The human tendency to resort to magical explanations may be accounted for by attempts of superstitious people to empower themselves through energy-saving, unintellectual shortcuts. The scientific method is difficult and time-consuming. Magical explanations, however, are immediately gratifying and effortless.

We may recall that when the year 1900 approached, people indulged in all sorts of magical predictions. Needless to say, none of these predictions came to pass. The current approach of the year 2000 can be expected to generate similar or even greater superstitions, because it is not just a century mark but a millennial mark.

One would hope that the hundred-year period since the magical nonsense of 1900 we would have achieved sufficient advances in education and in scientific thinking that magical beliefs would be much diminished. Increased intellectual sophistication has developed in many areas, but it seems as if superstition is still powerful -- as evidenced by a staggering percentage of Americans who believe in astrology, reincarnation, crop circles, poltergeists, telepathy, communication with the dead, space aliens, premonitions, omens, clairvoyance, spirit possession, psychic surgery, an afterlife -- to say nothing of god, the "mother of all ghosts."

Journals such as American Atheist and Skeptical Inquirer make significant contributions to countering all this foolishness, but they may be preaching to the choir. Many who are most in need of science and skepticism remain as unaware of such publications as they are unaware of the scientific method generally. The increase in home schooling will make scientific ignorance increasingly prevalent.

One is left to try to explain the appeal of superstition, as it seems as if faith unfounded on empiricism will over the long haul be found wanting. Can we explain why some individuals -- even some non-retarded ones -- feel such an attraction to magic, or can we perhaps explain their need to force mindless superstition on others? The derogation of science, as in the creationism superstition, accounts for some of the scientific illiteracy in America, although it does seem as if some courts and some school systems are increasingly willing to stand up to religionists and may be starting to curtail the dumbing-down of our educational system.

Although there are various causal factors, the human tendency for magical explanations may be accounted for by attempts of superstitious people to empower themselves through energy-saving unintellectual shortcuts. The scientific method of reaching answers is more efficacious, but it is challenging and time-consuming. Reason, observation, and experience are all required, and challenging stages of work must be pursued over time in order to achieve meaningful tests of hypotheses. Scientific evidence is ultimately gratifying, but it accumulates slowly and requires perseverance.

In contrast, superstition may offer a compelling shortcut. Virtually all omens, spirits, and signs (and all magical solutions) afford nearly instant gratification. Thus, superstitious explanations appear to empower their adherents better and faster than does science which, by comparison, seems to be a plodding affair.

A society concerned with advertising and sales may be especially tempted to resort to instant gratification -- not only for products and services but to achieve rapid pseudo-explanations for existential (life) questions. The unintellectual shortcuts of superstition ostensibly save time and energy.

While superstition seems empowering in an easy way, we are also faced with the puzzle of end-of-the-world fantasies which crop up around century or millennial years. Clearly there is nothing in reality which makes a rounded-off year special, any more than moving past a rounded-off mileage on a car's odometer signifies anything. Such rounding-off milestones are based on nothing but happenstance or number systems, the passage of time, the calendar system, and other purely arbitrary factors. Where then do these end-of-the-world ideas really come from?

Studies of psychopathology may offer some insights. Psychotherapists who study and treat severe mental disorders are aware that some psychotics harbor what are called world-destruction fantasies: ideas that their world or civilization is about to end. Such fantasies may or may not be associated with rounded-off years. Psychologists suspect that psychotic patients may have a defect in the neurotransmitter systems in their brains. This essentially short-circuits their cognitive processes and prevents them from assessing reality accurately. Such patients become aware of this cognitive breakdown on some level; but, especially if not diagnosed and treated properly, they will feel highly threatened by their neurological breakdown but have no understandable, valid explanation for what they are experiencing. Some will attempt to externalize the threat from their ingrained reality testing and project it onto their environment. "I am not deterioriating; the world (or civilization) is, and thus it is not my personal (existential) problem."

Psychotics who already hold some religious beliefs and have indulged in society-wide institutionalized forms of magical ideation have a virtually ready-made explanation for their frightening cognitive confusion: "Some god is going to get me; better yet, get you -- because you are defective and evil and I am not." This is an attractive and face-saving explanation. It is energy-efficient and reassuring. It accounts for all kinds of doomsday and rapture mythologies.

Such rapture fantasies will most appeal to people who feel as if they are deteriorating and who also feel like profound failures in life. Their doomsday and millennium fantasies thus serve to explain and externalize a frightening feeling of deterioration, help to save face, and simultaneously fulfill a sadomasochistic desire for the demise of all the rest of us -- to the benefit of society's unfortunate failures. On their face, doomsday fantasies offer an interesting social-psychological study and hold no real threat. However, more disturbing is the possibility that a millennialist may come across the wherewithal to put his fantasy into effect -- in other words, a self-fulfilling prophesy may ensue. This has in fact occurred on limited levels, as at Waco and Jonestown. With nuclear arsenals available, it is conceivable that it might occur on a larger scale. Ronald Reagan, with his apocalypse mythology and expressed belief that we might be living in the end time prophesied in the Bible, may have exemplified this possibility.

It remains to be seen if millennialists or other religious fanatics endanger our society. But, at the least, they will be working to perpetuate magical thinking and will try to continue the dumbing-down of American culture -- at least for the next four years. 

John Higdon, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Missouri Medical School at Columbia, where he teaches medical psychology. Dr. Higdon was a featured speaker at the Sacramento convention of American Atheists in 1993, and has published numerous articles in American Atheist on the psychology of religion.