Science‑trusting believers favor DIY magic

Americans who endorse science as the primary epistemic route and favor individual moral reasoning (a profile the authors call 'secular rationalism') are, when they still identify with religion, disproportionately likely to report belief in ghosts, curses and other 'magic' compared with both institutional believers and nonbelievers. The study uses the Baylor Religion Survey (n=1,812, early 2025) and finds, for example, 40% vs. 19% differences in magic‑leaning belief among God‑believers who do or don’t hold secular‑rationalist views. — This pattern challenges simple secularization narratives and implies that declining institutional religion can produce hybrid spiritualities that complicate public debates about science literacy, youth religiosity, and policy targeted at 'misinformation' or 'pseudoscience'.