creepy

No. I think belief in the supernatural is just an expression of a lack of satisfaction with the world or one's own life.

i wish i did, life would be more fun with some magic to it

Blanket no, and I can't take someone who does seriously.

I'm of the opinion that the supernatural is an invention of the human mind, in that I don't believe in the supernatural superceding experimental conditions, but I also respect that that these beliefs interact with human behavior and society.

Like, I don't believe that voodoo has an invisible supernatural ability to control others, but I believe in its power amongst humans beings. If everyone around you gasps and backs away because of a "curse" laid upon you, it might as well be real in the interpersonal realm.

No

Most of us over on c/paganism believe in various forms of magic and/or spirits. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have over there, not going into anything here because the rest of this site can get ridiculously hostile to pagans or anyone who believes in the super natural.

Reposting what I coincidentally wrote yesterday:

Well, a properly scientific view is not dogmatically opposed to concepts that are culturally associated with mysticism. The CPC made a point to investigate and for a time even promoted qi stuff before they felt certain it was nonsense and rejected it. If something under the umbrella of "magic" can observably produce change in the material world, demonstrate it! Such a thing would almost certainly be useful.

The problem is that many new-age pagans take on their "beliefs" about magic as essentially a roleplay: they know deep down it doesn't work but proclaim that it does because the social mindset of it working is somehow involved in its actual use as what amounts to a therapeutic religious practice. There is more in common with Tumblr moon witches and qanon posters than either group would like to admit.

No, but belief is a powerful thing and can transform the way one experiences the world. For better or worse. Personally, I think leftism could use a bit of spirituality to it with the understanding that each of us live in an objective world but experience it through our own mythology. Learning how ritual works within the confines of science doesn't need to inhibit belief if we'd all understand there's a story living inside of each us which we can interact with through ritual and woo.

No, but sometimes I wish I did.

If the supernatural existed then it would just be a poorly understood natural.

Same with magic. Anything magical is pretty much defined by not existing in my view because if it did, it would just be science. Is it really a meaningful difference between pouring a bunch of "magic potion" ingredients together to cure a disease vs pouring a bunch of "science chemical" ingredients together to cure a disease?

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

I have seen no evidence for the existence of the supernatural, but sometimes I hope there might be a hell, just to think of all the shit-bag oligarchs it would be full of.

no, lmao

and youre kinda weird if you do. spice of life i guess

i think most creepy/cryptid stuff can just be summed up by animals having genetic issues

Anything that actually happens is by definition not supernatural. I believe there are things we don't understand yet and might never understand fully, but that's because we don't know enough about the thing in question not because of some exception to cause and effect.

Magic to me is an imprecise term because before the "enlightenment" magic was used as an umbrella term for natural philosophy (science not yet partitioned from religious/occult practices or the "liberal arts"), mathematics (arithmetic, algebra, geometry), chemistry (not yet distinguished from alchemy). The 14th century definition of magic was "art of influencing or predicting events and producing marvels using hidden natural forces." Key word natural forces. Nothing supernatural necessarily implied. To date a tree using its rings is "magic" by this definition. To draw a line graph using existing data points and predict future trends using that data is "magic" by this definition. Calculating interest on a loan is "magic" by this definition. Brewing alcohol is "magic" by this definition. In fact, the loosest definition of the word "science" is also in line with this really loose definition of "magic". When Engels wrote "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" it's important to remember that he was writing in 19th century German. And in Germany, in the 19th century, the word "Wissenschaft" (science) still encompassed the humanities, as well as the "hard" sciences. The borders between science, magic, and the humanities were much blurrier in the past. You can still see echoes of this sentiment in the Arthur Clarke quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic" as well as the way some people seem baffled by the powers of LLMs and neural networks. But today if you mean purely supernatural phenomena, then no, I don't believe in the supernatural because I think the supernatural is a contradiction in terms. Every time we discover something new that was outside of our previous idea of what is possible (general relativity and quantum physics are entirely outside of the Newtonian conception of physics that reigned from the 1600s to the early 1900s) we simply incorporate that new discovery into our understanding of what is natural, rather than ascribing supernatural qualities to it. What are the actual qualifiers for what is supposed to be supernatural? Something without an explanation? Something not made of matter or energy?

