Magical Thinkers versus Evidence Seekers
Each creates alternative worlds that they believe in.
Each actively seeks for alternative solutions that they then work for.
This brings incredibly extreme polarization in our world today;
both in the way we see the world and in the solutions we believe in.
What is Magical Thinking?
Belief that what we think about or say or wish for creates our world
Belief that what we refuse to think about won't happen
Magical thinking is a term used in anthropology, philosophy and psychology, denoting the causal relationships between thoughts, actions and events. There are subtle differences in meaning between individual theorists as well as amongst fields of study. (Wikipedia)
A negative example is psychosomatic illnesses where a person convinces himself that he is sick and then starts to see those symptoms in himself, whether they are real or not. The person literally makes himself sick though; i.e. thinks himself into sickness. Sometimes it is the stress and worry that actually makes him sick rather than a real sickness. Another example is denial. We think that if we refuse to believe something or think about something, it won’t happen.
There are also examples of magical thinking that are inevitable. A plausible example is gravity. We know that if we fall out of a tree, it will hurt or jump from a building high enough, it is quite certain that we will die. Not because we can explain it or because we believe it, but rather because we have experienced it enough to believe it. Another example is the sunrise. How do we know the sun will rise each day? And how do we know it will rise in the east? It is from our own repetitive experience that we know.
So we should not seek to eliminate all magical thinking from our lives. There will always be some form or other. But we need to bring a healthy dose of skepticism by questioning and inquiring into every aspect of our lives. I think some people are willing to sell their intellect or reasoning ability short because it is just easier to believe certain things, even if it may not be true. Often we convince ourselves to believe in things because it is more comfortable to do so. We like the security of certainty and the comfort of security. There is no one standard for a healthy person to meet when it comes to magical thinking. That is a standard that we each must set for ourselves.
For me, it is a matter of integrity that I not allow my life to be run by magical thinking. I think it is also a matter of our own commitment to truth. Am I willing to do the inner work necessary to discern truth and reality from fiction. When we look at the world and the problems, where do we begin? With magical thinking or by seeking evidence first.
“Magical thinking is defined as believing that one event happens as a result of another without a plausible link of causation. For example: ‘I got up on the left side of the bed today; therefore it will rain.’"
Or “a more nuanced definition of magical thinking would be believing in things more strongly than either evidence or experience justifies.” For reference, see Magical Thinking.
In each field of living there are a variety of spectrums for magical thinking. In spirituality or religion, there is much more tolerance for magical thinking than in science. In psychology there is much more tolerance for magical thinking than in philosophy.
The key is awareness, consciousness of our own thinking. So often our thoughts hijack us into solving problems so that there is no uncertainty. We HAVE to understand and we cannot STAND mystery or uncertainty.
Examples of Magical Thinking
“Trump supporters are far from the machinations of power, so government seems like magic to them. In Trump they’ve found *their* magician.”
Trump’s ability to envision the world he wants and speak it into existence is a sort of superpower. It doesn’t matter whether it is true or not. What matters is that he believes what he says and he keeps on repeating it until his followers believe it too.
Here is a positive example. On the New Amsterdam tv show last night, they saw a need to create a paleontology wing in the hospital so that those that were dying and had no place to go and no one to care for them could be cared for. One of the hospital staff was talking to a person that she just met that was dying of cancer. Nothing else could be done. And he would not talk. He could not express what he needed to be more comfortable. So they began to talk about life in general. He said that he was a professor and had always worked with numbers. Why, the other person asked. He said because he knew they were certain. I know death is certain too but as they talked he realized that in the face of the certainty of death, there is no certainty in death at all. No one knows what’s next because no one has experienced what is next, if anything at all. The staff person said that really numbers aren’t all that certain either. What is the biggest number? How many stars are there? How many snowflakes in a snowstorm? As they talked he marveled at this uncertainty that he had been working with all of his life. It was then that he realized that it is the fear of uncertainty that he needed to face, not the fear of death. And like any fear, when we face it head on, it inevitably loses its power over us.
