Supernatural Explanations Research Articles

Thrice-Told Tales: The Haunting from Novel to Film … to Film

Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House has been widely praised as one of the most frightening tales ever written. Robert Wise's adaptation for the big screen, The Haunting (1963), is considered by a great many scholars and fans to be possibly the scariest movie of all time. Jan DeBont's 1999 version of The Haunting bears traces of both its adapted and remade status, although it was derided by reviewers for its reliance on computer-generated imagery, spectacle, and supernatural explanation. Taken together, these three texts provide an ideal case study for examining the possibilities, complexities, and difficulties involved in literary-cinematic adaptation.

Gendered utilization differences of mental health services in Jordan.

A revised Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL), translated into Arabic, was distributed to a sample of 87 nonpsychotic mental health out-patients in Zarka, Jordan (male = 61, female = 26). Findings revealed no significant gendered differences, but higher responses among women in all dimensions. Regardless of gender, patients also expected and were satisfied with medicinal treatment; explained etiologies as having supernatural origins; and utilized informal community traditional healing and religious healing systems. The supernatural explanations and community healing systems varied by gender. Findings emphasize future treatment and programme development strategies that take into account the biomedical/traditional interface, culturally appropriate treatment modalities, different gendered patient needs, and the potential stigma of professional treatment.

Beliefs about health and illness in three countries: Britain, South Africa and Uganda

Five hundred participants from three national groups completed a 124-item Health and Illness scale, constructed and validated in the UK. The study examined the idea that people from developing countries believe in more social, fatalistic and supernatural explanations for health and illness than people from developed countries, who emphasize individual and 'natural world' accounts. White British, black Ugandans and black and mixed-blood South Africans in this study differed on a number of personal demographics, which had to be statistically controlled by co-varying out specific variables. Factor analysis of the various sections of the questionnaire reveal clear, interpretable factors which nearly always accounted for 50-60% of the variance. Analysis of co-variance on the factor scores frequently showed significant differences between the three groups. Factors concerning the provision and efficacy of western, orthodox medicine, as well as fatalistic factors seemed to discriminate most between the three national groups, as predicted. The results are discussed in terms of the difficulties of carrying out cross-national research (specifically etic research of this type) on health beliefs and behaviours.

Beliefs About the Nature of Sex/Gender and Ethnic Inequality

This research examines five lay explanations of the nature of sex/gender inequality - supernatural, genetic, individualistic, cultural, and social - and empirically links these beliefs to lay theories about the nature of ethnic inequality. Using data from a sample of Dutch metropolitan residents, it was found that supernatural, genetic and individualistic explanations of men-women differences are strongly related and that all correlate negatively with a social and a cultural view. The findings also showed that beliefs about sex/gender inequality and beliefs about ethnic inequality are remarkably similar; the greater the acceptance, for example, of a genetic or supernatural explanation of men-women inequality, the greater the likelihood of a genetic and supernatural belief about ethnic inequality. Significant relationships were observed between lay beliefs and church membership, education, age, sex-role traditionalism and Christian belief. No differences in explanations were found between male and female respondents.

Beliefs About the Nature of Sex/Gender and Ethnic Inequality

This research examines five lay explanations of the nature of sex/gender inequality - supernatural, genetic, individualistic, cultural, and social - and empirically links these beliefs to lay theories about the nature of ethnic inequality. Using data from a sample of Dutch metropolitan residents, it was found that supernatural, genetic and individualistic explanations of men-women differences are strongly related and that all correlate negatively with a social and a cultural view. The findings also showed that beliefs about sex/gender inequality and beliefs about ethnic inequality are remarkably similar; the greater the acceptance, for example, of a genetic or supernatural explanation of men-women inequality, the greater the likelihood of a genetic and supernatural belief about ethnic inequality. Significant relationships were observed between lay beliefs and church membership, education, age, sex-role traditionalism and Christian belief. No differences in explanations were found between male and female respondents.

