As I've being doing this (discussing the reality of the paranormal) for sometime (since '97) now, I've noticed a few common features of these discussions.
1/ No evidence supporting the existence of the standard range of claimed paranormal powers (like distance viewing) or paranormal events (like Creation) is ever presented that would be acceptable to conventional scientists. It is all anecdotal, replete with the fogginess of pseudoscinece, or downright and provably wrong.
2/ The opposite sides of the arguments use totally different paradigms in reaching their conclusions.
3/ People very rarely change their opinion.
4/ Those that do believe often believe outside of a historical context.
By that last one I mean;
People have seen things in the sky for a long time. It used to be giants and beasts and armies, as this is what peoples heads were filled with. When their heads were filled with images of a new scientific age and speculation about non-divine extra-terrestial intelligence, they saw UFOs.
People have told tales of strange creatures for millenia. You'd not have to look to far back in time to find completely serious accounts of tribes of men with no heads, their eyes and mouths being in their torsos, or of a tribe where they all had one massive foot and hopped everywhere. The creatures have changed, and there are people who will laugh at the old stories whilst believing equally credible ones still in circulation.
There used to be hundreds of supersticions, silly things about pregnant women and milk, or what you had to do if you spilled salt. Many are now too silly to be believed by anyone. But there are still supersticious beliefs surviving, despite the fact flouting them causes no harm, just as no harm ever came from someone failing to throw salt over their shoulder.
The hundreds of thousands of people killed for practising a paranormal power (withcraft) were all innocent. It is quite likely that those who today say they practise witchcraft are equally innocent of any real activity.
5/ 'Believers' are normaly unaware of what poor eye witnesses humans make, and unaware of things like the psychomotor effect which means the most sincere person in the world can think they have a 'power' when in fact they don't.
6/ Often, people believe hastily; Tarot is originally an Italian card game with no prophetic functions whatsoever. The cards were adopted as colourful props for fortune telling routines. Go back three hundred years and the 'ancient art' of casting tarot didn;t exist. The shapes of the constellations used in Astrology are a/ the 2 dimensional image we see and b/ in a different place and shape to where they were when people first started using them. The stars have an imaginary (or rather had an imaginary) shape when viewed in 2D from the ground. If viewed in 3D, a star that appears right next to another star when viewed from Earth may actually be 10,000 light years away from it.
7/ Any requests for evidence are often seen as stuck-up and/or aggresive and/or sneering by the pro-paranormal lobby.
8/ The anti-paranormal lobby thinks the pro-paranormal lobby are silly.
9/ Supporters of the parnormal will distinguish themselves from others when no measurable distinction exists. E.g.; "I'm a Muslim, we are God's chosen people" vs. "I'm a Jew, we are God's chosen people; "I'm a Roman Catholic, I don't have any supersticious beliefs, (excuse me, I have to go to mass and eat Christ)"; "Ah, it's silly to believe David Ikce and his idea about the Reptiloid invaders... I mean, there's strong evidence for greys and a smaller species, but they're not reptilian, he got that from a TV series". "Oh, I gave up on mainstream religions - after you get out of a cult you can't believe in the nonsence they teach. Right now I'm trying to contact the spirit of my dead puppy".
10/ There never is any evidence of the paranormal. Yes, I know that's also 1/, but it's such a good one I thought I'd make it twice.
I think it's bloody obvious we don't know it all. There might be some foundation in some claims of paranormal ability. But nothing has been proved. If people could tell the future acurately and usefully, they would. They don't. If people could heal reliably and effectively, we wouldn't have to discuss whether they could or not because it would be obvious they did. If people could see things remotely, then they would become super rich overnight. It really is that simple, but as (if you are pro-paranormal) you are using a different paradigm to arrive at your conclusion, I don't expect you to agree with me, in fact, it's quite unlikely you will believe me. Believe in ESP ghosts and aliens, yes. In what I say, no.
