Supernatural beliefs
How people understand gods, spirits, magic, invisible agents, extraordinary causation, and the boundary between religion, superstition, and conspiracy thinking.
Research Focus
We study supernatural beliefs and related forms of reasoning as cognitive, social, cultural, and methodological problems.
Ritual efficacy
How people judge whether rituals work, and how group membership, intention, moral valence, and social identity shape those judgments.
Studying difficult beliefs
Surveys, vignettes, scales, qualitative approaches, cross-cultural comparison, historical data, and conceptual analysis used with care.
Featured Workshop
Methodological Issues in the Study of Supernatural Beliefs
The Prague 2022 workshop brought together experimental philosophy, cognitive science of religion, sociology, developmental psychology, historical data, and cross-cultural research. The programme, recordings, and summaries remain available as a methodological resource.
Open programme and videos
Latest Publication
Black and White Magic: Efficacy of In-Group versus Out-Group Rituals
Silvia Boschetti, Robin Kopecký, Jakub Binter, Lenka Příplatová, and Konrad Talmont-Kaminski. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, published online 30 June 2026.
Ritual efficacy and group boundaries
The article asks how people judge the efficacy of rituals associated with in-groups and out-groups, and how moral valence and social identity shape evaluations of magic.