Edit: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” -- Arthur C. Clarke

Not really, but I think it can be a useful and/or fun way of thinking about various things. I don't believe in ghosts objectively for instance, but I believe most of the people I know who tell me they've seen one. If a ghost is supposed to be an impression left on the world by a now-dead person, I don't see why it's got to be an entity made out of ectoplasm instead of being the impression they left on a person who survived them

I believe in you, Magician-san

No. Why do ghosts and demons only haunt religious and mentally ill people? Wouldn’t it make more sense to haunt someone who is disrespecting the spirits by dismissing their existence, aka me?

Why does the devil need to follow the same “subtlety” rules as God? Wouldn’t it make more sense to offer many people their wish in exchange for their souls and loyalty instead of masking a vague supportive message inside a hippie song, but only if you play it backwards at a certain speed? The devil is doing a very shit job despite having a whole realm to rule over considering most of the world is Christian, and god doesn’t even offer anything to them until they die. If Satan was an employee, you would fire him for being a terrible salesman.

The world is boring, unfortunately. I would like to meet ghosts and learn about them and the past, but instead all I get is a quiet house. Speaking of which, I actually want more people to be superstitious and believe in the supernatural in a negative way, because that would mean haunted houses become less valuable and I can afford it. I guess the downside is waking up in a burning house because a bunch of lunatics think I’m a witch for not freaking out inside a haunted spooky house

I don’t believe any of it is real, but I kind of wish it was. I always loved shows about the supernatural like the X-Files etc, “I want to believe”, but in the end I don’t.

I like to believe in good luck charms (4 leaf clovers I find, rabbits feet, and coins head up) even though deep down I know they don't work. I also like to entertain things like worry dolls and dream catchers. Although once again I don't believe they work. But it's something I grew up with and think it's a whimsical idea to pass to my kids, regardless.

if it were, then i would be able to summon one or more sex demons and have a nice life with them like in the moving mongolian pictures but unfortunately this is not possible

I get bullied a lot on hexbear.lib for this opinion but yes.

I generally follow a Jungian idea of magic. Are these archetypes just part of the human mind or are they some sort of eternal structure that existed before humanity and will exist long afterward? I think the question is meaningless. Look up at the sky, does Apollo drive the sun across the sky, or is it a product of nuclear fusion sending electromagnetic radiation to the Earth? Science would rightfully say the latter. But is the fact that it can be explained by a careful physical dance of atoms make the sun any less of a god?

It still brings warmth, light, and allows all life to exist on this earth. Does the fact that its not some human intelligence make it any less worthy of worship? Why does reincarnation necessitate an eternal soul? Every idea and experience that makes up me will eventually re-form into a different human, perhaps it already has and I'm just the nth such combination.

There is still just as much magic and god in the world as there was 6000 years ago. People just think that because it's not some conscious human-level intelligence its no longer divine.

No but I support pagans and witches anyways because they're usually cool people.

No, I pretty much think physicalism is the way things are. The emergent complexities of the interactions between human brains leads to some magic-like phenomenons within the social realm, but that all ultimately is governed by math and physics. And so while there is lots of space for spiritual thought, I don't think there's any basis at all for expecting that things like curses, or ghosts, or destinies are real.

I used to be way more superstitious about dice probabilities, and did little rituals. Nowadays I just chuck 'em, and I never fret about bad results, and I delight in good results. And hey, I still win dice games all the time - because it was never the dice that were getting in my way.

'magic' as dnd style wizards casting fireballs, no.

'magic' as rejection of the utility of science/physical evidence about the world, no.

'magic' as goth egirl self-help desire manifestation, no.