Looking at the political polarity today, there is very clearly something going on that is driving the thinking of different groups in very different ways. Some people are not capable of sorting through the complexities of our nation and all of the issues that complicate it even more like COVID 19, racial protests, police brutality, Americans shooting other Americans over differences, people defending their property with guns from peaceful protesters, peaceful protests turned violent by opportunists, the environment, extreme weather, refugees and immigrants, and on and on. If we look at each of the disruptive issues of our time we can see how different groups of people want to solve them. When you get to the root of the possible solutions, we are left with evidence or magic. People have an innate need for certainty and for the most part will do whatever it takes to feel certain, even though certainty is nothing more than another story that we are told and that we tell ourselves.
When politics stokes fears in the general population using all of the above issues, many people have no idea what to do. When people are full of fear, anger, and loss of control, they reach for any answers that will give them the comfort they want, even when the comfort and security are also just stories in their heads that they are being told and that they then tell themselves. Facts and reality and research take too much work which frankly is beyond the capacity of so many people these days. So a grand savior, a strongman riding in on his “horse” of power proclaiming, “I am the people’s president” accomplishes exactly what this person’s agenda has been all along. Make people scared enough to see him as the only answer, even though he has no answers to offer. It doesn’t matter. The illusion (story) of answers is all people need. Then their faith can take it from there. Faith in what? Anything they choose to believe in. Magical Thinking becomes the only possible answer. Evidence Seekers are the alternative which takes far too much work. Magical thinkers think and speak evidence thinkers into “evil” by using a myriad of labels and name-calling. So there you have it. The polarization of the population between Magical Thinkers and Evidence Seekers. See more in this video clip. It is quite an eye opener.
The Politics of Magical Thinking
Check out this politically balanced article from a conservative perspective. He quotes a twitter post by an old friend that I knew from a church care group that I attended.
James K.A. Smith made a valuable point on Twitter yesterday:
Trump supporters are far from the machinations of power, so government seems like magic to them. In Trump they’ve found *their* magician.
— James K.A. Smith (@james_ka_smith) March 2, 2016
“For the last century, progressives have been critics of local government and civil society. Not without justification, they’ve attacked the corruption, inefficiency, and injustice of political parties, town councils, private charities, and proposed national solutions to otherwise overwhelming problems. Conservatives bear responsibility, too. Dogmatic hostility to unions has helped marginalize the most effective form of association available to workers in large enterprises.
“The problem is that national solutions have rarely been as easy or successful as promised, while purely individual efforts are impotent. Rather than qualified confidence in energetic politics, centralization promotes a vaguely schizophrenic combination of hope that government can do everything with the knowledge it’s failed in the past. Those are the conditions in which magical thinking thrives. It’s especially appealing when the institutions that once allowed citizens to exercise control over their common affairs are neutered or moribund.
“Trump, in other words, is just a symptom. The disease is older, and also more frightening. Once we’ve lost our capacity for meaningful self-government it’s almost impossible to get it back. As Tocqueville foresaw nearly two hundred years ago:
“It is in vain to summon a people, which has been rendered so dependent on the central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity. I add that they will soon become incapable of exercising the great and only privilege which remains to them.”
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-politics-of-magical-thinking/
Trump, QAnon and The Return of Magic
This is the video documentary that helped me see the delineation between Magical Thinkers and Evidence Seekers. Very powerful look at social media and conspiracy theories.
A major point made is simply this. Anyone that is making decisions “by my gut” is really a manly way of saying “by my feelings.” No advice, no experts, no research, no facts, no science, just feelings. How does that make you feel about the leader of America and the most powerful person in the world making decisions “by my gut”? Well, we learn to see the world according to what we are told and according to what we wish for. We speak only words that express what we wish for. Anything that disagrees with our wishes is rejected or screened out and not seen at all. This includes such things as reality, facts, evidence. And we wonder why there are so many religious people using magical thinking???
Donald Trump's Magical Thinking
By Frank Schaeffer the son of great theologian Francis Schaeffer, a founder of Evangelical Christianity. He grew up with other sons of the founders, Jerry Falwell Jr and Franklin Graham.
