Magical Beliefs Research Articles

Sensitivity to criticism and praise predicts schizotypy in the non-clinical population: The role of affect and perceived expressed emotion

BackgroundSchizotypy represents a cluster of personality traits consisting of magical beliefs, perceptual aberrations, disorganisation, and anhedonia. Schizotypy denotes a vulnerability for psychosis, one reason being psychosocial stress. High expressed emotion (EE), a rating of high criticism, hostility, and emotional over-involvement from a close relative, denotes psychosocial stress and vulnerability to psychosis, and is associated with schizotypy. This study aimed to decipher the relationship of schizotypy to perceived criticism and perceived praise in terms of affect and perceived EE. MethodsNinety-eight healthy participants listened to short audio-clips containing criticism, praise, and neutral comments from a stranger, and evaluated them in terms of the comments’ arousal and personal relevance. Participants also answered self-report questionnaires of schizotypy, depression, mood, and perceived EE. Correlational analyses tested the relationship between schizotypy and the evaluations of criticism and praise. Mediation analyses then tested whether depression, positive mood, and perceived EE explained these relationships. ResultsGreater relevance of standard criticism correlated with higher positive schizotypy. This association was fully mediated by high depression and perceived irritability from a close relative. Lower relevance of standard praise correlated with higher cognitive disorganisation (another schizotypal trait). This relationship was partially mediated by low positive mood and high perceived intrusiveness from a close relative. ConclusionGreater perceived criticism and lower perceived praise predict schizotypy in the healthy population. Affect and interpersonal sensitivity towards a close relative explain these relationships, such that depression increases perceived criticism, and positive mood increases perceived praise. Perceived EE defines the interpersonal nature of schizotypy.

Magical Potential: Why Magic Performances Should be Used to Explore the Psychological Factors Contributing to Human Belief Formation.

Beliefs in supernatural entities are integral parts of both our culturally embedded religions and more individualized magical belief systems (e.g., paranormal beliefs, spirituality). Scholars regularly link the occurrence of beliefs to individuals' cognitive and affective ways of informationprocessing. For magical beliefs in particular, we expect children to endorse them. When reaching adulthood, however, individuals should have abandoned magical beliefs, and become pragmatic, sceptical, critical and rational thinkers. The reality is, a large proportion of the adult population can be described as magical thinkers, or report having had magical experiences, even in the recent past. Moreover, psychological research in adults shows a large range of magical beliefs, which correlate with particular psychological processing biases (e.g., repetition avoidance, seeing signal in noise). Unfortunately, these correlational studies do not tell us whether such psychological processing biases precede magical beliefs or whether they result from these magical beliefs. Knowing the direction of such relationships is key to understand which psychological biases might contribute to adult belief formation (or the persistence of beliefs from childhood). To test such causal relationships, we started to systematically apply an experimental approach in which people are exposed to anomalous events. Such a central event allows before-after comparisons of psychological biases. First empirical results confirmed that the use of magic performances, particularly when of paranormal nature, results in an important amount of paranormal explanations. Pre-existing beliefs enhanced this explanation bias. These results show how easily naïve observers can be "tricked" into unsubstantiated beliefs.

Magic and Fate in Eighteenth-Century London: Prosecutions for Fortune-Telling, c. 1678–1830

London newspaper and court records of the long eighteenth century constitute good records for the study of magical beliefs and practices, provided that allowances are made for the nascent middle-class prejudices of their compilers. These records reveal, nonetheless, that both middle- and lower-class Londoners resorted to fortune-telling. Popular prognostic services, long called upon to answer specific queries, began more to resemble counselling after 1700, in so doing supplying their clients with self-knowledge and a greater sense of agency.

Prefrontal brain lesions reveal magical ideation arises from enhanced religious experiences.

Magical ideation refers to beliefs about causality that lack empirical bases. Few studies have investigated the neural correlates of magical thinking and religious beliefs. Here, we investigate the association between magical ideation and religious experience in a sample of Vietnam veterans who sustained penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI) and matched healthy controls (HCs). Scores on the Magical Ideation Scale were positively correlated with scores on the Religious Experience Scale, but only in pTBI patients. Lesion mapping analyses in subgroups of pTBI patients indicated that prefrontal cortex (PFC) lesions were associated with increased magical ideation scores and this relationship was mediated by religious experience. Our findings clarify the mechanism by which the frontal lobe processes modulate magical beliefs. Suppression of the PFC opens people to religious experiences, which in turn increases magical ideation.