'magic' as the semiotic interpretation of the physical/literal, or the exploration of the interconnectedness and the more mysterious properties of mind and matter and meaning itself, yes.

i choose to believe in something like an immortal soul because this life is unendurable to me if it is the only one, i do not want to have been this person that i am trapped in. if i am incorrect it will not matter to my corpse's lack of consciousness, and believing it assuages mortal terror and gives me the possibility that my life means something. i could be here to learn some kind of lesson, or to do something important, whereas under the purest physicalism i am just a meaningless flesh robot twitching along to instinct and predetermined, flawed information processing. under physicalism there is no room for meaning outside of the ephemeral and temporary jolts and spasms of idiot meat computers. we could achieve communism and it wouldn't matter because its just meat with sticks inside of it moving around on a ball of dirt, our existence is as meaningless as our nonexistence would be. when the sun absorbs us or the universe undergoes heat death it will be as if none of it happened. even spreading to the stars would be no more meaningful than mold spreading to another loaf of bread, just an unthinking pulsating mass blooming and retracting and living and dying for equally lifeless unthinking reasons/forces. an azathothian nightmare. i cannot justify my own continued existence under such a worldview, if i were to somehow find out that pure physicalism was unquestionably correct i would immediately self terminate.

Mothman real

Tonight on Probings.... Do mysteries exist? Some say, "Maybe." Others aren't so sure.

Do I believe? No.

Still... I've seen a few things that defy explanation.

Well, taking ghosts, I don't think it likely that ectoplasmic echoes of the dead are spooping around - but if someone has a conversation with their dead friend one night, that isn't unreal just because it arose from their brain. Humans leave echoes of themselves in each other, and we animate them all the time without noticing, just in the course of our normal creation of our own perceived consciousness.

Following that, curses and symbols and suchlike might move through human populations and "spirits" give the appearance of having a person-like existence - we humans aren't singular things, our selfhood is bound into a web of interpersonal and environmental interactions, and fuzzy around the edges. So these mental vibes can transmit through that layer and result in behavioral effects in the humans they touch, and I don't think that's too different from having an Astral Plane or Underworld with gribblies and spirits. I doubt that rituals and such conducted in secret would be likely to manifest actual knock-on effects on the target, but if they alter the ritualists behavior (such as increasing their confidence or resolving some tension) then they still have an effect.

I don't particularly think it's worth trying to quantify though. I enjoy it when it seems appropriate, use its language when it has a better grasp on certain subtleties or just got there first (corporations as egregores, etc), and am sympathetic to it.

Plus, as another poster said, since there can be an underlying cause that created a supernatural explanation - such as mold, toxic air, poor construction, mosquitoes - that does generally suggest a level of respect is warranted case-by-case, much like how historic medicinal plants are valuable sources for investigation even if Lungwort probably isn't healthy because its leaves look like a lung.

ritual before belief. i think it's fun & cathartic to participate in ritual practises, especially ones unattached to real institutions (that probably suck). doing a little sacrifice or whatever is not going to beckon supernatural intervention in your affairs, but the practical effects of expressing desires/priorities gives you direction and hanging out with community or friends while you do this is good. i'll even humor abrahamic stuff as long as its well-meaning and not covenant-y (grace at the table-si, communion-no)

I've had only one experience in my life that I can't begin to assign a satisfactory natural explanation for, it left me shaken and terrified and the most bizarre part it happened in broad daylight, while walking to school, in a parking lot in front of a small patch of woods of all things

I don't believe in the supernatural, but what I saw that day was definitely beyond my current understanding of reality

No. The closest to that would be me wearing something like a bracelet that I got as a gift as some kind of good luck charm. But I don't actually believe it gives me luck or anything, just helpse feel closer to the person that gave it to me.

Also stuff like routines/rituals before doing something stressful/high stakes/important. Logically I know that it has no impact, but it helps calm the nerves to have a set routine before performing the action.

I'm an anti-reductionist, but I don't think that "higher level" or emergent features of the world can properly be called "magic." While a purely physical description doesn't exhaust the interesting facts (and predictively useful patterns), any real pattern does need to be consistent with what physics tells us about the world. In other words, you should be able to redescribe any event in the language of fundamental physics and still get a consistent "story," even if there's some information lost by neglecting the higher level patterns in how a given system changes over time. True magic in the interesting sense seems to me to imply things happening outside the purview of physics, in that it would describe events/patterns/forces that operate as ad hoc exceptions to physical law. I don't think we live in a world like that.

No, but it's cool.

No, I see no reason to

No but I really want to, I love spooky stuff

No, and most hauntings are actually gas or carbon monoxide leaks.