For the Relief of Unbearable Urges (review)

genetic selection pressure on humans is pretty low, memetic selection is going stronger than ever, forcing us to invent ever more highly refined meme-spreading techniques: better computers, faxes, photocopiers, telephones , televisions, movies, CDs, etc. The idea of an evolutionary force similar but not identical to genetic evolution is an exciting one that deserves attention regardless of whether one buys Blackmore's argument in its entirety. Some readers will be deUghted, others appalled, by Blackmore's more far-reaching speculations . There is no such thing as an "inner," "true" self, she argues. That self is an illusion, just a coUection of especially vigorous mêmes that maintain themselves in our minds by convincing us that we are them. If The Merne Machine is speculative, though, it is honorably so: Blackmore doesn't try to disguise the foundational weaknesses ofher theories, though she may be inclined to take them too lightly. The Meme Machine is pleasurable reading. It covers a lot of ground fast and skirts some controversial points, but it is engaging. Some 150 years ago the theoretical revolution that started with Darwin gave us the tools to begin thinking about life on earth without recourse to supernatural explanation. Memetic theory, a generalization and extension of the basic Darwinian idea, attempts to analyze the human condition in ways that are neither mystical nor completely reducible to biology. (JB) For the Reliefof Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander Knopf, 1999, 205 pp., $22 Twenty-eight-year-old Jerusalemite Nathan Englander has produced a striking if inconsistent coUection of short fiction. The stories in For the ReliefofUnbearable Urges examine the lives of Hasidic Jews in the Old and New Worlds, following a roughly historical progression beginning in eastern Europe of the '40s and moving to America's inhospitable melting pot in the decades following, then on to contemporary Israel. Englander, a secular Jew, avoids the easy trap of exoticizing his subject, managing to provide intimate glimpses of the private and mysterious world of Hasidim that feel more compassionate than exploitative. Englander's work does invite the easy comparisons to Malamud, Singer, Bellow and Philip Roth that have been bandied about in early reviews of his book. However, he possesses a self-assurance and a distinctive voice that prevent his work from feeling derivative. The strongest stories in the collection show a young writer of striking range and virtuosity. The opening story, "The Twenty-Seventh Man," concerning an unpubUshed dilettante mistakenly imprisoned and sentenced to die along with a group of subversive writers, resembles an eerie collision of Kafka and Isaac Babel as it builds to its breathtaking finish. "The Tumblers," a story of desperation and survival in the Holocaust in which hunted refugees pose as circus acrobats, is equally harrowing and resonant. "The Wig," set in America, is another exceptionally well-realized piece, focusing on a Hasidic hairdresser's struggle with vanity, covetousness and sensuality in a community that abhors these impulses . 212 · The Missouri Review Not all the stories are this strong. Englander sometimes seems unable to elevate a story beyond a clever premise. Despite its wry humor, "The GUgul ofPark Avenue," about a middle-aged gentile who suddenly "reaUzes" his past-life Jewishness, ultimately feels like second-rate PhiUp Roth. "Reb Kringle," which examines a disgruntled Hasidic department-store Santa, verges on sentimentaUty. And the title story, concerning a Hasidic husband's marital problems and his rabbi's unsettling solution, ends in easy irony, avoiding the emotional complexity the subject matter seems to demand. Time and future publications will determine if Englander has what it takes to become the literary star he is already touted as being. The best stories of this inaugural collection suggest ifs a decent bet. (JT) White Oleander by Janet Fitch Little, Brown, 1999, 390 pp., $24 What is amazing about this first novel is how Fitch deftly avoids melodrama in what could so easily become a hackneyed story. The protagonist is a young girl, Astrid, whose mother is a briUiant poet with an acerbic worldview bordering on psychopathic. When Astrid's mother poisons her lover and is sentenced to life in prison, Astrid is shuffled into foster care and faces all of the perils one would...

Causal attributions for deafness in a multicultural society

Abstract Noise exposure is a major cause of deafness. Industrial workers, many of whom frequently come from ethnic communities, are most vulnerable. Cultural differences in causal attributions made for mid-life hearing loss were examined in a survey of 665 health practitioners from the Chinese, German, Greek, Italian, Arabic speaking and Anglo Australian communities. They reported on community usage of 18 explanations. Significant differences were found in the endorsement of 14 explanations. The attributions of the Chinese differed most from those of Anglo Australians. All communities except the Arabic speaking, included the majority of scientific explanations within their main attributions. However the role of heredity and aging were overemphasised, drugs were discounted and chance was a favoured explanation. The Italian, Chinese and Arabic communities were less aware of the dangers of noise and together with the Greeks were most prone to use supernatural explanations. Implications for hearing protection...

