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Fingers crossed, touch wood. By the time you finish this, you’ll believe you believe in the supernatural.

For most of us, that is a given. The vast majority of people are religious, which generally entails belief in a supernatural entity or three. And yet amid the oceans of religiosity are archipelagos of non-belief. Accurate numbers are hard to come by, but even conservative estimates suggest that half a billion people around the world (and counting) are non-religious.

But are they, really? Among the scientists who study the cognitive foundations of religious belief, there is a widespread consensus that atheism is only skin-deep. Scratch the surface of a non-believer and you’ll find a writhing nest of superstition and quasi-religion.

That’s because evolution has endowed us with cognitive tendencies that, while useful for survival, also make us very receptive to religious concepts. “There are some core intuitions that make supernatural belief easy for our brains,” says psychologist at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

One is the suite of cognitive abilities known as theory of mind (see “Super-you: We’re all reading each other’s minds, all the time“), which enable us to think about and intuit other people’s thoughts. That’s damn useful for a social species like us, but also tricks us into believing in disembodied minds with mental states of their own. The idea that mind and body are distinct entities also seems to come instinctively to us. Throw in teleology – the tendency to seek cause and effect everywhere, and see purpose where there is none – and you can see why the human brain is a sitting duck.

The same thought processes probably underlie belief in other supernatural phenomena such as ghosts, spiritual healing, reincarnation, telepathy, astrology, lucky numbers and Ouija boards. These are almost as common as official religious beliefs; three-quarters of Americans admit to holding at least one of ten common supernatural beliefs.

With all this supernatural equipment filling our heads, atheism and scientific materialism are hard work. Overriding inbuilt thought patterns requires deliberate and constant effort, plus a learned reference guide to what is factually correct and what is right and wrong. Just like a dieter tempted by a doughnut, willpower often fails us.

Many experiments have shown that supernatural thoughts are easy to invoke even in people who consider themselves sceptics. Asked if a man who dies instantly in a car crash is aware of his own death, large numbers instinctively answer “yes”. Similarly, people who experience setbacks in their lives routinely invoke fate, and uncanny experiences are widely attributed to paranormal phenomena.

Obviously, it is impossible to prove that everyone falls prey to supernatural instincts. “There is no more evidence than a few studies, and even they do not provide enough support for the argument,” says , who studies belief in the supernatural at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Nonetheless, the supernatural exerts a pull on us that is hard to resist. If you’re still under the illusion that you are a rational creature, that really is wishful thinking.

This article appeared in print under the headline “You are… a believer”