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Supernatural

February 12, 2023

This article is about unexplained or non-natural forces and phenomena. For other uses, see Supernatural (disambiguation).
"Supernatural power" redirects here. For the popular culture concept of the imaginary superhuman abilities, see Superpower (ability).

Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature.[1] The term is derived from Medieval Latin supernaturalis, from Latin super- (above, beyond, or outside of) + natura (nature)[1] Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings since the ancient world, the term "supernatural" emerged in the Middle Ages[2] and did not exist in the ancient world.[3]

Saint Peter Attempting to Walk on Water (1766), painting by François Boucher

The supernatural is featured in folklore and religious contexts,[4] but can also feature as an explanation in more secular contexts, as in the cases of superstitions or belief in the paranormal.[5] The term is attributed to non-physical entities, such as angels, demons, gods, and spirits. It also includes claimed abilities embodied in or provided by such beings, including magic, telekinesis, levitation, precognition, and extrasensory perception.

The philosophy of naturalism contends that nothing exists beyond the natural world, and as such approaches supernatural claims with skepticism.[6]

Etymology and history of the concept

Occurring as both an adjective and a noun, descendants of the modern English compound supernatural enter the language from two sources: via Middle French (supernaturel) and directly from the Middle French's term's ancestor, post-Classical Latin (supernaturalis). Post-classical Latin supernaturalis first occurs in the 6th century, composed of the Latin prefix super- and nātūrālis (see nature). The earliest known appearance of the word in the English language occurs in a Middle English translation of Catherine of Siena's Dialogue (orcherd of Syon, around 1425; Þei haue not þanne þe supernaturel lyȝt ne þe liȝt of kunnynge, bycause þei vndirstoden it not).[7]

The semantic value of the term has shifted over the history of its use. Originally the term referred exclusively to Christian understandings of the world. For example, as an adjective, the term can mean "belonging to a realm or system that transcends nature, as that of divine, magical, or ghostly beings; attributed to or thought to reveal some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature; occult, paranormal" or "more than what is natural or ordinary; unnaturally or extraordinarily great; abnormal, extraordinary". Obsolete uses include "of, relating to, or dealing with metaphysics". As a noun, the term can mean "a supernatural being", with a particularly strong history of employment in relation to entities from the mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.[7]

History of the concept

The ancient world had no word that resembled "supernatural".[3] Dialogues from Neoplatonic philosophy in the third century AD contributed to the development of the concept the supernatural via Christian theology in later centuries.[8] The term nature had existed since antiquity with Latin authors like Augustine using the word and its cognates at least 600 times in City of God. In the medieval period, "nature" had ten different meanings and "natural" had eleven different meanings.[2] Peter Lombard, a medieval scholastic in the 12th century, asked about causes that are beyond nature, in that how there could be causes that were God's alone. He used the term praeter naturam in his writings.[2] In the scholastic period, Thomas Aquinas classified miracles into three categories: "above nature", "beyond nature", and "against nature". In doing so, he sharpened the distinction between nature and miracles more than the early Church Fathers had done.[2] As a result, he had created a dichotomy of sorts of the natural and supernatural.[8] Though the phrase "supra naturam" was used since the 4th century AD, it was in the 1200s that Thomas Aquinas used the term "supernaturalis" and despite this, the term had to wait until the end of the medieval period before it became more popularly used.[2] The discussions on "nature" from the scholastic period were diverse and unsettled with some postulating that even miracles are natural and that natural magic was a natural part of the world.[2]

Epistemology and metaphysics

See also: Anthropology of religion

The metaphysical considerations of the existence of the supernatural can be difficult to approach as an exercise in philosophy or theology because any dependencies on its antithesis, the natural, will ultimately have to be inverted or rejected. One complicating factor is that there is disagreement about the definition of "natural" and the limits of naturalism. Concepts in the supernatural domain are closely related to concepts in religious spirituality and occultism or spiritualism.

For sometimes we use the word nature for that Author of nature whom the schoolmen, harshly enough, call natura naturans, as when it is said that nature hath made man partly corporeal and partly immaterial. Sometimes we mean by the nature of a thing the essence, or that which the schoolmen scruple not to call the quiddity of a thing, namely, the attribute or attributes on whose score it is what it is, whether the thing be corporeal or not, as when we attempt to define the nature of an angle, or of a triangle, or of a fluid body, as such. Sometimes we take nature for an internal principle of motion, as when we say that a stone let fall in the air is by nature carried towards the centre of the earth, and, on the contrary, that fire or flame does naturally move upwards toward firmament. Sometimes we understand by nature the established course of things, as when we say that nature makes the night succeed the day, nature hath made respiration necessary to the life of men. Sometimes we take nature for an aggregate of powers belonging to a body, especially a living one, as when physicians say that nature is strong or weak or spent, or that in such or such diseases nature left to herself will do the cure. Sometimes we take nature for the universe, or system of the corporeal works of God, as when it is said of a phoenix, or a chimera, that there is no such thing in nature, i.e. in the world. And sometimes too, and that most commonly, we would express by nature a semi-deity or other strange kind of being, such as this discourse examines the notion of.

And besides these more absolute acceptions, if I may so call them, of the word nature, it has divers others (more relative), as nature is wont to be set or in opposition or contradistinction to other things, as when we say of a stone when it falls downwards that it does it by a natural motion, but that if it be thrown upwards its motion that way is violent. So chemists distinguish vitriol into natural and fictitious, or made by art, i.e. by the intervention of human power or skill; so it is said that water, kept suspended in a sucking pump, is not in its natural place, as that is which is stagnant in the well. We say also that wicked men are still in the state of nature, but the regenerate in a state of grace; that cures wrought by medicines are natural operations; but the miraculous ones wrought by Christ and his apostles were supernatural.[9]

— Robert Boyle, A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature

Nomological possibility is possibility under the actual laws of nature. Most philosophers since David Hume have held that the laws of nature are metaphysically contingent—that there could have been different natural laws than the ones that actually obtain. If so, then it would not be logically or metaphysically impossible, for example, for you to travel to Alpha Centauri in one day; it would just have to be the case that you could travel faster than the speed of light. But of course there is an important sense in which this is not nomologically possible; given that the laws of nature are what they are. In the philosophy of natural science, impossibility assertions come to be widely accepted as overwhelmingly probable rather than considered proved to the point of being unchallengeable. The basis for this strong acceptance is a combination of extensive evidence of something not occurring, combined with an underlying scientific theory, very successful in making predictions, whose assumptions lead logically to the conclusion that something is impossible. While an impossibility assertion in natural science can never be absolutely proved, it could be refuted by the observation of a single counterexample. Such a counterexample would require that the assumptions underlying the theory that implied the impossibility be re-examined. Some philosophers, such as Sydney Shoemaker, have argued that the laws of nature are in fact necessary, not contingent; if so, then nomological possibility is equivalent to metaphysical possibility.[10][11][12]

The term supernatural is often used interchangeably with paranormal or preternatural—the latter typically limited to an adjective for describing abilities which appear to exceed what is possible within the boundaries of the laws of physics.[13] Epistemologically, the relationship between the supernatural and the natural is indistinct in terms of natural phenomena that, ex hypothesi, violate the laws of nature, in so far as such laws are realistically accountable.

Parapsychologists use the term psi to refer to an assumed unitary force underlying the phenomena they study. Psi is defined in the Journal of Parapsychology as "personal factors or processes in nature which transcend accepted laws" (1948: 311) and "which are non-physical in nature" (1962:310), and it is used to cover both extrasensory perception (ESP), an "awareness of or response to an external event or influence not apprehended by sensory means" (1962:309) or inferred from sensory knowledge, and psychokinesis (PK), "the direct influence exerted on a physical system by a subject without any known intermediate energy or instrumentation" (1945:305).[14]

— Michael Winkelman, Current Anthropology

Views on the "supernatural" vary, for example it may be seen as:

  • indistinct from nature. From this perspective, some events occur according to the laws of nature, and others occur according to a separate set of principles external to known nature. For example, in Scholasticism, it was believed that God was capable of performing any miracle so long as it didn't lead to a logical contradiction. Some religions posit immanent deities, however, and do not have a tradition analogous to the supernatural; some believe that everything anyone experiences occurs by the will (occasionalism), in the mind (neoplatonism), or as a part (nondualism) of a more fundamental divine reality (platonism).
  • incorrect human attribution. In this view all events have natural and only natural causes. They believe that human beings ascribe supernatural attributes to purely natural events, such as lightning, rainbows, floods, and the origin of life.[15][16]

Anthropological studies

Anthropological studies across cultures indicate that people do not hold or use natural and supernatural explanations in a mutually exclusive or dichotomous fashion. Instead, the reconciliation of natural and supernatural explanations is normal and pervasive across cultures.[17] Cross cultural studies indicate that there is coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations in both adults and children for explaining numerous things about the world such as illness, death, and origins.[18][19] Context and cultural input play a large role in determining when and how individuals incorporate natural and supernatural explanations.[20] The coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations in individuals may be the outcomes two distinct cognitive domains: one concerned with the physical-mechanical relations and another with social relations.[21] Studies on indigenous groups have allowed for insights on how such coexistence of explanations may function.[22]

Supernatural concepts

See also: Religion and Magic and religion

Deity

Main article: Deity

A deity (/ˈdiːəti/ ( listen) or /ˈdeɪ.əti/ ( listen))[23] is a supernatural being considered divine or sacred.[24] The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as "a god or goddess (in a polytheistic religion)", or anything revered as divine.[25] C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life."[26] A male deity is a god, while a female deity is a goddess.

