Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking in a Modern World (10 page)

The phrase “a jury of your peers” takes on new meaning here. These twelve men and women drawn from the local community truly shared the cult’s fundamental beliefs. In that sense, Jacques could not have received a fairer hearing. Consider that the jury did not say, “We think you are a delusional nut bar. The very thought that there is a supernatural being hovering over your cult and sending you secret messages,
regardless of what they say
, is just flat-out nonsense. Shame on you for allowing such deluded thinking to infect your lives. And, oh, by the way, you killed your kid in a cruel and unnecessary act and for that we’re finding you guilty.” In that sense Jacques was lucky: he had a Pleistocene jury evaluate his Pleistocene belief system and, scary as it seems, he almost got away with murder.

The jury, indeed the community where these cult members live, walked away wagging their tongues and shaking their heads. The cult continues to function in their midst, although the children have been taken away from them and adopted out to noncult families and relatives. The noncult community probably takes pride and comfort in the fact that this could not happen to them. They are decent and normal Christians, practicing polite, everyday religion as opposed to this extreme and dangerous nonsense. They are unlikely to kill their children at God’s behest, but they will continue to pray to Him and accept as fact His miraculous conception and resurrection from the dead.

I was discussing the basic premise of this book with a friend who listened attentively and supportively. She seemed genuinely concerned about the spread of uncritical spiritual thinking and religiosity. I concluded with a ray of hope by noting the spread of atheist books and secular humanist associations.

“Thank God!” she exclaimed.

And then we looked at each other and started to laugh. Her reaction had been absolutely genuine. Feeling relief at an unexpected, positive outcome, she turned to a common linguistic phrase triggered by such feelings. In doing so, she revealed just how deeply Caveman Logic is ingrained in our language. Indeed, her two-word exclamation conveys a wealth of information with admirable economy. We have already identified two underpinnings of religion: an overactive causal agency detector and social exchange. Her comment revealed both in action. Although she would not consciously process information in this manner, when told of a desirable circumstance (the presence of atheist books and secular humanist associations), she wrongly attributed their existence to a supernatural agent and felt compelled to thank that agent for his efforts.

As pioneering feminists argued forty years ago, the existence of sexist language does more than reflect problematic attitudes that are ingrained in our culture. It actually contributes to the problem by normalizing these attitudes and practices. As a result, many institutions became zealous about using politically correct, nonsexist language whenever possible. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that language is perhaps the most sensitive indicator of a culture’s deepest attitudes and beliefs. The feminists were arguing from this perspective when they lobbied for us to clean up our linguistic act to encourage sexual equality. When someone sympathetic to the views in this book defaults to a “Thank God!” to express her support, it is clear that our culture is rife with unquestioned presumptions about a supernatural world all around us.

The vestiges of former superstitions often lie within the language of polite society. I commonly say “Bless you” when my friends sneeze. I am certainly not entreating a deity to prohibit their souls from escaping in a violent gust of wind through their nasal passages. For me, at any rate, the statement is simply a way of acknowledging a friend’s presence, or filling a social void after a rather primitive biological moment. In some ways it feels like a bonding experience. I know of no one who associates any supernatural connotations with a postsneeze “Bless you!”

I am not above saying “Good luck!” to a friend who is about to compete in some way. Since I do not believe in “luck” as a spiritual force that causes things to happen, my intention is social rather than supernatural. “I hope things go well,” is all I’m saying. A local real estate agent has blanketed our town with advertising posters saying, “Lisa Smith Makes Miracles Happen!” It’s unlikely that anyone expects Ms. Smith to walk on water or turn a bottle of Perrier into wine. The word “miracle” has come to mean “low-probability event,” which, in Ms. Smith’s case, probably implies that she’ll sell your house for more money than you dreamed possible. Granted, language is a constantly evolving thing, but does this linguistic change reflect an underlying mental sloppiness? If getting a few thousand bucks extra for your house is a miracle, then what term do we reserve for someone who actually walks on water?

Admittedly, Caveman Logic won’t disappear overnight if our everyday language moves away from supernatural references. But it won’t hurt the cause if we stop normalizing religiosity in casual speech.

That old saying, “Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public,” is nowhere truer than in bookstores. If the sheer number of books on the supernatural and paranormal are any indication, then America might be taken for a nation of uncritical fools who are in desperate pain. At the least, we are a people looking for meaning beyond the tedium of our everyday lives, but beyond that we seem to have very low standards. Book buyers appear ready to suspend their critical faculties in search of a quick fix. The quest for spiritual comfort has made millionaires of charlatans, confidence men and women, and their business associates. It’s a jungle out there and the foliage is getting thicker by the minute.

A visit to several local bookstores whose large inventory includes everything from best sellers to specialized niche-market publications reveals our penchant for the supernatural. Sections on religion and spirituality have been expanded to include finer distinctions such as aliens and UFOs, ADC (After Death Communication), Wicca and witchcraft, Tarot, numerology, palmistry, and controversial knowledge. Their shelves groan under the weight of an ever-expanding product selection, and the expansion of supernatural titles is encroaching on territory once claimed by such mundane topics as computers and history.

And what do we find on these shelves? Best sellers, to be sure. Indeed, a surprising number of authors who work this territory are described (usually on their front covers) as a “
New York Times
best-selling author.” Twenty years ago much of this was considered niche product, consigned to New Age shops and herbal remedy emporiums. Today, the market for paranormal products has expanded into the mainstream. Supernatural or “alternative” belief systems, as they are politely called, are no longer the exclusive domain of freaks, oddballs, and outsiders. They have found legitimacy. Listen to some of the delusional belief systems of mental patients in back wards—how different are some of these from the material on sale in the spirituality sections of large bookstores and Wal-Marts? Consider the following books, along with their helpful subtitles:
The Psychic in You: Understand and Harness Your Natural Psychic Power
by Jeffrey Wands;
Lily Dale: The True Story of a Town That Talks to the Dead
by Christine Wicker;
Spells Dictionary: Everything You Need to Know about Spells and Enchantments to Bring Magic into Your Life
by Antonia Beattie.

