you they would know about it, and there’s a good chance they’d treat it as fact. Shifting influencers would encourage you to isolate yourself from people who didn’t believe in it or thought you were crazy, and counseled anyone who failed to successfully shift with the advice that they simply weren’t focusing hard enough. It was a wild time to be alive.
I had completely forgotten about it until my parents brought up in a lighthearted way how I “used to think I could travel to other dimensions”. I was totally baffled and fully denied it until they reminded me of more specific memories that started to resurface.
I would love to see more people analyze this trend because it was a strong feature of the very important cultural shifts that you’re talking about here!
Thanks, John for drawing attention - yes indeed, I linked to that reporting in the section on Madagascar (I’ve been to Madagascar 9 times for my research and it’s a tragedy a million different ways).
I was already not a fan of the crystals nonsense, and aware of the problems of environmental degradation and poverty in the priceless Madagascar ecosystem, but had no idea about this intersection. Thank you for this information, I will look for opportunities to pass it along.
Thank you for another interesting article. I am aghast at the research behind what you write - so many obscure tit bits you manage to unearth! Like the previous commentator Lily I would like to make a few points from an Asian perspective, and specifically a Buddhist one, that don't quite agree with your line of thinking.
I certainly agree with you that many manifestations of so-called magical and spiritual things are not genuine and often their effectiveness may well be due to the power of shared human belief. I also agree that a distinction needs to be made between harmless activities and those that set out to harm. However my most fundamental disagreement with you is really about your understanding of the mind. In your footnote you profess to be a materialist who believes that everything can be explained by natural forces and the laws of physics. To me, that implies that you do not accept that the mind has any power of its own at all because for you the mind is not separate from the body and the laws of physics.
The Buddhist view calls for a distinction between the thinking mind and basic awareness. The Secret is trying to harness the thinking mind which I believe has very limited power and effectiveness. But that is quite different from the power of prayer, for example, which scientific research has proved can be very effective in healing. The difference is that prayer engages not just the thinking brain (as it were) but also the heart and in Asian thought the heart is always seen as an integral part of what we call the mind. True mystics always engage both head and heart together.
As the previous commentator mentioned, immanence is still very much present in Asian thinking and in Buddhism there is no such thing as a transcendental heaven or God that exist in some other place beyond human reach. What the Axial Age influenced in Buddhism (and I wrote a blog and a chapter of my book on this) is the impulse to turn inward to find that deeper meaning and dimension of existence. That means it is not outside and separate, on the contrary, it is totally immanent in us right now. A similar move happened in Hinduism at that time. As you point out, this is quite different from the Religions of the Book that are dominant today in the West but please remember that there are millions of people today who follow Hinduism, Taoism, Shinto and Buddhism.
Finally, having travelled to Africa, central America and the Caribbean I would hesitate to state that magic is simply or always a question of shared belief. I think in certain cases magicians actually do have power. And dare I express my alarm at the implications of your physicalist view of the mind? Surely for you, then, there is no significant difference between a human being and an advanced robot.
Thanks, Dominique for a very thoughtful comment. And yes, I accept that there are many mystical aspects of existence that we don’t understand. I wrote a chapter of Fluke about my views on free will, and it’s true that I don’t believe in it - I’m a hard determinist in the philosophical categorisation. That doesn’t mean that humans are the same as robots, because robots don’t feel emotions, have aspirations, love, experience tragedy, and seek to understand themselves in a variety of amazing, wonderful ways. I do believe, however, that there is no difference between the mind and the brain - I think they are the same thing and that everything in my brain is internally caused (that there’s no extra stuff other than what is physically there). Obviously there’s a ton of nuance I’m glossing over here - these are thorny debates embedded in uncertainty and definitional problems so I can’t flesh it out in a comment reply, but I don’t share the belief that the mind has causal powers beyond what can be explained by the fundamental laws of physics (which, as I wrote in the article footnote, we only partially understand). Every reflective human has to solve these puzzles their own way, and I’m closer to Asian thought on much of philosophy (a core idea of Fluke is about the fundamental interconnection of all matter) but I don’t share some of the views that you mentioned, which is one of the beautiful things about being human. Unlike robots, we don’t come off a single assembly line and that diversity of thought is one of the greatest strengths of our species. Thanks for such a detailed and thoughtful reply.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and apparently the human mind abhors uncertainty. When faced uncertainty, we seem to accept whatever seems to make sense. And the more uncomfortable the uncertainty makes us feel, the more desperately we cling to that which restores our comfort.