Religions can be categorized by how many deities they worship. Monotheistic religions accept only one deity (predominantly referred to as God),[27][28] polytheistic religions accept multiple deities.[29] Henotheistic religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as equivalent aspects of the same divine principle;[30][31] and nontheistic religions deny any supreme eternal creator deity but accept a pantheon of deities which live, die, and are reborn just like any other being.[32]: 35–37 [33]: 357–358 

Various cultures have conceptualized a deity differently than a monotheistic God.[34][35] A deity need not be omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent or eternal,[34][35][36] The monotheistic God, however, does have these attributes.[37][38][39] Monotheistic religions typically refer to God in masculine terms,[40][41]: 96  while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways – masculine, feminine, androgynous and gender neutral.[42][43][44]

Historically, many ancient cultures – such as Ancient India, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek, Ancient Roman, Nordic and Asian culture – personified natural phenomena, variously as either their conscious causes or simply their effects, respectively.[45][46][47] Some Avestan and Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts.[45][46] In Indian religions, deities have been envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every living being's body, as sensory organs and mind.[48][49][50] Deities have also been envisioned as a form of existence (Saṃsāra) after rebirth, for human beings who gain merit through an ethical life, where they become guardian deities and live blissfully in heaven, but are also subject to death when their merit runs out.[32]: 35–38 [33]: 356–359 

Angel

Main article: Angel
 
The Archangel Michael wears a late Roman military cloak and cuirass in this 17th-century depiction by Guido Reni.
 
Schutzengel (English: "Guardian Angel") by Bernhard Plockhorst depicts a guardian angel watching over two children.

An angel is generally a supernatural being found in various religions and mythologies. In Abrahamic religions and Zoroastrianism, angels are often depicted as benevolent celestial beings who act as intermediaries between God or Heaven and Earth.[51][52] Other roles of angels include protecting and guiding human beings, and carrying out God's tasks.[53] Within Abrahamic religions, angels are often organized into hierarchies, although such rankings may vary between sects in each religion, and are given specific names or titles, such as Gabriel or "Destroying angel". The term "angel" has also been expanded to various notions of spirits or figures found in other religious traditions. The theological study of angels is known as "angelology".

In fine art, angels are usually depicted as having the shape of human beings of extraordinary beauty;[54][55] they are often identified using the symbols of bird wings,[56] halos,[57] and light.

Prophecy

Main article: Prophecy

Prophecy involves a process in which messages are communicated by a god to a prophet. Such messages typically involve inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of divine will concerning the prophet's social world and events to come (compare divine knowledge). Prophecy is not limited to any one culture. It is a common property to all known ancient societies around the world, some more than others. Many systems and rules about prophecy have been proposed over several millennia.

Revelation

Main article: Revelation

In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities.

Some religions have religious texts which they view as divinely or supernaturally revealed or inspired. For instance, Orthodox Jews, Christians and Muslims believe that the Torah was received from Yahweh on biblical Mount Sinai.[58][59] Most Christians believe that both the Old Testament and the New Testament were inspired by God. Muslims believe the Quran was revealed by God to Muhammad word by word through the angel Gabriel (Jibril).[60][61] In Hinduism, some Vedas are considered apauruṣeya, "not human compositions", and are supposed to have been directly revealed, and thus are called śruti, "what is heard". The 15,000 handwritten pages produced by the mystic Maria Valtorta were represented as direct dictations from Jesus, while she attributed The Book of Azariah to her guardian angel.[62] Aleister Crowley stated that The Book of the Law had been revealed to him through a higher being that called itself Aiwass.

A revelation communicated by a supernatural entity reported as being present during the event is called a vision. Direct conversations between the recipient and the supernatural entity,[63] or physical marks such as stigmata, have been reported. In rare cases, such as that of Saint Juan Diego, physical artifacts accompany the revelation.[64] The Roman Catholic concept of interior locution includes just an inner voice heard by the recipient.

In the Abrahamic religions, the term is used to refer to the process by which God reveals knowledge of himself, his will, and his divine providence to the world of human beings.[65] In secondary usage, revelation refers to the resulting human knowledge about God, prophecy, and other divine things. Revelation from a supernatural source plays a less important role in some other religious traditions such as Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism.

Reincarnation

Main article: Reincarnation
 
In Jainism, a soul travels to any one of the four states of existence after death depending on its karmas.

Reincarnation is the philosophical or religious concept that an aspect of a living being starts a new life in a different physical body or form after each biological death. It is also called rebirth or transmigration, and is a part of the Saṃsāra doctrine of cyclic existence.[66][67] It is a central tenet of all major Indian religions, namely Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism.[67][68][69] The idea of reincarnation is found in many ancient cultures,[70] and a belief in rebirth/metempsychosis was held by Greek historic figures, such as Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato.[71] It is also a common belief of various ancient and modern religions such as Spiritism, Theosophy, and Eckankar, and as an esoteric belief in many streams of Orthodox Judaism. It is found as well in many tribal societies around the world, in places such as Australia, East Asia, Siberia, and South America.[72]

Although the majority of denominations within Christianity and Islam do not believe that individuals reincarnate, particular groups within these religions do refer to reincarnation; these groups include the mainstream historical and contemporary followers of Cathars, Alawites, the Druze,[73] and the Rosicrucians.[74] The historical relations between these sects and the beliefs about reincarnation that were characteristic of Neoplatonism, Orphism, Hermeticism, Manicheanism, and Gnosticism of the Roman era as well as the Indian religions have been the subject of recent scholarly research.[75] Unity Church and its founder Charles Fillmore teaches reincarnation.

In recent decades, many Europeans and North Americans have developed an interest in reincarnation,[76] and many contemporary works mention it.

Karma

Main article: Karma

Karma (/ˈkɑːrmə/; Sanskrit: कर्म, romanized: karma, IPA: [ˈkɐɽmɐ] ( listen); Pali: kamma) means action, work or deed;[77] it also refers to the spiritual principle of cause and effect where intent and actions of an individual (cause) influence the future of that individual (effect).[78] Good intent and good deeds contribute to good karma and future happiness, while bad intent and bad deeds contribute to bad karma and future suffering.[79][80]

With origins in ancient India's Vedic civilization, the philosophy of karma is closely associated with the idea of rebirth in many schools of Indian religions (particularly Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism[81]) as well as Taoism.[82] In these schools, karma in the present affects one's future in the current life, as well as the nature and quality of future lives – one's saṃsāra.[83][84]

Christian theology

 
The patron saint of air travelers, aviators, astronauts, people with a mental handicap, test takers, and poor students is Saint Joseph of Cupertino, who is said to have been gifted with supernatural flight.[85]
Main article: Supernatural order

In Catholic theology, the supernatural order is, according to New Advent, defined as "the ensemble of effects exceeding the powers of the created universe and gratuitously produced by God for the purpose of raising the rational creature above its native sphere to a God-like life and destiny."[86] The Modern Catholic Dictionary defines it as "the sum total of heavenly destiny and all the divinely established means of reaching that destiny, which surpass the mere powers and capacities of human nature."[87]

Process theology

Main article: Process theology

Process theology is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) and further developed by Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000).

It is not possible, in process metaphysics, to conceive divine activity as a "supernatural" intervention into the "natural" order of events. Process theists usually regard the distinction between the supernatural and the natural as a by-product of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. In process thought, there is no such thing as a realm of the natural in contrast to that which is supernatural. On the other hand, if "the natural" is defined more neutrally as "what is in the nature of things," then process metaphysics characterizes the natural as the creative activity of actual entities. In Whitehead's words, "It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity" (Whitehead 1978, 21). It is tempting to emphasize process theism's denial of the supernatural and thereby highlight that the processed God cannot do in comparison what the traditional God could do (that is, to bring something from nothing). In fairness, however, equal stress should be placed on process theism's denial of the natural (as traditionally conceived) so that one may highlight what the creatures cannot do, in traditional theism, in comparison to what they can do in process metaphysics (that is, to be part creators of the world with God).[88]

— Donald Viney, "Process Theism" in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Heaven

Main article: Heaven

Heaven, or the heavens, is a common religious, cosmological, or transcendent place where beings such as gods, angels, spirits, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or live. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to Earth or incarnate, and earthly beings can ascend to heaven in the afterlife, or in exceptional cases enter heaven alive.

Heaven is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, a Paradise, in contrast to hell or the Underworld or the "low places", and universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith, or other virtues or right beliefs or simply the will of God. Some believe in the possibility of a heaven on Earth in a world to come.

Another belief is in an axis mundi or world tree which connects the heavens, the terrestrial world, and the underworld. In Indian religions, heaven is considered as Svarga loka,[89] and the soul is again subjected to rebirth in different living forms according to its karma. This cycle can be broken after a soul achieves Moksha or Nirvana. Any place of existence, either of humans, souls or deities, outside the tangible world (Heaven, Hell, or other) is referred to as otherworld.

