Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger,
Speaker 1: and today we are revisiting one of our favorite, maybe
Speaker 1: not favorite topics, demons. Yeah, this is what's what's funny
Speaker 1: about this is, I remember when when you and I
Speaker 1: first started recording together, we at some point said, oh,
Speaker 1: we should do an episode on demons. And I even
Speaker 1: have some like preliminary notes that I ran across yesterday
Speaker 1: for a demon's episode. Yeah, and I think early on
Speaker 1: we kind of decided, oh, there's not we can't really
Speaker 1: do just a demon episode, and it for a while
Speaker 1: we kind of didn't discuss demons. But then recently we've
Speaker 1: had a couple of episodes. We did the Exorcism episode
Speaker 1: Exorcism Addorcism and uh, and here we are talking about
Speaker 1: demons again, proving that yes, there is plenty to talk
Speaker 1: about um in terms of science and the human psychology
Speaker 1: and demons. So we kind of proved ourselves wrong in
Speaker 1: that one. Yeah, exactly. Well, today's episode is primarily based
Speaker 1: on a new study that we got our hands on,
Speaker 1: and we want to go through it because it's a
Speaker 1: really interesting look at how the belief in demons, despite
Speaker 1: whatever religion you participate in, the belief in demons may
Speaker 1: possibly contribute to negative mental health effects. Uh. And that
Speaker 1: is especially interesting give it in light of like things
Speaker 1: that we've talked about related demonology before Exorcism. Obviously we
Speaker 1: talked about mental health in that episode, but we've also
Speaker 1: talked about satanic panic on the show. I think one
Speaker 1: of the first episodes I did before I was even
Speaker 1: a host on this show, we did Grimoires. Is that right,
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about this satanic panic before you that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Grimoires was one of the first ones I did. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we've covered a lot of territory with this. If
Speaker 1: you haven't listened to those episodes, I recommend going back.
Speaker 1: But oh yeah, John d Yeah, yeah, I guess he
Speaker 1: was technically trying to talk to Holy angels. But that's true.
Speaker 1: But a lot of the same texts do get referenced
Speaker 1: in between a lot of these things. Uh. And this
Speaker 1: is very much grounded in present day, although we will
Speaker 1: occasionally refer to some you know, demonic concepts from the past, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I think is especially
Speaker 1: drawing me to this topic over and over again. And
Speaker 1: I've mentioned this on the show before, is that I
Speaker 1: am working on a comic book series is actually about
Speaker 1: like the occult and exorcism and demonology. So I'm kind
Speaker 1: of constantly have out of the corner of my eye,
Speaker 1: I'm looking out for new information surrounding these topics. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean same here. I'm I've always been fascinated by
Speaker 1: demons and um, I have a few different writing projects
Speaker 1: that have involved them over the years. And uh and
Speaker 1: and just I think our personal history cost of this too.
Speaker 1: We talked about on the on the show before about
Speaker 1: your experience with snow blindness and a supernatural interpretation of
Speaker 1: that sort of ye, and then my own experience. It's
Speaker 1: growing up in the first Baptist Church and especially during
Speaker 1: high school, they're being some friends who were carrying out
Speaker 1: quote unquote exorcisms, and there were tales about demons, uh
Speaker 1: and at work in the world around us. We go
Speaker 1: in depth into those stories, into the exorcism addercism episode,
Speaker 1: and that's not that old, so I kind of feel
Speaker 1: like we we shouldn't repeat them here. So if you're
Speaker 1: you know, they're not necessary to understand this episode, but
Speaker 1: we might refer back to them occasionally just as our
Speaker 1: subjective experience, because I think that that is definitely going
Speaker 1: to be how we uh what lens we look at
Speaker 1: this study through, because this study is pretty fascinating. Now,
Speaker 1: as far as specific demons go, we've we've again, we've
Speaker 1: talked about demons here on the show. We often dip
Speaker 1: our toes into the waters of mythology and folklore and
Speaker 1: discuss a few, uh on the podcast. On the blogs,
Speaker 1: we discussed just some of the following demons, the wind
Speaker 1: to Go, the Wutong Shin, fox fear, It's Google's gin
Speaker 1: Incubi Succubi, uh, you are Raju, Lucifer bahamat Uh. We figured, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna look at this study, let's just roll out
Speaker 1: a couple of additional demons, sort of podcast versions of
Speaker 1: demon trading cards almost that you can you can you
Speaker 1: can appreciate with this before we dive into the study.
Speaker 1: And Robert's too humble to mention this, but I will
Speaker 1: mention that most of those that you just mentioned have
Speaker 1: Monster of the Week entries over on our site Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. So if you want
Speaker 1: to learn a little bit more about those things are
Speaker 1: just dive down the monster rabbit hole that Robert's created
Speaker 1: on the site. Go ahead over there. So all right,
Speaker 1: So the one that I picked is actually the one
Speaker 1: that I've been researching the most for that project that
Speaker 1: I'm working on. Uh. And this comes from the Lesser
Speaker 1: Key of Solomon, And there's a so we've we talked
Speaker 1: about this in the Grimoire episode. Lesser Key of Solomon
Speaker 1: is a book supposedly containing a sort of occult knowledge
Speaker 1: passed on by King Solomon. But first section is the
Speaker 1: rs Gisha. I think that's how it's pronounced, but I'm
Speaker 1: not a hundred percent sure. It's it's old timey, old
Speaker 1: timey Grimoire talk. But anyways, so basically that first section is, uh,
Speaker 1: this it just contains descriptions of seventy two demons that
Speaker 1: Solomon was said to have evoked. He used like a
Speaker 1: religious magic to summon them, and then he confined them
Speaker 1: into a bronze vessel, and then he sealed that with
Speaker 1: magical symbols. Uh, and then he basically made these demons
Speaker 1: work for him. So this is a you know, I guess,
Speaker 1: a bit of mysticism that takes the Bible stories from
Speaker 1: the Bible and transmutes them. So my favorite and the
Speaker 1: one that I'm really focused on for this project I'm
Speaker 1: working on, is a demon known as Zagan and he
Speaker 1: has the rank of king and president. Uh So, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of various ranks in terms of like what
Speaker 1: how they fit into a hierarchy with one another, all
Speaker 1: these seventy two demons of Solomon's uh in king and
Speaker 1: President is pretty much like the highest one. Uh So,
Speaker 1: zagain is uh he and we we were talking about
Speaker 1: this beforehand, like they all have various legions, but they're
Speaker 1: more powerful than one another based on what the number
Speaker 1: of legions that they command are. And their legions are
Speaker 1: like lesser demons. Yeah, and this makes me think, surely
Speaker 1: somebody may have already done this, but this would make
Speaker 1: the Demons of the Gramore's perfect for trading cars, especially
Speaker 1: since you have all those fabulous woodcut illustrations of them. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: the there's the wood cut illustrations from I think somebody
Speaker 1: did them after the Lesser Key of Solomon was originally created.
Speaker 1: But then there's also all of the seals that are
Speaker 1: in the Lesser Key of Solomon that like show the
Speaker 1: various like inscriptions that you're supposed to use in order
Speaker 1: to seal these particular demons up in this brass canister. Wow,
Speaker 1: I can I can picture it right now? Yeah, And
Speaker 1: then and then down there bottom. How many legions do
Speaker 1: they have? Look on the car, Well, Zagan has thirty
Speaker 1: three legions. These are also his superpowers. Are you ready?
Speaker 1: He can make men witty. He can turn wine into
Speaker 1: water and water into wine, so he's a little Jesus
Speaker 1: ey there. But he can also turn blood into wine.
