Although long thought perhaps the simplest form of mental representation, belief turns out to be a powerful filter through which the human mind interprets information about the world received through the senses, influenced as much by social reinforcement as our own firsthand experiences. Whether the conviction of the reality of the unseen in religious faith or the ability of the brain to form reliable, predictive “models” of the world based on past observations, belief forms a cornerstone of the concept of conscious thought. In short, belief exists at the confluence of the dual streams of emotion and cognition, a mixture of responses from the nervous system and the thinking brain.