Magical Thinking

There must be something about the end of January and named snowstorms. This year it is Juno–exactly a year ago it was Janus. I’m making plans for another mega shoveling event (Jupiter, Jorge, Jockstrap or something like that) in late January 2016, since clearly there’s a pattern here. Or maybe that’s just magical thinking . . . as I considered exactly a year ago.

I am a huge college basketball fan. Actually, I am a huge Providence College Friars fan, not surprising since I have taught at Providence College and lived in Providence for nineteen years and counting. There’s nothing like Division One college basketball—I have had two season tickets to Friars games for nineteen years and have probably missed no more than a dozen home games (except for the semester I was in Minnesota on sabbatical) during those nineteen years. Last week I drove through Snowstorm Janus to an evening game at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center, then posted smugly on Facebook “I am in my seat at the Dunk” for all of my Facebook acquaintances who consider themselves to be “fans” to read and be shamed by.

Early in our time here in Providence, I received a Friars sweatshirt for Christmas. I particularly liked it because it was a turtleneck sweatshirt. I like turtlenecks. They are an essential part of a professor’s winter wardrobe (usually worn with a corduroy jacket, an even more indispensable sartorial item—I have five). The comfort and warmth of this sweatshirt, along with its understated “Providence Friars” on the front, made it a “must wear” item for every home game.

 This item of clothing took on even greater importance when I realized, after several home games, that the Friars had never lost a home game that I attended wearing the sweatshirt. So, of course, I continued wearing it to home games and the Friars kept winning. This continued for more than one season, until on the way to a game one evening my son Justin noted that even though I do not have an extensive wardrobe, it was not necessary to wear the same damn thing to every game (especially since I also owned a T-shirt or two with the Friars logo). I then let him in on the secret: “We have never lost a game that I attended wearing this sweatshirt.” I felt that I had let my son in on one of the best-kept secrets of the universe, but he simply responded “Yes we have, Dad.” I vigorously denied his claim, of course, but to no avail. “You were wearing it at the final home game last year when Pittsburgh kicked our ass, and at the game before that when we lost in overtime to Villanova!” It sucks to have someone with total recall of trivial facts in the family—I knew better than to challenge his memory, since every time I have done so in the past I have been proven wrong. Thinking back, I speculated that Jeanne must have (without my knowledge) washed the sweatshirt for the first time ever before last year’s Villanova game and inadvertently washed away the secret substance that guaranteed Friars wins.

I had been a victim of magical thinking—the identification of causal relationships between actions and events where scientific consensus says there are no such relationships. There is logical fallacy  describing this way of thinking with the very cool name “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.” “After this, therefore because of this.” Since (at least according to my flawed memory) the Friars won every game that I wore my special sweatshirt to, I concluded that they must have won because I wore my special sweatshirt. Avid sports fans are notoriously susceptible to magical thinking—lucky clothes, coins, and ritualistic activities from what food and beverage is consumed on game day to the path driven to the sports bar all are treated as causal links to victory. But don’t scoff at or feel badly for the avid sports fans. All human beings are susceptible to magical thinking, often in areas of belief and activity far more serious than sporting events.

I am team-teaching a colloquium this semester that is rooted historically in 1930s and 40s Germany and the rise to power of the Nazis, and am learning that Adolf Hitler’s decision making throughout this period was energized almost exclusively by magical thinking. Believing that he had intuitive connections to truths and powers unavailable to others, Hitler cultivated the mystique and aura of a shaman, an aura that become more and more seductive and convincing to others as his actions over and over again led to seemingly “magical” results. As one scholar writes, “Hitler came to believe that he was blessed, that he was earmarked by Providence for a special mission. There was some kind of magical destiny for him.” Of course the destructive downside of such thinking is revealed when the conviction of a special destiny and connection to greater powers persists even when not verified by real world events. Magical thinking is answerable to no one other than the person doing the thinking, since it does an end run on logic, evidence and rational processes. As one of Hitler’s contemporaries described,

Hitler does not think in a logical and consistent fashion, gathering all available information pertinent to the problem, mapping out alternative courses of action, and then weighing the evidence pro and con for each of them before reaching a decision. His mental processes operate in reverse. Instead of studying a problem . . . he avoids it and occupies himself with other things until unconscious processes furnish him with a solution. Having the solution he then begins to look for facts that will prove that it is correct.

Hitler’s magical thinking was not  an aberration or evidence of psychosis or insanity. Although very few of us ever have the opportunity to use magical thinking as a basis for decision-making that affects millions of people directly, all of us are susceptible to it on a regular basis. Any time my belief in a connection between cause and effect is untouched by contrary data or information, magical thinking is involved. If I “know” that I am right even though I lack any reason to believe this other than my own “gut,” magical thinking is involved. And whenever I believe that with an appropriate prayer, pious activity, meditative silence or good deed I can force the divine hand into producing a desired result, I am definitely infected with magical thinking.

Magical thinking is more pervasive in religious belief than any other sort. Religious belief for many is energized by the question of how to tap into divine power, to cultivate a relationship with what is greater than us. From prayers said in a certain way through rosary beads to donations to charitable organizations, virtually any practice can take on the aura of being the way to attract God’s attention, to make it most likely that the divine interest will be drawn toward my little corner of the universe. Vast numbers of books have been written concerning and dollars spent promoting the latest suggestions as to how to get God involved directly in my wishes and desires. The funny thing is that such practices and activities often seem to work. I prayed in a certain way for a person to be healed, for someone else to find a job, for a favored politician to win election—and it happens. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Those who promote or invent seemingly successful techniques for gaining God’s attention rise to the status of guru or spiritual giant, and everything they say, write, or do takes on special significance.

But crashing disappointment always comes and it turns out that the life of faith is not magic after all. There are as many days and weeks of slogging through an apparently empty desert of belief as there are mountain top experiences when it seems that God must have decided to channel divine energy directly through me. It turns out that whatever the divine is, it is not a slot machine, a formula to be solved, or an incantation to be performed. This is why Jesus resisted performing miracles on demand. He knew that magical thinking is powerfully seductive because it is easy, because it seems to free us from the challenging work of day to day seeking. Jesus likened the divine to the wind, which we cannot predict and which blows where and when it wants. The very air we breathe is infused with the divine. Everything is sacramental, but there are no sacred cows.