Underworld

Main article: Underworld

The underworld is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions, located below the world of the living.[90] Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld.

The concept of an underworld is found in almost every civilization and "may be as old as humanity itself".[91] Common features of underworld myths are accounts of living people making journeys to the underworld, often for some heroic purpose. Other myths reinforce traditions that entrance of souls to the underworld requires a proper observation of ceremony, such as the ancient Greek story of the recently dead Patroclus haunting Achilles until his body could be properly buried for this purpose.[92] Persons having social status were dressed and equipped in order to better navigate the underworld.[93]

A number of mythologies incorporate the concept of the soul of the deceased making its own journey to the underworld, with the dead needing to be taken across a defining obstacle such as a lake or a river to reach this destination.[94] Imagery of such journeys can be found in both ancient and modern art. The descent to the underworld has been described as "the single most important myth for Modernist authors".[95]

Spirit

Main article: Spirit (vital essence)
 
Theodor von Holst, Bertalda, Assailed by Spirits, c. 1830

A spirit is a supernatural being, often but not exclusively a non-physical entity; such as a ghost, fairy, jinn, or angel.[96] The concepts of a person's spirit and soul, often also overlap, as both are either contrasted with or given ontological priority over the body and both are believed to survive bodily death in some religions,[97] and "spirit" can also have the sense of "ghost", i.e. a manifestation of the spirit of a deceased person. In English Bibles, "the Spirit" (with a capital "S"), specifically denotes the Holy Spirit.

Spirit is often used metaphysically to refer to the consciousness or personality.

Historically, it was also used to refer to a "subtle" as opposed to "gross" material substance, as in the famous last paragraph of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica.[98]

Demon

Main article: Demon
 
Bronze statuette of the Assyro-Babylonian demon king Pazuzu, circa 800 BC –- circa 700 BC, Louvre

A demon (from Koine Greek δαιμόνιον daimónion) is a supernatural and often malevolent being prevalent in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology and folklore.

In Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered a harmful spiritual entity, below the heavenly planes[99] which may cause demonic possession, calling for an exorcism. In Western occultism and Renaissance magic, which grew out of an amalgamation of Greco-Roman magic, Jewish Aggadah and Christian demonology,[100] a demon is believed to be a spiritual entity that may be conjured and controlled.

Magic

Main article: Magic (supernatural)

Magic or sorcery is the use of rituals, symbols, actions, gestures, or language with the aim of utilizing supernatural forces.[101][102]: 6–7 [103][104]: 24  Belief in and practice of magic has been present since the earliest human cultures and continues to have an important spiritual, religious, and medicinal role in many cultures today. The term magic has a variety of meanings, and there is no widely agreed upon definition of what it is.

Scholars of religion have defined magic in different ways. One approach, associated with the anthropologists Edward Tylor and James G. Frazer, suggests that magic and science are opposites. An alternative approach, associated with the sociologists Marcel Mauss and Emile Durkheim, argues that magic takes place in private, while religion is a communal and organised activity. Many scholars of religion have rejected the utility of the term magic and it has become increasingly unpopular within scholarship since the 1990s.

The term magic comes from the Old Persian magu, a word that applied to a form of religious functionary about which little is known. During the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE, this term was adopted into Ancient Greek, where it was used with negative connotations, to apply to religious rites that were regarded as fraudulent, unconventional, and dangerous. This meaning of the term was then adopted by Latin in the first century BCE. The concept was then incorporated into Christian theology during the first century CE, where magic was associated with demons and thus defined against religion. This concept was pervasive throughout the Middle Ages, although in the early modern period Italian humanists reinterpreted the term in a positive sense to establish the idea of natural magic. Both negative and positive understandings of the term were retained in Western culture over the following centuries, with the former largely influencing early academic usages of the word.

Throughout history, there have been examples of individuals who practiced magic and referred to themselves as magicians. This trend has proliferated in the modern period, with a growing number of magicians appearing within the esoteric milieu.[not verified in body] British esotericist Aleister Crowley described magic as the art of effecting change in accordance with will.

Divination

Main article: Divination

Divination (from Latin divinare "to foresee, to be inspired by a god",[105] related to divinus, divine) is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual.[106] Used in various forms throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency.[107]

Divination can be seen as a systematic method with which to organize what appear to be disjointed, random facets of existence such that they provide insight into a problem at hand. If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character, usually in a religious context, as seen in traditional African medicine. Fortune-telling, on the other hand, is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Particular divination methods vary by culture and religion.

Divination is dismissed by the scientific community and skeptics as being superstition.[108][109] In the 2nd century, Lucian devoted a witty essay to the career of a charlatan, "Alexander the false prophet", trained by "one of those who advertise enchantments, miraculous incantations, charms for your love-affairs, visitations for your enemies, disclosures of buried treasure, and successions to estates".[110]

Witchcraft

 
Witches by Hans Baldung. Woodcut, 1508
Main article: Witchcraft

Witchcraft or witchery broadly means the practice of and belief in magical skills and abilities exercised by solitary practitioners and groups. Witchcraft is a broad term that varies culturally and societally, and thus can be difficult to define with precision,[111] and cross-cultural assumptions about the meaning or significance of the term should be applied with caution. Witchcraft often occupies a religious divinatory or medicinal role,[112] and is often present within societies and groups whose cultural framework includes a magical world view.[111]

Miracle

Main article: Miracle

A miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws.[113] Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being (a deity), a miracle worker, a saint or a religious leader.

Informally, the word "miracle" is often used to characterise any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws of nature, such as surviving a natural disaster, or simply a "wonderful" occurrence, regardless of likelihood, such as a birth. Other such miracles might be: survival of an illness diagnosed as terminal, escaping a life-threatening situation or 'beating the odds'. Some coincidences may be seen as miracles.[114]

A true miracle would, by definition, be a non-natural phenomenon, leading many rational and scientific thinkers to dismiss them as physically impossible (that is, requiring violation of established laws of physics within their domain of validity) or impossible to confirm by their nature (because all possible physical mechanisms can never be ruled out). The former position is expressed for instance by Thomas Jefferson and the latter by David Hume. Theologians typically say that, with divine providence, God regularly works through nature yet, as a creator, is free to work without, above, or against it as well. The possibility and probability of miracles are then equal to the possibility and probability of the existence of God.[115]

Skepticism

Main article: Skepticism

Skepticism (American English) or scepticism (British English; see spelling differences) is generally any questioning attitude or doubt towards one or more items of putative knowledge or belief.[116][117] It is often directed at domains such as the supernatural, morality (moral skepticism), religion (skepticism about the existence of God), or knowledge (skepticism about the possibility of knowledge, or of certainty).[118] Formally, skepticism as a topic occurs in the context of philosophy, particularly epistemology, although it can be applied to any topic such as politics, religion, and pseudoscience.

One reason why skeptics assert that the supernatural cannot exist is that anything "supernatural" is not a part of the natural world simply by definition. Although some believers in the supernatural insist that it simply cannot be demonstrated using the existing scientific methods, skeptics assert that such methods is the best tool humans have devised for knowing what is and isn't knowable.[119]

In fiction and popular culture

Main article: Supernatural fiction

Supernatural entities and powers are common in various works of fantasy. Examples include the television shows Supernatural and The X-Files, the magic of the Harry Potter series, The Lord of the Rings series, The Wheel of Time series, A Song of Ice and Fire series and the Force of Star Wars.

See also

 
Look up supernatural in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Supernatural.

References

  1. ^ a b "Definition of SUPERNATURAL".
  2. ^ a b c d e f Bartlett, Robert (14 March 2008). "1. The Boundaries of the Supernatural". The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–34. ISBN 978-0521702553.
  3. ^ a b "Supernatural" (Online). A Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion. Oxford Reference Online – Oxford University Press. The ancients had no word for the supernatural any more than they had for nature.
  4. ^ Pasulka, Diana; Kripal, Jeffrey (23 November 2014). "Religion and the Paranormal". Oxford University Press blog. Oxford University Press.
  5. ^ Halman, Loek (2010). "8. Atheism And Secularity In The Netherlands". In Phil Zuckerman (ed.). Atheism and Secularity Vol.2: Gloabal Expressions. Praeger. ISBN 9780313351839. "Thus, despite the fact that they claim to be convinced atheists and the majority deny the existence of a personal god, a rather large minority of the Dutch convinced atheists to believe in a supernatural power!" (e.g. telepathy, reincarnation, life after death, and heaven)
  6. ^ "Naturalism". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. University of Tennessee. However, naturalism is not always narrowly scientistic. There are versions of naturalism that repudiate supernaturalism and various types of a priori theorizing without exclusively championing the natural sciences.
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Further reading

