M. Paul Bourget (who is not superstitious), after consulting Mrs. Piper, concludes
- Date of account
- Published 1898
- Source
- The Making of Religion
- Reference
- The Making of Religion · selected passage 193
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Deities of the higher sort, by the very nature of savage reflections on death and on its non-original casual character, are prior, or may be prior, or cannot be shown not to be prior, to the ghost theory--the alleged origin of religion
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyDeities of the higher sort, by the very nature of savage reflections on death and on its non-original casual character, are prior, or may be prior, or cannot be shown not to be prior, to the ghost theory--the alleged origin of religion. For their evolution the ghost theory is not logically demanded; they can do without it. Yet _they_, and not the spirits, bogles, Mrarts, _Brewin_, and so forth, are the high gods, the gods who have most analogy--as makers, moral guides, rewarders, and punishers of conduct (though that duty is also occasionally assumed by ancestral spirits)--with our civilised conception of the divine. Our conception of God descends not from ghosts, but from the Supreme Beings of non-ancestor-worshipping peoples.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis comes from historical psychical research. Methods, witness handling and standards of evidence differ from present-day research and should be assessed from the cited passage and edition.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThe passage can support a history of claims and recurring descriptions. It does not establish a paranormal mechanism, and competing psychological, social and physical explanations remain relevant.
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