I have long believed that the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity exists on a spectrum. Fundamentalism and magical thinking exist on one side, while tolerance of uncertainty until a rational explanation is available, exists on the other.
The development of the scientific method, may be the greatest achievement of our species, but it too can be misused by charlatans who specialize on their need to sow doubt, for example Creationism.
Perhaps the only certainty of human existence is that nothing is certain. Live with it!
Saying "I don't know" to uncertainty or a question is no dishonor. Too many think that not knowing something is a personal failure of some kind. It's just being honest though.
The reference to General Butt Naked caught my eye. I was told of him at the time by my AP colleague working in Liberia, Miles Tierney (later killed in Sierra Leone). I think Miles said the only they wore were roller skates and ammunition bandoliers.
Child murder, rape and cannibalism were among their freely admitted crimes. They were proud of the horrors.
You could write a whole piece on Blahyi, the eponymous general, and whether his conversion to evangelical preacher was simply a manoeuvre or evidence of redemption. I guess one doesn't exclude the other.
There are documentaries on the man.
The quotes from him at the top of this one set up the grim moral scene.
I think quite a lot of the archive footage in this piece was shot by Miles. I wonder how he would have coped with what he witnessed in later life, had he not died young.
Thanks, Christopher - it was terrible what happened to Myles, such a tragedy. I produced a podcast episode of Power Corrupts called “Voodoo, Vampires, and General Butt Naked” which goes into a lot of the details around Blahyi (and I interviewed the documentary filmmakers). I’ve long been fascinated by how irrational belief shifts society in ways that are often written out of narratives precisely because they’re irrational and this is an excellent example of it.
Do you have a link for that? I'd be keen to listen. I have spent little time in Africa, but a lot of time in the former USSR and Middle East (I was bureau chief for the BBC in Moscow and Baghdad, though happily not simultaneously I might add...) and charismatic psychos/sociopaths were pretty much what the news was made of. Still is.
I'm very much with David Hume when it comes to the balance of passion and reason as motivators for action. We post-hoc rationalise emotional decisions. Jon Haidt writes more recently on the same thing in The Righteous Mind. What is interesting is that the nuance of passion is so often left out in historical and academic discussion of events: as though it were all about clear decision-making rooted in data or discernible, rational goals. It rarely is. Yeltsin had probably had a skinful when he pressed the button on Chechnya 1, and Putin (to my mind) is no longer helpfully described as much more than suffering from Acton's maxim, but applied to what may have once been a reasonably sharp mind, not just to his worldly wealth.
(Myles and I were part of the original AP video cohort in 1994. I made it through Chechnya, and he didn't make it through SL. He and his cameraman were very decent guys, albeit a bit nuts like the rest of us. The death rate in agency journalism is proportionally higher than in other formats because you really have to be at the thing as it happens. You can't rely on an agency for the copy/video, as broadcasters do. In the 90s, it was close to suicidal.)
Your comment on rationalisation reminded me of a study I heard about a few years ago. (I'll see if I can find it if you like.)
People where asked to make decisions whilst their brains where monitored for electrical activity. As soon as they had made the decision, they where asked to press a button. As I hazily recall, the centers associated with decision making activated first, but then then the areas more associated with creative thinking second, only then did participants press the button.
In short, the conclusion was that people where quick to make a choice, then justified it to themselves, only after that, where they actually conscious of having made a decision.
It all reminds me of the part of Robert Cialdinis book on how people will change their beliefs, to realign with and justify their own previous behaviour, especially publicly displayed behaviour. (This was the part where he described Korean war POWs in Chinese camps.)
Spirituality attracts grifters. Nearly all us humans experience existential dread and therefore are vulnerable to being misled and manipulated surrounding such issues, especially concerning mortality. We seek security and control regarding our deaths and other mysteries that are simply unattainable
Mr Klaas explores these themes in Fluke. Understanding of our world falls apart quickly due to its unfathomable complexity. Chaos theory takes over. We simply shouldn’t be so arrogant as to think we can know and predict much regarding our fates.