  • Economic Production and the Spread of Supernatural Beliefs ~ Daniel Araújo (PDF). January 7, 2022.
  • Bouvet R, Bonnefon J. F. (2015). "Non-Reflective Thinkers Are Predisposed to Attribute Supernatural Causation to Uncanny Experiences". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 41 (7): 955–61. doi:10.1177/0146167215585728. PMID 25948700. S2CID 33570482.
  • McNamara P, Bulkeley K (2015). "Dreams as a Source of Supernatural Agent Concepts". Frontiers in Psychology. 6: 283. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00283. PMC 4365543. PMID 25852602.
  • Riekki T, Lindeman M, Raij T. T. (2014). "Supernatural Believers Attribute More Intentions to Random Movement than Skeptics: An fMRI Study". Social Neuroscience. 9 (4): 400–411. doi:10.1080/17470919.2014.906366. PMID 24720663. S2CID 33940568.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Purzycki Benjamin G (2013). "The Minds of Gods: A Comparative Study of Supernatural Agency". Cognition. 129 (1): 163–179. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.06.010. PMID 23891826. S2CID 23554738.
  • Thomson P, Jaque S. V. (2014). "Unresolved Mourning, Supernatural Beliefs and Dissociation: A Mediation Analysis". Attachment and Human Development. 16 (5): 499–514. doi:10.1080/14616734.2014.926945. PMID 24913392. S2CID 10290610.
  • Vail K. E, Arndt J, Addollahi A. (2012). "Exploring the Existential Function of Religion and Supernatural Agent Beliefs Among Christians, Muslims, Atheists, and Agnostics". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 38 (10): 1288–1300. doi:10.1177/0146167212449361. PMID 22700240. S2CID 2019266.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