Speaker 1: So imagine this like he can turn your blood and
Speaker 1: your body into wine. That would hurt and probably kill
Speaker 1: you too. That would definitely, I mean, if it's a
Speaker 1: demon doing I don't know. There's so many additional magical
Speaker 1: questions come into play there, like does that mean that
Speaker 1: my body is like a wine based circultory system now exactly? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: His other powers are that he can turn metals, any
Speaker 1: metal into a coin that are made of that metal. Right, So,
Speaker 1: if there's like gold or he can turn it into
Speaker 1: gold coins. He's just like, uh, this like magical coin
Speaker 1: making process. Uh. And then the last thing about is
Speaker 1: again that I think is pretty interesting, is he takes
Speaker 1: the form of a griffin winged bull, but then he
Speaker 1: like eventually turns into a man. So there's like various
Speaker 1: interpretations of him where he sort of looks like a
Speaker 1: minotaur with wings. Oh yes, yes, I think I've seen
Speaker 1: these before. Yeah, so that's again. I've got some text
Speaker 1: here from the the actual book itself. It's pretty difficult
Speaker 1: to read because it's, like I said, it's in that
Speaker 1: old timy kind of writing where it says like the
Speaker 1: sixty first spirit is called zagain he is a great
Speaker 1: king and president and appearith in first ye form of
Speaker 1: bull with griffin wings, you know, stuff like that. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's basically all the things that I mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: It's just a list of his superpowers. This is really
Speaker 1: like like if you look at the Lesser Key of
Speaker 1: Solomon with a bit of skepticism, it's it's like the
Speaker 1: official handbook to the Marvel universe. Now what. The one
Speaker 1: thing that's interesting about this particular demon, especially in terms
Speaker 1: of where we're gonna be talking about today, is that
Speaker 1: this seems to be very much a wizard demon right
Speaker 1: in that there wasn't anything really negative there, unless you
Speaker 1: count turning wine into water, like if that's the worst
Speaker 1: case scenario or possibly the blood in your body that
Speaker 1: same like the most dangerous one. Yeah, but for the
Speaker 1: most part, it's this is a powerful entity that a
Speaker 1: wizard would enter into a careful pact with and have,
Speaker 1: if not control over, then at least a lot of
Speaker 1: guidelines set in place. Yeah, Like I imagine like the
Speaker 1: idea was sort of that, because keep in mind, there's
Speaker 1: seventy one other demons like this, Like you would summon
Speaker 1: one demon first that could create gold or from copper
Speaker 1: or or something like that. Right, this is all alchemical.
Speaker 1: It's very John d And then you're like, oh, but
Speaker 1: I've got this gold or but I can't just spend it.
Speaker 1: I can't just go to town and drop this, you know,
Speaker 1: on the table at the local bar. I know, I'll
Speaker 1: summons again and I'll keep him bound in the seal,
Speaker 1: and then he'll turn these all into coins for me.
Speaker 1: So being a wizard, a demonic wizard was was was
Speaker 1: really kind of like being a project manager. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: That is kind of how the lesser key of Solomon
Speaker 1: portrays Solomon in a lot of cases. Yeah, Like at
Speaker 1: least how he the way in which he used demons
Speaker 1: and angels. You know, it's like a recipe book. I
Speaker 1: like to imagine him doing like a big like a
Speaker 1: Google meeting with all of these everybody's teleworking in from
Speaker 1: whatever layers of the abyss they're occupying, and he's like,
Speaker 1: all right, where are we on the progress a progress
Speaker 1: for this project? Do we have the ore? When are
Speaker 1: we When are we actually pressing these into coins and
Speaker 1: moving on to step three? Step three is turning his
Speaker 1: blood into a wine. So if this is an example
Speaker 1: of a demon this very much under control, we certainly
Speaker 1: have plenty of other demons that are out of control.
Speaker 1: Like this is kind of the rich man's demon versus
Speaker 1: the the everyman's demon. Well, I think yeah, it's worth
Speaker 1: remembering too that like the Lesser Key of Solomon, wasn't
Speaker 1: like a mass produced book, right, Like there were only
Speaker 1: a few copies of this. We talked about this in
Speaker 1: our grim Wire episode, and they were mainly owned by
Speaker 1: a rich, learned gentleman. So for for my pick, I
Speaker 1: figured I might entertain an Eastern demon for the second
Speaker 1: selection here, and I'm gonna buck my recent trend of
Speaker 1: focusing on Chinese or Indian myth and instead turned to
Speaker 1: the island nation of Japan. Oh yeah, they've got some
Speaker 1: really quoted in mythology. So the the Only is probably
Speaker 1: the best known or one of the best known Japanese demons.
Speaker 1: And you can you can split up split hairs over
Speaker 1: the definition of demon or spirit or evil spirit, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But I think for the most part the Only lines
Speaker 1: up with the demonic definition, and I think it suits
Speaker 1: our purposes here. Since is Carol Rose describes in her
Speaker 1: book Spirits, furious lepricuns and goblins. You have two varieties
Speaker 1: of owning. First there's the ghaki, which comes from Hell
Speaker 1: and drags souls of the dying down to Hell. And
Speaker 1: then there's also a terrestrial version of the owning that
Speaker 1: shifts its shape, assumes human forms to torments specific individuals
Speaker 1: and they made themselves. Be quote, the distorted souls of
Speaker 1: women who have died of excessive grief is the ones
Speaker 1: I know mostly from dungeons and dragons. Yeah, they're in
Speaker 1: the Monster Manu. I have to say some of my
Speaker 1: earliest encounters with the japan These monsters were in the
Speaker 1: the Monster Manual supplement for what I can't remember the
Speaker 1: name of their eastern uh so it orient it was
Speaker 1: it was the orient for adventure it is now it
Speaker 1: would now be offensive. I forget. I have the book though,
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. It wasn't Kootoa, but it sounded something
Speaker 1: like you had a caved in character. Ah, there we go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember just being fascinated by the monsters in there,
Speaker 1: and then later learning more about, you know, their actual
Speaker 1: models in in myth and folklore and and the monster
Speaker 1: Man did a pretty knock up job. I thought of
Speaker 1: bringing these to life in the game system, but the
Speaker 1: only was definitely in it. Now, these particular only the
Speaker 1: terrestrial ones. They bring misfortune, They spread disease, especially plague,
Speaker 1: and there's a ceremony the Shinto only yarrachi, and this
Speaker 1: as well as conversion to Buddhism can drive the only out. Now,
Speaker 1: this is in terms of possession, right, not in terms
Speaker 1: of like if an ony, like if an one is
Speaker 1: haunting your home or something like that, or is that
Speaker 1: also my understanding? It is it's like haunting a home,
Speaker 1: haunting a region, more or less plaguing an individual and
Speaker 1: individual's household. Got it. Now? In the in the former example,
Speaker 1: the Gacy, we see a vision of a demon that
Speaker 1: partially embodies the fear of death but also seemingly increases it,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna die, yes, but also like terrifying monster
Speaker 1: is going to drag you to hell as it happens.
Speaker 1: Surely there's got to be some some Japanese horror films
Speaker 1: that have incorporated the one. I guess maybe we're just
Speaker 1: not like super aware of them. Well, there are a
Speaker 1: number of Japanese films that deal with the the with
Speaker 1: the the The yo Kai you know, broadly categorizes these
Speaker 1: different monstrous spirits, some more comical than others. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: and I want I want to say there have been
Speaker 1: a couple of black and white Japanese heart films, earlier
Speaker 1: horror films that definitely explored this idea of an only
Speaker 1: we gotta we gotta do a trailer Talk episode based
Speaker 1: around stuff like that. Yeah, for those of you who
Speaker 1: don't know, we do every Friday, well almost every Friday,
Speaker 1: at eleven am Eastern Standard time, we do a trailer
Speaker 1: Talk Facebook live episode where Robert, Joe and I talk
Speaker 1: about the preceding weeks podcasts in relation to movie trailers,
Speaker 1: basically monster movie trailers related to this. So I'm assuming
Speaker 1: we will do something based on demonology in the coming
Speaker 1: weeks for this one. Now, I want to also drive
Speaker 1: drive home that terrestrial only that we mentioned there. That's
Speaker 1: a firm Eastern example of a demon that spreads earthly
Speaker 1: misfortune and can be driven away or defeated via religious practice. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's important related to the study that we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about today. I know some of you are like, guys,
Speaker 1: you've been talking about D and D and weird monsters
Speaker 1: for ten minutes now where we'll get there. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: as long as it's an evil supernatural power, it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have to be codified as a demon per se.