Anti-vaccination and pro-CAM attitudes both reflect magical beliefs about health

We examined the relationship between complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and vaccination scepticism; and specifically whether a person’s more general health-related worldview might explain this relationship. A cross-sectional online survey of adult Australians (N = 2697) included demographic, CAM, and vaccination measures, as well as the holistic and magical health belief scales (HHB, MHB). HHB emphasises links between mind and body health, and the impact of general ‘wellness’ on specific ailments or resistance to disease, whilst MHB specifically taps ontological confusions and cognitive errors about health. CAM and anti-vaccination were found to be linked primarily at the attitudinal level (r = −0.437). We did not find evidence that this was due to CAM practitioners influencing their clients. Applying a path-analytic approach, we found that individuals’ health worldview (HHB and MHB) accounted for a significant proportion (43.1%) of the covariance between CAM and vaccination attitudes. MHB was by far the strongest predictor of both CAM and vaccination attitudes in regressions including demographic predictors. We conclude that vaccination scepticism reflects part of a broader health worldview that discounts scientific knowledge in favour of magical or superstitious thinking. Therefore, persuasive messages reflecting this worldview may be more effective than fact-based campaigns in influencing vaccine sceptics.

Magical beliefs and discriminating science from pseudoscience in undergraduate professional students

Paranormal beliefs and magical thinking exist in the public, and amongst university students. Researchers have found that media can influence such beliefs. A 2012 study suggested pseudoscientific rationales can influence acceptance of reported paranormal phenomena. Using a paranormal belief survey and controlled experiment this work explores the paranormal beliefs and test the effects of three versions of a supernatural news story on undergraduate professional students. One version of the story presented a simple news article, another the same with a pseudoscientific rationale, and another gave a discrediting scientific critique. Results confirmed that many students do hold magical beliefs but discriminated between scientific and pseudoscientific narratives. However, pre-existing paranormal beliefs were associated with an increased likelihood of students finding paranormal reports scientific, believable and credible.

DARI MITOS TUJUH PUTRI HINGGA LEGITIMASI AGAMA: SUMBER KEKUASAAN SULTAN TERNATE

Noble people from the circle of Sultanate of Ternate construct and maintain their power base by creating the magical aspect of religious and Culture. This hegemonic strategy allowed this group to pose a certain powerful position and to have a certain place in the heart of the people of Ternate. There are, at least, four important heritage elements in the Sultanate of Ternate used as a strategy to form and strengthen their position. The first is the doctrine Jou se Ngofangare (king and servant) which means Sultan as the representation of God's power (macro cosmos). Second is the mythical Seven Princess, which justifies the Sultan position by using magical-religious as a means to gain people consent. Third, this group tends to use their noble title and heirloom as signs of charisma and sacred magical power. Those heirlooms such as sword and title function to legitimize the Sultan as ruler. Fourth, Kadaton (palace) which produces cultural meaning as the highest indigenous identity and the source of magical belief

Textiles and Supernatural Power: A Tai Belief System

This paper focuses on textiles (monk's robes and funeral shrouds) and supernatural formulae created by the Tai of Lan Na (Northern Thailand) and the Shan States (Myanmar). The term supernatural formula is used to describe a magical prescription that incorporates visual material with some form of verbal communication. Visual material includes representations of spirits, magical diagrams (yantra) and texts written in ancient Tai scripts and verbal communication involving incantations in Pali and Tai languages. Formulae are created in the context of a Tai magical-religious belief system that draws on the power of Buddhism and Nature, spirits and healing, scared objects and astrology, cosmology and numerology. This belief system has enabled the development of a distinct Tai material culture of which textiles are one aspect. A srā, meaning a craftsperson or artisan (Burmese: saya, Thai: paw maw or paw acharn), uses the belief system to invoke spirits to bring good luck and to create protection against evil spirits that bring bad luck. Monk's robes are a source for protection and healing generated through the power of Buddhism. Funeral shrouds draw on power from a wider source that includes elements of the Tai magical belief system.