February 12, 2023
supernatural, this, article, about, unexplained, natural, forces, phenomena, other, uses, disambiguation, power, redirects, here, popular, culture, concept, imaginary, superhuman, abilities, superpower, ability, refers, phenomena, entities, that, beyond, laws,. This article is about unexplained or non natural forces and phenomena For other uses see Supernatural disambiguation Supernatural power redirects here For the popular culture concept of the imaginary superhuman abilities see Superpower ability Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature 1 The term is derived from Medieval Latin supernaturalis from Latin super above beyond or outside of natura nature 1 Though the corollary term nature has had multiple meanings since the ancient world the term supernatural emerged in the Middle Ages 2 and did not exist in the ancient world 3 Saint Peter Attempting to Walk on Water 1766 painting by Francois Boucher The supernatural is featured in folklore and religious contexts 4 but can also feature as an explanation in more secular contexts as in the cases of superstitions or belief in the paranormal 5 The term is attributed to non physical entities such as angels demons gods and spirits It also includes claimed abilities embodied in or provided by such beings including magic telekinesis levitation precognition and extrasensory perception The philosophy of naturalism contends that nothing exists beyond the natural world and as such approaches supernatural claims with skepticism 6 Contents 1 Etymology and history of the concept 1 1 History of the concept 2 Epistemology and metaphysics 3 Anthropological studies 4 Supernatural concepts 4 1 Deity 4 2 Angel 4 3 Prophecy 4 4 Revelation 4 5 Reincarnation 4 6 Karma 4 7 Christian theology 4 8 Process theology 4 9 Heaven 4 10 Underworld 4 11 Spirit 4 12 Demon 4 13 Magic 4 14 Divination 4 15 Witchcraft 4 16 Miracle 5 Skepticism 6 In fiction and popular culture 7 See also 8 References 9 Further readingEtymology and history of the concept EditOccurring as both an adjective and a noun descendants of the modern English compound supernatural enter the language from two sources via Middle French supernaturel and directly from the Middle French s term s ancestor post Classical Latin supernaturalis Post classical Latin supernaturalis first occurs in the 6th century composed of the Latin prefix super and naturalis see nature The earliest known appearance of the word in the English language occurs in a Middle English translation of Catherine of Siena s Dialogue orcherd of Syon around 1425 THei haue not thanne the supernaturel lyȝt ne the liȝt of kunnynge bycause thei vndirstoden it not 7 The semantic value of the term has shifted over the history of its use Originally the term referred exclusively to Christian understandings of the world For example as an adjective the term can mean belonging to a realm or system that transcends nature as that of divine magical or ghostly beings attributed to or thought to reveal some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature occult paranormal or more than what is natural or ordinary unnaturally or extraordinarily great abnormal extraordinary Obsolete uses include of relating to or dealing with metaphysics As a noun the term can mean a supernatural being with a particularly strong history of employment in relation to entities from the mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas 7 History of the concept Edit The ancient world had no word that resembled supernatural 3 Dialogues from Neoplatonic philosophy in the third century AD contributed to the development of the concept the supernatural via Christian theology in later centuries 8 The term nature had existed since antiquity with Latin authors like Augustine using the word and its cognates at least 600 times in City of God In the medieval period nature had ten different meanings and natural had eleven different meanings 2 Peter Lombard a medieval scholastic in the 12th century asked about causes that are beyond nature in that how there could be causes that were God s alone He used the term praeter naturam in his writings 2 In the scholastic period Thomas Aquinas classified miracles into three categories above nature beyond nature and against nature In doing so he sharpened the distinction between nature and miracles more than the early Church Fathers had done 2 As a result he had created a dichotomy of sorts of the natural and supernatural 8 Though the phrase supra naturam was used since the 4th century AD it was in the 1200s that Thomas Aquinas used the term supernaturalis and despite this the term had to wait until the end of the medieval period before it became more popularly used 2 The discussions on nature from the scholastic period were diverse and unsettled with some postulating that even miracles are natural and that natural magic was a natural part of the world 2 Epistemology and metaphysics EditSee also Anthropology of religion The metaphysical considerations of the existence of the supernatural can be difficult to approach as an exercise in philosophy or theology because any dependencies on its antithesis the natural will ultimately have to be inverted or rejected One complicating factor is that there is disagreement about the definition of natural and the limits of naturalism Concepts in the supernatural domain are closely related to concepts in religious spirituality and occultism or spiritualism For sometimes we use the word nature for that Author of nature whom the schoolmen harshly enough call natura naturans as when it is said that nature hath made man partly corporeal and partly immaterial Sometimes we mean by the nature of a thing the essence or that which the schoolmen scruple not to call the quiddity of a thing namely the attribute or attributes on whose score it is what it is whether the thing be corporeal or not as when we attempt to define the nature of an angle or of a triangle or of a fluid body as such Sometimes we take nature for an internal principle of motion as when we say that a stone let fall in the air is by nature carried towards the centre of the earth and on the contrary that fire or flame does naturally move upwards toward firmament Sometimes we understand by nature the established course of things as when we say that nature makes the night succeed the day nature hath made respiration necessary to the life of men Sometimes we take nature for an aggregate of powers belonging to a body especially a living one as when physicians say that nature is strong or weak or spent or that in such or such diseases nature left to herself will do the cure Sometimes we take nature for the universe or system of the corporeal works of God as when it is said of a phoenix or a chimera that there is no such thing in nature i e in the world And sometimes too and that most commonly we would express by nature a semi deity or other strange kind of being such as this discourse examines the notion of And besides these more absolute acceptions if I may so call them of the word nature it has divers others more relative as nature is wont to be set or in opposition or contradistinction to other things as when we say of a stone when it falls downwards that it does it by a natural motion but that if it be thrown upwards its motion that way is violent So chemists distinguish vitriol into natural and fictitious or made by art i e by the intervention of human power or skill so it is said that water kept suspended in a sucking pump is not in its natural place as that is which is stagnant in the well We say also that wicked men are still in the state of nature but the regenerate in a state of grace that cures wrought by medicines are natural operations but the miraculous ones wrought by Christ and his apostles were supernatural 9 Robert Boyle A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature Nomological possibility is possibility under the actual laws of nature Most philosophers since David Hume have held that the laws of nature are metaphysically contingent that there could have been different natural laws than the ones that actually obtain If so then it would not be logically or metaphysically impossible for example for you to travel to Alpha Centauri in one day it would just have to be the case that you could travel faster than the speed of light But of course there is an important sense in which this is not nomologically possible given that the laws of nature are what they are In the philosophy of natural science impossibility assertions come to be widely accepted as overwhelmingly probable rather than considered proved to the point of being unchallengeable The basis for this strong acceptance is a combination of extensive evidence of something not occurring combined with an underlying scientific theory very successful in making predictions whose assumptions lead logically to the conclusion that something is impossible While an impossibility assertion in natural science can never be absolutely proved it could be refuted by the observation of a single counterexample Such a counterexample would require that the assumptions underlying the theory that implied the impossibility be re examined Some philosophers such as Sydney Shoemaker have argued that the laws of nature are in fact necessary not contingent if so then nomological possibility is equivalent to metaphysical possibility 10 11 12 The term supernatural is often used interchangeably with paranormal or preternatural the latter typically limited to an adjective for describing abilities which appear to exceed what is possible within the boundaries of the laws of physics 13 Epistemologically the relationship between the supernatural and the natural is indistinct in terms of natural phenomena that ex hypothesi violate the laws of nature in so far as such laws are realistically accountable Parapsychologists use the term psi to refer to an assumed unitary force underlying the phenomena they study Psi is defined in the Journal of Parapsychology as personal factors or processes in nature which transcend accepted laws 1948 311 and which are non physical in nature 1962 310 and it is used to cover both extrasensory perception ESP an awareness of or response to an external event or influence not apprehended by sensory means 1962 309 or inferred from sensory knowledge and psychokinesis PK the direct influence exerted on a physical system by a subject without any known intermediate energy or instrumentation 1945 305 14 Michael Winkelman Current Anthropology Views on the supernatural vary for example it may be seen as indistinct from nature From this perspective some events occur according to the laws of nature and others occur according to a separate set of principles external to known nature For example in Scholasticism it was believed that God was capable of performing any miracle so long as it didn t lead to a logical contradiction Some religions posit immanent deities however and do not have a tradition analogous to the supernatural some believe that everything anyone experiences occurs by the will occasionalism in the mind neoplatonism or as a part nondualism of a more fundamental divine reality platonism incorrect human attribution In this view all events have natural and only natural causes They believe that human beings ascribe supernatural attributes to purely natural events such as lightning rainbows floods and the origin of life 15 16 Anthropological studies EditAnthropological studies across cultures indicate that people do not hold or use natural and supernatural explanations in a mutually exclusive or dichotomous fashion Instead the reconciliation of natural and supernatural explanations is normal and pervasive across cultures 17 Cross cultural studies indicate that there is coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations in both adults and children for explaining numerous things about the world such as illness death and origins 18 19 Context and cultural input play a large role in determining when and how individuals incorporate natural and supernatural explanations 20 The coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations in individuals may be the outcomes two distinct cognitive domains one concerned with the physical mechanical relations and another with social relations 21 Studies on indigenous groups have allowed for insights on how such coexistence of explanations may function 22 Supernatural concepts EditSee also Religion and Magic and religion Deity Edit Main article Deity A deity ˈ d iː e t i listen or ˈ d eɪ e t i listen 23 is a supernatural being considered divine or sacred 24 The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as a god or goddess in a polytheistic religion or anything revered as divine 25 C Scott Littleton defines a deity as a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans but who interacts with humans positively or negatively in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life 26 A male deity is a god while a female deity is a goddess Religions can be categorized by how many deities they worship Monotheistic religions accept only one deity predominantly referred to as God 27 28 polytheistic religions accept multiple deities 29 Henotheistic religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities considering them as equivalent aspects of the same divine