Speaker 1: It applies to this study right Like another one real
Speaker 1: quick from the Japanese traditions and from the Monster Manual
Speaker 1: is of course the Kappa the cop about the sort
Speaker 1: of monkey like turtle creature with a little intention in
Speaker 1: the top of its head filled with this water that
Speaker 1: gives it you power or is its life force, And
Speaker 1: it's basically one of those demons and these existing and
Speaker 1: just demons or evil spirits that exist in most folk traditions.
Speaker 1: Hangs out around water, so it's associated with drownings and
Speaker 1: misfortune related to swimming and being working around water, but
Speaker 1: you can if you encounter one of these things, the
Speaker 1: legend goes, you can defeat it by bowing to it
Speaker 1: like a nice low bow. And then when the kappa
Speaker 1: bowels to you, it will spill the water from its
Speaker 1: head and lose its power. So it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a golem, like the way that like if you wipe
Speaker 1: the golems, uh, the inscription on the golems head off
Speaker 1: of it like becomes inanimate again, like if the water
Speaker 1: falls out, it just kind of dissipates. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: the thing I love about this is that essentially you
Speaker 1: defeat the demon by the use of strict Japanese adequate,
Speaker 1: which I'm gonna have to research this more a bit,
Speaker 1: but I'm instantly drawn to that that idea of it.
Speaker 1: You're not necessarily using religion here to defeat this demon,
Speaker 1: but this demon may be defeated by proper etiquete. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well it's a very proper demon, all right. So we've
Speaker 1: rolled out a couple of demonic examples here. Uh, and
Speaker 1: now it's uh, I think it's about time to move
Speaker 1: on with the discussion of the study. Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: paper in question here, it just came out in seventeen.
Speaker 1: It's called Demonic Influence the Negative Mental Health Effects of
Speaker 1: Belief in Demons, and it's by Fan Hoo, Ni Knee
Speaker 1: and Daniel Vier Olson, and they both come out of
Speaker 1: Purdue University's Department of Sociology. Real brief abstract here, but
Speaker 1: we're going to really break down this paper. Uh. Their
Speaker 1: research indicates that among young adults, belief in demons is
Speaker 1: one of the strongest negative predictors of mental health. They
Speaker 1: also found that belief in demons can lead to lowered
Speaker 1: mental health. But they also are very clear and they
Speaker 1: clarify lowered mental health itself does not necessarily lead to
Speaker 1: a greater belief in demons. So if you're uh, if
Speaker 1: you're depressed, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're more likely
Speaker 1: to believe that demons exist. Right, and in this and
Speaker 1: the time and time again in the study, they tackle
Speaker 1: this idea, you know, because you might ask the question,
Speaker 1: where you is it really possible that belief in demons
Speaker 1: leads to ill mental health or is it just a
Speaker 1: situation where someone who already is suffering from some sort
Speaker 1: of mental health scenario, Uh, they are more likely to
Speaker 1: believe in demons. They tackle that and there's a there's
Speaker 1: actually a lot to this study, Like there's some interesting
Speaker 1: sort of cognitive science to this study as well that
Speaker 1: I think is really important. Um, you know, we are
Speaker 1: obviously using the demon framework because it's attractive to us, right,
Speaker 1: but I think that this has broader implications as well,
Speaker 1: just for like mental health in general. Oh yeah, So
Speaker 1: all right, you're probably saying, well, who believes in demons? Right? Who?
Speaker 1: Who are these people that are affected? Maybe some of
Speaker 1: you listening are those or and you're thinking, well, I
Speaker 1: believe in demons, and I feel fine, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: but here's some statistics for you. According to Baylor University,
Speaker 1: they conducted a religion survey in two thousand seven, and
Speaker 1: they found fifty four percent of the United States absolutely
Speaker 1: believes that demons exists. That is a surprisingly high number
Speaker 1: to me. I'm I'm very surprised by being over half
Speaker 1: the population. Yeah, it's it's interesting to think that over
Speaker 1: half the country believes that malicious extra dimensional creatures actually exists.
Speaker 1: Though I'm sure there's gonna be some variety regarding to
Speaker 1: what degree they're active in the world, or if it's
Speaker 1: just a situation where oh well, I follow this religion,
Speaker 1: be it Christianity or Islam, or or Buddhism any or Hinduism,
Speaker 1: and you just kind of fall back on the idea
Speaker 1: that while there are demons in the text, demons in
Speaker 1: the belief system, and therefore I believe in them. I
Speaker 1: think my assumption was, despite whatever religious beliefs you participate in,
Speaker 1: that most people don't actually believe in supernatural evil. But
Speaker 1: I guess I was wrong. Um, And I think that
Speaker 1: that's really interesting, and especially you know, calling back to
Speaker 1: my experience from when I was a kid and I
Speaker 1: had snow blindness and I thought that a demon was
Speaker 1: coming for me. Uh, you know, I guess like I'm
Speaker 1: not alone. Apparently like this is a pretty common thing.
Speaker 1: It's it's more common than it's not even going so
Speaker 1: far as they said that an additional nineteen point five
Speaker 1: percent of the population. On top of that, I think
Speaker 1: that demons probably exist. So there's like a they basically
Speaker 1: said not at all, maybe or absolutely, uh, And so
Speaker 1: there's more people that think absolutely, and then there's more
Speaker 1: people that think maybe. There's far less people that think
Speaker 1: not at all. May be either kind of hedging their
Speaker 1: pets there. I don't know, maybe I think it's also
Speaker 1: really important to remember though, that historically the belief in
Speaker 1: supernatural evil has evoked not only fear, but it's it's
Speaker 1: been able to evoke death in some people. Right. You
Speaker 1: think about people who were so concerned historically about having
Speaker 1: curses placed on them that they had like a heart
Speaker 1: attack or something like that. Right, Like, this has such
Speaker 1: a strong foundation in our cultural contexts that you know,
Speaker 1: I can see sort of why it permeates so thoroughly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, because it goes back, it goes beyond the
Speaker 1: sort of modern religions, that goes back into very folkloric beliefs.
Speaker 1: Just the I just as humans are grasping with the
Speaker 1: chaos of life and the unpredictability of life and then
Speaker 1: trying to answer why it's happening. Uh, you can, It's
Speaker 1: it's handy to fall back on explanations off, Well, there's
Speaker 1: a malicious spirit at the lake, that's why this drowning occurred. Uh,
Speaker 1: there is a where there's a demon in my mind,
Speaker 1: and that's why I did this particular atrocity. You mentioned
Speaker 1: disease earlier with your with your only example, I mean,
Speaker 1: disease was blamed on demons and curses a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, so it was. You know, that's why I
Speaker 1: think that like the Handbook to the Marble Universe kind
Speaker 1: of works here, right, because like demonology was sort of
Speaker 1: the cultural way that we understood the unexplainable in the world.
Speaker 1: Not that there's people now who are like, why why
Speaker 1: it was there a tornado that struck down in my backyard?
