Supernatural thinking: Your brain’s anti-anxiety mode | Clay Routledge

This interview is an episode from The Well, our new publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation.

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Intelligence is a double-edged sword. While it allows us to become enlightened and to make technological advances, it also causes great anxiety.

To help alleviate our anxiety, we turn to the supernatural — religion, ghosts, UFOs, and the paranormal.

Belief in the supernatural is largely driven by our need to cope with our own mortality and to make sense of a chaotic world.

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/belief-in-the-supernatural/

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About Clay Routledge:
Dr. Clay Routledge is a leading expert in existential psychology. His work examines how the human need for meaning in life influences and is influenced by different cognitive processes, self-regulation, momentous life experiences, personal and professional goals, creativity, social connections, spirituality and religiosity, entrepreneurship, and prosocial behavior.

Dr. Routledge has published over 100 scholarly papers, co-edited three books on existential psychology, and authored the books Nostalgia: A Psychological Resource and Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World.

His work has been featured by many media outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, ABC News, BBC News, CBC News, CNN, NBC Today, MSNBC, Men’s Health, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker. As a social commentator, Dr. Routledge has authored articles for a number of outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, USA Today, Scientific American, National Review, Entrepreneur, and Harvard Business Review. He was the lead writer for the TED-Ed animated lesson Why Do We Feel Nostalgia?

Dr. Clay Routledge is the Vice President of Research and the Director of the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute. He is also an editor at Profectus, a periodic web-based magazine focused on civilizational progress and human flourishing.

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Read more from The Well:
Are you a spectator to reality? Or are you its creator?
► https://bigthink.com/the-well/your-brain-creates-reality/
Can mathematics be spiritual? Ask Einstein
► https://bigthink.com/the-well/math-religion-awe/
Why Einstein is a “peerless genius” and Hawking is an “ordinary genius”
► https://bigthink.com/the-well/einstein-hawking-genius/

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About The Well
Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

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