So, I agree with Carl Jung regarding the wisdom of finding ‘one’s own myth.’ There is simply no way of explaining many mysteries with observation and the limits of human mental capacities. So…as far as I’m concerned, it is important to fill in the gaps science cannot answer with meaningful, health-promoting, pro-social beliefs, lest those gaps otherwise be filled mindlessly with nihilistic garbage.
There is also danger of being manipulated when one does not believe in anything or have real meaning. IMO, this is a key part of how so-called anti-Christ figures, like Hitler, can cause so much damage.
Thanks as always Ed! And I think you hit on an important point there: there are instrumental values that can be advanced by beliefs whether or not they are strictly true. Literature isn’t strictly true - the characters are invented - but the truth embedded in it is profound, meaningful, and instrumentally valuable. And while I’m personally not a believer, I think it’s hubristic to imagine that we can definitively know the answer to questions that are at least currently unanswerable. I believe in the scientific physicalist approach, but we have significant limits to our understanding and it’s best not to pretend otherwise!
Love what you say about literature. If only religious myth were taken more as literature by the religious, less as dogma…I think we’d have far less conflict and far less opportunity for charlatans
Man's capacity to live with uncertainty is smaller than his capacity and desire to find and define cause and effect no matter how unfindable untraceable cause is. We do this to justify the unjustifiable to adjust to the unacceptable. We love certainty when physics gives us the law of uncertainty. The wisest man knows enough to know he hardly knows an inkling of what is known or knowable by any man. The wisest amongst us embrace uncertainty. And are given to hesitate often in a world of experts who claim to know so much. He who hesitates embraces that he just does not know and abhors those who profess to Know with certitudes.
He /she who hesitates is exactly the kind of leaders we need in a world where certainty sells when uncertainty is the undeniable truth and the only thing that's for certain.
Just for fun imagine us electing Socrates to lead us. Not a bad proposition considering he is regarded as one of the very finest thinkers mankind has produced. He comes before us and asks questions- questions that he hesitates to answer himself, hesitates because he does not have answers, he says but has more questions for us to think about and then he delivers more questions never providing answers. Such a man would not be tolerated long by us. An indecisive old fool. “He is uncertain about everything”, yes and he is the wisest leader we would have ever had.
They have intrinsic value as a social bonding exercise and a way of articulating shared aspirations. It doesn’t really matter, per se, if they work.
An especially good point: bonding, sharing, mutually agreed to...Hope. Something- a ritual, a belief,
an object that provides us a Hope Fix. ( Aside: Do animals experience the, uh, emotion of Hope?? I feed a Stellars Jay, between 8:30 and 9:30...does the bird show up because a) they experience Hope b) they have Expectation c) they're merely enjoying visiting the Human they've trained...)
We pray for our uncle's health to improve; for it to be sunny for Becky's birthday party. If I take the same route as last time, maybe I'll win at the track again. The cult member stays in the cult, wears the robe and works with the other believers even though the Great Awakening has not happened, after all this waiting: the things they do currently have offer stability, warmth, Hope. It. May. Yet.
We stay in the cult. We keep praying, even though it doesn't look good for our Uncle, and it did rain after all. It feels good...hey, ya never know.
There is a choice of places to buy books in a small town in the rich corner of Britain where I am lucky enough to live. It was still surprising to find on sale one called 'Manifest the Shit Out of Life'.
I thought, given its Barbie-pink hard cover and the swirly hippy typeset, that it must be a spoof. I expected a timely satire. But the book is sold with entirely serious intent.
Here's the blurb from the back:
"This easy-to-use guide is filled with bite-sized tips, techniques and inspiration for helping you to manifest the shit out of life
Everyone's definition of happiness looks different; whether you base your contentment on success, love or financial security, this book will help you to identify and clarify your goals, and provide you with everything you need to start manifesting the life of your dreams.
Manifestation is one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal, and the good news is that anyone can try it - the universe is ready and waiting to help you achieve your goals, realize your dreams and live your best life. By harnessing your positive energy through techniques such as visualization and scripting, you can communicate your desires to the universe and start working towards attaining them.
Trust in the universe and it will deliver."