Magical formulae for market futures: Tales from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos

Markets are often portrayed as being organized by way of rationalized knowledge, objective reasoning, and the fluctuations of demand and supply. In parallel, and often mixed with this modality of knowledge, magical beliefs and practices are prevalent. Business leaders, management consultants, and financial advisors are often savvy in the art of creatively blending the ‘objective facts’ of markets with magical formulae, rites, and imaginaries of the future. This article looks at the World Economic Forum's yearly Davos meeting as a large‐scale ritual that engages senior executives of global corporations, top‐level politicians, and civil society leaders to contribute to the overall aim of ‘improving the world’. The Davos gathering has become a vital part of the business calendar, just as much for the intensity of its networking as for the declarations of action from the speakers’ podiums. The presentations and performances in Davos work as ‘technologies of enchantment’ in Gell's (1992) sense, instilling a sense of agency onto participants. The ritual also contributes towards securing the acquiescence of individuals and organizations in a transnational network of politico‐economic intentionalities. By invoking global and regional challenges and risks, discussing possible scenarios and solutions, presenters invoke a sense of urgency and contribute to the articulation of global ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’. It is proposed that the magic of Davos resides to a large extent in the ritualized form of interaction and the technologies of enchantment through which it is set up.

Everyday Magic in Early Modern Europe (Kathryn A. Edwards, ed.)

<i>Everyday Magic in Early Modern Europe</i> (Kathryn A. Edwards, ed.)

Menyoal Kembali Teori Evolusi Agama J.G. Frazer dalam Keberagamaan Masyarakat Jawa

Religion is seen as the result of philosophers’ thinking production which has a tendency to solve the riddle of life and to spread their ideas and their thoughts to others. Frazer is one pushed for discovering when the religion began to exist. The conclusion is that the human belief system, in accordance with a level of reasoning ability, evolves from magical belief, than religous belief, and ends on science. Nevertheless, when it is compared to the religious phenomenon in Indonesia, especially in Java, Frazer’s theory is not entirely true and debatable. The religious system in Java exactly does not have evolution as interpreted in Frazer’s theory. With its elasticity, genuine Javanese belief – dynamism and animism – only underwent assimilation with foreign cultures that came later like Islam and Christian, and including Western culture. In the context of Javanese religiosity, those three beliefs system as intended by Frazer, take place integrally and parallel in modern Javanese culture.

SECRECY, PUBLICITY AND POWER: STRATEGIES OF OCCULT PRACTITIONERS AND UNIVERSITY MANAGERS

Various mystical, magical beliefs and practices, including some of those in the Transkei region of the Eastern Cape, are bound up with secrecy and mystery, exerting part of their influence by this means. This has certain metaphorical parallels with the way in which various managerial systems in market-driven, corporatised universities in South Africa and elsewhere tend to employ obscurity and mystification as a form of power and control. However, there are possible ways of transcending confinement within the verbal-ideological control mechanisms of corporate managerialism, with their shadowy, opaque qualities that sow confusion and bring about disempowerment, and the study of folklore can play a significant role in this regard.Â

Wokół świętości. Rozważania kulturoznawcze

The development of the concept of holiness is associated with the cultural process of separating the practical activity and the primary magical beliefs, termed by Max Weber's the ‘disenchantment of the world’. As a result, the sphere of human activity was divided into the sacred and the profane. Holiness was generally associated with the operation of variously recognised supernatural factors. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is an attribute of God's holiness. As a generalisation of all the virtues, it is endowed with the ethical dimension. The moral dimension of holiness and the specific rules of behaviour towards the sacred are reflected in everyday language,several sayings and proverbs.

