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Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law. The term is derived from Medieval Latin supernaturalis, from Latin super- 'above, beyond, outside of' + natura 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanings since the ancient world, the term "supernatural" emerged in the Middle Ages and did not exist in the ancient world.
The supernatural is featured in religious and folklore contexts, but can also feature as an explanation in more secular contexts, as in the cases of or belief in the paranormal. The term is attributed to non-physical entities, such as ghost, , , gods, and goddesses. It also includes claimed abilities embodied in or provided by such beings, including magic, telekinesis, levitation, precognition and extrasensory perception.
The supernatural is to religion. Religions are standardized supernaturalist worldviews, or at least more complete than single supernaturalist views. Supernaturalism is the adherence to the supernatural (beliefs, and not violations of causality and the physical laws).
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.
Nomological possibility is possibility under the actual scientific laws. 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 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 phenomenon, 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.
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. Epistemology, 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.
Views on the "supernatural" vary, for example it may be seen as:
Religions can be categorized by how many deities they worship. Monotheism accept only one deity (predominantly referred to as God), Polytheism religions accept multiple deities. Henotheism religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as equivalent aspects of the same divine principle; 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.
Various cultures have conceptualized a deity differently than a God. A deity need not be Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnibenevolence or Immortality,John Murdoch, , 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 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." The monotheistic God, however, does have these attributes.
Historically, many ancient cultures – such as Ancient India, Ancient Iraq, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Norsemen and Asian culture – personified natural phenomena, variously as either their conscious causes or simply their effects, respectively. Some and Vedas deities were viewed as ethical concepts. In Indian religions, deities have been envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every living being's body, as sensory organs and mind. Deities have also been envisioned as a form of existence (Saṃsāra) after reincarnation, for human beings who gain merit through an ethical life, where they become Tutelary deity and live blissfully in heaven, but are also subject to death when their merit runs out.
In fine art, angels are usually depicted as having the shape of human beings of extraordinary beauty; they are often identified using the of Bird flight,Proverbio (2007), pp. 90–95; cf. review in La Civiltà Cattolica, 3795–3796 (2–16 August 2008), pp. 327–328. halosDidron, Vol 2, pp.68–71 and light.
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.Beale G.K., The Book of Revelation, NIGTC, Grand Rapids – Cambridge 1999. = Esposito, John L. What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 7–8. 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). In Hinduism, some Vedas are considered apaurusheyatva, "not human compositions", and are supposed to have been directly revealed, and thus are called śruti, "what is heard". 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,Michael Freze, 1993, Voices, Visions, and Apparitions, OSV Publishing p. 252 or physical marks such as stigmata, have been reported. In rare cases, such as that of Saint Juan Diego, physical artifacts accompany the revelation.Michael Freze, 1989 They Bore the Wounds of Christ 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. In secondary usage, revelation refers to the resulting human knowledge about God, prophecy and other divinity things. Revelation from a supernatural source plays a less important role in some other religious traditions such as Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism.
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 Catharism, Alawites, the DruzeHitti, 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. and the Rosicrucians.Max Heindel (1985) 1939, The Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures (Collected Works): The Riddle of Life and Death . Oceanside, California. 4th edition. 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.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 Unity Church and its founder Charles Fillmore teaches reincarnation.
In recent decades, many Europeans and North Americans have developed an interest in reincarnation, and many contemporary works mention it.
With origins in ancient India's Vedic civilization, the philosophy of karma is closely associated with the idea of Reincarnation in many schools of Indian religions (particularly Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism) as well as Taoism.Eva Wong, Taoism, Shambhala Publications, , pp. 193 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."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, , pp 351–352
Heaven is often described as a "higher place", the Sacred 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 or orthodoxy 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, and the soul is again subjected to Reincarnation 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.
The concept of an underworld is found in almost every civilization and "may be as old as humanity itself".Isabelle Loring Wallace, Jennie Hirsh, Contemporary Art and Classical Myth (2011), p. 295. Common features of underworld are accounts of living people making journeys to the underworld, often for some 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.Radcliffe G. Edmonds, III, Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the 'Orphic' Gold Tablets (2004), p. 9. Persons having social status were dressed and equipped in order to better navigate the underworld.Jon Mills, Underworlds: Philosophies of the Unconscious from Psychoanalysis to Metaphysics (2014), p. 1.
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.Evans Lansing Smith, The Descent to the Underworld in Literature, Painting, and Film, 1895–1950 (2001), p. 257. 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".Evans Lansing Smith, The Descent to the Underworld in Literature, Painting, and Film, 1895–1950 (2001), p. 7.
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.
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 planesS. T. Joshi Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares, Band Greenwood Publishing Group 2007 page 34 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,See, for example, the course synopsis and bibliography for "Magic, Science, Religion: The Development of the Western Esoteric Traditions" , at Central European University, Budapest a demon is believed to be a spiritual entity that may be conjured and controlled.