Speaker 1: It must have been thor right, like there nobody thinks that,
Speaker 1: but there is that meticulous kind of record keeping of
Speaker 1: of what's going on with these various mythological characters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so much of it does boil down to taking
Speaker 1: a threat, often a kind of ambiguous threat, personifying it
Speaker 1: as a creature monster, and then also having a system
Speaker 1: to drive that monster away. So you're taking you're you're
Speaker 1: taking a threat that is invisible and unpredictable, boiling it
Speaker 1: down into something like a predatory animal essentially that is
Speaker 1: predictable and defeatable and in a certain amount of solace,
Speaker 1: I guess can come with that as well as a
Speaker 1: great deal of anxiety, because you've now created a worldview
Speaker 1: in which there are malicious, magical creatures out to get
Speaker 1: and as we're gonna find out throughout this study. Having
Speaker 1: such a belief triggers something in our brains that leads
Speaker 1: us to further negative beliefs that impact us in in
Speaker 1: not healthy ways. All right, well, on that note, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break, and when we come back, we're
Speaker 1: gonna jump even more into the study here. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back, alright, So let's set up this study. Okay,
Speaker 1: you've got some notes here specifically about the you know,
Speaker 1: the evaluation and the costs and benefits of being religious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and these are these are examples of the the authors
Speaker 1: of the main study here point out. So on the
Speaker 1: opposite end of the perspective, you have the Bitter and Suite,
Speaker 1: An Evaluation of the Costs and Benefits of Religiousness by
Speaker 1: Kenneth I. Pargament in two thousand two. And this is
Speaker 1: a paper that explored whether belief in a loving God
Speaker 1: had a positive effect on mental health. And the author's
Speaker 1: work implied just this. So the idea you know here
Speaker 1: is pretty obvious. You you bring in this religious worldview
Speaker 1: where you you believe that there is a loving God
Speaker 1: looking after you, and that is going to lead to
Speaker 1: just a more positive experience of reality. Yeah. So they
Speaker 1: basically they have this literature review where they cite studies
Speaker 1: other studies that have been done these this isn't the
Speaker 1: first study that's looked at the positive and negative associations
Speaker 1: with religious beliefs. The positive ones include the one that
Speaker 1: Robert just mentioned about their being a loving God. But
Speaker 1: then also people have positive mental associations with religion when
Speaker 1: they attend church, when they rate the importance of their
Speaker 1: religion in their life, when they pray, and if they
Speaker 1: believe in an after lay. And then of course, relating
Speaker 1: to the first one, you mentioned, a secure relationship with God.
Speaker 1: So it's not enough to just believe that God exists,
Speaker 1: but that God you have a secure relationship with God
Speaker 1: and God loves you. Yeah, because obviously there are plenty
Speaker 1: of modes of belief in God where God is terrible, terrifying.
Speaker 1: You don't have to look far to find that vision
Speaker 1: of of the Almighty and and uh. And certainly there
Speaker 1: have been a number of studies that have attributed negative
Speaker 1: influence to self rate of rated importance of religion, particularly
Speaker 1: as it revolves around belief in your own sinful nature
Speaker 1: uh and other factors. Because even in the Christian tradition,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have different models of Christianity that lean more
Speaker 1: heavily on the idea of avengeful God or loving God,
Speaker 1: on the idea that you're you you're weighted down by
Speaker 1: original sin, or you're free of original sin because you
Speaker 1: decided to follow this particular religious path, etcetera. Yeah. One
Speaker 1: of the other things that they found that I thought
Speaker 1: was interesting is even though prayer has a positive association
Speaker 1: to it, if you're worried about the frequency of which
Speaker 1: in which you pray, like how much you pray per day,
Speaker 1: that has a negative impact on people. Um. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: there could be an association between that and mental illness
Speaker 1: because people who are already mentally ill might pray more
Speaker 1: to cope with their difficulties. And there's other studies that
Speaker 1: have found similar associations with beliefs in the punishing God
Speaker 1: that you mentioned obviously, and not believing in an afterlife,
Speaker 1: So that can cause undue stress as well. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: the belief in afterlife is often brought up as a
Speaker 1: positive one, right because it would arguably alleviate some of
Speaker 1: the stress associated with death. You're like, oh, I'm gonna die,
Speaker 1: but hey, I'm gonna be with everybody in the afterlife,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be happy and good. It's comforting to think that, right.
Speaker 1: This is like basic Maslow's hierarchy of needs stuff. Right,
Speaker 1: like that you're you're secure basically that you're safe and
Speaker 1: the like the idea um that the these things are
Speaker 1: sort of forming a cultural I don't know, safety net
Speaker 1: for you, right is comforting. Yeah, it's crazy how we
Speaker 1: we we build the safety net though, and each of us,
Speaker 1: to be clear, it kind of builds their own safety net. You.
Speaker 1: You may have the basic designs handed to you with
Speaker 1: varying degrees of detail by by your particular faith or
Speaker 1: whoever your sort of faith leader is, officially or unofficially,
Speaker 1: but you were you were designing the exact parameters of
Speaker 1: it based on your your attention to the details that
Speaker 1: were given. Yeah, so let's go back to this paper
Speaker 1: in the negative association part. Yeah. So, as far as
Speaker 1: negative associations go, this ni Olton paper is the first,
Speaker 1: apparently to make an argument for the negative associations of
Speaker 1: demonic belief. So they're the first to really narrow in
Speaker 1: on demons alone and say, well, how does this how
Speaker 1: does this play into the positive and negative manifestations? And
Speaker 1: so They employed a what's called structural equation modeling system
Speaker 1: or s e M with panel data, and they used
Speaker 1: the National Study of Youth and Religion or the n
Speaker 1: S y R. And they do this to to show
Speaker 1: that a belief in demons leads to later changes or
Speaker 1: declines in mental health. Yeah. Uh, and we want to
Speaker 1: remind you too, they said they found no evidence to
Speaker 1: support the idea that poor mental health leads to a
Speaker 1: belief in demons. Right, so, uh, Demonic belief, though, is
Speaker 1: a predictor of future mental health issues. But that doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that if you're depressed or anxious or whatever, right,
Speaker 1: that you're necessarily going to go all of a sudden
Speaker 1: pick up the lesser key of Solomon and be like,
Speaker 1: these guys are all real. Yeah yeah, so and if
Speaker 1: you're not, If that doesn't make any sense to you,
Speaker 1: bear with us. We're gonna get into more detail about
Speaker 1: this so you'll understand how how belief in demons could
Speaker 1: lead to a decline in negative in mental health. So,
Speaker 1: this latest study explores an aspect of what's called e
Speaker 1: t a S, the evolutionary Threat Assessment system theory, and
Speaker 1: this is the brain child of Kevin J. Flannel E,
Speaker 1: Senior research researcher at the Center for Psychological Research at
Speaker 1: the University of Hawaii. So the idea here is that
Speaker 1: certain brain structures uh in the human brain, involving the
Speaker 1: prefrontal cortex, the olympic system, and the basil ganglia, developed
Speaker 1: to assess and respond to threats. This system stands as
Speaker 1: humanity's evolutionary threat assess assessment system e t a S.
Speaker 1: So when no clear threat exists, it may fire up anyway,
Speaker 1: kind of like an autoimmune dysfunction, and this can result
Speaker 1: in a vast array of anxiety and O C D yes.
Speaker 1: So this is actually very similar to the theory that
Speaker 1: we're also going to present in this week's other episode,
Speaker 1: which is about bats. Totally different topic, but about bats
Speaker 1: immune system, there's this theory that their immune system is
Speaker 1: is just always on, and it sounds like this theory
Speaker 1: for us is that our evolutionary threat assessment system is
Speaker 1: always on and it's mental instead of physical. So it
Speaker 1: seems to be causing us with social anxiety, paranoia, obsessive
Speaker 1: compulsive disorder, general anxiety. All of these things are manifesting
Speaker 1: of it. Right, So what's the upside to this? Fight
Speaker 1: or flight warning system constantly being on. I would assume
Speaker 1: it's alertness, right like being aware of your surrounding, situational awareness,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Well, I think you can think
Speaker 1: of it in terms of household security system. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you have the security system in place, right and it
Speaker 1: has a it took up to the phone line or
Speaker 1: a cellular system. So if certain sensors are triggered, it
Speaker 1: will call the authorities or call your you know, an
Speaker 1: agency that will contact the Okay, but you're gonna have
Speaker 1: But then it depends on where those sensors are, what
Speaker 1: to how jacked up those sensors that happen to be,
Speaker 1: you know, how your door, your window, etcetera. Right Like,
Speaker 1: So here's an example that might'm gonna I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: the US and and really work with this metaphor. Uh.