principle 30 31 and nontheistic religions deny any supreme eternal creator deity but accept a pantheon of deities which live die and are reborn just like any other being 32 35 37 33 357 358 Various cultures have conceptualized a deity differently than a monotheistic God 34 35 A deity need not be omnipotent omnipresent omniscient omnibenevolent or eternal 34 35 36 The monotheistic God however does have these attributes 37 38 39 Monotheistic religions typically refer to God in masculine terms 40 41 96 while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways masculine feminine androgynous and gender neutral 42 43 44 Historically many ancient cultures such as Ancient India Ancient Egyptian Ancient Greek Ancient Roman Nordic and Asian culture personified natural phenomena variously as either their conscious causes or simply their effects respectively 45 46 47 Some Avestan and Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts 45 46 In Indian religions deities have been envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every living being s body as sensory organs and mind 48 49 50 Deities have also been envisioned as a form of existence Saṃsara after rebirth for human beings who gain merit through an ethical life where they become guardian deities and live blissfully in heaven but are also subject to death when their merit runs out 32 35 38 33 356 359 Angel Edit Main article Angel The Archangel Michael wears a late Roman military cloak and cuirass in this 17th century depiction by Guido Reni Schutzengel English Guardian Angel by Bernhard Plockhorst depicts a guardian angel watching over two children An angel is generally a supernatural being found in various religions and mythologies In Abrahamic religions and Zoroastrianism angels are often depicted as benevolent celestial beings who act as intermediaries between God or Heaven and Earth 51 52 Other roles of angels include protecting and guiding human beings and carrying out God s tasks 53 Within Abrahamic religions angels are often organized into hierarchies although such rankings may vary between sects in each religion and are given specific names or titles such as Gabriel or Destroying angel The term angel has also been expanded to various notions of spirits or figures found in other religious traditions The theological study of angels is known as angelology In fine art angels are usually depicted as having the shape of human beings of extraordinary beauty 54 55 they are often identified using the symbols of bird wings 56 halos 57 and light Prophecy Edit Main article Prophecy Prophecy involves a process in which messages are communicated by a god to a prophet Such messages typically involve inspiration interpretation or revelation of divine will concerning the prophet s social world and events to come compare divine knowledge Prophecy is not limited to any one culture It is a common property to all known ancient societies around the world some more than others Many systems and rules about prophecy have been proposed over several millennia Revelation Edit Main article Revelation In religion and theology revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities Some religions have religious texts which they view as divinely or supernaturally revealed or inspired For instance Orthodox Jews Christians and Muslims believe that the Torah was received from Yahweh on biblical Mount Sinai 58 59 Most Christians believe that both the Old Testament and the New Testament were inspired by God Muslims believe the Quran was revealed by God to Muhammad word by word through the angel Gabriel Jibril 60 61 In Hinduism some Vedas are considered apauruṣeya not human compositions and are supposed to have been directly revealed and thus are called sruti what is heard The 15 000 handwritten pages produced by the mystic Maria Valtorta were represented as direct dictations from Jesus while she attributed The Book of Azariah to her guardian angel 62 Aleister Crowley stated that The Book of the Law had been revealed to him through a higher being that called itself Aiwass A revelation communicated by a supernatural entity reported as being present during the event is called a vision Direct conversations between the recipient and the supernatural entity 63 or physical marks such as stigmata have been reported In rare cases such as that of Saint Juan Diego physical artifacts accompany the revelation 64 The Roman Catholic concept of interior locution includes just an inner voice heard by the recipient In the Abrahamic religions the term is used to refer to the process by which God reveals knowledge of himself his will and his divine providence to the world of human beings 65 In secondary usage revelation refers to the resulting human knowledge about God prophecy and other divine things Revelation from a supernatural source plays a less important role in some other religious traditions such as Buddhism Confucianism and Taoism Reincarnation Edit Main article Reincarnation In Jainism a soul travels to any one of the four states of existence after death depending on its karmas Reincarnation is the philosophical or religious concept that an aspect of a living being starts a new life in a different physical body or form after each biological death It is also called rebirth or transmigration and is a part of the Saṃsara doctrine of cyclic existence 66 67 It is a central tenet of all major Indian religions namely Jainism Hinduism Buddhism and Sikhism 67 68 69 The idea of reincarnation is found in many ancient cultures 70 and a belief in rebirth metempsychosis was held by Greek historic figures such as Pythagoras Socrates and Plato 71 It is also a common belief of various ancient and modern religions such as Spiritism Theosophy and Eckankar and as an esoteric belief in many streams of Orthodox Judaism It is found as well in many tribal societies around the world in places such as Australia East Asia Siberia and South America 72 Although the majority of denominations within Christianity and Islam do not believe that individuals reincarnate particular groups within these religions do refer to reincarnation these groups include the mainstream historical and contemporary followers of Cathars Alawites the Druze 73 and the Rosicrucians 74 The historical relations between these sects and the beliefs about reincarnation that were characteristic of Neoplatonism Orphism Hermeticism Manicheanism and Gnosticism of the Roman era as well as the Indian religions have been the subject of recent scholarly research 75 Unity Church and its founder Charles Fillmore teaches reincarnation In recent decades many Europeans and North Americans have developed an interest in reincarnation 76 and many contemporary works mention it Karma Edit Main article Karma Karma ˈ k ɑːr m e Sanskrit कर म romanized karma IPA ˈkɐɽmɐ listen Pali kamma means action work or deed 77 it also refers to the spiritual principle of cause and effect where intent and actions of an individual cause influence the future of that individual effect 78 Good intent and good deeds contribute to good karma and future happiness while bad intent and bad deeds contribute to bad karma and future suffering 79 80 With origins in ancient India s Vedic civilization the philosophy of karma is closely associated with the idea of rebirth in many schools of Indian religions particularly Hinduism Buddhism Jainism and Sikhism 81 as well as Taoism 82 In these schools karma in the present affects one s future in the current life as well as the nature and quality of future lives one s saṃsara 83 84 Christian theology Edit The patron saint of air travelers aviators astronauts people with a mental handicap test takers and poor students is Saint Joseph of Cupertino who is said to have been gifted with supernatural flight 85 Main article Supernatural order In Catholic theology the supernatural order is according to New Advent defined as the ensemble of effects exceeding the powers of the created universe and gratuitously produced by God for the purpose of raising the rational creature above its native sphere to a God like life and destiny 86 The Modern Catholic Dictionary defines it as the sum total of heavenly destiny and all the divinely established means of reaching that destiny which surpass the mere powers and capacities of human nature 87 Process theology Edit Main article Process theology Process theology is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead 1861 1947 and further developed by Charles Hartshorne 1897 2000 It is not possible in process metaphysics to conceive divine activity as a supernatural intervention into the natural order of events Process theists usually regard the distinction between the supernatural and the natural as a by product of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo In process thought there is no such thing as a realm of the natural in contrast to that which is supernatural On the other hand if the natural is defined more neutrally as what is in the nature of things then process metaphysics characterizes the natural as the creative activity of actual entities In Whitehead s words It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity Whitehead 1978 21 It is tempting to emphasize process theism s denial of the supernatural and thereby highlight that the processed God cannot do in comparison what the traditional God could do that is to bring something from nothing In fairness however equal stress should be placed on process theism s denial of the natural as traditionally conceived so that one may highlight what the creatures cannot do in traditional theism in comparison to what they can do in process metaphysics that is to be part creators of the world with God 88 Donald Viney Process Theism in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Heaven Edit Main article Heaven Heaven or the heavens is a common religious cosmological or transcendent place where beings such as gods angels spirits saints or venerated ancestors are said to originate be enthroned or live According to the beliefs of some religions heavenly beings can descend to Earth or incarnate and earthly beings can ascend to heaven in the afterlife or in exceptional cases enter heaven alive Heaven is often described as a higher place the holiest place a Paradise in contrast to hell or the Underworld or the low places and universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity goodness piety faith or other virtues or right beliefs or simply the will of God Some believe in the possibility of a heaven on Earth in a world to come Another belief is in an axis mundi or world tree which connects the heavens the terrestrial world and the underworld In Indian religions heaven is considered as Svarga loka 89 and the soul is again subjected to rebirth in different living forms according to its karma This cycle can be broken after a soul achieves Moksha or Nirvana Any place of existence either of humans souls or deities outside the tangible world Heaven Hell or other is referred to as otherworld Underworld Edit Main article Underworld The underworld is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions located below the world of the living 90 Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld The concept of an underworld is found in almost every civilization and may be as old as humanity itself 91 Common features of underworld myths are accounts of living people making journeys to the underworld often for some heroic purpose Other myths reinforce traditions that entrance of souls to the underworld requires a proper observation of ceremony such as the ancient Greek story of the recently dead Patroclus haunting Achilles until his body could be properly buried for this purpose 92 Persons having social status were dressed and equipped in order to better navigate the underworld 93 A number of mythologies incorporate the concept of the soul of the deceased making its own journey to the underworld with the dead needing to be taken across a defining obstacle such as a lake or a river to reach this destination 94 Imagery of such journeys can be found in both ancient and modern art The descent to the underworld has been described as the single most important myth for Modernist authors 95 Spirit Edit Main article Spirit vital essence Theodor von Holst Bertalda Assailed by Spirits c 1830 A spirit is a supernatural being often but not exclusively a non physical entity such as a ghost fairy jinn or angel 96 The concepts of a person s spirit and soul often also overlap as both are either contrasted with or given ontological priority over the body and both are believed to survive bodily death in some religions 97 and spirit can also have the sense of ghost i e a manifestation of the spirit of a deceased person In English Bibles the Spirit with a capital S specifically denotes the Holy Spirit Spirit is often used metaphysically to refer to the consciousness or personality Historically it was also used to refer to a subtle as opposed to gross material substance as in the famous last paragraph of Sir Isaac Newton s Principia Mathematica 98 Demon Edit Main article Demon Bronze statuette of the Assyro Babylonian demon king Pazuzu circa 800 BC circa 700 BC Louvre A demon from Koine Greek daimonion daimonion is a supernatural and often malevolent being prevalent in religion occultism literature fiction mythology and