One might think that science chases away ghosts. The opposite occurs for some believers. An American study published in Social Forces reveals that people who value reason and critical thinking the most, while maintaining a link to religion, are also the ones who believe most in curses and spirits.
- A study of 1,812 American adults shows that 40% of God-believers who strongly embrace “secular rationalism” also believe in magic, compared with 19% among others.
- This secular rationalism, which blends trust in science with personal spirituality, reduces belief in miracles but strengthens belief in magic and in superstitions.
- This phenomenon concerns only people who maintain a link with religion; the effect disappears among those without religious affiliation or who do not believe in God.
- When Believing in Science Goes Hand in Hand with Belief in Ghosts
- The Surprising Profile of Modern Magic Enthusiasts
- Why Miracles Recede While Curses Advance
When Believing in Science Goes Hand in Hand with Belief in Ghosts
The starting point of this research rests on a simple question: does the retreat of religious institutions signal the end of supernatural beliefs? Researchers Paul Froese, Isaiah King and Ruiqian Li, affiliated with Baylor University, Carson-Newman University and American University respectively, sought to verify whether science and reason truly reduce belief in ghosts and curses.
To do so, they drew on data from the Baylor Religion Survey, a survey of 1,812 American adults conducted by Gallup at the start of 2025. The responses were weighted to accurately reflect the adult population of the United States.
The results challenge a long-standing cliché. We often imagine that the more we trust science, the less we believe in spirits that haunt houses or in curses cast by an enemy. Yet the figures tell a very different story, provided we look a little more closely at who these believers of a particular kind are.
The Surprising Profile of Modern Magic Enthusiasts
The study authors coined a concept to describe this particular profile: secular rationalism. It denotes a worldview that blends several components: trust in science as the sole key to understanding reality, the importance placed on reason and human experience to judge good and evil, and a personalized form of spiritual interpretation, far from established religious dogmas.
What is striking is that this stance does not necessarily distance itself from magic. On the contrary, it sometimes leads there, but only for a very specific audience: those who nonetheless maintain a link with religion, whether through belief in God, affiliation with a community, or regular practice.
The numbers speak for themselves. Among people who believe in God, 40% of those who strongly embrace secular rationalism also lean toward belief in magic, compared with only 19% among those who reject this stance. An gap that, according to the researchers, can be explained by a distinction between personal faith and institutional authority. A church can very well validate the idea of divine miracles while sternly condemning divination or communication with the dead. But an individual who favors their own spiritual judgment, rather than the rules of their community, no longer feels bound to respect that boundary. They may then draw freely from reason, faith, and belief in ghosts, without seeing a contradiction.
Why Miracles Recede While Curses Advance
The study carefully distinguishes three categories of supernatural beliefs. Miracles, which refer to direct divine intervention. Magic, which encompasses ghosts, curses, spirits, communication with the dead, or the prediction of the future. And finally everyday superstitions, such as avoiding certain words deemed unlucky to utter.
Yet secular rationalism does not operate the same across these three categories. The higher its score, the less people believe in miracles, which is unsurprising for a worldview that places science at the center. By contrast, the same score is accompanied by a stronger endorsement of magic and superstitions—a result that is decidedly counterintuitive.
This shift is not found in everyone. Among people without religious affiliation or who do not believe in God, the association between secular rationalism and belief in magic either disappears or becomes much less clear. The phenomenon therefore seems specific to those who keep one foot in religion while claiming intellectual independence, a middle ground that would actually foster the emergence of hybrid beliefs, halfway between reason and the supernatural.
This study invites a nuanced reading of a too-simple narrative—that modernity would mechanically erase the supernatural in favor of reason. Reality is more subtle. When religious institutions lose authority, they do not merely free up space for science; they also create a space where everyone reshapes their own beliefs, sometimes the most rational as well as the most mysterious, according to their mood of the moment.
Article prepared with the help of AI · Our method