Speaker 1: I have an alarmed system in my house, and we
Speaker 1: have a motion sensor that's in the living room. But
Speaker 1: anytime we arm the system, we have to specifically enter
Speaker 1: in a code to disarm the motion sensor in the
Speaker 1: living room because I've got two dogs and two cats
Speaker 1: and they just constantly trigger it. Yeah. I've had the
Speaker 1: same scenario in the past where I had to actually
Speaker 1: tape up motion detectors in the house to keep animals
Speaker 1: from trigger. Right. And that's so if we're looking at
Speaker 1: this from this metaphor that this is the uh the
Speaker 1: e t a s right, that that's that's almost like
Speaker 1: a mental health upkeep right. It's like you're going, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, Yes, that that sensor is going to
Speaker 1: trigger when a specific thing goes off, But you need
Speaker 1: to teach yourself that it's actually not harmful. It's just
Speaker 1: the dogs and the cats, right or And this all
Speaker 1: comes down to worldview, and that's the the idea here
Speaker 1: is that your personal worldview is going to dictate what
Speaker 1: additional sensors are added to your suit, your personal security system,
Speaker 1: as well as to what degree are they amped up.
Speaker 1: So you know, obviously the door getting broken in or
Speaker 1: an entry occurring while you have the stay at home
Speaker 1: alarm on, that's going to trigger anybody's a system. But
Speaker 1: do you also have like a crazy motion detector in
Speaker 1: the living room or a hallway um or or or
Speaker 1: on the porch in a way that like bowling leaves
Speaker 1: or passing truck is going to set it off. That's
Speaker 1: kind of the idea here. Yeah, So it boils down
Speaker 1: to two worldviews, and this is how FLANNELI argues it. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it's it's sort of based around, you know, how
Speaker 1: risky you feel the world is. So the first worldview
Speaker 1: is a cynical one, and that's where you think that
Speaker 1: other people are generally selfish and shouldn't be trusted. The
Speaker 1: second one is when the world is generally equitable, uh,
Speaker 1: and it's thought to be fair and just. Now, depending
Speaker 1: on which one of these you lean toward, it could
Speaker 1: alter the threshold at which you respond to certain perceived
Speaker 1: threats in your environment. These responses can be both functional
Speaker 1: and dysfunctional. Right, So Flannel E is basically arguing that
Speaker 1: the equitable worldview is less threatening and raises the threshold
Speaker 1: to trigger our e T A S systems. Now, for me,
Speaker 1: I gotta be honest, like, if I have to choose
Speaker 1: between those two, I'm I fall into the cynical worldview camp.
Speaker 1: You know. I wish I could say that I didn't,
Speaker 1: but I do, you know, but probably based on a
Speaker 1: combination of nature and nurture stuff, I definitely uh feel
Speaker 1: like the world is a selfish place and I shouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily trust other people. I know that that's not healthy,
Speaker 1: and it's something that I've been working on and will
Speaker 1: probably continue working on for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: But that's how that's I know that that's what sets
Speaker 1: off my triggers. Well, I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: do have to sort of juggle those two different versions
Speaker 1: of the world view, right because I'm I'm in my
Speaker 1: own mind. I'm often I can find myself sort of
Speaker 1: the encountering the two budding heads of you know, your
Speaker 1: encounter uh stranger, say on the street, and there is
Speaker 1: that there's the temptation to want to view them. I
Speaker 1: was another that could be potentially dangerous, etcetera, and uh,
Speaker 1: and then there's the other side that reminds you, well,
Speaker 1: this is just a person. This is just somebody, probably
Speaker 1: much like yourself, and people are basically not horrible. Um.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of when I first moved to the
Speaker 1: South from Boston, because in Boston, you walk around on
Speaker 1: the street, you see a stranger, you don't look at them,
Speaker 1: you look down, you walk past them, and you ignore them. Right. Uh,
Speaker 1: here you see a stranger. They waved to you, they
Speaker 1: say good morning, they smile at you. And I was
Speaker 1: like freaked out by that. At first, I was like,
Speaker 1: what what what do you want? You know, like that
Speaker 1: was my reaction. And it took me. I've lived here
Speaker 1: for eleven years now, it's taken me this long to
Speaker 1: get comfortable with it to the point where I noticed,
Speaker 1: like I was just in Seattle a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and I was walking around on the street and started
Speaker 1: smiling and saying good morning to people, and they were
Speaker 1: looking at me like I was crazy. Well. One thing
Speaker 1: to keep in mind too here is that when we
Speaker 1: say the world, the world is basically a good place,
Speaker 1: world is basically a bad place. There of course, it's
Speaker 1: going to be different worlds for any individual. There's often
Speaker 1: my world and then the other world. So in certain
Speaker 1: religious situations, you could be the world withinside within your
Speaker 1: own church, within your own faith, and then there is
Speaker 1: the outside world. Or you live in a rural environment
Speaker 1: and then there's the other world of the city, or
Speaker 1: vice versa. Totally. That's something I encounter a lot since
Speaker 1: I grew up in a more rural setting and I
Speaker 1: live in a more urban setting, So I encounter people
Speaker 1: who have the attitude of, you know, distrust the rural
Speaker 1: environment or don't go out into the country to lose
Speaker 1: your life here in Atlanta O t P. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: then you also encounter the same thing right where people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, if I go into Atlanta, I'm probably
Speaker 1: going to die. I've absolutely encountered that. Yeah. I did
Speaker 1: a job interview once where somebody told me that he
Speaker 1: specifically never came inside the perimeter to Atlanta because he
Speaker 1: wanted to just avoid anything to do with the city
Speaker 1: for basically those same reasons. Hey, this is a total tangent,
Speaker 1: But I have to ask, have you listened to S
Speaker 1: Town at all yet? No? I have not. Okay, I
Speaker 1: think you'd like it. Um. I know Tripod month is over,
Speaker 1: but and probably if our listeners are listening to us,
Speaker 1: they've probably checked out US Town already. But man, it's
Speaker 1: good stuff. And it's very much related to this concept
Speaker 1: of urban versus rural identification. I'll have to check that out.
Speaker 1: Uh So. So the basic idea here again is that
Speaker 1: a person's beliefs about the riskiness of the world in
Speaker 1: general effects their e t a S. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: the exact worldview you have can alter the threshold at
Speaker 1: which the e t a S starts kicking in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's worth remembering too that in many religions, as
Speaker 1: we talked about, sickness can be viewed as being caused
Speaker 1: by these demonic forces. Right, So let's say you've got
Speaker 1: a cynical worldview and you believe in demonic forces, so
Speaker 1: you're going to be constantly on high alert that something
Speaker 1: is being caused by them. Right, Demons and evil powers
Speaker 1: are depicted as the enemy of God or the gods,
Speaker 1: depending on what you know particular religion subscribe to. So
Speaker 1: it makes sense to hypothesize that if the reverse holds true.
Speaker 1: Since previous research implied that belief in a loving God
Speaker 1: was associated with better mental health, these guys said, we
Speaker 1: should probably take a look at what belief in supernatural
Speaker 1: evil does as well. All right, So Na and Olsen
Speaker 1: they focused on again on the n S y are
Speaker 1: the Natural Study of Youth and Religion. This is a
Speaker 1: research project directed by Christian Smith, professor in the Department
Speaker 1: of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, and it
Speaker 1: entails at and ninety Americans. Now you might be wondering
Speaker 1: why this one, right, Well, they said, quote because it
Speaker 1: is one of the few high quality panel studies with
Speaker 1: so many detailed questions about religion, religion questions that are
Speaker 1: repeated in each way of the study unquote, And it
Speaker 1: also covers the time in people's life when they quote
Speaker 1: experience significant changes in both really religiosity and mental health.
