Circling Science

Sensing the presence of gods and spirits across cultures and faiths

Tanya M. Luhrmann, Kara Weisman, Felicity Aulino, Joshua D. Brahinsky, John C. Dulin, Vivian A. Dzokoto, Cristine H. Legare, Michael Lifshitz, Emily Ng, Nicole Ross-Zehnder and Rachel E. Smith · 2021

Evidence
Survey
Kind
Journal article
peer-reviewed
Method
Interviews and questionnaires in four studies in Ghana, Thailand, China, Vanuatu and the United States
Sample
More than 2,000 participants in five countries
Published
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(5), e2016649118

Background

Earlier work that helps you think about the practice, without being about it.

In four studies across five countries, people more often reported sensing gods or spirits when their culture saw the mind as open to the world and when they themselves tended to become absorbed in inner experience.

What it doesn’t show

Associations from interviews and questionnaires, not experiments, about spiritual experience rather than relating. It shows which people report such experiences, not how a community teaches them.

Summary based on the abstract and the full text’s overview of the four studies.

Directions that build on it

  1. Circling across cultures

    Builds on 7 works · 1 funding route

    Does Circling feel the same, and help as much, where people disclose less and ask for support less directly?

Links

Cite

Luhrmann, T. M., Weisman, K., Aulino, F., Brahinsky, J. D., Dulin, J. C., Dzokoto, V. A., Legare, C. H., Lifshitz, M., Ng, E., Ross-Zehnder, N., & Smith, R. E. (2021). Sensing the presence of gods and spirits across cultures and faiths. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(5), e2016649118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2016649118