It's published by Hachette, whose workforce has complained about printing work by JK Rowling but doesn't object to designing, laying out and marketing this volume.
Excellent article. I grew up in a evilangelical cult that taught hardship came from the person or child or victim not believing in God enough or having the right amount of faith. That even one moment of questioning God negated all the believing and all the faith you had up to that point so you had to start over. And, if you didn’t give 10% of your income, even from delivering papers at age 12, well, don’t go crying to God when prayers weren’t answered and bad things happened. I walked away at 18 and never looked back.
What a thoughtful and intriguing comment - thanks for sharing your expertise. Yes, I see your point - I’m channeling the sort of scholarship around questions of what immanent vs transcendental conceptions are, which is cited in Sahlins book, but of course like everything, it defies simple classification! Thanks for sharing again - this is why Substack is so brilliant.
Thank you, Brian. Oh how I wish I could share it with my neighbors and friends, and generally everyone to some degree, without losing their friendship, or even acceptance. For example, at the time, and "after" the pandemic, even the question "Have you been vaccinated?" been barred from conversations. Even in formal, medical environments like hospitals, questioning an attending nurse, or other caregivers, if they were vaccinated, was met with a blank look and silence. The question about the COVID-19 vaccine remains in the category of "personal" information. Three of my immediate neighbors, college-educated, and some in professional positions, stated on different occasions "I do not believe in science". Starting from this general statement, all levels of belief in the supernatural are normal.
One time, I questioned my friend about her religious beliefs, and her answer "One has to believe in something", was enlightening.
Enjoyed reading this essay. I'm not one for anything mystical, superstitious, religious, astrological, etc, largely because they so very obviously don't deliver on their promises. However, I'm looking at a large rose quartz sitting on the bookshelf. I'm guessing someone gave it to me for it's "love" properties but now, after reading about Madagascar mining, I am horrified. This world ---heartbreaking and stupid.
Ah. This brought me back to the beginning of the pandemic. I was 12, almost 13 at the time and still in the midst of major depression with psychosis symptoms that had landed me hospitalized. Some hospitals horrific, others I credit with my life. But in that time I was extremely susceptible to just about everything TikTok was pushing. I remember being a firm believer in “shifting”, a trend in which you project your consciousness into an alternate reality of your own design. It was “scientific” because we know the universe is expanding/infinite and therefore you must be able to script up your Harry Potter fanfiction and then go literally live it. This sounds just as insane as it is looking back, but when I tell you that this concept had a firm grasp on all of my friend groups I mean it. You could’ve asked any tween or teen that frequented social media about it at the time and I guarantee you they would know about it, and there’s a good chance they’d treat it as fact. Shifting influencers would encourage you to isolate yourself from people who didn’t believe in it or thought you were crazy, and counseled anyone who failed to successfully shift with the advice that they simply weren’t focusing hard enough. It was a wild time to be alive.
I had completely forgotten about it until my parents brought up in a lighthearted way how I “used to think I could travel to other dimensions”. I was totally baffled and fully denied it until they reminded me of more specific memories that started to resurface.
I would love to see more people analyze this trend because it was a strong feature of the very important cultural shifts that you’re talking about here!
I had never heard of this - thank you for sharing! And I hope you’re doing much better now.
It’s quite awful to learn of the suffering caused in the mining industry in general. Anyway fyi I read the following article a while back
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/sep/17/healing-crystals-wellness-mining-madagascar
Thanks, John for drawing attention - yes indeed, I linked to that reporting in the section on Madagascar (I’ve been to Madagascar 9 times for my research and it’s a tragedy a million different ways).
I was already not a fan of the crystals nonsense, and aware of the problems of environmental degradation and poverty in the priceless Madagascar ecosystem, but had no idea about this intersection. Thank you for this information, I will look for opportunities to pass it along.
Wow
Thank you for another interesting article. I am aghast at the research behind what you write - so many obscure tit bits you manage to unearth! Like the previous commentator Lily I would like to make a few points from an Asian perspective, and specifically a Buddhist one, that don't quite agree with your line of thinking.