folklore In Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions including ancient and medieval Christian demonology a demon is considered a harmful spiritual entity below the heavenly planes 99 which may cause demonic possession calling for an exorcism In Western occultism and Renaissance magic which grew out of an amalgamation of Greco Roman magic Jewish Aggadah and Christian demonology 100 a demon is believed to be a spiritual entity that may be conjured and controlled Magic Edit Main article Magic supernatural Magic or sorcery is the use of rituals symbols actions gestures or language with the aim of utilizing supernatural forces 101 102 6 7 103 104 24 Belief in and practice of magic has been present since the earliest human cultures and continues to have an important spiritual religious and medicinal role in many cultures today The term magic has a variety of meanings and there is no widely agreed upon definition of what it is Scholars of religion have defined magic in different ways One approach associated with the anthropologists Edward Tylor and James G Frazer suggests that magic and science are opposites An alternative approach associated with the sociologists Marcel Mauss and Emile Durkheim argues that magic takes place in private while religion is a communal and organised activity Many scholars of religion have rejected the utility of the term magic and it has become increasingly unpopular within scholarship since the 1990s The term magic comes from the Old Persian magu a word that applied to a form of religious functionary about which little is known During the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE this term was adopted into Ancient Greek where it was used with negative connotations to apply to religious rites that were regarded as fraudulent unconventional and dangerous This meaning of the term was then adopted by Latin in the first century BCE The concept was then incorporated into Christian theology during the first century CE where magic was associated with demons and thus defined against religion This concept was pervasive throughout the Middle Ages although in the early modern period Italian humanists reinterpreted the term in a positive sense to establish the idea of natural magic Both negative and positive understandings of the term were retained in Western culture over the following centuries with the former largely influencing early academic usages of the word Throughout history there have been examples of individuals who practiced magic and referred to themselves as magicians This trend has proliferated in the modern period with a growing number of magicians appearing within the esoteric milieu not verified in body British esotericist Aleister Crowley described magic as the art of effecting change in accordance with will Divination Edit Main article Divination Divination from Latin divinare to foresee to be inspired by a god 105 related to divinus divine is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual 106 Used in various forms throughout history diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs events or omens or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency 107 Divination can be seen as a systematic method with which to organize what appear to be disjointed random facets of existence such that they provide insight into a problem at hand If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune telling divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character usually in a religious context as seen in traditional African medicine Fortune telling on the other hand is a more everyday practice for personal purposes Particular divination methods vary by culture and religion Divination is dismissed by the scientific community and skeptics as being superstition 108 109 In the 2nd century Lucian devoted a witty essay to the career of a charlatan Alexander the false prophet trained by one of those who advertise enchantments miraculous incantations charms for your love affairs visitations for your enemies disclosures of buried treasure and successions to estates 110 Witchcraft Edit Witches by Hans Baldung Woodcut 1508 Main article Witchcraft Witchcraft or witchery broadly means the practice of and belief in magical skills and abilities exercised by solitary practitioners and groups Witchcraft is a broad term that varies culturally and societally and thus can be difficult to define with precision 111 and cross cultural assumptions about the meaning or significance of the term should be applied with caution Witchcraft often occupies a religious divinatory or medicinal role 112 and is often present within societies and groups whose cultural framework includes a magical world view 111 Miracle Edit Main article Miracle A miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws 113 Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being a deity a miracle worker a saint or a religious leader Informally the word miracle is often used to characterise any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws of nature such as surviving a natural disaster or simply a wonderful occurrence regardless of likelihood such as a birth Other such miracles might be survival of an illness diagnosed as terminal escaping a life threatening situation or beating the odds Some coincidences may be seen as miracles 114 A true miracle would by definition be a non natural phenomenon leading many rational and scientific thinkers to dismiss them as physically impossible that is requiring violation of established laws of physics within their domain of validity or impossible to confirm by their nature because all possible physical mechanisms can never be ruled out The former position is expressed for instance by Thomas Jefferson and the latter by David Hume Theologians typically say that with divine providence God regularly works through nature yet as a creator is free to work without above or against it as well The possibility and probability of miracles are then equal to the possibility and probability of the existence of God 115 Skepticism EditMain article Skepticism Skepticism American English or scepticism British English see spelling differences is generally any questioning attitude or doubt towards one or more items of putative knowledge or belief 116 117 It is often directed at domains such as the supernatural morality moral skepticism religion skepticism about the existence of God or knowledge skepticism about the possibility of knowledge or of certainty 118 Formally skepticism as a topic occurs in the context of philosophy particularly epistemology although it can be applied to any topic such as politics religion and pseudoscience One reason why skeptics assert that the supernatural cannot exist is that anything supernatural is not a part of the natural world simply by definition Although some believers in the supernatural insist that it simply cannot be demonstrated using the existing scientific methods skeptics assert that such methods is the best tool humans have devised for knowing what is and isn t knowable 119 In fiction and popular culture EditMain article Supernatural fiction Supernatural entities and powers are common in various works of fantasy Examples include the television shows Supernatural and The X Files the magic of the Harry Potter series The Lord of the Rings series The Wheel of Time series A Song of Ice and Fire series and the Force of Star Wars See also Edit Look up supernatural in Wiktionary the free dictionary Wikiquote has quotations related to Supernatural Journal of Parapsychology Liberal naturalism Magical thinking Paranormal Parapsychology Religious naturalism Romanticism Spirit photographyReferences Edit a b Definition of SUPERNATURAL a b c d e f Bartlett Robert 14 March 2008 1 The Boundaries of the Supernatural The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages Cambridge University Press pp 1 34 ISBN 978 0521702553 a b Supernatural Online A Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion Oxford Reference Online Oxford University Press The ancients had no word for the supernatural any more than they had for nature Pasulka Diana Kripal Jeffrey 23 November 2014 Religion and the Paranormal Oxford University Press blog Oxford University Press Halman Loek 2010 8 Atheism And Secularity In The Netherlands In Phil Zuckerman ed Atheism and Secularity Vol 2 Gloabal Expressions Praeger ISBN 9780313351839 Thus despite the fact that they claim to be convinced atheists and the majority deny the existence of a personal god a rather large minority of the Dutch convinced atheists to believe in a supernatural power e g telepathy reincarnation life after death and heaven Naturalism Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy University of Tennessee However naturalism is not always narrowly scientistic There are versions of naturalism that repudiate supernaturalism and various types of a priori theorizing without exclusively championing the natural sciences a b supernatural Oxford English Dictionary Online ed Oxford University Press Retrieved 24 October 2018 Subscription or participating institution membership required a b Saler Benson 1977 Supernatural as a Western Category Ethos 5 31 53 doi 10 1525 eth 1977 5 1 02a00040 Boyle Robert Stewart M A 1991 Selected Philosophical Papers of Robert Boyle HPC Classics Series Hackett pp 176 177 ISBN 978 0 87220 122 4 LCCN 91025480 Roberts John T 2010 Some Laws of Nature are Metaphysically Contingent Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 3 445 457 doi 10 1080 00048400903159016 S2CID 170608423 On the Metaphysical Contingency of Laws of Nature Conceivability and Possibility Oxford University Press 2002 pp 309 336 The Contingency of Physical Laws Retrieved 2022 02 11 Partridge Kenneth 2009 The paranormal ISBN 9780824210922 Retrieved July 26 2010 Winkelman M et al February 1982 Magic A Theoretical Reassessment and Comments and Replies Current Anthropology 23 1 37 66 doi 10 1086 202778 JSTOR 274255 S2CID 147447041 Zhong Yang Yan Jiu Yuan Min Tsu Hsueh Yen Chiu So 1976 Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology Academia Sinica Issues 42 44 Ellis B J Bjorklund D F 2004 Origins of the Social Mind Evolutionary Psychology and Child Development Guilford Publications p 413 ISBN 9781593851033 LCCN 2004022693 Legare Cristine H Visala Aku 2011 Between Religion and Science Integrating Psychological and Philosophical Accounts of Explanatory Coexistence Human Development 54 3 169 184 doi 10 1159 000329135 S2CID 53668380 Legare Cristine H Evans E Margaret Rosengren Karl S Harris Paul L May 2012 The Coexistence of Natural and Supernatural Explanations Across Cultures and Development Coexistence of Natural and Supernatural Explanations Child Development 83 3 779 793 doi 10 1111 j 1467 8624 2012 01743 x hdl 2027 42 91141 PMID 22417318 Aizenkot Dana 11 September 2020 Meaning Making to Child Loss The Coexistence of Natural and Supernatural Explanations of Death Journal of Constructivist Psychology 35 318 343 doi 10 1080 10720537 2020 1819491 S2CID 225231409 Busch Justin T A Watson Jones Rachel E Legare Cristine H March 2017 The coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations within and across domains and development British Journal of Developmental Psychology 35 1 4 20 doi 10 1111 bjdp 12164 PMID 27785818 S2CID 24196030 Whitehouse Harvey 2011 The Coexistence Problem in Psychology Anthropology and Evolutionary Theory Human Development 54 3 191 199 doi 10 1159 000329149 S2CID 145622566 Watson Jones Rachel E Busch Justin T A Legare Cristine H October 2015 Interdisciplinary and Cross Cultural Perspectives on Explanatory Coexistence Topics in Cognitive Science 7 4 611 623 doi 10 1111 tops 12162 PMID 26350158 The American Heritage Book of English Usage A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English Boston Houghton Mifflin 1996 p 219 ISBN 978 0395767856 O Brien Jodi 2009 Encyclopedia of Gender and Society Los Angeles SAGE p 191 ISBN 9781412909167 Retrieved June 28 2017 Stevenson Angus 2010 Oxford Dictionary of English 3rd ed New York Oxford University Press p 461 ISBN 9780199571123 Retrieved June 28 2017 Littleton C Scott 2005 Gods Goddesses and Mythology New York Marshall Cavendish p 378 ISBN 9780761475590 Retrieved June 28 2017 Becking Bob Dijkstra Meindert Korpel Marjo Vriezen Karel 2001 Only One God Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah London New York p 189 ISBN 9780567232120 Retrieved June 28 2017 The Christian tradition is in imitation of Judaism a monotheistic religion This implies that believers accept the existence of only one God Other deities either do not exist are seen as the product of human imagination or are dismissed as remanents of a persistent paganism Korte Anne Marie Haardt Maaike De 2009 The Boundaries of Monotheism Interdisciplinary Explorations Into the Foundations of Western Monotheism BRILL p 9 ISBN 978 9004173163 Retrieved June 28 2017 Brown Jeannine K 2007 Scripture as Communication Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics Baker Academic p 72 ISBN 9780801027888 Retrieved June 28 2017 Taliaferro Charles Harrison Victoria S Goetz Stewart 2012 The Routledge Companion to Theism Routledge pp 78 79 ISBN 9781136338236 Retrieved June 28 2017 Reat N Ross Perry Edmund F 1991 A World Theology The Central Spiritual Reality of Humankind Cambridge University Press pp 