Speaker 1: So a lot of this relates to the expected challenges
Speaker 1: of growing up, takeing on new responsibilities, encountering new stresses,
Speaker 1: and often experiencing reduced interesting religion. Yeah, so they liked
Speaker 1: the n S y R because it specifically addresses those
Speaker 1: concerns for young adults. Now, think about it. You know,
Speaker 1: back to maybe some of you are young adults and
Speaker 1: you're listening to this, but back to when I was
Speaker 1: a young adult. You know, it's a time when you're
Speaker 1: more likely to experience changes in your religious beliefs and
Speaker 1: your mental health. Uh, consider all the stresses of being
Speaker 1: a young adult, your financial responsibility, that frequent relocation, the
Speaker 1: resulting weakening social ties as you move away from your
Speaker 1: friends or your family. Maybe that's not identifiable for everybody listening,
Speaker 1: but for me, that was absolutely the situation. Like I was,
Speaker 1: like I had that kind of bank account where I
Speaker 1: was living check to check for like probably most of
Speaker 1: my early twenties. Um, I did. I hadn't lived with
Speaker 1: my parents for a long time, and my parents didn't
Speaker 1: even really have like a central location home anywhere that
Speaker 1: I could go to much less like you know, a
Speaker 1: hometown with friends and family in it that I felt
Speaker 1: like was like kind of a safe fallback for me,
Speaker 1: you know. So there was a lot of that stress.
Speaker 1: And I then I think about it, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: this was also probably the beginning of the end for
Speaker 1: me in terms of religiosity. Um. And I say that,
Speaker 1: but I have to clarify, you know. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: think I brought this up on the show before too,
Speaker 1: that like, I'm not religious in the sense that I
Speaker 1: follow like a particular organized religion, but I do have
Speaker 1: I guess, spiritual beliefs you would call them. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: this sounds a little hokey when I'm saying it out loud,
Speaker 1: but like, I don't identify as an atheist. No. No,
Speaker 1: I think this is good because I have I have
Speaker 1: kind of a similar spiritual trajectory there. I like, I
Speaker 1: I when I look back on my life, when I
Speaker 1: would have lined up with their study, and I think
Speaker 1: probably my belief in demons was it was probably at
Speaker 1: its at its high point then, because this was again
Speaker 1: a time when there were stories of people encountering demons
Speaker 1: performing extress is um. Uh. This idea of sort of
Speaker 1: spiritual warfare uh and Christianity was seemed to be very
Speaker 1: prevalent at the time, uh, at least in the circles
Speaker 1: I was I was moving in and uh. And since then,
Speaker 1: like that has changed. So today I'm I'm I'm certainly
Speaker 1: not an atheist, but I I do not believe in
Speaker 1: the existence of demons or or hell. And I feel
Speaker 1: like it's it's kind of like one is given a
Speaker 1: big lunch tray full of items, and these contain both
Speaker 1: that edible and inedible religious ideas contains beneficial and uh
Speaker 1: and and at times, you know, highly destructive religious ideas.
Speaker 1: And over the course of your life, you you figure
Speaker 1: out which ones you can get rid of, which ones
Speaker 1: you can throw in the trash, and just keep the
Speaker 1: the items on the plate that that have a positive
Speaker 1: effect on your life and your worldview. Yeah. And actually,
Speaker 1: you know, what you and I are both talking about
Speaker 1: from our subjective experiences lines up with what they found
Speaker 1: in the N S y R. Uh. So it's a
Speaker 1: longitudinal study. It covers three waves of ages, uh, starting
Speaker 1: with thirteen years old to seventeen years old. For me,
Speaker 1: that was peaked demon time. Uh, then sixteen years old
Speaker 1: to twenty one years old, and then again from eighteen
Speaker 1: to twenty four years old. Of these respondents, UH, now, ideally,
Speaker 1: the guys who authored this paper we're talking about today,
Speaker 1: they would love a survey that had more data relating
Speaker 1: to items with depression, right, but that just wasn't built
Speaker 1: into this particular study. UM. They did mention though, that
Speaker 1: there is another study that that found that there is
Speaker 1: a you know, a common transition to young adulthood that
Speaker 1: is characterized by a rapid decline in religiosity. Uh. There's
Speaker 1: also the two thousand ten National Survey on Drug Use
Speaker 1: and Health, and that found that thirty percent of young
Speaker 1: adults that's people eighteen to twenty five years old, reported
Speaker 1: having had mental illness in the last year. And then
Speaker 1: people who are ages twenty six to forty nine and
Speaker 1: that's you and me, were down to and then by
Speaker 1: the time you get to fifty or older, you're down
Speaker 1: to fourteen percent of that population reporting mental illness within
Speaker 1: a year. So it seems like and this this kind
Speaker 1: of lines up with my experience, not only just like
Speaker 1: as me as an adult in my challenges with mental health,
Speaker 1: but also the people around me that I've encountered that
Speaker 1: the older you get, the easier it gets. I don't know,
Speaker 1: easier is maybe like, uh, maybe a little bit too
Speaker 1: like heavy of a term to use, but that, um,
Speaker 1: coping mechanisms come into place. Yeah, Yeah, definitely, coping mechanisms
Speaker 1: come into place. And uh, and I guess in many
Speaker 1: cases to the opportunities for major battles with one's um,
Speaker 1: you know, particular mental health scenario come about they've passed. Yeah. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: in terms of coping mechanisms, though, it's worth pointing out
Speaker 1: there have been a couple of studies. Uh. They site
Speaker 1: Blaine and Crow and then another two thousand study they
Speaker 1: present the idea that the religion can and does serve
Speaker 1: as a coping strategy during this time for many people.
Speaker 1: So the corporamis here is that believe in the loving
Speaker 1: God makes the world seem predictable and secure. Yeah. Like
Speaker 1: I was talking about before, this is one of those
Speaker 1: key phases of human needs if you look at Maslow's
Speaker 1: hierarchy of needs, right, but if you also have a
Speaker 1: belief in evil supernatural beings that makes the world seem unpredictable, insecure,
Speaker 1: and dangerous, and it leads us to anxiety and stress,
Speaker 1: just like any similar tangible effects would, right, think of
Speaker 1: crime or war or disease. Right, So the belief in
Speaker 1: these uh, you know, evil beings, whether they're demons or
Speaker 1: or what have you, uh sort of contributes in the
Speaker 1: same way that those real world factors do. All right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take one more quick break and then we
Speaker 1: come back. We'll jump back into the study. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back. So in this study, the researchers used the
Speaker 1: the SCM model, and this treats uh two variables of
Speaker 1: mental illness and belief and demons as simultaneously independent and
Speaker 1: dependent variables. So at its core, their methodology is designed
Speaker 1: to improve on previous studies that only looked at college
Speaker 1: students that weren't suited sample wise for finding causal influence
Speaker 1: between the religious and mental health variables. So they determined
Speaker 1: mental illness based on five observable mental health items. Again,
Speaker 1: they were kind of limited by the questions in the
Speaker 1: study just because this wasn't a study. The survey itself
Speaker 1: wasn't a survey that they wrote. They took a pre
Speaker 1: existing survey that had pre existing data. Yeah, they're basically
Speaker 1: taking a pre existing body of data and then computing
Speaker 1: that crunching the numbers there to answer some questions that
Speaker 1: they had. Yeah, So they looked at depression, sadness, loneliness, misunderstanding, uh, purposelessness,
Speaker 1: social invisibility, um, you know, the feeling of being unloved.