Science as Entertainment

At that stage, with a sufficiently mature framework, a child can enjoy a conjurer's performance. It becomes a test of character, with various reactions: • he is not worried by the contradictions • he accepts supernatural explanations that is, that there is something outside the system, in which the observer is embedded, which can arbitrarily be invoked to interfere with the system; or, he allows his model of the world to divide into two or more irreconcilable parts • he notes the apparent violations and formulates tests which would elucidate them, although such testing would not be permitted • he maintains the integrity of his own world view and includes a hypothesis that there has been an attempt to deceive.

A Change in the Forest: Myth and History in West Java

The demarcation of boundaries is an important feature of the Sundanese social and geographical landscape. Markers indicating the limits of territories, ceremonial areas and the like abound. Linguistic markers indicate interpersonal social boundaries. Boundaries are generally regarded as places of danger and various supernatural entities are said to guard those between any two spheres in general. On Java generally, regularly recurring anniversaries, such as Idul Fitri and 1 Sura, the Javanese new year are marked with significant ceremonies such as bersih desa or petik laut or, in the past, rampok macan protecting the village or realm from evil.Less immediately obvious are boundaries in time, marking the transition between zaman, or eras. A change in era is of a different kind from the cyclical changes since by its very nature it is a non-repeating event. The topic of this paper is one such change in West Java, the change from Hindu rule to Islamic hegemony, and the mythology which consequently arose, providing a supernatural explanation for this quite powerful event.

Supernatural beliefs, natural kinds, and conceptual structure.

This article presents cross-cultural evidence in support of the notion that adults' natural kind concepts are theory based but may be informed by knowledge/belief systems other than the biological. Three groups of subjects from western Nigeria--rural, urban, and elite--participated in the study. Subjects heard stories describing alterations of appearance; that is, one natural kind was made to resemble another in both ritual and nonritual contexts. Subjects then were required to judge the identity of the altered item and to give an explanation for the category judgment. It was predicted that subjects would make more nonpreservation-of-identity category judgments supported by supernatural explanations in the ritual contexts and that subjects' use of supernatural explanations would reflect the extent of their engagement with the supernatural. The first prediction was borne out; the second prediction was only partially supported. Discussion of the results emphasizes the importance of exploring the role of sociocultural factors in conceptual structure.

Lay explanations of symptoms of mental ill health in Kuwait.

The cognitive schemas of 208 subjects were elicited in relation to 12 hypothetical symptoms which are most commonly presented by patients suffering from psychiatric disorder. Three types of explaining schemas were recognised as physical, psychosocial and supernatural explanations. Somatic symptoms tended to have physical explanations and emotional symptoms tended to have psychosocial explanations although both are known in clinical practice to indicate psychiatric disorder and to disappear together when the disorder recovers. Supernatural explanations were most likely in elderly males and in extended families. Symptoms associated with supernatural cognitive schemas fit in with the cultural background and not with the level of modern education achieved.

Differences in the Child-Rearing Practices of Parents of Children with Cancer and Controls: The Perspectives of Parents and Professionals

Obtained self-reports of parenting practices from fathers and mothers of 24 children with cancer, and 24 controls using the Child-Rearing Practices Report (CRPR). Cancer patients were primarily in long-term remission and represented a typical pattern of childhood malignancies. Same age/sex controls were recruited from the classrooms of the children with cancer. In addition, CRPR ratings were obtained from experts in pediatric oncology based upon their prediction of how a parent of a child with cancer would respond. The experts predicted differences in the areas of overinvolvement, discipline, worry about the child, nutritional concerns, and use of supernatural explanations. Results from parents showed surprising similarity between the parents of children with cancer and control parents, and disagreement with the experts. Discussion focuses on explanations for this apparent contradiction.

Spiritual and natural etiologies on a Polynesian outlier in Papua New Guinea

Several writers have challenged recently the long-held contention that non-Western peoples tend to emphasize spirits, sorcerers, and other supernatural forces in their explanations for the cause of illness. Here, I examine indigenous theories of illness-causation on Nukumanu, a Polynesian outlier atoll in Papua New Guinea. Although Nukumanu invoke mundane as well as supernatural explanations, their major preoccupation is with spirits as etiological agents. In this light, I suggest a number of potential reasons for the difference between my findings on Nukumanu and those of commentators who have emphasized naturalistic etiologies among the peoples they have studied. In addition to real ethnographic variation, I argue that a major reason for the difference lies in the level of causality (instrumental as opposed to efficient and ultimate) sought by various investigators.

Development of an Explanatory Model of Illness Schedule for Cambodian Refugee Patients

This paper describes the development of an instrument to measure explanations for illness among Cambodian patients Despite the need to understand patients' explanations for illness, few culture-relevant typologies of illness exist Murdock's typology was used in pre-testing with a group of Cambodian patients A 23-item Schedule was refined to measure patient explanatory models of illness The schedule was based on Murdock's list of possible causes of illness with several culturally specific categories added to accommodate Cambodian health beliefs. Items measure both natural and supernatural (mystical, animistic, and magical) explanations in culturally appropriate terms. The schedule was translated and back-translated by two independent Cambodian consultants Individual items were designed to be culturally specific. The schedule was piloted with a range of Cambodian patients presenting to a Cambodian family physician In addition to linguistic ambiguities, several conceptual problems arose which are discussed. The schedule aids understanding of Cambodian refugee patients and could be applied clinically

HYPNOTIC SUGGESTIBILITY AND PARANORMAL BELIEF

Summary.-The beliefs of upperclass college students (208) toward the paranormal were correlated with scores on the Harvard Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility and several personality measures. The Harvard scale scores correlated significantly with reported psychic experiences. church attendance, Taylor's Anxiety Scale, Adorno's Stereotypy/Superstition, and attitudes toward parapsychology and the supernatural. It has been suggested that people who accept pseudoscientific, paranormal, or supernatural explanations for events and/or experiences may be more gullible (4), do not understand the concepts of coincidence and probability (5), are capable of critical thinking (2), and have scientific education (8). However, Tobacyk and Mitchell (11) have not noted poorer personality adjustment among those who report out-of-body experiences. Further, Tobacyk and Milford (10) found uncritical inference only relared to less common ~aranormal beliefs and irrational beliefs related onlv to suoerstition. Hilgard (6) found that hypnotic suggestibility did not seem to be related to suggestibility (defined as gullibility or persuasibility). However, since it could be argued chat hypnosis does involve imagery, imagination, and acceptance of phenomenal experiences suggested by an authority, it was hypothesized that there would be a relationship berween suggesribility to hypnosis (as measured by the Haward Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibiliry) and attirudes toward the paranormal. Two hundred and eighc college srudents in an abnormal psychology course taking at leasc their second course in psychology were administered the Harvard scale, a questionnaire (12) containing five questions relating to belief in parapsychology (can be studied scientifically, is not a crick, telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis), four items about the supernatural/occulr (stars influence personality, UFOs exist, cards can predict the future, and mediums can contact spirits of the dead), the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (9). the dogmatism scale (7). the srereotypy/superstition subscale (1) which is supposed to measure the disposition to think in a rigid way and to believe in mystical determinants of one's destiny, and a variety of biographical items including frequency of church attendance, and personal psychic experiences. Responses to belief and dogmatism items were made on five-point Likert-type scales. Table 1 presents the significant Pearson correlations found. While Hilgard (6) reported that scores on the Harvard scale were related to few other measures, it certainly seems here to be associated with supernatural and paranormal beliefs and psychic experiences. The significant association of paranormal with supernatural beliefs, as well as the stereotypy correlations suggest that there may be a core of anitudes which may cause concern for critics of the paranormal (2, 8). These critics would argue that Civilized Society today requires adults who rely upon pseudoscience and more upon rational and objective information ro make intelligent and informed decisions in an increasingly complex technological world. While supporters of experirnen

Virgil, Aeneid 7.620–2

Virgilian scholars appear not to have appreciated the full dramatic significance of this passage, which provides a further example of Virgil's use of divine intervention in events which he wishes to mark as particularly significant in the course of the poem. These three lines signal the onset of the war with which the remainder of the Aeneid will be concerned; since line 607, Virgil has been working towards them by means of a detailed description of the gates of war themselves and of the tradition attached to them. But at this point in Italian history there is an ominous departure from the traditional procedures regarding the declaration of war. Latinus, who according to what Virgil depicts as the already well-established tradition was bound to open the gates in order to mark the beginning of war against the Trojans, has refused in horror to carry out his duty, opposed as he is to the turn recent events have taken in Latium. At this point Juno intervenes dramatically, as she had intervened before to sow the seeds of the ‘horrida bella’ (6.86, 7.41) between the Trojans and the indigenous population (323ff.). Virgil depicts her as sweeping down from heaven in person in order to push open the gates. The reader is shown how at her touch the gates burst open (‘rumpit’) without the involvement of any human or visible agency. It is an action which apparently has only a supernatural explanation, clearly described to the reader as the work of Juno.