73 75 ISBN 9780521331593 Retrieved June 28 2017 a b Keown Damien 2013 Buddhism A Very Short Introduction New ed Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 9780199663835 Retrieved June 22 2017 a b Bullivant Stephen Ruse Michael 2013 The Oxford Handbook of Atheism Oxford University Publishing ISBN 9780199644650 Retrieved June 22 2017 a b Hood Robert E 1990 Must God Remain Greek Afro Cultures and God talk Minneapolis Fortress Press pp 128 129 ISBN 9780800624491 African people may describe their deities as strong but not omnipotent wise but not omniscient old but not eternal great but not omnipresent a b Trigger Bruce G 2003 Understanding Early Civilizations A Comparative Study 1st ed Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 441 442 ISBN 9780521822459 Historically people perceived far fewer differences between themselves and the gods than the adherents of modern monotheistic religions Deities were not thought to be omniscient or omnipotent and were rarely believed to be changeless or eternal John Murdoch English Translations of Select Tracts Published in India Religious Texts at Google Books pages 141 142 Quote We monotheists find by reason and revelation that God is omniscient omnipotent most holy etc but the Hindu deities possess none of those attributes It is mentioned in their Shastras that their deities were all vanquished by the Asurs while they fought in the heavens and for fear of whom they left their abodes This plainly shows that they are not omnipotent Taliaferro Charles Marty Elsa J 2010 A Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion New York Continuum pp 98 99 ISBN 9781441111975 Wilkerson W D 2014 Walking With The Gods Sankofa pp 6 7 ISBN 978 0991530014 Trigger Bruce G 2003 Understanding Early Civilizations A Comparative Study 1st ed Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 473 474 ISBN 9780521822459 Kramarae Cheris Spender Dale 2004 Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women Global Women s Issues and Knowledge Routledge p 655 ISBN 9781135963156 Retrieved June 28 2017 O Brien Julia M 2014 Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies Oxford University Press Incorporated ISBN 9780199836994 Retrieved June 22 2017 Bonnefoy Yves 1992 Roman and European Mythologies Chicago University of Chicago Press pp 274 275 ISBN 9780226064550 Retrieved June 28 2017 Pintchman Tracy 2014 Seeking Mahadevi Constructing the Identities of the Hindu Great Goddess SUNY Press pp 1 2 19 20 ISBN 9780791490495 Retrieved June 28 2017 Roberts Nathaniel 2016 To Be Cared For The Power of Conversion and Foreignness of Belonging in an Indian Slum University of California Press p xv ISBN 9780520963634 Retrieved June 28 2017 a b Malandra William W 1983 An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion Readings from the Avesta and the Achaemenid Inscriptions Minneapolis Minnesota University of Minnesota Press pp 9 10 ISBN 978 0816611157 Retrieved June 28 2017 a b Floistad Guttorm 2010 Volume 10 Philosophy of Religion 1st ed Dordrecht Springer Science amp Business Media B V pp 19 20 ISBN 9789048135271 Retrieved June 28 2017 Daniel T Potts 1997 Mesopotamian Civilization The Material Foundations Cornell University Press pp 186 187 ISBN 978 0 8014 3339 9 Potter Karl H 2014 The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies Volume 3 Advaita Vedanta up to Samkara and His Pupils Princeton University Press pp 272 274 ISBN 9781400856510 Retrieved June 28 2017 Olivelle Patrick 2006 The Samnyasa Upanisads Hindu Scriptures on Asceticism and Renunciation New York Oxford University Press p 47 ISBN 9780195361377 Retrieved June 28 2017 Cush Denise Robinson Catherine York Michael 2008 Encyclopedia of Hinduism London Routledge pp 899 900 ISBN 9781135189792 Retrieved June 28 2017 The Free Dictionary 1 retrieved 1 September 2012 Angels in Christianity Religion Facts N p n d Web 15 Dec 2014 2 Augustine of Hippo s Enarrationes in Psalmos 103 I 15 augustinus it in Latin Definition of ANGEL www merriam webster com Retrieved 2016 05 02 ANGELOLOGY JewishEncyclopedia com jewishencyclopedia com Retrieved 2016 05 02 Proverbio 2007 pp 90 95 cf review in La Civilta Cattolica 3795 3796 2 16 August 2008 pp 327 328 Didron Vol 2 pp 68 71 Beale G K The Book of Revelation NIGTC Grand Rapids Cambridge 1999 ISBN 0 8028 2174 X Esposito John L What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam New York Oxford University Press 2002 pp 7 8 Lambert Gray 2013 The Leaders Are Coming WestBow Press p 287 ISBN 9781449760137 Roy H Williams Michael R Drew 2012 Pendulum How Past Generations Shape Our Present and Predict Our Future Vanguard Press p 143 ISBN 9781593157067 Maria Valtorta The Poem of the Man God ISBN 99926 45 57 1 Michael Freze 1993 Voices Visions and Apparitions OSV Publishing ISBN 0 87973 454 X p 252 Michael Freze 1989 They Bore the Wounds of Christ ISBN 0 87973 422 1 Revelation Define Revelation at Dictionary com Dictionary reference com Retrieved 2013 07 14 Norman C McClelland 2010 pp 24 29 171 sfn error no target CITEREFNorman C McClelland2010 help a b Mark Juergensmeyer amp Wade Clark Roof 2011 pp 271 272 sfn error no target CITEREFMark JuergensmeyerWade Clark Roof2011 help Stephen J Laumakis 2008 pp 90 99 sfn error no target CITEREFStephen J Laumakis2008 help Rita M Gross 1993 Buddhism After Patriarchy A Feminist History Analysis and Reconstruction of Buddhism State University of New York Press pp 148 ISBN 978 1 4384 0513 1 Norman C McClelland 2010 pp 102 103 sfn error no target CITEREFNorman C McClelland2010 help see Charles Taliaferro Paul Draper Philip L Quinn A Companion to Philosophy of Religion John Wiley and Sons 2010 page 640 Google Books Gananath Obeyesekere Imagining Karma Ethical Transformation in Amerindian Buddhist and Greek Rebirth University of California Press 2002 page 15 Hitti Philip K 2007 1924 Origins of the Druze People and Religion with Extracts from their Sacred Writings New Edition Columbia University Oriental Studies 28 London Saqi pp 13 14 ISBN 0 86356 690 1 Heindel Max 1985 1939 1908 The Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures Collected Works The Riddle of Life and Death Oceanside California 4th edition ISBN 0 911274 84 7 An important recent work discussing the mutual influence of ancient Greek and Indian philosophy regarding these matters is The Shape of Ancient Thought by Thomas McEvilley Popular psychology belief in life after death and reincarnation in the Nordic countries Western and Eastern Europe PDF 54 8 KB See Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition Volume 15 New York pp 679 680 Article on Karma Quote Karma meaning deed or action in addition it also has philosophical and technical meaning denoting a person s deeds as determining his future lot The Encyclopedia of World Religions Robert Ellwood amp Gregory Alles ISBN 978 0 8160 6141 9 pp 253 Quote Karma Sanskrit word meaning action and the consequences of action Hans Torwesten 1994 Vedanta Heart of Hinduism ISBN 978 0802132628 Grove Press New York pp 97 Quote In the Vedas the word karma work deed or action and its resulting effect referred mainly to Karma Encyclopaedia Britannica 2012 Halbfass Wilhelm 2000 Karma und Wiedergeburt im indischen Denken Diederichs Munchen Germany Lawrence C Becker amp Charlotte B Becker Encyclopedia of Ethics 2nd Edition ISBN 0 415 93672 1 Hindu Ethics pp 678 Parvesh Singla The Manual of Life Karma Parvesh singla pp 5 7 GGKEY 0XFSARN29ZZ Retrieved 4 June 2011 Eva Wong Taoism Shambhala Publications ISBN 978 1590308820 pp 193 Karma in John Bowker 1997 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions Oxford University Press James Lochtefeld 2002 The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism Rosen Publishing New York ISBN 0 8239 2287 1 pp 351 352 Pastrovicchi Angelo 1918 Rev Francis S Laing ed St Joseph of Copertino St Louis B Herder p iv ISBN 978 0 89555 135 1 Sollier J Supernatural Order Robert Appleton Company Retrieved 2008 09 11 Hardon Fr John Supernatural Order Eternal Life Retrieved 2008 09 15 Viney Donald 2008 Process Theism In Edward N Zalta ed The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Winter 2008 ed Life After Death Revealed What Really Happens in the Afterlife SSRF English Retrieved 2018 03 22 Underworld The free dictionary Retrieved 1 July 2010 Isabelle Loring Wallace Jennie Hirsh Contemporary Art and Classical Myth 2011 p 295 Radcliffe G Edmonds III Myths of the Underworld Journey Plato Aristophanes and the Orphic Gold Tablets 2004 p 9 Jon Mills Underworlds Philosophies of the Unconscious from Psychoanalysis to Metaphysics 2014 p 1 Evans Lansing Smith The Descent to the Underworld in Literature Painting and Film 1895 1950 2001 p 257 Evans Lansing Smith The Descent to the Underworld in Literature Painting and Film 1895 1950 2001 p 7 Francois 2008 p 187 197 OED spirit 2 a The soul of a person as commended to God or passing out of the body in the moment of death Burtt Edwin A 2003 Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science Mineola New York Dover Publications Inc p 275 S T Joshi Icons of Horror and the Supernatural An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares Band Greenwood Publishing Group 2007 ISBN 978 0 313 33781 9 page 34 See for example the course synopsis and bibliography for Magic Science Religion The Development of the Western Esoteric Traditions Archived November 29 2014 at the Wayback Machine at Central European University Budapest Hutton Ronald 1995 The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles Their Nature and Legacy Reprint ed Oxford Cambridge Blackwell pp 289 291 335 ISBN 978 0631189466 Tambiah Stanley Jeyaraja 1991 Magic Science Religion and the Scope of Rationality Reprint ed Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0521376310 Hanegraaff Wouter J 2006 Dictionary of Gnosis amp Western Esotericism Unabridged ed Leiden Brill p 718 ISBN 978 9004152311 Mauss Marcel Bain Robert Pocock D F 2007 A General Theory of Magic Reprint ed London Routledge ISBN 978 0415253963 LacusCurtius Greek and Roman Divination Smith s Dictionary 1875 uchicago edu Peek P M African Divination Systems Ways of Knowing page 2 Indiana University Press 1991 Silva Sonia 2016 Object and Objectivity in Divination Material Religion 12 4 507 509 doi 10 1080 17432200 2016 1227638 ISSN 1743 2200 S2CID 73665747 Yau Julianna 2002 Witchcraft and Magic In Michael Shermer The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience ABC CLIO pp 278 282 ISBN 1 57607 654 7 Regal Brian 2009 Pseudoscience A Critical Encyclopedia Greenwood p 55 ISBN 978 0 313 35507 3 Lucian of Samosata Alexander the False Prophet tertullian org a b Witchcraft in the Middle Ages Jeffrey Russell p 4 10 Bengt Ankarloo amp Stuart Clark Witchcraft and Magic in Europe Biblical and Pagan Societies University of Philadelphia Press 2001 Miracle Halbersam Yitta 1890 Small Miracles Adams Media Corp ISBN 978 1 55850 646 6 Miracles on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Popkin R H The History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Descartes rev ed 1968 C L Stough Greek Skepticism 1969 M Burnyeat ed The Skeptical Tradition 1983 B Stroud The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism 1984 Encyclopedia2 thefreedictionary com Philosophical views are typically classed as skeptical when they involve advancing some degree of doubt regarding claims that are elsewhere taken for granted utm edu Greco John 2008 The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism Oxford University Press US ISBN 9780195183214 Novella Steven et al The Skeptics Guide to the Universe How to Know What s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake Grand Central Publishing 2018 pp 145 146 Further reading EditEconomic Production and the Spread of Supernatural Beliefs Daniel Araujo PDF January 7 2022 Bouvet R Bonnefon J F 2015 Non Reflective Thinkers Are Predisposed to Attribute Supernatural Causation to Uncanny Experiences Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 41 7 955 61 doi 10 1177 0146167215585728 PMID 25948700 S2CID 33570482 McNamara P Bulkeley K 2015 Dreams as a Source of Supernatural Agent Concepts Frontiers in Psychology 6 283 doi 10 3389 fpsyg 2015 00283 PMC 4365543 PMID 25852602 Riekki T Lindeman M Raij T T 2014 Supernatural Believers Attribute More Intentions to Random Movement than Skeptics An fMRI Study Social Neuroscience 9 4 400 411 doi 10 1080 17470919 2014 906366 PMID 24720663 S2CID 33940568 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Purzycki Benjamin G 2013 The Minds of Gods A Comparative Study of Supernatural Agency Cognition 129 1 163 179 doi 10 1016 j cognition 2013 06 010 PMID 23891826 S2CID 23554738 Thomson P Jaque S V 2014 Unresolved Mourning Supernatural Beliefs and Dissociation A Mediation Analysis Attachment and Human Development 16 5 499 514 doi 10 1080 14616734 2014 926945 PMID 24913392 S2CID 10290610 Vail K E Arndt J Addollahi A 2012 Exploring the Existential Function of Religion and Supernatural Agent Beliefs Among Christians Muslims Atheists and Agnostics Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 38 10 1288 1300 doi 10 1177 0146167212449361 PMID 22700240 S2CID 2019266 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Supernatural amp oldid 1138011731, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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