I certainly agree with you that many manifestations of so-called magical and spiritual things are not genuine and often their effectiveness may well be due to the power of shared human belief. I also agree that a distinction needs to be made between harmless activities and those that set out to harm. However my most fundamental disagreement with you is really about your understanding of the mind. In your footnote you profess to be a materialist who believes that everything can be explained by natural forces and the laws of physics. To me, that implies that you do not accept that the mind has any power of its own at all because for you the mind is not separate from the body and the laws of physics.
The Buddhist view calls for a distinction between the thinking mind and basic awareness. The Secret is trying to harness the thinking mind which I believe has very limited power and effectiveness. But that is quite different from the power of prayer, for example, which scientific research has proved can be very effective in healing. The difference is that prayer engages not just the thinking brain (as it were) but also the heart and in Asian thought the heart is always seen as an integral part of what we call the mind. True mystics always engage both head and heart together.
As the previous commentator mentioned, immanence is still very much present in Asian thinking and in Buddhism there is no such thing as a transcendental heaven or God that exist in some other place beyond human reach. What the Axial Age influenced in Buddhism (and I wrote a blog and a chapter of my book on this) is the impulse to turn inward to find that deeper meaning and dimension of existence. That means it is not outside and separate, on the contrary, it is totally immanent in us right now. A similar move happened in Hinduism at that time. As you point out, this is quite different from the Religions of the Book that are dominant today in the West but please remember that there are millions of people today who follow Hinduism, Taoism, Shinto and Buddhism.
Finally, having travelled to Africa, central America and the Caribbean I would hesitate to state that magic is simply or always a question of shared belief. I think in certain cases magicians actually do have power. And dare I express my alarm at the implications of your physicalist view of the mind? Surely for you, then, there is no significant difference between a human being and an advanced robot.
Thanks, Dominique for a very thoughtful comment. And yes, I accept that there are many mystical aspects of existence that we don’t understand. I wrote a chapter of Fluke about my views on free will, and it’s true that I don’t believe in it - I’m a hard determinist in the philosophical categorisation. That doesn’t mean that humans are the same as robots, because robots don’t feel emotions, have aspirations, love, experience tragedy, and seek to understand themselves in a variety of amazing, wonderful ways. I do believe, however, that there is no difference between the mind and the brain - I think they are the same thing and that everything in my brain is internally caused (that there’s no extra stuff other than what is physically there). Obviously there’s a ton of nuance I’m glossing over here - these are thorny debates embedded in uncertainty and definitional problems so I can’t flesh it out in a comment reply, but I don’t share the belief that the mind has causal powers beyond what can be explained by the fundamental laws of physics (which, as I wrote in the article footnote, we only partially understand). Every reflective human has to solve these puzzles their own way, and I’m closer to Asian thought on much of philosophy (a core idea of Fluke is about the fundamental interconnection of all matter) but I don’t share some of the views that you mentioned, which is one of the beautiful things about being human. Unlike robots, we don’t come off a single assembly line and that diversity of thought is one of the greatest strengths of our species. Thanks for such a detailed and thoughtful reply.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and apparently the human mind abhors uncertainty. When faced uncertainty, we seem to accept whatever seems to make sense. And the more uncomfortable the uncertainty makes us feel, the more desperately we cling to that which restores our comfort.
I have long believed that the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity exists on a spectrum. Fundamentalism and magical thinking exist on one side, while tolerance of uncertainty until a rational explanation is available, exists on the other.
The development of the scientific method, may be the greatest achievement of our species, but it too can be misused by charlatans who specialize on their need to sow doubt, for example Creationism.
Perhaps the only certainty of human existence is that nothing is certain. Live with it!
Saying "I don't know" to uncertainty or a question is no dishonor. Too many think that not knowing something is a personal failure of some kind. It's just being honest though.
The reference to General Butt Naked caught my eye. I was told of him at the time by my AP colleague working in Liberia, Miles Tierney (later killed in Sierra Leone). I think Miles said the only they wore were roller skates and ammunition bandoliers.
Child murder, rape and cannibalism were among their freely admitted crimes. They were proud of the horrors.
You could write a whole piece on Blahyi, the eponymous general, and whether his conversion to evangelical preacher was simply a manoeuvre or evidence of redemption. I guess one doesn't exclude the other.
There are documentaries on the man.
The quotes from him at the top of this one set up the grim moral scene.
https://youtu.be/ZRuSS0iiFyo?si=rNU9REhsmojz_pkX
I think quite a lot of the archive footage in this piece was shot by Miles. I wonder how he would have coped with what he witnessed in later life, had he not died young.