Rules/Conventions: Three Paradoxes in the Game/Text Analogy

formulations that scholars can give to conventions in the expectation that they will thereby become rules. Indeed, to have that kind of knowledge of the conventions probably frustrates the absorption into the text that makes reading both significant and enjoyable. The more the reader knows, in the cold, formulaic sense of having the conventions at his command, the less likely he is to be run away with. There is thus a division between knowledge and experience in reading literature that runs counter to the fusion of the two in gameplaying. In games, commentary (always a kind of decoding) is the direct application of known rules to describe and predict; in literature, commentary (always a kind of intepretation) is the movement away from the experience to a model of significance. In literature the intepretive model succeeds the act of reading; in games, the model is an extrapolation of a known code that precedes the act of playing. If literary texts are games, then they are certainly paradoxical ones, to be accounted for in terms of the inverse of those normally apposite to games. A consideration of the way in which feelings enter into the activities of game-playing and reading further supports the argument that the procedures of commentary in the two activities (decoding, on the one This content downloaded from 157.55.39.129 on Thu, 28 Jul 2016 06:18:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 24 South Central Review hand; interpretation, on the other) are in reverse order. In games, the feelings that players have during the course of play are beside the point; they are, simply, irrelevant to the game and to the definition of game, though on the subjective level they may not be irrelevant to the players themselves. One may feel that a certain game, or a certain state of play, is beautiful or ugly but that does not matter insofar as it is a game. There are chess games, such as the Immortal, that are remembered for their elegance and beauty and are often recapitulated for these reasons. Nabokov, looking back upon his novel, The Defense, remarks that replaying the moves of its plot, I feel rather like Anderssen fondly recalling his sacrifice of both rooks to the unfortunate and noble Kieseritsky-who is doomed to accept it over and over again through an infinity of textbooks, with a question mark for monument.17 But this esthetic tradition has nothing to do with games as games: the Immortal is neither more nor less a game of chess because it is elegant, beautiful, and haunting. One's feelings that the Immortal possesses these qualities have no more to do with its essential gamefulness than if one were to sneeze while recapitulating it. Yet literature clearly entails feelings, and certain kinds of literature entail an explicit range of feeling. Todorov defines an entire genre, the Fantastic, upon the quality of feeling that reading engenders (a hesitation between natural and supernatural explanations),18 and more than a hundred generations of Aristotle's followers have made the feelings of pity and fear a part of the definition of Tragedy. The second paradox is as starkly simple, and as central to the concerns of literary analysis, as is the first. No doubt a game's pattern, a particular situation (as in the case of a chess-problem), or even the code of rules itself may be transposed into the steps of a narrative. Carroll's Through The Looking-Glass demonstrates that this is not only possible but narratively effective. Yet once this has happened, the game ceases to be a game and becomes something else; the game rules that have shaped the narrative structure metamorphose into aspects of the text's conventionality. In this way, something (a game) that is essentially inflexible and abstract becomes something else that is flexible and concrete. This metamorphosis leads directly to the second paradox. Whatever the abstract game-pattern that may have informed a narrative, it cannot be seen intuitively in the text that (perhaps) it has made possible. Just as given conclusions may have a plurality of premises or any actual event a plurality of possible causes, so a particular text may be seen to have a number of structural patterns. Furthermore, texts seem to swallow their assumptions; the more abstract these are, the more deeply swallowed they become. Perhaps a critic could, given a highly precise and analytic method, recover an underlying game-pattern from a literary text. Still, the operation would be neither evidentially simple (as it would be to find the presupposed rules in any actual game) nor intuitively easy. To This content downloaded from 157.55.39.129 on Thu, 28 Jul 2016 06:18:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Indigenous Curing Patterns in a Samoan Migrant Community

