What does faith mean?

Last summer, Muscovites and Petersburgers witnessed how many hours of queue to the relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker patiently stands in the heat and rain … In September, the Orthodox Church celebrates the 680th anniversary of the tonsure of St. Sergius of Radonezh, revered in Russia, whose life was accompanied by many miracles.

As for private life, there is probably not a single couple in love who would not remember the happy omens that preceded their meeting, and not a single graduate who would not come across the same ticket on the exam that he learned … or learned best .

Thinking about this, we at the editorial office decided that it was time to discuss the place of belief in miracles in our experience — and invited two psychologists to this conversation.

Psychologies: Is there such a thing as a miracle?

VS: Of course there is. A miracle is something that we cannot explain at the moment. Here, for example, an iPhone — I remember, in my youth, my parents demanded that I inform me when I come home, and I dreamed that I could call from everywhere, and not look for a machine, and even if you don’t have these two kopecks … And a miracle it happened: now I can talk to people from all over the globe. There is nothing supernatural in this, it is a reality, but it has become possible thanks to many discoveries in different fields. How did they come about, how were they made? This is what I consider a miracle.

Much depends on how we interpret events. For me, this miracle is not an external circumstance, but an internal state. It’s like Santa Claus — I rejoice, I’m interested, my energy rises. I have lived with this feeling since childhood.

A.Yu.: The word «miracle» has two meanings: mundane — that’s how we call something difficult to explain — and mystical: a phenomenon that contradicts the scientific picture of the world. The existence of a miracle of the second kind is unprovable by definition: as soon as evidence appears, the miracle will cease to be such.

The question «Are there miracles?» makes sense only from a subjective point of view: does this particular person believe in miracles? Personally, I do not believe in mysticism, because I see no reason for this. 90% of the evidence about such phenomena comes down to falsifications, hoaxes and various psychopathologies, the remaining 10% to a lack of information.

We are experiencing both an economic downturn and a religious upsurge: 72% of those polled by VTsIOM reported a desire to venerate the relics of St. Nicholas, and not all of them are Orthodox. At the same time, more than half of the population believes in signs, and a third — in an astrological forecast. Why does faith in miracles increase during crises?

VS: When clear prospects and ideas about where we are moving disappear, it is natural to believe in miracles — what if some events suddenly happen that will change our lives for the better? The second reason is the peculiarities of child development, which is imprinted in us. At the age of 5-6 years, we all have magical thinking, we believe in Santa Claus, Baba Yaga … And when we feel bad in the present, we return to earlier — perhaps happier — stages of development.

A.Yu.: During periods of crisis, society experiences a high degree of uncertainty, fear of the future, and stress. In an attempt to reduce it, many resort to superstitions and magical actions — this allows you to partially regain a pleasant, albeit false, sense of control over the situation.

In our country, especially favorable soil for this. In Soviet times, centuries-old spiritual traditions were banned, and the population was offered the quasi-religion of scientific communism in return.

When it collapsed towards the end of the 80s, a vacuum formed. Those who were already close to religion got the opportunity to practice it openly, but the vast majority of people found themselves in limbo: a whole floor of their psyche turned out to be empty. And then immediately there was a huge demand for astrology, magic, various mysticism … We are still experiencing the echoes of this process.

In totalitarian societies, there is always a fall in spiritual taste, the population ceases to distinguish between deep centuries-old wisdom and pseudo-spiritual fast food, fraud and outright nonsense, and begins to intensively consume everything.

What is the difference between belief in miracles and superstition?

A.Yu.: In the first case, spontaneous intervention of divine power is implied, not regulated by man. This approach is characteristic of mature religions, including Abrahamic ones, that is, those that recognize the Old Testament to one degree or another.

Superstition, on the other hand, implies a direct dialogue of a person with otherworldly forces and the ability to magically influence the world. For example, if I spit over my shoulder, then something bad will not happen. A very familiar interaction between man and these forces is implied. This approach is typical for a naive, pagan or psychotic picture of the world.

What makes people queue up at shrines? And who is in them: believers, or superstitious, or even those who came for the company of others?

VS: Probably both are in line. But for me, the psychological meaning is more important: everyone goes to get answers to questions that they don’t get an answer to in everyday life. When you stand for many, many hours, together with others, but at the same time alone with yourself — it is not customary to talk in such queues — it plunges you into a meditative state. There is a powerful internal work — what in psychology is called «warming up», preparation for a certain moment: it lasts a moment, but insights also last a moment.

And when the moment of meeting finally comes, contact with the source of knowledge, with the higher power, we can get our answer. We don’t know where he came from. In fact, we received the answer from within ourselves, discovered sources in ourselves that had previously been closed.

In everyday life, psychological defenses work, there are many of them, they do not allow us to touch our own soul, our creativity. Our whole civilization is aimed at suppressing it in us. Because a person in whom creativity is suppressed is easier to control — he does not believe in himself, others determine what to do, and not himself.

But in the situation of these wonderful touches, we are left alone with ourselves. And when we receive an answer, it gives us strength, a feeling: «I have it in me.» This is a special state, a sense of our own being, which we bring into our lives. And then we spread it around for a while. Then this effect disappears, and you need to touch this source next time.

A.Yu.: During the pilgrimage to the shrines, many different needs can be met. For example, in belonging to a group. I am not alone, we stand together in unison. For some, this is important because it helps to cope with difficult situations. In addition, there is a need for harmony. Many note that they experience special, sublime, bright feelings in the church.