Thanks, Christopher - it was terrible what happened to Myles, such a tragedy. I produced a podcast episode of Power Corrupts called “Voodoo, Vampires, and General Butt Naked” which goes into a lot of the details around Blahyi (and I interviewed the documentary filmmakers). I’ve long been fascinated by how irrational belief shifts society in ways that are often written out of narratives precisely because they’re irrational and this is an excellent example of it.
Do you have a link for that? I'd be keen to listen. I have spent little time in Africa, but a lot of time in the former USSR and Middle East (I was bureau chief for the BBC in Moscow and Baghdad, though happily not simultaneously I might add...) and charismatic psychos/sociopaths were pretty much what the news was made of. Still is.
I'm very much with David Hume when it comes to the balance of passion and reason as motivators for action. We post-hoc rationalise emotional decisions. Jon Haidt writes more recently on the same thing in The Righteous Mind. What is interesting is that the nuance of passion is so often left out in historical and academic discussion of events: as though it were all about clear decision-making rooted in data or discernible, rational goals. It rarely is. Yeltsin had probably had a skinful when he pressed the button on Chechnya 1, and Putin (to my mind) is no longer helpfully described as much more than suffering from Acton's maxim, but applied to what may have once been a reasonably sharp mind, not just to his worldly wealth.
(Myles and I were part of the original AP video cohort in 1994. I made it through Chechnya, and he didn't make it through SL. He and his cameraman were very decent guys, albeit a bit nuts like the rest of us. The death rate in agency journalism is proportionally higher than in other formats because you really have to be at the thing as it happens. You can't rely on an agency for the copy/video, as broadcasters do. In the 90s, it was close to suicidal.)
This one should work: https://powercorrupts.libsyn.com/voodoo-vampires-and-general-butt-naked
That's super, thank you Brian. And I ordered Fluke today - so the publisher pdf did it's thing on me... Best wishes, Chris
https://www.powercorruptspodcast.com/magicandwitchcraft
Your comment on rationalisation reminded me of a study I heard about a few years ago. (I'll see if I can find it if you like.)
People where asked to make decisions whilst their brains where monitored for electrical activity. As soon as they had made the decision, they where asked to press a button. As I hazily recall, the centers associated with decision making activated first, but then then the areas more associated with creative thinking second, only then did participants press the button.
In short, the conclusion was that people where quick to make a choice, then justified it to themselves, only after that, where they actually conscious of having made a decision.
It all reminds me of the part of Robert Cialdinis book on how people will change their beliefs, to realign with and justify their own previous behaviour, especially publicly displayed behaviour. (This was the part where he described Korean war POWs in Chinese camps.)
Fascinating piece as always.
Spirituality attracts grifters. Nearly all us humans experience existential dread and therefore are vulnerable to being misled and manipulated surrounding such issues, especially concerning mortality. We seek security and control regarding our deaths and other mysteries that are simply unattainable
Mr Klaas explores these themes in Fluke. Understanding of our world falls apart quickly due to its unfathomable complexity. Chaos theory takes over. We simply shouldn’t be so arrogant as to think we can know and predict much regarding our fates.
So, I agree with Carl Jung regarding the wisdom of finding ‘one’s own myth.’ There is simply no way of explaining many mysteries with observation and the limits of human mental capacities. So…as far as I’m concerned, it is important to fill in the gaps science cannot answer with meaningful, health-promoting, pro-social beliefs, lest those gaps otherwise be filled mindlessly with nihilistic garbage.
There is also danger of being manipulated when one does not believe in anything or have real meaning. IMO, this is a key part of how so-called anti-Christ figures, like Hitler, can cause so much damage.
Thanks as always Ed! And I think you hit on an important point there: there are instrumental values that can be advanced by beliefs whether or not they are strictly true. Literature isn’t strictly true - the characters are invented - but the truth embedded in it is profound, meaningful, and instrumentally valuable. And while I’m personally not a believer, I think it’s hubristic to imagine that we can definitively know the answer to questions that are at least currently unanswerable. I believe in the scientific physicalist approach, but we have significant limits to our understanding and it’s best not to pretend otherwise!