Although early ethnographies of non-literate peoples frequently contained data on medical beliefs and practices, physician-anthropologist, William Hallam Rivers (1864-1922), was the first to attempt to relate systematically native medicine to other aspects of culture and social organization (Wellin 1977:49). Rivers recognized a causal relationship between medical beliefs (independent variable) and practices (dependent variable). He argued that native medical patterns are 'not a medley of disconnected and meaningless customs, but rather inspired by definite ideas concerning the causation of disease' (1924:51). Further, native medical practices and beliefs, taken together, constitute a 'social institution' which can be studied in terms of principles and methods applied in the study of social institutions in general (Rivers 1926:61). In Rivers' scheme, the role and function of curers depend on the particular culture. Sorcerers play key roles in groups in which magic and sorcery predominate; priests in those in which religious and supernatural explanations rule; and in those in which the emphasis is on empirical techniques, it is the 'leech' (Rivers' term for empirical curers). A number of writers approached the problem of native curing practices in various cultural settings in terms of their functions (Ackerknecht 1942, 1946, Hallowell 1935, Field 1937, Rogers 1948). Others examined the process of becoming a curer, of recruitment to the role and the 'articulation' of the curer's role with the social system: most notably, Gillin's (1956) account of 'the making of a witch doctor', Handelman's (1967) 'Washo shaman', Spiro's (1967) analysis of Burmese medical-religious beliefs and practices, and Turner's ( 1964) work on the 'Ndembu doctor'. In recent years, studies began to indicate that healers and healing systems are responding in many parts of the world to the conditions of change in ways that are not always negative and destructive (Landy 1977: 467). The adaptive capacity of native medical systems to change is conceptualized in Paul's (1955) model of 'system and system change'. The approach has two fundamental propositions: (a) The responses of a given sociocul turai (and medical) system to the introduction of new elements are to be explained not solely by the nature of the system or the nature and mode of introduction of new elements but by the complex interaction of both; and (b) Reciprocal or feedback processes occur. That is, the introduction of new health related elements can be expected to affect the host sociocultural (and medical) system; in turn, the latter will also affect (change or reinterpret) the new elements. Empirical data from a number of studies validate Paul's propositions. Erasmus (1952) found that in Quito, Equador, illnesses thought to be caused by supernatural entities were referred to native curers, while those of non-supernatural origin (such as, appendicitis and tuberculosis) were treated by modern physicians. Similarly, in the village of Sherupur in North India, Gould (1957) reported the existence of two medical sys-

American Literary Naturalism: The French Connection

C~/fOST STUDIES of literary naturalism begin with Zola's Le Roman expe'rimental (i88o) and explain this movement in scientific/literary terms. The argument centers upon Zola's use of Prosper Lucas's Traite' . . . de l'he're'dite' naturelle (I850) and especially Claude Bernard's An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (I865), which supplied the basis for Zola's definition of the experimental novel. Zola wanted the novelist to function like a scientist -to observe nature and social data, to reject supernatural explanations of the physical world, to reject absolute standards of morality and free will, and to reveal nature and human experience as a deterministic and mechanistic process-by which he meant controlled by scientific explanations of matter. For Zola, all physical reality was made of matter, and all matter was subject to natural laws, explainable in scientific terms. Both the idea of miracles and of the imagination were suspect: there were no miracles in nature, and the best novelist was an empirical observer rather than an imaginative creator. Influenced by both Lucas's and Bernard's theories, Zola believed that man was finally a product of his heredity and environment, that life was simply the play of temperaments in a social context, subject to human observation and description: I wanted to study temperaments and not characters . . . , Zola

Causal Schemata and the Attribution of Supernatural Causality

The present study sought to explore the causal schemata operating in attributions to supernatural causes. The decision to attribute an event to supernatural as opposed to natural causes was expected to follow a multiple sufficient causes schema. In addition, some religious believers were expected to display partial schemata biased in favor of either natural or supernatural explanations. Students attending a church related college completed a questionnaire assessing their tendency to see God as a causal agent and rated supernatural causality for events in which presence or absence of natural and supernatural explanations was systematically varied. The results provide evidence for the presence of the multiple sufficient causes schema in attributions to supernatural causes, but not for the presence of partial schemata.