Assignment Two Revised

Personal Faith and the Supernatural 1

Personal Faith and the Supernatural

Assignment Two

Mariam F. Khan

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Introduction and Background


Michael Shermer, an American science writer once said, “The reason people turn to

supernatural explanations is that the mind abhors a vacuum of explanation. Because we do not

yet have a fully natural explanation for mind and consciousness, people turn to supernatural

explanations to fill the void.” So what does Mr. Shermer actually mean when he says this? We

have heard the saying everything happens for a reason at least once in our lives. But what is that

supposed to mean? The supernatural world can consist of many different terms and ideas. Some

may believe that supernatural is strictly ghosts and urban legends. But is there something more to

that? Of course there is. The supernatural world can consist of things other than the stereotypical

ghosts and goblins; they consist of religious beliefs that can influence a person’s personal beliefs.

In assignment one, I was able to observe the television series, Supernatural, which helped me

form a line of inquiry for my second assignment. The television series consisted of the

paranormal phenomena and the types of beliefs that come along with it. In this research paper, I

will be reporting the different clashes of ideas and people that relate to the supernatural and

paranormal phenomena. Using those clashes, I will be able to form my own opinion regarding

the supernatural and how it correlates or does not correlate with personal beliefs. Furthermore, I

will accentuate the difference between religious beliefs and personal beliefs concerning the

supernatural and paranormal world.

Literature Review

Terms:

Believers: Individuals that believe in the supernatural and paranormal world; their

religious and non-religious personal beliefs influence their way of thinking and influence their

perspective on the specific phenomena

Magic: The concept of magic is defined as to having some sort of higher ability and


characteristic that one does not usually see in the normal environment. Exceptional qualities and

characteristics could include in a variety of things such as having the ability to control events in

nature.

Inhibitory control: The ability to control inappropriate responses and/or behaviors using a

range of mechanisms.

Skeptics: Individuals that do not believe in the supernatural and paranormal phenomena;

they tend to favor logical reasoning such as science to prove the explanation of an event

Superstition: The concept of superstition is a false belief that according to Lindeman is

assumed to be held by “ignorant lay people” (Lindeman 242).

Supernatural: It is a religious concept which states that something belonging to a realm or

system higher than that of nature.

Stroop Colour-Word Test: Test measuring inhibition. The test consisted of three trials:

two trials were used for statistical analysis where participants name colours from non-word

stimuli, the third trial is the incongruent trial where participants named colours from words

written in different colours.

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test1: This test consists of four stimulus cards and 128 response

cards that depict various figures, number of figures, and colours. Using the presented cards,

participants have to sort the randomly presented cards from a deck to the stimulus cards to reveal

a rule.

Religions that are listed in this research paper include: Christianity, Islam, Judaism,

Buddhism, and Agnostic/Atheism.

Supernatural vs. Religion

1 The WCST table between the skeptics and believers is on the last page where it depicts the errors the participants have made as well as the correct answers they have of the categories of the card sorting


Religion and the supernatural some what go hand in hand and correlate with each other.

Christians differentiate supernatural from paranormal because some supernatural phenomena

such as miracles, God, and angels are accepted as real. On the other hand, certain paranormal

phenomena are not endorsed by the church, such as psychokinesis (Lindeman 242). In Vail,

Arndt, and Abdhollahi’s study, they created three tests to evaluate out the functions of religion

and management of death. In the first study, the participants that were being evaluated were from

two religious groups, Christianity and Atheism. The second study consisted of Muslims and

Atheists for evaluation. In the final study, there was only one group that was being evaluated

which were the Agnostics (Vail 1290). In their article they discuss the existential function of

belief in religion and the supernatural agents that correlate with it. Using the three studies, the

authors were able to analyze how beliefs in the supernatural are influenced by the awareness of

death and how the participant’s extent beliefs determine which gods are eligible to fulfill that

function. In the first study, it was concluded that the reminders of death had no effect among the

Atheists whereas for the Christians, their religiosity was enhanced. To specify what it means to

have religiosity enhanced, it means that their beliefs in God and Jesus increased while the denial

of Allah and Buddha increases. After the completion of the second study, the religiosity in Allah

among Muslims increased while the denial of Jesus, God, and Buddha increased (Vail 1295). In

Francis, Williams, and Robbins’s article, they created a study among teenagers where they

completed a questionnaire regarding beliefs of the supernatural and Christian beliefs (Francis

33). Baker and Draper convey that religious beliefs and the paranormal correlate with

supernatural phenomena. The relationship is known to be curvilinear while forming the

hypothesis which states that individuals with “moderate levels of religiosity will be more apt to

incorporate paranormal beliefs” (Baker 415). Dan Sperber’s article stated that religion was not an


evolutionary adaptation but a recurring cultural byproduct that set cognitive, emotional, and

material conditions for human interaction. To explain furthermore, Sperber states that religious

beliefs make people imagine that supernatural worlds will solve existential problems which

include death and perception (Sperber 750).