Love what you say about literature. If only religious myth were taken more as literature by the religious, less as dogma…I think we’d have far less conflict and far less opportunity for charlatans
Well written Brian!
Man's capacity to live with uncertainty is smaller than his capacity and desire to find and define cause and effect no matter how unfindable untraceable cause is. We do this to justify the unjustifiable to adjust to the unacceptable. We love certainty when physics gives us the law of uncertainty. The wisest man knows enough to know he hardly knows an inkling of what is known or knowable by any man. The wisest amongst us embrace uncertainty. And are given to hesitate often in a world of experts who claim to know so much. He who hesitates embraces that he just does not know and abhors those who profess to Know with certitudes.
He /she who hesitates is exactly the kind of leaders we need in a world where certainty sells when uncertainty is the undeniable truth and the only thing that's for certain.
Just for fun imagine us electing Socrates to lead us. Not a bad proposition considering he is regarded as one of the very finest thinkers mankind has produced. He comes before us and asks questions- questions that he hesitates to answer himself, hesitates because he does not have answers, he says but has more questions for us to think about and then he delivers more questions never providing answers. Such a man would not be tolerated long by us. An indecisive old fool. “He is uncertain about everything”, yes and he is the wisest leader we would have ever had.
They have intrinsic value as a social bonding exercise and a way of articulating shared aspirations. It doesn’t really matter, per se, if they work.
An especially good point: bonding, sharing, mutually agreed to...Hope. Something- a ritual, a belief,
an object that provides us a Hope Fix. ( Aside: Do animals experience the, uh, emotion of Hope?? I feed a Stellars Jay, between 8:30 and 9:30...does the bird show up because a) they experience Hope b) they have Expectation c) they're merely enjoying visiting the Human they've trained...)
We pray for our uncle's health to improve; for it to be sunny for Becky's birthday party. If I take the same route as last time, maybe I'll win at the track again. The cult member stays in the cult, wears the robe and works with the other believers even though the Great Awakening has not happened, after all this waiting: the things they do currently have offer stability, warmth, Hope. It. May. Yet.
We stay in the cult. We keep praying, even though it doesn't look good for our Uncle, and it did rain after all. It feels good...hey, ya never know.
Another great article, Brian. I hope you’re working on another book. Fluke was/is awesome!
Thank goodness the fairies at the bottom of my garden are real!!
There is a choice of places to buy books in a small town in the rich corner of Britain where I am lucky enough to live. It was still surprising to find on sale one called 'Manifest the Shit Out of Life'.
I thought, given its Barbie-pink hard cover and the swirly hippy typeset, that it must be a spoof. I expected a timely satire. But the book is sold with entirely serious intent.
Here's the blurb from the back:
"This easy-to-use guide is filled with bite-sized tips, techniques and inspiration for helping you to manifest the shit out of life
Everyone's definition of happiness looks different; whether you base your contentment on success, love or financial security, this book will help you to identify and clarify your goals, and provide you with everything you need to start manifesting the life of your dreams.
Manifestation is one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal, and the good news is that anyone can try it - the universe is ready and waiting to help you achieve your goals, realize your dreams and live your best life. By harnessing your positive energy through techniques such as visualization and scripting, you can communicate your desires to the universe and start working towards attaining them.
Trust in the universe and it will deliver."
It's published by Hachette, whose workforce has complained about printing work by JK Rowling but doesn't object to designing, laying out and marketing this volume.
You can have one yourself. Just manifest £6.99.
The modern version of trial by ordeal is the polygraph aka lie detector
Excellent article. I grew up in a evilangelical cult that taught hardship came from the person or child or victim not believing in God enough or having the right amount of faith. That even one moment of questioning God negated all the believing and all the faith you had up to that point so you had to start over. And, if you didn’t give 10% of your income, even from delivering papers at age 12, well, don’t go crying to God when prayers weren’t answered and bad things happened. I walked away at 18 and never looked back.
What a thoughtful and intriguing comment - thanks for sharing your expertise. Yes, I see your point - I’m channeling the sort of scholarship around questions of what immanent vs transcendental conceptions are, which is cited in Sahlins book, but of course like everything, it defies simple classification! Thanks for sharing again - this is why Substack is so brilliant.