Practical Magic Religious of the Pastors and Maestro’s Fetish in Congolese Football

The purpose of this study is to apprehend the magic religious practices which emanate from pastors and maestro’s fetish and which integrates and invests the mechanisms of sporting management to football. This investigation was articulated around the various phases which characterized the action of pastors and maestro’s fetish with an aim attributing victory with the club solicitant. Thus, a cross-sectional anthropological investigation was conducted undertaken from October 2015 to June 2016. It was based on participating observation. The sampling comprised 190 subjects which are 90 leaders of football teams, 20 maestro’s fetish, 50 heads of family, clans and notables and 30 circumstantial advisors. These different actors of Congolese football were volunteers to participate in this study. The variables were representations and magic religious practices of pastors and maestro’s fetish for their activities in football. The results indicate seven phases of intervention of different actors studied: consultation; engagement of process to aim prediction; prediction of restoration of results born of vision; instruction of pastors and maestro’s fetish to the consultant; implementation of the instructions; application of instructions; rescue of consultant. Generally, two objectives characterizing all these phases bias two fundamental situations: 1) to know the score before the unfolding of the competition; 2) to safeguard the results if they are good or to forget the bad scores. These magic religious practices are activities answering expression of habitus. In conclusion, the magic religious beliefs provide in representations of actors as function as habitus, hidden in the collective unconscious memory.

“The Handling of Power”: An Interview with Nancy Farmer

“The Handling of Power”: An Interview with Nancy Farmer Marek Oziewicz (bio), Emily Midkiff (bio), Nancy Farmer, and Harold Farmer Nancy Farmer lives in a weird and wonderful land between imagination and reality. She has a chilling knack for excavating magical beliefs whose purported death has been exaggerated and for anticipating technological transformations whose impact on humanity is often unduly dreaded. Best known for her National Book Award winner The House of the Scorpion (2002), Nancy is the author of several other works, among them Newbery Honor Books The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm (1994), A Girl Named Disaster (1996), and a widely popular mythopoeic fantasy series The Saxon Saga (2004–7). Nancy’s most recent books include The Lord of Opium (2013), a long-awaited sequel to The House of the Scorpion, and A New Year’s Tale (2013): a delightfully unclassifiable dystopian biofiction based on the character of Nancy’s brother. Set in the context of the near-future collapse of the social security system, A New Year’s Tale is full of poetic beauty matched by razor-sharp extrapolation from current trends to possible future outcomes. Whether set in the past or the future, her novels are informed by a nuanced understanding of cultural difference, love of the natural world, and interest in advanced technologies. Nancy’s science habits, clearly at work in her writing, result in books that are meticulously researched and profoundly engaging. Before she became a writer, Nancy studied chemistry at University of California Berkeley and worked for the Entomology Department. She then spent seventeen years in Africa, first working to control waterweeds on the Zambezi River in Mozambique, and then doing research on tsetse flies in the dense bush of Zimbabwe. It was in Zimbabwe that Nancy fell [End Page 100] in love with African stories and culture. She also fell in love and married Harold Farmer, a Namibian-born writer and professor of English at the University of Zimbabwe. When they returned to the United States in 1988, Nancy worked in the genetics department at Stanford, but was unable to stifle the writer within. On the day she quit her job, Nancy received a letter from the National Endowment for the Arts awarding her a grant that would help her become a full-time writer. She has never looked back. The following conversation with Nancy and Harold Farmer was recorded on October 6, 2014 at the University of Minnesota. MO: To anyone reading your African novels it is striking how your stories are structured on African spiritual beliefs in ancestors and ghosts, invisible powers and worlds, and spiritual entities like the Njuzu, Ngangas, or Mvukis. Can you tell us what specifically captured your heart in African spirituality and why this worldview informs so many of your novels? NF: I lived in Africa a long time, seventeen years. I would say for the first ten years I didn’t pick up very much. It was all around me, but I didn’t know what I was looking at. For example, I was working on Lake Cahora Bassa, controlling waterweeds, and one of my coworkers was a man called Mulazani. He would have witch doctors visiting him all the time because he apparently had many enemies and so he hired the witch doctors to do something or other to these people. I saw all this going on but I didn’t really understand it. Mulazani also told me a lot about African religion, but again I didn’t know what I was listening to. It’s a complicated system. Only later on, when I moved to Zimbabwe and wanted to write a story about Africa that would be intelligible to American readers, did I realize that I should learn something. So I sat down and I got about four hundred different books to pick up as much as I could as to what the religion really was. I discovered that it’s not a mythology but really a living religion. So when I did the African stories, I immersed myself in it. One of the first things you realize is that African spirituality is based in the spirit world of the ancestors. The...

