Soul beliefs are universal among religious folk but vary tremendously from culture to culture, In fact, in tribal societies without formal religious dogmas, soul beliefs can vary from individual to individual. A review of notions regarding the soul (or souls) amongst tribal and post-tribal societies does evidence, nonetheless, a recurring pattern of focus on the soul envisaged as the vital life energy of the body and/or as encapsulating one of more mental faculties. Not surprisingly, theories as to the psychological basis (...) for soul belief vary as well, but a strong case can be advanced that at its core, soul belief is about the essence of the self, which involves the psychological process of ipseity. (shrink)

This article reviews and discusses the various ways by which researchers in the cognitive science of religion have empirically demonstrated that neurotypical humans (a.k.a., the folk) represent supernatural agents through the cognitive analogical processes of anthropomorphism. These include attributing a human-like mind, human-like physical and mental limitations, and human-like sociability. Additionally, the article points to several problematic issues that CSR must needs address, such as how to better demarcate when the folk are anthropomorphizing versus simply attributing agency, and how CSR’s (...) insistence that the folk represents supernatural agents as disembodied minds places it at odds with the overwhelming and devastating evidence to the contrary. Keywords: anthropomorphism, supernatural agent representations, theory of mind, embodiment. (shrink)