Conventional and Unconventional Beliefs

Conventional beliefs consist of Christian beliefs whereas unconventional beliefs consist of

paranormal beliefs. To test out and analyze the correlation of conventional and unconventional

beliefs, Francis, Williams, and Robbins created a questionnaire among students. Using a sample

of 10,581 students ranging from the ages of 13-14 and another sample of 9494 students that

ranged from the ages 14 and 15, the authors asked them questions regarding unconventional

paranormal beliefs, conventional Christian beliefs, and personality (Francis 35). Conventional

Christian beliefs consist of the belief in God and the belief of Jesus Christ rising from the dead.

Unconventional paranormal beliefs consist of the belief in black magic and the belief of the

possibility to contact the spirits of the dead. As for the personality questionnaire, there were four

types of descriptions which included: extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and the lie scale.

On the other hand, Baker and Draper have a completely different view of the relationship

between conventional and unconventional beliefs. They agree that conventional religious beliefs

and the unconventional paranormal beliefs both correspond with supernatural phenomena (Baker

413). In their article, they used different sorts of variables to show the relationship religious and

non-religious beliefs have with each other. For the belief in religious variables, those included

were Satan, Heaven, and Hell. On the other hand, the belief in unconventional variables

included: the existence of Atlantis, the possibility of telekinesis, the belief of psychics being able

to see the future, the impact astrology has on an individual’s life, the ability to communicate with


the dead, the haunting of places, dreams being able to tell the future as well as reveal the truth,

the existence of UFOs from different worlds, and cryptozoology (Baker 417).

Skeptics vs. Believers

In the case of supernatural and all things paranormal, there are two types of people:

skeptics and believers. These two types of people are highly apparent among adults in the

modern day societies (Lindemann 231). Within the topic of skeptics and believers, Lindeman,

Riekki, and Hood created a study assessing adults that identified themselves as one of those two

types to test out their inhibition. Using the Stroop Colour Word Test and the Wisconsin Card

Sorting Test, the authors assessed the participants and concluded that believers made more

mistakes than skeptics on the WCST whereas in the Stroop test, there were equal results. The

Stroop Colour Word test consisted of three trials. The first two trials were statistical analysis

while the last trial was an incongruent trial. In the first two trials, the twenty-six participants

would name colours that were written on a different color background whereas in the

incongruent trial, the participants were told to name colours from words written in a different

colour. In the Wisconsin Card Sorting test, the participants were told to sort out randomly

presented cards from a deck to a category to reveal some type of rule to the sorting of the cards.

The reasoning of the two tests was to assess the idea of supernatural beliefs and the correlation it

had to inhibitory control. Towards the end of the test, Lindeman, Riekki, and Hood concluded

that supernatural beliefs were definitely correlated to some sort of inhibitory control (Lindeman

239).

Purpose of Events

Does everything happen for a reason? Why did that happen? What was the meaning of it?

These are some of the questions that come up when something drastic or different happens to us


in our lives. Svedholm, Lindeman, and Lipsanen asked questions just like this in their article

when exploring the nature of the beliefs with the topic of the purpose of events and their

cognitive foundations. Forming a hypothesis that events are a part of supernatural phenomenon,

they sampled a large population to help them understand and test out their curiosity. They created

a table of correlations between core knowledge confusions, paranormal beliefs, and the purpose

of events. In the core knowledge confusion, they had four different types. The four different

types of knowledge confusion included mental is biological, mental is physical, matter is

animate, and energy is biological and mental (Svedholm). The purpose of events relates mutually

to supernatural and religious beliefs. When believing in a higher power, whether it would be

God, Allah, Yahweh, etc. religious individuals tend to believe that everything will play out well

in the long run, which is also known as destiny. Considering that supernatural events are taken in

account by religious individuals, the purpose of events plays an important role within their lives.