Many of these books, such as Rosemary Altea’s
You Own the Power: Exercises to Inspire the Force Within
and Doreen Virtue’s
Angel Therapy
, cross over into the self-help section. So do titles by David Staume, such as
The Beginner’s Guide for the Recently Deceased
and
Sex in the Afterlife
. Communication with the dead has become a growth industry in publishing with titles like
Hello from Heaven
and
Speak with the Dead: 7 Methods for Spirit Communication
.

Books by John Edward and Sylvia Browne are displayed in the same general area. Both have become highly successful franchises (warranting their own sections) of similar-sounding titles that work their audience’s seemingly insatiable appetite for material on communication with the dead and past lives. Edward’s appeal is further amplified by his television show,
Crossing Over
. But Edward and Browne are pikers compared to Australian TV producer Rhonda Byrne, whose book (and DVD)
The Secret
became an international success story in 2006. Taking the notion of “positive thinking” to outrageous new depths, the book glibly argues (with full support from TV host Oprah Winfrey) that our thoughts actually change the molecular structure of the universe. This, in turn, causes us to “attract” events, both good and bad, into our lives. In short, nothing happens outside of our control.

If all of this is too much for you, there is no shortage of books on more-traditional Eastern and Western religions. However, few of these titles will be confused with serious theological scholarship. Instead, most have a sort of “Christianity meets Hallmark cards” appeal with titles such as
A Travel Guide to Heaven
by Anthony DeStefano and
The Miracle Detective
by Randall Sullivan. If you like your Christianity served with a few threats, there’s Rev. Earl Wright’s
Why Over 99 Percent of All People Who Have a Religious Belief Are on Their Way to Hell
. The title of Wright’s book may be unwieldy but the message isn’t: you’re not religious
enough
.

For those who still need to take it down a notch, the
Books for Dummies
approach has found a home in this corner of the bookstore as well. You’ll find
Astrology for Dummies
, and not far from it
Spirituality for Dummies
. These books are not parodies, although their titles bring a welcome note of levity to the somber tone of most paranormal fodder. And, yes, in case you were wondering, there is also a book in the series called
The Bible for Dummies
. That title might offend the more humorless elements of the religious Right, but it is so successful that it has spawned an equally successful imitator called
The Complete Idiot’s The Bible
. Whether a dummy or a complete idiot, you will not want in your search for supernatural comfort.

As long as people have surveyed each other about belief in supernatural or paranormal agents, their results have suggested differences between men and women. Finding sex differences in cognitive functions is fairly common, which makes their presence in the spiritual arena not altogether surprising. We will steer well clear of obsolete and unsupported claims about sex differences in intelligence. However, there is a consistent pattern of data showing that women’s acceptance of various categories of supernatural agency is higher than men’s. For example, a 2003 Canadian survey
⁷
reported a significantly higher proportion of women believing in God (70 percent) than men (57 percent), as well as 69 percent of women believing in angels, in contrast to 53 percent of men. Blackmore has reported a similar sex difference among US adults,
⁸
as has Lewis in a 2002 survey of university students.
⁹
Are women simply more open to supernatural experience?

It appears as if the answer is no, at least not in any general sense. Rather, there is evidence that women and men embrace different
kinds
of supernatural experiences.
¹⁰
As Sofka, Bix, and Wolszon have noted, certain types of extreme beliefs (e.g., UFO societies, conspiracy theories, dowsing) consistently draw far more men than women.
¹¹
Similarly, Lewis reports that in his survey of university students, significantly more men held positive beliefs about UFOs, aliens, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster. Women, on the other hand, were more likely to believe in angels and near-death experiences. Even when they share a supernatural belief, it is not clear that men and women see the object of their affection in quite the same terms. Women, for example, frequently describe God in very different ways than men do. Men and women may check the same yes box on the questionnaire and may kneel together in prayer, but the God to whom women pray has many of the qualities associated with a traditional mother figure—loving, understanding, approachable, compassionate, forgiving, a good listener. The God to whom many men pray is often described by them in terms one associates with a traditional father figure: tough but fair, knows right from wrong, somewhat aloof, solid, strong. The belief may look the same from a distance, but a closer look suggests that men and women construct their personal version of God very differently.

There are no studies examining cultural differences in the degree of paranormal beliefs, per se, although there are plenty of cultural comparisons in the degree of religiosity. The problem, of course, is that what might loosely be considered “paranormal” in one culture (e.g., ghosts, communication with the dead) qualifies as religion in another. For our purposes, we can broadly consider belief in supernatural events as a single category.

There is no doubt that cultures differ markedly in the extent to which their members are involved in supernatural belief systems. What is most important from our point of view, however, is this:
nowhere
on Earth do we find a culture that does not embrace some form of superstition, pseudoscience, or supernatural beliefs. Whether you’re living in Nigeria or Australia, in Norway or Cambodia, in Canada, Mexico, or the United States, you’re likely to find some consensually acceptable form of irrational belief.

Robert Park, the author of
Voodoo Science
,
¹²
notes, “If you ask people if they are superstitious, they will deny it indignantly. They have been persuaded that there is real scientific evidence for their ideas.” Park’s book is primarily about pseudoscience, which he believes is the new safe haven for superstition. He might have extended the sweep of his indictment to include spirituality, which has become another justification for superstitious nonsense.