Why do so many humans believe in things they can’t see & that probably aren’t true — like ghosts, guardian angels, curses, telepathy, sacred relics, vengeful gods, karma, and lucky socks?
Even if you consider yourself completely un-superstitious, you may still find yourself knocking on wood, crossing fingers, avoiding black cats, or hesitating to move into a house where a murder once took place. A rationalist would say “it’s a perfectly good house”, but for most people the house still feels contaminated.
Belief in the supernatural is alive and well, even in scientifically advanced societies. In the United States, Gallup polls find that 69% of people believe in angels. That’s far more than the number who believe in the Big Bang (49%) or in evolution by natural selection (32%). Even outside of formal religion, people continue to believe in fate, manifesting energy, spiritual healing, meaningful coincidences, and the list goes on.
Where does this sort of belief all come from?
Some thinkers emphasize the social benefits: shared beliefs bind groups together. Others emphasize the psychological benefits: belief provides a sense of control in an unpredictable world.
But there’s a deeper clue available. Supernatural thinking emerges spontaneously from early childhood, across every culture. Without instruction, our brains reach for invisible explanations. We hear rustling leaves and imagine agency behind them. We hear a story about a house and sense that it carries an invisible essence. We see a coincidence and label it destiny.
Why? Because the brain is a pattern-making machine. It fills the world with meaning, connects dots, and infers causes, even where none exist.
My colleague Bruce Hood has studied this kind of superstitious belief. In his research, he found that even very young children show signs of supernatural thinking. They recoil from “bad” objects, believe thoughts can influence events, and assume that people carry invisible essences. These beliefs don’t need to be taught; they arise automatically.
Hood wrote the book, Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable, exploring why the brain is naturally inclined toward the mystical and the magical. He digs into the biology of belief: why even the most rational among us may cling to childhood teddy bears, why world-class athletes keep their rituals, why so many of us can’t shake the idea that “everything happens for a reason.”
Please join me for a conversation with Bruce Hood as we explore this strange and fascinating corner of our cognition. Even in an age of satellites and particle accelerators, the supernatural never really goes away. What does that reveal about the way our minds work?
