How God Works: The Science Behind Spirituality – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Join us for Season 7 of How God Works, starting next week! 

We've had a lot of new listeners join us of the past year, so while we're hard at work on our next season, we thought we'd share some favorites you might have missed from the archives.

Have you ever heard a voice, seen an image, or felt a presence around you that you couldn’t explain? If you have, you’re not alone. 

More people than you might think report having these kinds of experiences. For some, it can be easy to write these off as tricks of the mind. But for others, especially the religious and spiritually-inclined, these events are often transformative and can profoundly alter the way they feel about their faith. So how is it that gods come to feel real to people? What do these experiences do for those who have them? And why, sometimes, does it feel like the supernatural world is connecting with us out of the blue?

Tanya Luhrmann is an anthropologist at Stanford University. Find out more about her book, How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others, on her website, where you’ll also find links to her other writing and media appearances.

Michael Ferguson is a neuroscientist at Harvard University. Find out more about his research and teaching through his website.

Reverend Liz Milner is ordained in the Episcopal Church. She works with prison inmates in northern California.

Episode info and transcript available here.

Ever heard of the Bartonian Metaphysical Society? How about the Druze? If you’re like most people, you probably haven’t. On this episode, we ask: What’s it like to be a member of a tiny religion in a world dominated by “Big God”?

From the early days of new religious movements to the precarious old age of ancient faiths, join Dave as we explore the unique experiences, joys and challenges of being one of the few rather than one of the many. We'll talk to sociologist Susan Jean Palmer about what religions are like when they're brand new, how they're born, and what it takes for them to grow. And we’ll talk to Zoroastrian Studies researcher Nazneen Engineer about the challenges of population decline and the enduring cultural legacy of her faith as its numbers dwindle.

Susan Jean Palmer is the author of eleven book-length sociological studies of new religious movements, including Aliens Adored: Rael’s New Religion, Moon Sisters, Krishna Mothers, Rajneesh Lovers and Storming Zion: Government Raids on Religious Communities. Find out more about her work here and learn about her research on children raised in minority religions here.

Nazneen Engineer was the first Postdoctoral Researcher at the Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies based at SOAS, University of London. Find out more about her work here, and learn about the survey of Zoroastrians she managed, Gen Z and Beyond: A Survey for Every Generation, here.

Religion is often about powerful beings coming down from the skies and humans yearning to go up to join them. Does that mean we can swap aliens in for God? More and more people seem to think so. In fact, many spiritually-minded people are looking to UFOs as opportunities to commune with enlightened alien teachers. Some believe they’re even aliens themselves, sent here to prepare us for a new age. But when religion gets mixed with conspiracy theory, things can sometimes take a darker turn.

Join Dave as he speaks with religious studies professor Diana Walsh Pasulka, about what belief in UFOs might share with other religions, and with anthropologist Susannah Crockford about how and why conspiracy theories are giving rise to a new spiritual movement.

Diana Walsh Pasulka is the author of Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligence and  American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. Find out more about her work on her website.

Susannah Crockford is the author of Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona, and the host of the new podcast Miss Information, a podcast about the ways online misinformation and conspiracy theories infiltrate wellness communities and conservative Christian spaces.

Also, be sure to check out Dave’s recent article in the Boston Globe on aliens as a new spiritual movement!

What makes a trip a pilgrimage? And why have people from across the globe made these treks for millennia? Is it the destination that makes these journeys so important to so many cultures? Or is it the community and meaning-making that happen along the way?  And how are people changed by the experience after they come home?

Join Dave as he talks with writer and New York Times contributor Aatish Taseer about what he saw last year when he went on pilgrimages into the hearts of three faiths. And with psychologist and leading pilgrimage scholar Heather Warfield, about how these treks, even in secular form, can improve mental health and wellbeing.

Aatish Taseer is the author of A Pilgrimage Year. Special thanks to Aatish for sharing recordings from his travels with us for use in today’s episode. Follow him on X @aatishtaseer and Instagram @aatishalitaseer.

Heather Warfield is a professor at Antioch University New England. Learn more about her work in the field of Pilgrimage Studies on her website.

Is religion a source of conflict, or a way to end it? From the tragic situation in the Middle East to rising Christian Nationalism in the US, it might seem the former. But for faiths that emphasize love, compassion, and forgiveness, might the latter also be true?

Join Dave as he talks with theologian Miroslav Volf about how religion blurs with political identity and violent ideologies, and why the answer to this problem might not be to remove religion from our lives and the public square, but to have more of it in both. And with anthropologist Benjamin Purzycki about how our views of what God wants can change in the face of conflict.

Miroslav Volf is a Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and the Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. Learn more about his work here and check out his podcast For the Life of the World.

Benjamin Grant Purzycki is an Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at Aarhus University in Denmark. Learn more about his work here and here.

Join us for Season 6 of How God Works, starting next week! 

Hey How God Works listeners! While we’re hard at work on Season 6, we’d like to invite you to check out No Small Endeavor, a podcast that explores what it means to live a good life, hosted by professor of theology and ethics Lee C. Camp.

Surveys show feelings of sadness and despair peaked in 2023. So as we look to the new year, it's understandable why any of us might be feeling pessimistic, even hopeless. But these feelings aren't written in stone. We always have a choice. It's in these darkest of times, when all feels lost, that hope helps us find our way...not just to heal ourselves, but also the world around us.

On this episode, we'll talk with the Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, about how he remains motivated and hopeful, even while covering some of the most tragic events in recent history. And he’ll offer a little advice for ways we can all rise above despair.

And we'll talk with Roshi Joan Halifax -- ecologist, civil rights activist, hospice caregiver, and founder of the Upaya Zen Center --  about the Buddhist-informed notion of wise hope, the equanimity it can bring, and the fierce compassion it can unleash.

Nicholas Kristof is the author of the forthcoming book Chasing Hope. Read his NYT columns here, and find out more about the cider he makes here.

Roshi Joan Halifax leads the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Learn more about her work on her website.

When it comes to treating addiction, twelve-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous are some of the most often used in the US. But while twelve-step programs have several components, one of the most central is surrendering control to a higher power. But how important is that idea? Does relying on a divine influence help or hurt? And might there be other routes to recovery?

We’ll talk with bestselling author and New York Times opinion writer Maia Szalavitz about what the research on addiction and addiction recovery shows, as well as her own path out of drug abuse. And we’ll discuss the relationship between perceptions of “divine control” and personal wellbeing with sociologist Laura Upenieks.

Maia Szalavitz is the author of Undoing Drugs: How Harm Reduction is Changing the Future of Drugs and Addiction. Learn more about the book, and her other writings, on her website.

Laura Upenieks is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Baylor University. Learn more about her research here.

If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction there are many resources out there to help. Among the options Maia recommends exploring to see if they are right for you: SMART Recovery, Women for Sobriety, and Alcoholics Anonymous.