Personal Belief beyond the Religious Scope: A Narrative of the Research Paper

During the course of my research, I realized that there is so much more beyond the

religious aspect of personal beliefs regarding the supernatural world. My sources mostly

concluded that personal beliefs correlate with religious beliefs on a very high note. However, I

believe that personal beliefs can mean a variety of things and it does not usually have to go hand

in hand with religion. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. are religions that tie in with

the personal beliefs of an individual. The majority of religious individuals believe in the

supernatural world. They believe that there is another world beyond us and there are people that

surround us that cannot be seen or heard. But what if you are Agnostic? Or an Atheist? Or you

believe in science over a higher power? It is all black and white. Personal beliefs and religious

beliefs are both two separate entities that are defined completely differently than what the other


sources have stated. Religious beliefs are beliefs regarding a higher power in which individuals

gain that knowledge through holy books and scriptures and religious authoritarians. Personal

beliefs, on the other hand, do not. Personal beliefs are beliefs that an individual forms throughout

their life. They start off forming their beliefs by watching and learning from authoritative figures

like their parents, teachers, etc. As they grow older, their friends and peers help them mold their

beliefs, which brings us to the formation of cliques and groups in high school. When individuals

cross that stage in their life, they become somewhat self-actualized and take all that they learned

from the past and form their own beliefs about the world. Personal beliefs can include an

individual’s personal experience. Did that individual encounter some sort of paranormal entity in

which they began to believe in the supernatural? Did they listen to a lot of ghost stories back in

their childhood that formed their opinion about the paranormal events and entities? Religion may

play a large role in the supernatural world, however, personal beliefs that one forms throughout

their life may be the one that can give proof of the world beyond our spectrum of thinking and

seeing.

So What? Why Should You Care? (Conclusion)

We live in a society that makes money off of anything that relates to the supernatural and

paranormal world. We have documentaries, movies, television series, etc. that show off the

paranormal side and dimensions. Everywhere we turn we will see something related to the

supernatural. Supernatural is a popular television series that revolves around the paranormal

phenomena. The show concerns itself with supernatural beliefs, religious beliefs, as well as

personal beliefs. In a later season of the show, more specifically the fifth season, it revolved

mostly around religious aspects of the supernatural. This included God, the Prophets, believers,

skeptics, and the apocalypse. Media tends to gravitate towards this certain theme of things


because of how popular it is in our society. It is something that every individual has a stance

about whether it correlates with their religious beliefs or their non-religious personal beliefs.

Religious beliefs differ with personal beliefs in a variety of ways and prior to this research, I

believed that both these terms were basically the same thing. The big reason on why religious

beliefs is different from personal beliefs is because of the whole religion aspect of it all. Personal

beliefs can mean different things that usually do not have to do with anything relating to religion

whereas religious beliefs concur with it. All the sources prior to this conclusion can say that the

supernatural and paranormal world has people talking. People are talking about anything

regarding the supernatural whether it is about the clash between supernatural vs. religion,

conventional vs. unconventional beliefs, and the clash between skeptics and the believers.

The table depicts the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test scores among the skeptics and the

supernatural/paranormal believers.


Works Cited

Baker, Joseph O, and Scott Draper. "Diverse Supernatural Portfolios: Certitude, Exclusivity, and

the Curvilinear Relationship between Religiosity and Paranormal Beliefs." Journal for the

Scientific Study of Religion. 49.3 (2010): 413-424. Print.

Francis, Leslie J, Emyr Williams, and Mandy Robbins. "Personality, Conventional Christian

Belief and Unconventional Paranormal Belief: a Study Among Teenagers." British

Journal of Religious Education. 32.1 (2010): 31-39. Print.

Khan, Mariam. “Assignment One Observations”

Lindeman, M, and A.M Svedholm. "What's in a Term? Paranormal, Superstitious, Magical and

Supernatural Beliefs by Any Other Name Would Mean the Same." Review of General

Psychology. 16.3 (2012): 241-255. Print.

Lindeman Marjaana, Tapani Riekki, and Bruce M. Hood. "Is Weaker Inhibition Associated with

Supernatural Beliefs?" Journal of Cognition and Culture. 11 (2011): 231-239. Print.


Sperber, Dan. "Agency, Religion, and Magic." Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 27.6 (2004):

750-751. Print.

Stieger, S, and A Hergovich. "Together We Are Strong: Explicit and Implicit Paranormal Beliefs

Predict Performance in a Knowledge Test of Paranormal Phenomena Better Than Explicit

Beliefs Alone." Personality and Individual Differences. 54.5 (2013): 562-565. Print.

SVEDHOLM, ANNIKA M, MARJAANA LINDEMAN, and JARI LIPSANEN. "Believing in

the Purpose of Eventswhy Does It Occur, and Is It Supernatural?" Applied Cognitive

Psychology. 24.2 (2010). Print.

Vail, KE , J Arndt, and A Abdollahi. "Exploring the Existential Function of Religion and

Supernatural Agent Beliefs Among Christians, Muslims, Atheists, and Agnostics."

Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin. 38.10 (2012): 1288-300. Print.

Vitalii, Svintsov. "Faith and Unbelief." Russian Social Science Review. 43.1 (2002): 73-103.

Print.

Documents

Assignment Two Revised