Speaker 1: And they left off a sixth theory a guilt. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember reading that part there. It wasn't a sure why,
Speaker 1: but I think it was that they didn't feel like
Speaker 1: there was necessarily a correlation between guilt as it was
Speaker 1: defined in the survey and mental health as they were
Speaker 1: defining it as a negative trade in association with belief
Speaker 1: in demons, if that makes sense. Alright. So these mental
Speaker 1: health items were in turn backed up with frequency ratings
Speaker 1: one through five, always through never. Demonic belief came to
Speaker 1: a scale of one to three definitely, maybe or not
Speaker 1: at all. And the researchers also took into account items
Speaker 1: from the survey related to so called positive benefits of
Speaker 1: religion so angels, afterlife, belief, etcetera, as well as demographic
Speaker 1: measures and they all loaded all of this into a
Speaker 1: program and computed. Yeah. I mean, we could walk through
Speaker 1: this like incredibly complex mathematical methodology that they had. But
Speaker 1: if you're that interested, go find this paper or talk
Speaker 1: to these authors. I'm sure they'd be happy to tell
Speaker 1: you about it. I don't know necessarily that it's listener
Speaker 1: friendly for us to walk through equations, right, we will
Speaker 1: just be brief and say this is where the mathematics happen,
Speaker 1: and then we get the findings. So the findings are
Speaker 1: broken down into four tables of data and and here's
Speaker 1: the real take home with a with a lot of
Speaker 1: caveats about the limits of the survey information and the
Speaker 1: fact that mental health is a diverse construct, all right,
Speaker 1: because that's that's instantly the you know, the problem anyone's
Speaker 1: gonna have. And especially if anyone starts saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, this is just a soft science, etcetera. The
Speaker 1: researchers definitely take this into account and say, yes, this
Speaker 1: is just this is just a study. We're trying to
Speaker 1: tackle something that is very difficult to to tackle in
Speaker 1: the form of mental health. Here's what here's what they
Speaker 1: have to say. Quote, when predicting mental health. Self rated health,
Speaker 1: an obvious predictor of mental health, is the strongest predictor,
Speaker 1: followed by feeling close to God, but believing in demons
Speaker 1: and evil spirits is the next strongest predictor of mental health,
Speaker 1: with an effect size that slightly edges out belief in
Speaker 1: angels another supernatural belief that is strongly correlated with belief
Speaker 1: in demons, but that has a positive relationship with mental health.
Speaker 1: And then there's another quote here I want to read
Speaker 1: that really drives home their their findings. The STM results
Speaker 1: also suggest that the negative associations of demon belief and
Speaker 1: mental health cannot be explained by reverse causal influences. Mental
Speaker 1: health has no apparent statistically significant effect on later changes
Speaker 1: in belief in demons. Our results suggest that the main direct,
Speaker 1: non spurious causal influence between those two variables is from
Speaker 1: belief in demons to declining mental health. So this is interesting.
Speaker 1: This is where I sort of come up with my
Speaker 1: own theory that I am probably not going to write
Speaker 1: a research paper on. But I'm curious what you think
Speaker 1: and then what also the audience thinks. Okay, so lining
Speaker 1: up with what we've talked about previous Lee on the show.
Speaker 1: We have an inherent cognitive dissonance here, right, at least
Speaker 1: with Christianity, I think the Christian God that you and
Speaker 1: I are familiar with. And and that's also something we
Speaker 1: should note is that this is a study because it
Speaker 1: was conducted in the United States, most of the respondents
Speaker 1: self identified as Christian. Wouldn't it stand a reason that
Speaker 1: if you believed in a Christian God, you would also
Speaker 1: believe in demons per the Bible? Right now, that gets
Speaker 1: in what I was saying before and how you were
Speaker 1: talking about it, sort of the lunch train metaphor, right
Speaker 1: that you sort of take pieces, um, you we think
Speaker 1: of it as being like, well, if you're Christian, you
Speaker 1: believe in in a loving God and you believe in demons,
Speaker 1: you believe in everything that's written in the Holy Book, right,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily right, um, and so but let's let's
Speaker 1: continue that. If that's so, you've got this weird tug
Speaker 1: of war going on between the positive mental health of
Speaker 1: believing in a loving God and the negative mental health
Speaker 1: of believing in evil supernatural forces. Those are sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, cause in cognitive dissonance within you. I would
Speaker 1: imagine that this manifests in questioning of faith, right, Um,
Speaker 1: and that leads people to ask, why would a loving
Speaker 1: God allow these evil things to happen? Well, that's that's
Speaker 1: that's quite a final question to respond to them. Um.
Speaker 1: I would say that one thing to keep in mind
Speaker 1: is that evidence has shown that that even if cognitive
Speaker 1: dissonance is not like like just super strong in one's mind,
Speaker 1: a lot of us are going to have multiple beliefs
Speaker 1: kind of sharing the same space. I've seen this is
Speaker 1: written about, particularly in terms of the afterlife. So an
Speaker 1: individual who follows, you know, Christian tradition, and they might
Speaker 1: have like three different modes, like they might sort of
Speaker 1: believe in ghosts even though their faith and there that
Speaker 1: they're sort of their faith brain and their reason brain.
Speaker 1: Don't believe in ghosts is sort of a pop cultural
Speaker 1: um idea of ghosts that's still difficult to share. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally know people who aren't religious at all who
Speaker 1: are like ghost hunters. Yeah, So I mean you can
Speaker 1: your your brain has a room from multiple interpretations of
Speaker 1: the same thing. Now, the first question that you ask
Speaker 1: is it's kind of deceptively complex, isn't it. Because you
Speaker 1: put your if you put your faith in an ancient
Speaker 1: text like the Bible, there's generally a certain amount of
Speaker 1: selective interpretation or selective reading involved. To say nothing about
Speaker 1: the sort of curated selective interpretation based on the particulars
Speaker 1: of your faith the faith leaders, translators new and old, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So to what extent after, you know, after everything, are
Speaker 1: demons in the gospel literal? Are they figurative or they
Speaker 1: misinterpretations of mental illness? Uh? And if we do confront
Speaker 1: the fact that religious faith is a selective invocation, uh,
Speaker 1: should we just not go all the way out with it? Right?
Speaker 1: Should we just cast out the bad, all the negative
Speaker 1: aspects of religion to get in the way of improving
Speaker 1: your life? Um? And it kind of comes back to
Speaker 1: the salad bars lunchroom tray scenario that I keep keep
Speaker 1: thinking of the idea that you're either you're either choosing
Speaker 1: what you decide to put in your brain and into
Speaker 1: your personal worldview, or you're deciding what you want to
Speaker 1: scrape away after additional additional information has come to light
Speaker 1: in additional uh, you know, life experiences have occurred. Um.
Speaker 1: That's my personal take anyway, is that you we we all,
Speaker 1: we all are are tinkering with our worldview. We're all
Speaker 1: selectively um adding or or removing things from our religious faith.
Speaker 1: So why not just create the ideal? Edit? Why not
Speaker 1: taking all the negative stuff, cast the demons aside, cast
Speaker 1: the hell aside. Uh, just use those elements that are
Speaker 1: gonna have a beneficial effect on your worldview. I think
Speaker 1: it's entirely, entirely possible for most people. Yeah, I do too,
Speaker 1: And I like I look at it, you know, I
Speaker 1: pulled back the lens and I kind of look at
Speaker 1: the world around me, and I see there's a struggle
Speaker 1: sort of religiously between like fundamentalism and then what what
Speaker 1: fundamentalists see as sort of a hypocritical Christians, right, like
Speaker 1: the who are not practicing everything by the book literally? Uh,
Speaker 1: but then what is by the book? It brings me
Speaker 1: back to the preacher on the Simpsons asking that writers.
Speaker 1: He said, if you actually read this book, technically we're
Speaker 1: not allowed to do anything right? Right? Right? Well, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And I guess I think about it more as like
Speaker 1: the lunch train metaphor that you're talking about that self care, right,
Speaker 1: because if you you take the lessons from that, uh,
Speaker 1: that work for you, That allow you to have positive
Speaker 1: mental health that make you feel good about yourself in
Speaker 1: the world around you, don't make you cynical like me.
Speaker 1: Then then that seems to be a good thing, right, Um,
Speaker 1: Whereas like, if you take this very strict interpretive view
Speaker 1: that it seems like from this paper's findings, that's when
Speaker 1: you lead to you may be following it by the letter,
Speaker 1: but you're subsequently making yourself unhappy and maybe dysfunctional. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always go back to this, uh this one like
Speaker 1: Bible study encounter I had when I was in junior
Speaker 1: high and I forget even how it came up, but
Speaker 1: I we were talking about one thing and we had
Speaker 1: this this old remember of the church who was given
Speaker 1: the the youth talk there, and I was asking about
Speaker 1: the Book of Revelations. I was saying, well, what's this
Speaker 1: about this multi headed dragon? Is this coming to place?
