Abstract

Relationships between magical thinking (i.e., belief and reported experiences in forms of causation that by conventional standards are invalid) and paranormal beliefs (i.e., belief in phenomena which, if authentic, would violate basic limiting principles of science) were studied. The Magical Ideation Scale and the Paranormal Belief Scale were completed by 282 college students. As hypothesized, sig nificant direct relationships were found between scores indicative of magical thinking and self-reported beliefs in spiritualism, psi, pre cognition, superstition, and witchcraft. Also as hypothesized, tradi tional religious belief showed a significant inverse relationship with magical thinking, but for males only.