Supernatural

Supernatural

Beyond or outside the natural order of things✝, and typically applying to events or phenomena asserted as unexplainable in terms of our existing framework or understanding of nature, such as is said of ESP or other occult occurrences.

And inevitably presented in terms which render the subject matter or supposed phenomena as being something which cannot be described by natural laws✱: neither amenable to scientific understanding nor capable of being empirically-tested through the use of scientific methodology, and thereby not within the realm of investigation by science; with the imagined inescapable consequence that of being beyond the power of science to explain. Such a view or approach implies that the alleged occurrences or entities, etc – for example, ghosts, succubiⵐ, or sorcery – involve agencies and effects which are not subject to natural laws.

It has been argued quite cogently that the underpinnings of people’s receptivity to “supernatural” notions is to be found in our inherited psychology and biases, as a probable by-product of other traits which have been adaptive for us as a species; and certainly in the wider context of evolutionary psychology it is clear that behaviour – intimately entwined with acts of mind – is one of the principal outlets through which adaptiveness is expressed. Even if one ‘scratches the surface’ of someone who readily and openly acknowledges they have no truck with such preternatural conceptions of reality, we might still find traces of – not so much belief, but let’s say – predispositions towards this type of thinking. For example, tacit attributions of ‘special’ properties given to articles once owned by personally-important deceased loved ones, your late grandmother’s ring might seem a visible manifestation of her lingering kindly ‘spirit’, or ascribing mysterious ‘power’ to symbols, say, the number “6”; positing odd associations between disconnected events, such as suffering a misfortune and Friday the thirteenth, or seeing untold meaning in otherwise unremarkable coincidences, just missing your bus which is later involved in a traffic collision and sensing the mysterious hand of fate as snatching us from the jaws of calamity; adopting Cartesian dualism, meaning that the mind can exist separate from or outlive the physical body; superimposing human intentions or characteristics onto lower animals and even inanimate objects, your cat’s disgust with your local council’s animal control guidelines; and the idea that ‘higher reasons’ shape what would otherwise be unguided events happening to human beings, after failing to make your flight you then meet your next domestic partner while waiting to rebook, i.e., “it was ‘meant’ to be”; not to mention leanings towards having lived a prior existence (i.e., a pre-life) or that deceased ancestors or a transcendent being watches over and scrutinizes us, etc.

To use a simplified evolutionary example, consider the case in the ancient past in which our ancestors would have had to interpret evidential signs in the environment, which by construing such signals in a certain way (say, assuming potential threats lurk ‘out there’) probabilistically increased their chances of survival, e.g., upon hearing the distant crack of a tree branch or the rustle of leaves ‘reading’ these to be the approach of a predator. Those individuals who attended and reacted proactively to such cues were more likely to have survived and passed on their genes; while those paying less attention, who waited for more definite signs of trouble, might have survived in proportionately-fewer numbers, therefore having less opportunity to sire offspring (the process of selection in action). Whilst mistaking innocuous sounds – say, as produced by the effects of the wind – as indirect evidence of an intentional act by some unseen intelligent agent might incur a certain cost, say, the inconvenience of having to retreat from a spot where one’s band of hominids was eating much-needed sustenance (edible, nutritious berries), failing to heed genuine warning signals would have resulted in the group falling prey to a ferocious carnivore, risking a situation in which possibly several members were grievously wounded or killed: an unacceptably-higher price. So propensities in the now which might have us ‘compulsively’ exhibiting “pattern-seeking” tendencies, superstitious behaviour, and imagining supernatural happenings in the absence of real patterns, actual cause-effect relationships, or credible evidence of extraordinary entities or events may well just be secondary effects wrought by the practicalities of surviving in the remote past.

One possible such remnant of our evolutionary past seems to be the apprehension noted in many hunter-gatherer societies that dead ancestors are still ‘with us’ and perpetually watch over what is going on amongst the living. The pervasiveness of such beliefs in widely-distributed communities of people hints at an inherited influence at work in the formation of the notions. Even in modern times many people seem ‘primed’ to react to such things as ghost stories with a primal emotional resonance which appears to go rather deeper than the superficial trappings of the narratives justifies, perhaps tapping into instinctive ideas about how the world is buried in the brain which have been passed down to us on a genetic level.

An extension of this might be the way in which a supernatural framework of beliefs (especially a religion in some form) has, in former times, played a pivotal role – social function – in the cohesion and effective operation of social groups and societies, such as through behavioural principles and expedients of not working against the larger interests of the group, not taking unfair advantage of other group members, being loyal towards the group, respecting the structure of authority and those individuals tasked with wielding it within the group, and living in a way which accords with the basic values of the group.

In psychology, the “supernatural model of mental illness” references an assumption that the cause of what would otherwise be recognized as psychological disorder▼ ensues from the actions or influences of malicious, ‘otherworldly’ beings (e.g., ‘demons’), such as having entered the afflicted person's body, or is an (incomprehensible?) expression of the will of ‘god’.

Supernatural may be contrasted with “natural” as a utilized in or with regard to science, which boils down to everything observable – directly or indirectly – in terms of the scientific usage of “observation”, i.e., the material universe and the physical forces at play within it; including, for example, our star (the sun) and the process of nuclear fusion, rocks and geologic processes such as sedimentation and erosion, as well as the process of evolution or the structure and permutations of human society. Even though something such as facial expressions, say a frown or a smile, might seem rather ephemeral, provided we can adequately determine what is constituted by the subject phenomenon, and when it is present and absent, etc., it is amenable to study; and in addition, we can usefully investigate what effects it might have, for instance, upon the mood, attitudes, behaviour, and brain state of those exposed to these non-verbal cues. Whereas, as mentioned, “supernatural” things are supposed by their very nature to go beyond the methods and scope of science to study; and if such study into some allegedly-supernatural entity or process is undertaken the outcomes tend to fall into two broad categories: (ⅰ) the occurrences are found to have their origin in the mundane, such as when the early manifestations of so-called spiritualistic phenomena turned out to be either the misunderstanding of ordinary human psychology/physiology (such as with table-turning and the Ideomotor effect); or (ⅱ), and possibly accounting for an even greater proportion of cases, result from the deliberate nefarious activities of human actors – whether spirit mediums or  ESP exponents – being the product of what would otherwise go by the name of conjuring (sleight of hand techniques and/or Mentalist manipulations).

(see also: Superstition, Luck, Clairvoyant Test, Cold Reading, Ideomotor Effect, Dowsing, Double-blinded Testing)

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Glossary of selected Judgement and Decision-making, Belief-related, and other Psychology terms