How We Believe_ Science and the Search for God - Michael Shermer [150]
GODS, ANGELS, AND ESP: WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE ABOUT THE SUPERNATURAL
It is possible that studies like these will begin to explain at least some of the reasons why people believe in paranormal, supernatural, and spiritual entities. Just how many believe in such ephemera? According to the Scripps Howard News Service, in a study conducted in collaboration with Ohio University, Americans overwhelmingly believe in the angels that heralded the birth of Jesus 2000 years ago and think they still walk the Earth today. In a survey of 1,127 adults, one out of every five Americans believes he or she has seen an angel or knows someone who has. Of those 1,127 adults polled, 77 percent answered “Yes” to the question: “Do you believe angels, that is, some kind of heavenly beings who visit Earth, in fact exist?” Another 73 percent believe angels still “come into the world even in these modern days.” Belief in angelic beings cuts across almost all ranges of education, income, and lifestyle. Women and young people are slightly more likely to believe than are men or older Americans, but a majority of almost every demographic group are angel believers.
Consider the following account given by Catherine Forbes, seventy-two, of Derby, Kansas: “Yes, I absolutely believe in angels. I met one.” The circumstances of this experience are telling. After the death of her husband, Forbes decided to take a trip to Jerusalem with a friend in 1953. On their way through the Dallas airport they got lost and became anxious. “All of a sudden, the nicest voice I ever heard said, ‘May I help you?’ I turned around and saw a clean-cut young man, just the most handsome, beautiful man. He picked up my luggage and showed me where to go and which people I was to be traveling with. I turned around to thank him, and he had absolutely disappeared.” Although there was no flash of light, the helpful young man had disappeared from sight in an apparently impossible fashion, she said. “I know some people will think I’m off my rocker, but I know what I saw.”
There is no doubt that Forbes’s experience was a real one. The question, however, is: was the source of her experience inside or outside the brain? The scientific evidence shows that such experiences are brain-generated, mediated by past experiences (in the form of memories) and the context in which they occur (in this case the airport during an episode of extreme grief). There is no need to call forth supernatural explanations when natural ones will do.
Yet, the angel belief poll was emblematic of the larger trend in beliefs in spiritual and paranormal phenomena. The Gallup News Service, for example, reported on June 8, 2001, the results from a survey they conducted on paranormal and spiritual beliefs. “The results suggest a significant increase in belief in a number of these experiences over the past decade, including in particular such Halloween-related issues as haunted houses, ghosts, and witches. Only one of the experiences tested has seen a drop in belief since 1990: devil possession. Overall, half or more of Americans believe in two of the issues: psychic or spiritual healing, and extrasensory perception (ESP), and a third or more believe in such things as haunted houses, possession by the devil, ghosts, telepathy, extraterrestrial beings having visited earth, and clairvoyance.”
There were interesting differences in beliefs by various subpopulations. For example:
Age: Younger Americans—those 18–29—are much more likely than those who are older to believe in haunted houses, in witches, in ghosts, that extraterrestrials have visited Earth, and in clairvoyance. There is little significant difference in belief in the other items by age group. Those thirty and older are somewhat more likely to believe in possession by the devil than are the younger group (perhaps as a result of seeing The Exorcist?). Gender: Women are slightly more likely than men to believe in ghosts and that people can communicate with the dead. Men, on the other hand, are