How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others

"Winner of the PROSE Award in Theology & Religious Studies, Association of American Publishers" "One of The New York Times' Three Books That Gaze Upward to Heaven and Inward to the Heart" Tanya Marie Luhrmann is the Albert Ray Lang Professor at Stanford University, where she teaches anthropology and psychology. Her books include When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. She has written for the New York Times, and her work has been featured in the New Yorker and other magazines. She lives in Stanford, California. The hard work required to make God real, how it changes the people who do it, and why it helps explain the enduring power of faith How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people-as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn't easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort-by changing the people who do it and giving them the benefits they seek from invisible others-helps to explain the enduring power of faith. Drawing on ethnographic studies of evangelical Christians, pagans, magicians, Zoroastrians, Black Catholics, Santeria initiates, and newly orthodox Jews, Luhrmann notes that none of these people behave as if gods and spirits are simply there. Rather, these worshippers make strenuous efforts to create a world in which invisible others matter and can become intensely present and real. The faithful accomplish this through detailed stories, absorption, the cultivation of inner senses, belief in a porous mind, strong sensory experiences, prayer, and other practices. Along the way, Luhrmann shows why faith is harder than belief, why prayer is a metacognitive activity like therapy, why becoming religious is like getting engrossed in a book, and much more. A fascinating account of why religious practices are more powerful than religious beliefs, How God Becomes Real suggests that faith is resilient not because it provides intuitions about gods and spirits-but because it changes the faithful in profound ways. "Fascinating. . . . Provocatively orchestrated, meticulously argued, and lucidly written."---Sarah Iles Johnston, Los Angeles Review of Books "Luhrmann has brilliantly illuminated the magical attunement that constitutes a great deal of evangelical charismatic belief."---James Wood, New Yorker "Drawing voraciously on her own and others' research into faiths as far-flung as Messianic Judaism, the Goddess movement, Indigenous spirituality and Santeria, Luhrmann seeks to map how modern believers make their gods real."---Ariel Sabar, New York Times "Brilliant . . . destined to become a classic."---Timothy Larsen, Marginalia "A serious work of anthropological research, yet its conversational tone and fascinating anecdotes will hold the attention of even nonspecialists, especially those troubled by the elusiveness of an intimate relationship with God." "An immensely enjoyable read." "A generous and erudite study of how people believe." "Tanya Marie Luhrmann is brave to have written such a daring book but it is a book which needed writing, it is a subject which needed addressing, and-amazingly I think-in the process of writing, she has given us a challenging, thought-provoking work. . . . What we have in the end is a fascinating and accessible book, taking us far out of our comfort zones to discover how what we do, and how what people in different cultures to our own do, can enable each person to grow in awareness of the invisible other, how each one of us can make the invisible other real."---Luke Penkett, Heythrop Journal "This insightful, challenging study, to be commended for its richly researched scholarship, throws fascinating light on