According to research led by Kevin Rounding at Queen's University in Ontario and recently published in Psychological Science, Rabbi Wolpe is right: People are better able to resist their desires when thinking about God.
She has the indispensable knack of being able to write a well-turned scene, and "The Great God Pan" is full of scenes that are so subtly drawn that you can almost overlook their failure to add up to a fully convincing whole.
Whether or not you believe in God, religions accomplish something miraculous: They turn large numbers of people who are not kin into a group that isable to work together, trust each other, and help each other.