Religious and superstitious ideas profoundly shape trauma experience in both directions

Evidence

Religion and spirituality can have a supportive function and be an element of healing after traumatic experiences. They can provide a sense of belonging, strengthen resilience, and place an event in a larger context of meaning. However, experiences in a religious community or spiritual movement can also be the cause of trauma and a major stressor. Ideas such as “negative energies”, sin, guilt, curse, hell, demons, etc. can have a strong effect, even if they are never addressed in therapy or counseling. Even less religious people are not free of superstitions. Many use good luck charms and talismans, or avoid imagining a future event positively for fear of thereby “tempting fate,” or knock on wood to avert it (imagining worst-case scenarios, on the other hand, seems okay). — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 656

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The observation that even non-religious people avoid positive future imaginings to ‘not tempt fate,’ while worst-case scenarios feel safe, is a genuinely dense paradox about human cognition worth sitting with.
• QUESTION: Why does imagining worst-case scenarios feel safe while imagining success feels risky? This asymmetry between defensive and aspirational imagination is worth chasing down.