Do you believe in supernatural phenomena?

[AndreaDraco]

I believe that the title says it all.

I'm interested in know your opinions about such topics as spirits, UFOs, extraterrestrial life, haunting, ESP, parapsychology, witchcraft, vampirism, licanthropy, magic and so forth.

Do you belong to the believers, the skeptics or fall somewhere in between? Mulder or Scully?

[Collector]

Not all of those things would fit into the "super natural" category. UFOs are, quite literally of course, Unidentified Flying Objects. Just because one is unidentified does not mean that it is the space ship of extra terrestrials. Even if there truly are sentient terrestrials with technology far beyond ours with the means to travel here, UFOs would still not be super natural.

Extraterrestrial life, also, would not fit the super natural category. Though there is no direct proof that there is anything living beyond Earth, The chances of life else where is rather high. This does not mean that intelligent, sentient life is likely, just life itself. Probability formulae have been created to determine the chances based upon the requirements of life as we know it. These hinge on factors such as how common planets are in the universe, the likelihood of some of these planets falling within the sweet spot of distance from a sun for a temperature range for liquid water. The evidence of extra solar planets/planetoids is mounting to the point that it looks like they may be relatively common. That and when you take into account that the basic building blocks of life are formed in a matter of weeks given the the conditions of the early earth. This does not take into account life so different that it has a completely different set of requirements.

Even if Life is common and and that there is sentient life out there, it may something we will never know. Travel or communications on an interstellar level prohibits it.

[AndreaDraco]

I wholeheartedly agree with you, but I choose this title simply for convenience. I'm looking for a debate on these heated subjects, and whilst some of them - like UFOs - belong perhaps more in the science field, their controversial nature is akin to the other phenomena I listed.

[Tawmis]

I believe that the title says it all.
I'm interested in know your opinions about such topics as spirits, UFOs, extraterrestrial life, haunting, ESP, parapsychology, witchcraft, vampirism, licanthropy, magic and so forth.
Do you belong to the believers, the skeptics or fall somewhere in between? Mulder or Scully?

I believe in Hauntings; but not every single haunting someone claims. Sometimes it's coincidence, sometimes it can be explained, sometimes it's staged. But I believe in that very, very, very slim 1% out of the 200 thousand that are reported. (You get the idea).

Magic, witchcraft, etc - not so much. More skeptic than anything, possibly.

Vampirism, lycanthropy, etc - no.

ESP, Psychics, etc - No.

Life Out There - Yes. Have them come to Earth? SINCERELY doubt it.

[AndreaDraco]

See, I'm interested

Tawmis, how come that you believe in hauntings - and, I reckon, spirits - but not in witchcraft and magic, for example? What is it about spirits that make them more believable in your eyes? What about psychics stating that they're able to communicate with such entities? Do you believe that it's possible for us to interact with these presence and that they're more passive?

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to advocate a particular view, here. I'm merely interested in the subject, which I'm also researching for something I'm currently writing, and I'm really interesting about hearing other people's opinions on it. Suffice it to say that I'm more of a skeptic, in fact, even if I find all supernatural phenomena deeply fascinating.

[Tawmis]

Tawmis, how come that you believe in hauntings - and, I reckon, spirits - but not in witchcraft and magic, for example? What is it about spirits that make them more believable in your eyes? What about psychics stating that they're able to communicate with such entities? Do you believe that it's possible for us to interact with these presence and that they're more passive?

I believe in hauntings, because of my work that I did with the Whaley House in San Diego. (The site I did is absolutely horrible and seriously out dated code; I never updated it after some time, but when Geocities announced it was going away; I just moved it to my own domain because of all the work I did). Too many things, in that house, that I have heard from people who work there, and visit there, and that I have seen and felt myself, make me believe there may be such things as hauntings.

As for witchcraft; I used to practice Wicca (in my wild youth). So my idea that witchcraft and magic work... is nil. I just don't believe it. As as for those who can "speak to the dead" - no. Simply don't believe in them either.

I think my lack of belief in all things psychics is because I used to work for a customer service line that dealt with them. Every single one I dealt with during those two years, was nothing but a sham, taking money from gullible people.

(Again these are just my beliefs; if anyone believes otherwise, they're entirely welcomed to their views and I respect it).

[DeadPoolX]

Paranomal
I don't believe in the following:

Ghosts
Hauntings
Witchcraft
Vampirism
Lycanthropy (except clinical lycanthropy, but that's psychiatric, not paranormal)
ESP
Magic

Why? Well, first of all, there are scientific explanations for ALL of those. Each and every one of those are based on superstition, a lack of knowledge in psychology and physiology, violence against certain groups (most of which was based on religion, minorities and women) or trickery.

Having said that, I readily admit that paranormal explanations are far more entertaining. I happen to love ghost stories and other paranormal tales. I don't, however, believe any of them are real at all.

Extraterrestrial Life
I believe there is other life out there, but I doubt we've met it yet. One day we'll meet alien lifeforms, but I don't think we will anytime soon.

This is good because our first reaction would probably be: "It's different, kill it!" Seeing as how we do that to ourselves, I have no doubt we'd turn on any alien race we come into contact with. At the very least, we'd try to capture some of them and perform experiments.

