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Yes. A Social Forces study published in July 2026 found that Americans who retain a religious connection while giving science and personal reasoning more authority than religious institutions are unusually open to non-Divine supernatural beliefs, including ghosts and curses. The finding is an association in survey data—not evidence that trusting science causes paranormal beliefs.
What the 2026 study examined
Paul Froese, Isaiah King and Ruiqian Li analyzed responses from 1,812 U.S. adults in the 2025 Baylor Religion Survey, described as nationally representative. Their analysis compared a measure of “secular rationalism” with belief in six forms of non-Divine supernatural causation, including ghosts, curses and communication with the dead. The researchers also measured traditional beliefs in miracles, allowing them to distinguish belief in God from belief in other supernatural forces.
The key question was not whether Americans are religious or scientific in a simple either-or sense. It was whether people who remain religious, but rely more on science and individual judgment than on religious authorities, show a different pattern of paranormal belief.
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| Group | Higher secular-rationalist views | Lower secular-rationalist views |
|---|---|---|
| People who believe in God | 40% leaned toward non-Divine “magic” beliefs | 19% |
| People who attend religious services | 28% | 19% |
The relationship disappeared among people who never attend services and among people who do not believe in God. In other words, the unusual combination is concentrated among respondents who retain some religious connection while resisting the idea that religious institutions should control explanations of the world.
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What “secular rationalism” meant in the survey
The researchers built the measure from four ideas:
- Science is the only reliable way to understand the world.
- Moral decisions should rely on reason rather than religious teaching.
- People should interpret spiritual matters for themselves.
- Religious authorities should not be the sole arbiters of truth.
These views do not necessarily amount to atheism. In the Baylor survey, 64% of respondents said moral and ethical decisions should be based on human reason and experience rather than religious teachings, while 66% said they interpret religious and spiritual teaching on their own instead of relying on official teachings. The Social Forces analysis suggests that, for some religiously connected Americans, this independence from institutions coexists with belief in ghosts, curses or other unseen causes.
Why science trust and paranormal belief can coexist
The authors’ interpretation is that institutional secularization does not automatically produce a secular public. When churches and other authorities lose influence, people may not discard supernatural ideas; they may decide for themselves which spiritual claims to accept.
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That interpretation describes a possible social pattern, not a demonstrated psychological mechanism. The survey cannot establish whether confidence in science leads someone to believe in ghosts, whether paranormal beliefs encourage distrust of religious authorities, or whether another factor produces both. It also cannot show that every respondent uses “magic,” “ghost,” or “curse” in exactly the same way.
Ghost and curse beliefs are already widespread
The Baylor Religion Survey’s 2025 population figures show that paranormal belief is not a fringe position:
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- 49% said they believe in ghosts.
- 38% said they believe in curses.
- 31% said objects contain spirits.
- 41% said they have felt an evil presence.
- 31% said they perform a ritual or superstition to avoid evil.
These figures describe the prevalence of each belief in the survey; they are not the same statistic as the study’s comparison between higher- and lower-scoring secular-rationalist respondents.
How the result fits broader U.S. surveys
A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 65% of U.S. adults believe other spirits or unseen spiritual forces exist. Fourteen percent rejected that idea and roughly one-fifth were unsure. Pew also found that 74% believe there are things science cannot possibly explain, while 25% said science can explain everything even if people do not yet understand how.
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Gallup has separately reported that 39% of Americans believe in ghosts and that weekly churchgoers are less open to paranormal claims than people who attend infrequently. That result is not a direct contradiction of the Baylor analysis. The surveys used different dates, question wording, definitions of church attendance and measures of paranormal belief. Small changes in wording can alter who counts as a believer or an unsure respondent.
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What the study does—and does not—prove
What it supports
- Among people who believe in God, higher agreement with secular-rationalist ideas was associated with a 40% versus 19% difference in reported openness to non-Divine supernatural beliefs.
- Among service attenders, the comparable figures were 28% and 19%.
- The pattern was specific to people with an ongoing religious connection; it was not found among nonattenders or people who did not believe in God.
- Individual reasoning and institutional religious authority can coexist with supernatural belief.
What it cannot establish
- It does not prove that science education or trust in science causes belief in ghosts or curses.
- It does not show that attending church causes paranormal belief or protects against it.
- It does not explain how long these beliefs last or how people reconcile conflicting ideas in daily life.
- It does not provide a replication using the same questions in another sample.
When will the underlying Baylor data be available?
The Baylor Wave VII survey was fielded in early 2025. The published Social Forces article reports its analysis in 2026, but the survey page says the underlying data are expected to become available in 2027. That timing matters: the published findings can be evaluated now, while independent researchers may have to wait for the full microdata to reproduce every estimate.
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What this means for the everyday question
You can be religious, trust scientific methods and still believe in ghosts or curses. The study’s contribution is showing that these commitments are not always opposites in the U.S. population. For a subset of religiously connected adults, trusting science appears to go together with moving spiritual authority away from institutions and toward personal judgment. That is a correlation in 2025 survey responses, not a finding that science itself creates supernatural belief.
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