“Quando meus lábios sacerdotais disserem palavras secretas”: 'Abraxas', magia e política nos papiros mágicos gregos

O artigo examina um conjunto de feitiços e fórmulas mágicas contidas nos Papiros Mágicos Gregos, tendo como recorte documental a presença da divindade Abraxas nos textos. Partindo da reconstrução histórica do processo de descoberta e compilação dos papiros que formam a documentação em questão, busca-se refletir sobre o ambiente mágico-religioso mediterrânico dos primeiros três séculos E.C., as características das práticas mágicas evidenciadas nos papiros e as relações de poder estabelecidas num campo social em que tanto a magia quanto seus praticantes eram vistos com desconfiança pelas instituições.

The Concept of Truth in the Komi Hunting Stories

We analyse the Komi hunters' story-telling as the integrated way of knowledge transmission and communicating vernacular beliefs. We intend to demonstrate that although vernacular beliefs regulating hunting story-telling are widespread in the North, local practices enable us to reveal peculiarities of the tradition in a nuanced way. Our study is based on annual collaborative fieldwork trips to the Komi hunters, which began in 1996. During these years, we have recorded tens of hours of hunting stories and background data for the topic. Analysis of this material is based on the concept of vernacular mimetic mode of representation. We revealed that the Komi narrators communicate hunting skills and magical beliefs in the process of story-telling. The notion of “truth” is an important conceptual device that frames the story-telling practice. We discuss the Komi hunting narratives using an interpretation of vernacular ideology that we label the “aesthetics of confusion”. We will argue that in the vernacular understanding of hunting narratives, the Komi have a seemingly ambivalent and fluid, but at the same time strict, approach to the poetics of story-telling.

ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЕ РАСТЕНИЙ В СЕМЕЙНЫХ ОБРЯДАХ КАК ЭЛЕМЕНТ НАРОДНОЙ КУЛЬТУРЫ НА ПРИМЕРЕ НЕСКОЛЬКИХ СЕЛ ГАЙНОВСКОГО ПОВЕТА

The article presents, on the basis of elderberries, birch, St. John’s wort, yarrow, poppy, mint, wormwood, various rituals. The article also contains folk descriptions of plants, combined with the Polish literary language and Latin names. nettle using the aforementioned plants in magical practices, religious beliefs and superstitions connected with family traditions in Hajnowka District. A special attention is paid to the positive and negative influence of plants, for instance hanging elder over the door to ward off bad powers. It has been stated that members of old generations still use the majority of the described plants in various rituals. The article also contains folk descriptions of plants, combined with the Polish literary language and Latin names.

The Agitated Shell: Thinspiration and the Gothic Experience of Eating Disorders

The Agitated Shell: Thinspiration and the Gothic Experience of Eating Disorders

A study of help seeking behavior of psychiatric patients

Background: A large number of mentally ill patients prefer to visit non-medical practitioners such as faith healers becauseof the stigma attached to mental illness and/or belief that mental illness are caused by supernatural powers. Faith healersare more convenient to be approached fi rst because of ease of availability and prevalent cultural belief and persuasion.Objective: The current study aims to fi nd the help seeking behavior of patients suffering from mental illness and whomthey approach fi rst once affected, either psychiatrists or faith healers.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among patients admitted in the psychiatric ward of Kathmandu MedicalCollege Teaching Hospital during 1st January to 30th July 2012. All patients admitted in the ward during that period wereinformed about the purpose of the study and a written informed consent was taken. In case of psychotic patients, theconsent was obtained from nearby relatives.Results: Among 54 patients enrolled in the study, signifi cant number of psychotic patients (n=15) visited faith healersin comparison to only 4 non-psychotic patients. Number of females (n=12) visiting faith healers in comparison to males(n=7) was higher. Patients having belief in black magic were more likely to visit faith healers than those who were nonbelievers.In contrary to the popular belief, patients approaching the faith healers spent more money (&gt;$20) in the treatment thanwho approached psychiatrists (&lt;$20).Conclusion: The study shows that most of the patients suffering from mental illness prefer to approach faith healers fi rstbecause of the prevailing trust on faith healers, because they are locally available and because of a prevailing belief insupernatural causation of mental illness.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jkmc.v2i1.10538 Journal of Kathmandu Medical College, Vol. 2, No. 1, Issue 3, Jan.-Mar., 2013: 21-24