The Supernatural in Society

The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History
From the “Introduction” by Dennis Waskul and Marc Eaton

Temple University Press, 2018
In 1966, anthropologist Anthony Wallace confidently predicted that “belief in

supernatural beings and in supernatural forces that affect nature without obeying nature’s
laws will erode and become only an interesting historical memory.” Over half a century later,
it appears Wallace could not be further from the truth. IN all fairness, though, Wallace simply
articulated a long standing academic position regarding the supernatural, a subject that many
scholars regard as, in the words of the historian Keith Thomas “rightly disdained by intelligent
persons’ . Since the enlightenment era, philosophers and other scholars have assumed that
irrational supernatural beliefs will give way to the rational endeavors of scientific
experimentation and empirical observation. Despite such confident predictions, supernatural
beliefs and reported experiences persist and even flourish in the current era.
In the twenty first centiry, as in centuries past, stories of ghosts, vampires, and monsters
of all kinds both thrill and terrify us, inviting us to imagine that our familiar surroundings may
be more enchanted than we thought. Despite - or perhaps because of - advanced scientific
understanding of the natural world, people continue to report beliefs in and firsthand
experience with supernatural phenomena. The supernatural remains a part of everyday life,
and the time has come to acknowledge that such beliefs and experiences are not doomed to
extincitons.
These beliefs may be both fed and reflected by the plethora of supernatural books,
television shows and movies that crowd our shelves and screens. Sales for the Harry Potter
books top 400 million copies while the Twilight saga has sold over 155 million copies. Aside
from these fantasy fiction novels, our televisions are full of dramatized and reality style
supernatural story lines. The supernatural is also hot at the box office…These patterns of media
consumption reveal a contemporary voracious appetite for supernatural stories of all sorts.
These supernatural manifestaions in popular culture are worthy of scholarly attention
because of their symbolic significance alone: they represent our worst fears in an age of
terrorism, global warming, and other large scale changes that threaten to destabilize or destroy
life as we know it. However, in an era when interactive media and real ity television blur the
line between fantasy and real life, these media representations have fueled the growth of
organizations and entitites that are rooted in fictional or - at east dramatized - portrayals of
supernatural phenomena…Although such groups may seem odd at first glance, research shows
that participants are usually motivated by common human interests like spiritual
enlightenment, the hope of scientific discovery, or the desire to feel special in some way. In
other words, people who engage with the supernatural are no kookier than the rest of us.
This non-judgmental stance relative to supernatural beliefs and participation contrasts
with earlier sociological work, which theorized that disadvan taged and marginal groups would
report higher levels of supernatural beliefs because they had less to lose in terms of social
standing by adhering to such beliefs. It also runs counter to the majority of psychological
research, which argues that supernatural beliefs result from cognitive defects or psychoses.
In contrast, folkloric researchers have highlighted the value of such beliefs and
practices. Sociologists have also begun to acknowledge the social and cultural value of the
supernatural. As self reported religious beliefs and Church attendance decline in the United
States and Europe, supernatural beliefs can serve as a functional alternative to mainstream
religious beliefs. A recent series of studies indicates that supernatural beliefs are highest
among people who do not regularly attend Church but nonetheless do not identify as atheists.

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The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History

From the “Introduction” by Dennis Waskul and Marc Eaton

In 1966, anthropologist Anthony Wallace confidently predicted that “belief in

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