Tanya Luhrmann: The Experience Is Real. But Is God?

SPONSORS: - Nobody likes a call center — ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs fixes that with voice AI that sounds human and works 24/7 in 30+ languages. Try it: https://elevenlabs.io/TOE - Don’t sleep on [@ultrapouches]. New customers get 15% Off with code TOE at http://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad - I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE This episode is about how an invisible God comes to feel present to someone who prays. It is not about whether God exists. Tanya Luhrmann, professor of anthropology at Stanford, joins to explain how people come to experience God as real, and why she thinks there are an awful lot of atheists sitting in church pews. We discuss Augustine hearing God speak, why the "spiritual but not religious" category has grown to nearly a third of Americans, why a more lovable, therapeutic God is paradoxically harder to believe in than a demanding one, and how practices like prayer and the Ignatian spiritual exercises make an invisible God feel present. The conversation also covers why religious studies classes (not biology classes) most often unsettle a young believer's faith, and the "liminal" psychological space — the same one that makes a childhood teddy bear feel alive — where Luhrmann argues God actually lives. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Experiencing God as Real - 00:05:32 - William James and "The More" - 00:10:45 - The "Teddy Bear" God - 00:16:00 - Neoplatonic Vibrational Theology - 00:21:40 - Placebo and Hypnotic Focus - 00:27:22 - Charles Taylor’s Secular Age - 00:33:46 - Feynman’s Two Heritages - 00:41:44 - Productive Doubt in Faith - 00:46:50 - Tarski and Belief Hierarchies - 00:55:40 - Apophatic vs. Cataphatic Prayer - 01:00:42 - Paracosms and Ignatian Exercises LINKS MENTIONED: - Tanya Luhrmann's Website: https://www.tanyaluhrmann.com/ - How God Becomes Real [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0691234442?tag=toe08-20 - When God Talks Back [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0307264793?tag=toe08-20 - The Faith Frame [Paper]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327517833_The_Faith_Frame_Or_Belief_is_Easy_Faith_is_Hard - The Varieties Of Religious Experience [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1439297274?tag=toe08-20 - Many Religious 'Nones' Around The World Hold Spiritual Beliefs [Article]: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/09/04/many-religious-nones-around-the-world-hold-spiritual-beliefs/ - The Cultural Kindling Of Spiritual Experiences [Paper]: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/677881 - Sacred Books Of The East: https://archive.org/details/SacredBooksEastVariousOrientalScholarsWithIndex.50VolsMaxMuller/01.SacredBooksEast.VarOrSch.v1v2v3comb.Muller.Buhler.Legge.Oxf.1879.1897./page/n43/mode/2up - A Secular Age [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0674986911?tag=toe08-20 - Two Great Heritages: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman - The Book Of Job: https://www.sefaria.org/Job.1.2 - The Highs And Lows Of Sufi Whirling [Article]: https://www.gqmiddleeast.com/article/the-highs-and-lows-of-sufi-whirling - Say What Your Longing Heart Desires [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1503614247?tag=toe08-20 - Sechit Madra [Trainer]: https://www.instagram.com/sechit_madra/ - Wolfgang Smith [TOE]: https://youtu.be/vp18_L_y_30 - Jonathan Pageau [TOE]: https://youtu.be/X3co_AA6yec - Becca Tarnas [TOE]: https://youtu.be/E49g3zJerss Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices