I had a supernatural experience

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Bingo! and that sums up why some people get interested in the paranormal. I myself have detected anomalies in reality over the years from my early childhood, Are they glitches in my perception of reality?

The problem is our knowledge of the universe (even the local space surrounding us) is at best limited. We are limited by our primitive sensory systems that have barely evolved but arrogantly presuppose that if we don't detect something it can't exist.

No one here is saying that if we don’t detect something it can’t exist.

However, it’s imprudent to believe in something that has never been proven without sufficient evidence, especially when there are other likely possibilities.

I've been reviewing now the philosophical concept of "naturalism" (which can mean a variety of different things, but usually entails non-belief in a supernatural realm) as discussed in the following online sources:

- Wikipedia
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (University of Tennessee at Martin; see also its article on naturalistic epistemology)
- Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy

Comments later.

This is precisely the reason Freud's psychoanalysis was discredited in the 20th century since you can't prove a subconscious exists and you can't rely on subjective interpretation of dreams or beliefs etc....and yet...psychoanalysis is just as effective as CBT in treating people. Why?

In the last 10 years greater credence has been given to something called "lived experience" where personal experience (whether true or confabulated) is considered important as it's that person's reality. There may be people who hoax having paranormal experiences but for a large number, they legitimately perceive they had a paranormal experience (and I am one of those) that they can't explain. I never discovered what it was I saw as a child so I will leave an open mind to other people's paranormal or supernatural experiences.

I would call these experiences "paranormal" but not "supernatural."

To call something "supernatural" is to declare it forever beyond the realm of things that science can even potentially understand, whereas to call something "paranormal" is merely to say that you don't know what it is.

It's really subjective semantics. Graham Hancock wrote a book called "Supernatural" in relation to shamanic use of mushrooms to induce a state of mind which one can communicate with inter-dimensional entities.

I am more interested in the subjective experiences > labels

People can have whatever experience they think they’ve had, but I think that such experiences can be explained by other things. I don’t have different standards for myself since I’ve had experiences but am still not a believer in the supernatural.

When I’m presented with evidence, I will change my stance. The fact that there’s been no valid evidence and so many experiences says a lot, I think.

Subjective experience is problematic because people are so often irrational. They get things wrong, misremember events, sometimes hallucinate/have waking dreams, imagine, exaggerate, and even make things up.

Whatever terminology you use, I think there's an important philosophical distinction to be made between (1) things that are not yet understood (and/or not yet scientifically verified) but conceivably could be, and (2) a hypothetical realm beyond what science can even potentially understand.

The big philosophical question is whether the latter realm exists. "Ontological naturalism" says it does not exist.

Can they not be all 3?

True...but it also represents the schema that their reality is made up of. Think of it like a projector showing a movie. Regardless of what surface the projector is playing the movie on, the film content is always the same. Individual reality is constructed that way.

Freud could be easily debunked as he couldn't defend his theories on the unconcious. And yet his patients believed that the neural basis for their reality lies in their own childhood experiences. The strength of that belief is enough to make the memories of events real whether they are confabulations, hallucinations or something tied to reality but therefore easily reconstructed by the conscious mind.

There are things/events out there that science cannot explain. I have experienced some of them before.

One event involved an item that I could sense pure evil coming from it. It was in a box that a friend had inherited from a distant relative. The box was in a large trunk that was shipped to her home. She had never opened the box before so she never knew what was in it. I sensed this feeling while entering her home the day it arrived. It looked much like any small box from a jewelry store. I am not afraid of such boxes, but something inside warned me that this is different.

The ring inside was a silver nazi death head ring. Her family was Jewish, but somehow ended up with it at the end of the war (found on the ground in Germany). It seriously creeped us out. We debated on whether she should just destroy the ring by having it melted, but decided to use it to teach others with it instead. She soon donated it to a researcher that studies such items so that their era cannot be repeated.

As a scientist, I cannot explain why I felt like I did before seeing the ring. Every hypothesis to try to explain my experience using regular explanations fail. I have felt this way before only with items that involved great turmoil. Why I felt that way even before I saw the ring I do not know.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Shakespeare

What is an "inter-dimensional" entity?

Regarding the question of whether anything supernatural exists:

I'm inclined to believe that a supernatural realm does exist, but I'm NOT a strong believer in any specific supernatural claims (such as the existence of a God), and indeed I think it's wise to be skeptical towards all specific supernatural claims.

Thus I reject metaphysical naturalism (a.k.a. "ontological naturalism," the belief that no supernatural realm exists), but I accept methodological naturalism (a.k.a. "epistemological naturalism").

I'll explain my reasons later.

Some cultures call them spirits. For shamans in South America these entities co-exist in the same space but are in a different dimension that we are (supposedly) unable to perceive unless we alter our consciousness. For some we need drugs. For buddhist monks, they capable of moving into this alternate dimension (what's called astral travelling) through meditation. In buddhism and hinduism the existence of these entities are assumed.

Here in the west, these concepts were first explored by Aldous Huxley in his book "Doors to Perception". Huxley attested to drugs providing a door to an alternate perception of this material universe we live in. He inspired many after him to take mind altering drugs to experience what wrote about.

One of the big barriers in modern western science is the stance of absolutism, The insistence that if evidence can't be shown then it does not exist. In ancient times this form of cognitive bias is mocked in the three monkeys. Hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil. In other words "if I can't see it then it doesn't exist"

ontological naturalism permits a scientist to close their mind to any proposed paradigm that they themselves can't experience. Whether this be something that isn't published in a peer review journal, something that is not replicable or something they can't empirically experience with their own senses.

A common argument against alien life is "unless they land on the Whitehouse lawn and demand humans to take me to your leader, I will not believe alien life can exist". In more recent times logic draws the obvious conclusion given the volume of planets then scientists begrudgingly admit that it's unlikely we are the only higher life form in the entire universe. In 2017 onwards you have governments admitting "ok there are paranormal objects that defy explanation flying in front of our noses"

If you permit the existence of one paranormal realm then it opens the door to possibility there may be > 1