Scholars of religion have defined magic in different ways. One approach, associated with the anthropology Edward Tylor and James G. Frazer, suggests that magic and science are opposites. An alternative approach, associated with the sociology 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 BC, 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 BC. The concept was then incorporated into Christian theology during the first century AD, 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 Humanism 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. British esotericist Aleister Crowley described magic as the art of effecting change in accordance with will.
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 religion 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 Skepticism as being superstition.Yau, Julianna. (2002). Witchcraft and Magic. In Michael Shermer. The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. ABC-CLIO. pp. 278–282. Regal, Brian. (2009). Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia. Greenwood. p. 55. 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".
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 may be seen as miracles.
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. 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. Miracles on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(2025). 9781441111975, Continuum. ISBN 9781441111975 (2025). 9780991530014, Sankofa. ISBN 9780991530014 Monotheistic religions typically refer to God in masculine terms, while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways – masculine, feminine, androgynous and gender neutral.
Angel
An angel is generally a supernatural being found in various and Mythology. In Abrahamic religions and Zoroastrianism, angels are often depicted as benevolent celestial beings who act as intermediaries between God or Heaven and Earth.The Free Dictionary [1] retrieved 1 September 2012 Other roles of angels include protecting and guiding human beings and carrying out God's tasks.[2] Augustine of Hippo's Enarrationes in Psalmos, 103, I, 15 , augustinus.it Within Abrahamic religions, angels are often organized into Hierarchy, 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".
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
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.
Reincarnation
Reincarnation is the Philosophy or Religion 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. It is a central tenet of all major Indian religions, namely Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. The idea of reincarnation is found in many ancient cultures, and a belief in rebirth/metempsychosis was held by Greek historic figures, such as Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato.see Charles Taliaferro, Paul Draper, Philip L. Quinn, A Companion to Philosophy of Religion. John Wiley and Sons, 2010, page 640, Google Books 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.Gananath Obeyesekere, Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth. University of California Press, 2002, page 15.
Karma
Karma (; , ; ) means action, work or deed;See:
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). Karma Encyclopædia Britannica (2012) 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.Halbfass, Wilhelm (2000), Karma und Wiedergeburt im indischen Denken, Diederichs, München, GermanyLawrence C. Becker & Charlotte B. Becker, Encyclopedia of Ethics, 2nd Edition, , Hindu Ethics, pp 678
Christian theology
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." 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."
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).
Heaven
Heaven, or the heavens, is a common religious, cosmological, or transcendent place where beings such as Deity, , spirits, , or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, or live. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to Earth or Incarnation, and earthly beings can ascend to heaven in the afterlife, or in exceptional cases enter heaven alive.
Underworld
The underworld is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld.
Spirit
A spirit is a supernatural being, often but not exclusively a non-physical entity; such as a demon, ghost, fairy, jinn or angel.François 2008, p.187-197. The concepts of a person's spirit and soul, often also overlap, as both are either contrasted with or Idealism the Human body and both are believed to survive bodily death in some religions,OED "spirit 2.a.: The soul of a person, as commended to God, or passing out of the body, in the moment of death." and "spirit" can also have the sense of "ghost", i.e. a manifestation of the spirit of a deceased person. In English , "the Spirit" (with a capital "S"), specifically denotes the Holy Spirit.
Demon
A demon (from Koine Greek δαιμόνιον daimónion) is a supernatural and often malevolent being prevalent in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology and folklore.
Magic
Magic or sorcery is the use of , , actions, , or language with the aim of utilizing supernatural forces. (1995). 9780631189466, Blackwell. ISBN 9780631189466 (1991). 9780521376310, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521376310 (2025). 9789004152311, Brill. ISBN 9789004152311 (2025). 9780415253963, Routledge. ISBN 9780415253963 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.
Divination
Divination (from Latin divinare "to foresee, to be inspired by a god", related to divinus, divinity) is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an , standardized process or ritual.Peek, P.M. African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing. page 2. Indiana University Press. 1991. Used in various forms throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or , or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency.
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, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages , Jeffrey Russell, p.4-10. and cross-cultural assumptions about the meaning or significance of the term should be applied with caution. Witchcraft often occupies a religious divination or medicinal roleBengt Ankarloo & Stuart Clark, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Biblical and Pagan Societies", University of Philadelphia Press, 2001 and is often present within societies and groups whose cultural framework includes a magical world view.
Miracle
A miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws. Miracle Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being (a deity), a Thaumaturgy, a saint or a religious leader.
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."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 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).
In fiction and popular culture
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 and A Song of Ice and Fire series.
See also
Further reading
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