But, perhaps, the key is the need to solve the problem of one’s own mortality. Religious rituals and teachings allow you to feel the feeling of belonging to the eternal and infinite. If I am an atheist, I exist as a body, I will die pretty soon and there will be nothing left. Religion and ideas about the soul make it possible to reduce tension over the fact that, in general, there is not much left to live, a perspective appears, what is happening in life takes on a special meaning. And along with this, a person receives a whole set of ready-made moral and ethical guidelines.

If we believe in miracles, what gives us this faith?

VS: A special energy, sometimes very powerful. Once I was in the town of Kolpashevo in the north of the Tomsk region. There is a museum there: on the ground floor there is the Kulai culture, which is 10 thousand years old, on the second floor there is modernity. And suddenly among the modern exhibits there is a tambourine and a shaman’s clothes.

My friend wanted to take a tambourine, but the director of the museum — a candidate of historical sciences, by the way — said: «You must not touch!» — «Why?» “Only an initiate can play. Otherwise, you will touch an energy that you cannot handle. These items were given to us by a shaman who was leaving for another life. They contain the strength of his family and the rituals that he performed. And I believe in it.

Another example is the bibliodrama. We hold it not only in Moscow, but also in other countries with which the events of the Old and New Testaments are connected. And when we visit holy places, we touch something that many generations of people have already dealt with. I feel the energy of the place, and it gives me vitality.

A.Yu.: Faith itself can provide enormous resources for survival. Various authors wrote about this: Viktor Frankl, Varlam Shalamov. Deep faith — regardless of a particular religion — gives a person additional strength in the face of death, allows you to not lose your human appearance longer in inhuman conditions, makes the psyche more resistant to destruction.

The psyche of all people is arranged in a similar way — it has a deep, archaic layer that functions more at the level of symbols and archetypes than words and concepts. For example, I can consider myself a progressive person with a scientific outlook as much as I like, but if I get into some kind of borderline situation, stand on the brink of death, it is likely that I will also begin to pray and believe in miracles.

Does believing in a miracle make us vulnerable to manipulation?

VS: Now we are all in the information space, where one way or another we are subjected to many manipulations: they try to make us a means to achieve not our own, but other people’s goals. So that we don’t think about whether we need to buy tomato juice or silver hake. The only way to combat manipulation is an adult position. We occupy it when we form an independent personal opinion by analyzing information, rather than taking it ready-made from TV, radio or the Internet.

I was told that in Israel children are introduced to the Old Testament in this way: first the child reads it on his own and only after that he speaks with the mentor. He relates his understanding to the mentor’s point of view. This is a good example of juxtaposing different views. But this does not always happen.

Many people prefer to live in a simple world: black — white, said — done. In exchange for obedience, we seem to be promised well-being. It’s just that we lose ourselves. But it’s not very clear to me how miracle and manipulation are related? If a miracle is the unknown, then it opens up new possibilities for me to know. If I do not understand something, I try to understand it, and then this is the zone of proximal development for me.

A.Yu.: Belief in miracles and susceptibility to manipulation are not cause and effect, but rather two effects of a common cause: both are properties of the infantile psyche. The belief that I can magically influence the world is a vestige of children’s magical thinking. But there is a difference between superstitious people who call themselves religious and those who are seriously engaged in religious practices and believe in miracles in a mature spiritual sense.

The human psyche has great potential and goes through certain stages of development, and the final stages are close to the concept of enlightenment in Eastern religions. But most people stop in development, get stuck in adolescence due to an unfavorable environment, their body continues to age, and their psyche is frozen at a level far from potentially possible.

Religious practices can provide an additional resource, help find the way to a new, more mature state. Psychotherapy solves, in essence, the same problem, but based on modern scientific methods.

Should we strive for fully rational thinking?

A.Yu.: This is an unattainable goal. A person who lives for the most part from the rational mind is a person in a state of deepest neurosis and, most likely, suffering greatly. One of the criteria for psychological maturity is an understanding of the limitations of the rational mind and its notorious inability to reflect the infinite complexity of the surrounding world.

A naive fascination with miracles and an attempt to rely on them to relieve oneself of responsibility for one’s decisions and actions, of course, complicates life. But if we completely close ourselves, close our eyes to everything that is incomprehensible and objectionable to the rational mind, this will greatly impoverish us.

The whole world around us is a daily miracle that we try to model with the help of the mind, that is, we try to build in our head a small simplified blueprint of how the world works. And both skills are important — drawing a drawing and using it competently when necessary, but at the same time understanding that this is just a draftsman, a simplified model of a mysterious and wonderful reality.

VS: Everything that we perceive, we perceive through ourselves and our experience. And not all of our experience can be explained rationally. For example, psychological information is transmitted from generation to generation. How this happens is still a mystery. But it is transmitted to us regardless of whether we know the history of our kind or not.

In psychodrama, we act out various episodes from the past, including those about which little or nothing is known. But when the participant enters the role of a distant ancestor, he seems to recall details, circumstances about which he knew nothing, and discovers a connection between these hypothetical past events and his current emotional state.

We do not have an instrument — an ammeter or a ruler, with which this connection can be measured. But this does not mean that we should close ourselves off from this experience. If we are open, then we get new chances from life, and our health grows, expands.