ing no trace; and this for them meant that a spirit had taken the animal
away. These experiences probably reinforce people's sense that the
supernatural agents really are around them. But note that the concepts
were there to begin with, as it were, and mainly constructed on the
basis of other people's utterances. The Kwaio build most of their rep-
resentations of adalo on the basis of what other people tell them rather
than on direct experiences. The Fang interpret various events in the
forest as the result of the ghosts' presence but their ghost-concept is
mostly informed by constant warnings of the wandering spirits' men-
acing presence. Indeed, in both the Kwaio and the Fang cases, and in
[148] fact in most human groups, having such experiences is not even neces-
sary. In a similar way, some Christians may have had experiences of
God's or the angels' presence but most Christian concepts are not
derived from that. It would seem, on the contrary, that it is the prior
concept that makes sense of the experience rather than the opposite.
Guthrie and Barrett put us on the right track, because what makes
gods and spirits so important really stems from our intuitive under-
standing of agency. But, as I emphasized in the previous chapter, many
different mental systems are at work, producing particular inferences,
when we think about counterintuitive agents. Indeed, this is where
Guthrie's remark is particularly apposite: supernatural concepts are
salient because they generate complex inferences—that is, because
they activate many different inference systems. So, accepting for the
time being Barrett's claim that agency-detection gives initial salience
to concepts of barely detectable agents, how are such concepts made
more stable and how is it that they matterto people? The connection
to a predator-avoidance system may explain some of the emotional
overtones of the religious imagination; but people also establish long-
term interaction with religious agents. This is where other mental sys-
tems contribute their own inferences. To see this in a more precise
way, let me take a detour again and describe imagined agents who are
almostbut not quite like supernatural agents.
GODS AND SPIRITS AS PARTNERS:
IMAGINARY COMPANIONS AND INVISIBLE FRIENDSAlthough we are not aware of it, the inference systems that manage
our interaction with other people are full-time workers. We con-
stantly use intuitions delivered by these systems. Indeed, we also useRELIGION EXPLAINED