How Can God Feel So Real?

<p>How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people — as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn’t easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In <em>How God Becomes Real</em>, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion Tanya M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real. Does this effort help explain the enduring power of faith?</p> <p>Shermer and Luhrmann discuss: the anthropology of religion • what it means when people say they “hear the voice of God” or are “walking with God” • normal “voices within” vs. hallucinations and psychoses • mystical experiences • anomalous psychological experiences • sleep paralysis and other cognitive anomalies • belief in angels and demons • absorption and religious beliefs • prayer vs. meditation vs. mindfulness • sensed presences • why people believe in God • empirical truths, religious truths, mythic truths • how people come to religious belief vs. how they leave religion • theodicy • magic and superstition • witches and witchcraft • shamans and shamanism.</p> <p>Tanya Marie Luhrmann is the Albert Ray Lang Professor at Stanford University, where she teaches anthropology and psychology. Her books include <em>When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God</em> and <em>How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others</em>. She has written for the <em>New York Times</em>, and her work has been featured in the <em>New Yorker</em> and other magazines. She lives in Stanford, California.</p>