The thesis I present in this book is one that I have been developing over the course of my professional academic life. However, it really came to life after my arrival at the University of Bristol, which has proved a supportive and nurturing environment in which to work. I could not have maintained my research programme without the support of the UK agencies that fund my work. I would like to thank the Economic and Social Research Council and the Medical Research Council. In addition, I would also like to thank the private foundations that support me including the Leverhulme Trust (UK), the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (UK) and the Bial Foundation (Portugal).
For this UK edition, I am particularly grateful to the support, encouragement, and vision, of Andreas Campomar of Constable & Robinson.
I dedicate this book to my family.
SOURCE NOTES
PROLOGUE
1.
Sean Coughlan, ‘What Happens to the Houses of Horror?’, BBC News, 5 April, 2004, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/ hi/magazine/3593137.stm.
2.
Although the National Association of Realtors in the United States requires its members to reveal all physical factors that might affect the desirability of a house, there is no consensus when it comes to the psychological factors that may stigmatize a home.
3.
‘Couple Lose House of Horror Case’, BBC News, 7 February, 2004, available at: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi /england/west_yorkshire/ 3492936.stm
4.
There were several reports of the security surrounding the demolition; see ‘Soham Murder House Is Demolished’, BBC News, 3 April, 2004, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/england/cambridgeshire/3595801.stm; and Tony Thompson, ‘As Day Breaks, Huntley’s House Is Turned into Dust and Rubble’, the Guardian, 4 April, 2004, available at: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/ uk_news/story/0,,1185348,00.html.
5.
The outcome of the celebrity memorabilia auction at Christie’s is reported online at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ newstopics/celebritynews/2282365/ Beatles-Sgt-Pepper-drumskin-in-record-sale.html
6.
The designers of Princess Diana’s wedding dress, David and Elizabeth Emanuel, are currently selling – for £1,000 – a book with a swatch of the wedding dress that she wore during fittings; available from http://www.adressfordiana.com.
7.
The word ‘fetish’ (from the Latin facticious, for ‘artificial’) was originally coined by Charles de Brosses in 1757 to refer to objects believed by West African tribes to have supernatural powers.
8.
James Randi discusses the cardigan stunt and tells readers about his own experience with Brother André’s relic at: http://www.randi.org/jr/ 2006–09/092206bad.html.
9.
For example, the Pan Fest, a pagan festival held on the prairies in Alberta, Canada, during Lammas in August.
10.
Tony Blair’s superstition about his shoes is reported in The Times online at http:// www.timesonline.co.uk/ tol/ news/politics/the_blair_years/ article1969242.ece
11.
J. Curl. ‘McCain channeling as his luck toward 2008 race; Keeps assortment of talismans to ward off a Democratic win.’ The Washington Times, 16 April 2008.
12.
I am indebted to Steven Pinker, who introduced me to Philip Tetlock’s work on sacred values that seeded the idea in my head that a supernatural sense makes such beliefs so powerful.
13.
http:// www.happynews.com/news/ 5132008/fans-long-ashes-scattered -sporting-sites.htm
CHAPTER ONE
1.
P. Le Loyer, introduction to IIII Livres des Spectres, ou, Apparitions et Visions d’Espirits, Anges, et Demons se monstrans sensiblement aux hommes, 2nd edn, translated by Zachery Jones (British Library, 1605).
2.
www .ted.com/talks/view/id/22.
3.
D. Clarke, ‘Experience and Other Reasons Given for Belief and Disbelief in the Paranormal and Religious Phenomena’, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 60 (1995): 371–84.
4.
A. Grimby, ‘Bereavement Among Elderly People: Grief Reactions, Post-Bereavement Hallucinations and Quality of Life’, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavia 87 (1993): 72–80.
5.
This probability is based on any two people sharing a birthday. Conversely, if you were asked how many people would need to be at a party for you to meet someone who shares your birthday at half the parties you attend, the number seems unreasonably high at 253. Those of you unconvinced by these figures can check out Ian Stewart, The Magical Maze: Seeing the World Through Mathematical Eyes (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1997). Peter Milligan from Oxford University told me about the soccer example.
6.
M. Plimmer and B. King, Beyond Coincidence (Icon Books, 2005), p. 4.
7.
W. James, On Varieties of Religious Experiences (Basic Books, 1902), p. 58.
8.
Ibid., p. 510.
9.
S. Vyse, Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition (Oxford University Press, 1997) p. 60.
10.
Many Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter incorporate elements from earlier pagan ceremonies. For example, Yule logs can be traced back to Norse pagan festivals, in which they were symbols of health and productivity. Mistletoe was also used in Norse pagan ceremonies and is linked to fertility by the resemblance of the fruit’s content to semen.
11.
R. Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow (Penguin Books, 2006), p. 36.
12.
N. Chomsky, Syntactic Structures (Mouton, 1957), p. 15.
13.
The Nobel physicist Richard Feynman once remarked that he found it easier to picture invisible angels than light rays; quoted in A. Lightman, A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit (Vintage Books, 2005): ‘Physics has galloped off into territories where our bodies cannot go’ (p. 63).
14.
This phrase was first coined by the psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby in ‘Origins of Domain Specificity: The Evolution of Functional Organization’, in Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture, edited by L. A. Hirschfeld and S. A. Gelman (Cambridge University Press, 1994).
15.
The neurophysiologist Rudiger von der Heydt of Johns Hopkins University demonstrated the presence of ‘end-stopped cells’ in the visual areas of the brain that are activated by such patterns as if the illusory contour were really there.
16.
H. Ghim, ‘Evidence for Perceptual Organization in Infants: Perception of Subjective Contours by Young Infants’, Infant Behaviour and Development 13 (1990): 221–48.
17.
The website for the World Rock Paper Scissors Society can be found at http://www.worldrps.com.
18.
A. D. Baddeley, ‘The Capacity for Generating Information by Randomization’, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 18 (1966): 119–29.
19.
A. M. Leslie, ‘Spatiotemporal Continuity and Perception of Casuality in Infants’, Perception 13 (1984): 287–305.
20.
Of all the sports, tennis seems to produce the greatest share of superstitious rituals in both men and women. Like John McEnroe, Martina Hingis also would never step on the lines between points. Marat Safin travels with an ‘evil eye’ given to him by his sister to help ward off malevolent stares. Goran Ivanisevic follows a strict pregame regimen: eating at the same table of the same restaurant and ordering a set feast of fish soup, lamb, and ice cream with chocolate sauce.