Coltan Scrivner

that are dangerous or misfortunate.

And what they tend to do is they tend to ascribe those actions to something with agency.

So if a bad thing happens to me, if I fall sick or my family member falls sick, especially before the scientific revolution, we need an explanation for that.

You can't just be like, well, that's just how it is.

You look for an explanation because that is actually the more adaptive thing to do is to try to find an explanation for an event that is misfortunate to you.

Now, humans have this.

We're super social creatures.

Most things that happen to us because other people make them happen or are involved in the event.

So, of course, we have a bias for thinking like a bad thing happened.

Probably a person was involved or some kind of person like thing was involved.

Sometimes that's God.

Sometimes that's witches.

Sometimes in modern times, it's aliens.

Oftentimes it's ghosts or ancient ancestors or spirits or demons or whatever you want to call it.

Always some kind of thing that you can't see.

that is really powerful and malicious.

And that just happens to often take the form of a witch who has curses.

I give an example in the book of, Gottlieb was her name.

She's an anthropologist and she was in Papua New Guinea or somewhere and there was a really bad outbreak of guinea worm.

And guinea worm is a really nasty parasite you can get from nasty drinking water.