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A poll of Americans was conducted in October on superstitious beliefs. 48% of adults reported belief in ghosts, and 22% said they had seen them. There are other findings on belief in the supernatural and paranmormal which were discussed in an interesting brief L.A. Times piece.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sun ... 0009.story

It's hard for me to draw any firm conclusions from this poll that says that belief in the supernatural may be growing. One tentative one that I'd put forward is that people who have assumed that such beliefs would decrease naturally the more technology and science penetrate our lives, may be wrong. Maybe it is not really the natural thing to rely on evidence to draw conclusions about the world. The reason why we have religion in the first place has a lot to do with this widespread need to believe in an invisible world. It might take continuing and strenuous efforts to counter the natural tendency to fall into these fantastic beliefs. Education would seem to be the key, but since many of the adherents to these weird beliefs have been to college, education may not be working.

The article also makes me more certain that the moderates in religion should be welcome, since they steer away from the excesses the article speaks of.

In my opinion the reason for the widespread belief in the supernatural is because of the inadequacy of current science to account for real, non-supernatural subtle influences that control much of life -- including creative activity, like writing a poem about a Sawyer's Blueing bottle.

Tom

Thomas, how does that idea contrast against the same poll done to non-Americans? I'd be interested to see levels of superstition in other countries.

Thomas Hood wrote:In my opinion the reason for the widespread belief in the supernatural is because of the inadequacy of current science to account for real, non-supernatural subtle influences that control much of life -- including creative activity, like writing a poem about a Sawyer's Blueing bottle.

I don't know--do we demand or need explanations of these subtle influences, or do we just need to have experiences, such as creative ones, that rely on these influences and bring out more fully our human capacities? I see explanations as being of a different order than experiences, and I wonder if on a basic level the need for experiences accounts for recourse to the supernatural, paranormal, and occult. I would say that we can have experiences that give full rein to our capacities without going in that direction, but many others apparently don't think so.

The superstition spoken of is explanatory in type. Belief is based on explanations of experiences in most cases. A desire to experience a supernatural even may bias the following explanation, but it seems the explanation is where the issue hinges.

i am so happy to share this quote from Theodore Dreiser, and his book Sister Carrie:

"Among the forces that sweep and play throughout the universe, untutored man is but a wisp in the wind. Our civilization is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not wholly guided by reason....
He (man) is becoming to wise to hearken always to instincts and desires; he is still to weak to always prevail against them. As a beast, the forces of life aligned with them; as a man, he has not yet wholly learned to align himself with the forces."




pretty darn fantastic, yes? that is book porn to me--LOL....
but really, i think that there is a certain amount of clinging to the supernatural that is more societal and cultural. at least for myself. ghosts and spirits i have encountered in dreams and once after a friend's death, i was visited by his spirit--i still feel so privileged to this day!--and do i have rituals and superstitions i keep, yes. they seem very personal, but on a collective, i think that they are necessary. the world gets so cold sometimes, we use these feelings to remind ourselves of the sublime coincidences of our lives...
i think.

DWill wrote:I don't know--do we demand or need explanations of these subtle influences, or do we just need to have experiences, such as creative ones, that rely on these influences and bring out more fully our human capacities?

Yes, DWill, we need such explanations because they (if real explanations existed) would clarify the roots of creativity. The occult is a sort of giant septic tank for the denied stuff of life. What is so powerful about finding a blueing bottle? Isn't it that the blueing bottle has an aura about it that gives one a feeling of a lost age? I hope you're reading The Secret Garden because it addresses such subtle influences, although with a strong dose of wishful thinking.

Tom

Interbane wrote:Thomas, how does that idea contrast against the same poll done to non-Americans? I'd be interested to see levels of superstition in other countries.

Interbane, I can't answer your question. What is so frustrating to me is that a large area of human experience is dismissed as "superstition" and the science of it neglected -- unconscious conditioning, James-Lange theory of emotions (reduce in modern psychology to a quibble), and ideomotor effect.

Tom

[quote="Thomas Hood"]
Yes, DWill, we need such explanations because they (if real explanations existed) would clarify the roots of creativity. The occult is a sort of giant septic tank for the denied stuff of life. What is so powerful about finding a blueing bottle? Isn't it that the blueing bottle has an aura about it that gives one a feeling of a lost age? I hope you're reading The Secret Garden because it addresses such subtle influences, although with a strong dose of wishful thinking.[quote]
I certainly like "giant septic tank for the denied stuff of life," and I'm not saying at all that a scientific approach won't be of any use. I'm just wondering what is the major obstacle to our taking advantage of creative abilities. Will scientific understanding help? Maybe. Thanks for the recommendation of the book, and you are right about the blueing bottle.
DWill

Interbane wrote:Thomas, how does that idea contrast against the same poll done to non-Americans? I'd be interested to see levels of superstition in other countries.

I was interested in that, too, but I couldn't find anything in the form of a poll. I could only speculate about Europeans, which wouldn't be of much use. Of course, the old world is the origin of many superstitions that were carried over here. How much they might still prevail there, I don't know. The non-religious superstitions popular in the U.S. have a general "New Agey" feeling to me. Is New Age also popular in Europe, or with the steep decline in religious observance there, have people taken the rational route rather than finding substitutes in the occult, etc.?