Speaker 1: You and I were similar kids, And this guy was like, like,
Speaker 1: don't even worry about that. Like like he was like
Speaker 1: pretty much straight up, just don't read the Book of Revelation.
Speaker 1: What does that have to do with anything? And at
Speaker 1: the time, I was like, oh man, that sucks. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the dragons and the demons and
Speaker 1: all the cool stuff that occurs. But I find that
Speaker 1: that that that his view is more in keeping with
Speaker 1: the way I currently approach models of religious faith. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think about my dad, who have talked on this
Speaker 1: show a little bit about before, and like, you know,
Speaker 1: my father is has become more religious and and sort
Speaker 1: of more strictly interpretive as he gets older. And like
Speaker 1: I mentioned that last year he thought the world was
Speaker 1: going to end for sure in October because they were
Speaker 1: like specific conspiracy theory sites that he went to that
Speaker 1: lined up all this language from the Bible that really
Speaker 1: pointed to October of twenty sixteen is being the time,
Speaker 1: you know, um, And and he he looks at the
Speaker 1: Book of Revelations and he tries to sort of decode it, right,
Speaker 1: and all of that seems to make him unhappy, Like
Speaker 1: it's obsessive in a way, and like he's trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what the answers to the world are. It's again,
Speaker 1: it's the whole cultural context thing, right, Like how does
Speaker 1: this piece of culture tell me how this world works
Speaker 1: around me? Because everything is so chaotic? Like I remember, um,
Speaker 1: one of the things he used to talk to me
Speaker 1: about when I was a kid was like, oh, well, clearly,
Speaker 1: whenever it references like a swarm of locusts in revelation,
Speaker 1: what that actually means is like a battalion of army helicopters.
Speaker 1: Because if you were John and you were teleported into
Speaker 1: the future and you saw helicopters, you would think they
Speaker 1: were giant locusts. Okay, So it was stuff like that. No,
Speaker 1: I see, I see what you're saying. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that that lines up exactly what we're talking about here
Speaker 1: to what extent are are these details of one's religion, Uh,
Speaker 1: going to have a negative effect on just the way
Speaker 1: you interact with the world, in your expectations of the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So back to the study. The authors actually they found
Speaker 1: that the literature on spiritual warfare, meaning the religious literature,
Speaker 1: and they looked at a lot of pentecostal stuff that
Speaker 1: allowed these beliefs to actually coexist. So I'm I was
Speaker 1: talking about the cognitive dissonance of them coexisting, but they said, hey,
Speaker 1: sometimes the texts can actually make these things co exist. Um,
Speaker 1: so believers in a loving God can still experience negative
Speaker 1: events which validate their idea that demonic forces can act
Speaker 1: in powerful and unpredictable ways to disrupt their lives. They
Speaker 1: were also confused by one of their results. They said,
Speaker 1: previous studies have found that people who say religion and
Speaker 1: spirituality are important to them have fewer depressive symptoms, but
Speaker 1: they found a negative relationship where it was a predictor
Speaker 1: of future changes in mental health. They didn't have enough
Speaker 1: analysis to be comfortable including any of that in the
Speaker 1: conclusions from their results, but they said, this was kind
Speaker 1: of an odd little blip that popped up when we
Speaker 1: were crunching the numbers. The other thing they did want
Speaker 1: to recognize, there's a bunch of limitations as a study.
Speaker 1: This is one of those studies that's really good in that,
Speaker 1: like at the end it says, here's all the problems
Speaker 1: with our study, Hey, please go replicate it and try
Speaker 1: to rectify these problems that we weren't able to. So
Speaker 1: they said that they would have liked broader measures of
Speaker 1: mental health and the survey obviously, also, the study was
Speaker 1: limited to young adults, and therefore they didn't gather any
Speaker 1: data un middle aged and older adults, so they weren't
Speaker 1: really able to tell whether or not the negative relationship
Speaker 1: persists in older age, although from previous literature, it seems
Speaker 1: like it doesn't uh. And then finally, like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: the study was only conducted in the US, so Christianity
Speaker 1: is the dominant religion here. Yes, there were other religions
Speaker 1: that were represented in the survey, but not in the
Speaker 1: way that they would be if we were conducting this internationally. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and it's worth driving home that there's still plenty
Speaker 1: of room for anxiety concerning supernatural evil UH and the
Speaker 1: afterlife and the judgmental aspects of one's god or pantheon
Speaker 1: in in various religions throughout the world. Like I often
Speaker 1: come back to Tibetan Buddhism as an example of this,
Speaker 1: where we often have this this sort of academic Western
Speaker 1: view of it, where we just think of this this
Speaker 1: you know, wonderful art, fascinating system, and it is a
Speaker 1: fascinating UH system, and the and the art is wonderful.
Speaker 1: But we often have this more spiritual interpretation of it
Speaker 1: that is a bit a moved from what I understand
Speaker 1: to understand to be a more common Tibetan UH interpretation
Speaker 1: of it, where it's more it's it's more anxiety base,
Speaker 1: there's more of this there's a lot of energy that
Speaker 1: goes into worrying over your transition to the next phase
Speaker 1: in the in the in the wheel of life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess at this point in my particular life, like
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how the world works is less
Speaker 1: important to me than trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: be healthy and functional. Um. Now, I'm interested obviously in
Speaker 1: the other stuff. Otherwise I wouldn't show like this. But
Speaker 1: you know, there has to be a balance there. Now,
Speaker 1: I want to ask the audience, and I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's an answer apparent right here in
Speaker 1: front of us, but why do you think it is
Speaker 1: that this, this thing, belief in demons is the strongest
Speaker 1: predictor of future changes in somebody's mental health. That's really
Speaker 1: curious to me. Um. So, you know, I'm We've definitely
Speaker 1: presented our subjective experiences he yere. I know from listeners
Speaker 1: writing into us in the past when we do demonology episodes,
Speaker 1: they've got a lot of experiences with this too. So
Speaker 1: I've just I've been interested. Yeah. Plus, you know, I
Speaker 1: want to hear from anyone, you know, people out there
Speaker 1: who are faithful to varying degrees, tell me how to
Speaker 1: do how to have this belief in demons factor into
Speaker 1: your personal belief system and can can you can you
Speaker 1: actually argue that they benefit your religious worldview in any
Speaker 1: way aside from sort of the classic well if I
Speaker 1: believe in this, I have to believe in this. But
Speaker 1: what if you didn't have to believe in b along
Speaker 1: with a Could you discard it and still have this
Speaker 1: system work for you? I've always thought of it, you know,
Speaker 1: especially based on my experience with um, with being going
Speaker 1: to that Southern Baptist school and I was a little kid.
Speaker 1: It's like the electric chair of religion. Right, It's like
Speaker 1: this deterrent um that's built into the very identity of it. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like, if you don't do the right thing, this
Speaker 1: will happen to you. Yeah, which, yeah, that's that was
Speaker 1: how it was always taught to me. It was like,
Speaker 1: if you are not a good Christian and you don't
Speaker 1: let your soul be saved, then you will become possessed
Speaker 1: and you will murder your family. Yeah. And this this
Speaker 1: gets into the like the larger philosophical question, right people
Speaker 1: are people good because there's a payoff for being good?
Speaker 1: Are the only good? Because there is some supernatural or
Speaker 1: or real physical force there to make them behave, and
Speaker 1: that remains an open question of discussion with strong arguments
Speaker 1: for the ages. All right, Well, if you want to
Speaker 1: write us in and talk to us more about demons,
Speaker 1: we'd love that. We are all over the place on
Speaker 1: social media. We're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're on tumbler,
Speaker 1: and we are on Instagram. You also can find all
Speaker 1: of the links to those sites on stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That's where we've got the blog posts,
Speaker 1: where we've got our videos. It's where all that monster
Speaker 1: stuff that I was telling you about that Roberts composed
Speaker 1: over the years, lives and every single podcast. All right,
Speaker 1: and if you want to get in touch with the
Speaker 1: old fashioned way, shoot us an email at Blow the
Speaker 1: Mind how stuff Works dot com for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works
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