This all depends on the TYPE of alien we meet too. The more an alien race looks and acts like us the less likely we'd be immediately violent. To use Mass Effect as an example, I think we'd act less violent toward an Asari versus a Turian or Krogan; even Quarians, who resemble humans, we'd have problems with due to their "chicken-like" feet, which aren't human in appearance.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a large divide among those who believe we'll first meet peaceful aliens, such as Vulcans, as opposed to aggressive/violent ones, like Klingons. Even worse would be to meet aliens like those in Independence Day or the kind shown in the Aliens and Predator movies.

[AndreaDraco]

I believe in hauntings, because of my work that I did with the Whaley House in San Diego. [...] Too many things, in that house, that I have heard from people who work there, and visit there, and that I have seen and felt myself, make me believe there may be such things as hauntings.

Thanks for the link! I'll check it out immediately!

As for witchcraft; I used to practice Wicca (in my wild youth). So my idea that witchcraft and magic work... is nil. I just don't believe it.

Let's just say that Wicca - which is, I believe, nothing more than an elaborated New Age philosophy without an ounce of reality inside - wasn't what I had in mind. I was thinking more about the line of Aleister Crowley and his sex magic (Thelema) or the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. What about those? Do you guys - I'm extending this conversation also to DPX and Collector, if they want to partecipate - believe in those types of magic?

[BBP]

There may be life on other planets that we'll never find. But I don't believe in any form of supernatural power and spent a great deal of teenage-hood disproving all those future predicting dealies, from pendulums to I Ching. Kabballah was the easiest target, but for astrology I spent years collecting birthdays.

(senses some link with Tawm) Back when I was younger I nearly became a Wicca practitioner. Mystics and stuff just reels me in, for whatever reason.

[AndreaDraco]

There may be life on other planets that we'll never find. But I don't believe in any form of supernatural power and spent a great deal of teenage-hood disproving all those future predicting dealies, from pendulums to I Ching. Kabballah was the easiest target, but for astrology I spent years collecting birthdays.

I don't believe in predicting the future or precognition, and I certainly don't believe in astrology, cartomancy, numerology or palm-reading. However, once I saw a Tarot-reading session where the supposed clarvoyant eerily explained to a friend of mine what was going on with her family at the time. The clarvoyant was incredibly accurate and, even if my friend didn't tell him anything, he was able to guess correctly almost everything.

[AndreaDraco]

Tawmis, I've read through your Whaley House's website.

First of all, thanks very much for posting, because I didn't know the place and is certainly interesting. There's one strange thing I noticed, though. Many of the phenomena you listed are quite clearly the supposed work of ghosts, in that they're very much similar to many other ghost stories and haunting stories from around the world. However, two phenomena - the Rocking Chairs and the Courtroom Chains - are more akin to poltergeists than ghosts.

Wikipedia describes poltergeists haunting as "[including] inanimate objects moving or being thrown about, erratic noises (such as knocking, pounding, or banging), and physical attacks on human beings." While poltergeists have traditionally been interpreted as malevolent ghosts, modern theories include them in a totally different field. I quote from the article:

In parapsychology, Nandor Fodor proposed that poltergeist disturbances were caused by human agents suffering from some form of emotional stress or tension. William G. Roll studied 116 different poltergeist cases and found that the agents were often children or teenagers, and supposed that recurrent neuronal discharges resulting in epileptic symptoms may cause recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK), which would affect the person's surroundings. The case of the Rosenheim Poltergeist, where none of the disturbances could be explained via physical means, was suggested to be caused by psychokinetic forces.

The thing I found interesting about parapsychology is that some of its advocates are serious scientists, who, in some cases, are well-known for their Nobel-worthy work on physics and mathematics. I once again quote:

In 2005, Josephson said that "parapsychology should now have become a conventional field of research, and yet parapsychology's claims are still not generally accepted". He compared this situation to that of Alfred Wegener's hypothesis of continental drift, where there was initially great resistance to acceptance despite the strength of the evidence. Only after Wegener's death did further evidence lead to a gradual change of opinion and ultimate acceptance of his ideas. Josephson said that many scientists are not yet swayed by the evidence for parapsychology and the paranormal. Josephson contends that some scientists feel uncomfortable about ideas such as telepathy and that their emotions sometimes get in the way.

What do you guys think?

[BBP]

The thing about Tarot is there are a near infinite way of explaining every card. Not sure if you checked my web page on that (it's part of my GK2 companion), but when it comes to reading tarot it's often more a Rorschach test based on whatever is depicted on the card. Which again means that the meaning of, say, the "Fool" or the "Hierophant", is based on whatever deck design you choose.

[therogue]

When we're talking strictly 'supernatural' phenomena, my answer is simple. No, I don't believe any of it exists.

Things like extraterrestial life: little green men, no but some form of life out there in the vastness of space, yes.

[DeadPoolX]

Back in the 90s, I used to watch a TV show called Sightings. It covered paranormal, extraterritorial and conspiratorial concepts. I also used to listen to a radio show called Coast to Coast AM, which talks about the same topics as Sightings did.

Some of my favorite hauntings include the following:

1. Sarah Winchester's belief she was haunted by ghosts. Her mansion, now referred to has the Winchester Mystery House is a major a tourist attraction in San Jose, California.

2. The Bell Witch Haunting. Coast to Coast AM has covered this story numerous times.

3. One of the weirdest paranormal situations was The Heartland Ghost Haunting. They even made a movie about it.

[AndreaDraco]

Plenty of things to read (and watch!)... Thanks DPX!