Belief in the "paranormal" or "supernatural" is a confusion which any competent fiction reader somehow avoids. The man grounded in reality might read a Harry Potter book and understand that the magic and the storyline in it are fantasies, whereas the analysis of human nature is a facet that J. K. Rowling at least intends to have application to our lives. The believer in the "paranormal" might, on the contrary, think that the magic and storyline in the books are real, whereas the ideas are a fantasy.

There is nothing wrong with liking a good ghost story, or even an interesting work of fiction about Elvis coming back from the dead. However, the mark of the rational man is the ability to see the conspicuously clear line between truth and fantasy, whereas the believer in the "paranormal" lacks this insight. Why is it that the vast majority of even intellectually mediocre individuals can quite unambiguously note whether or not a given belief is at least feasible via the real methods to knowledge (elementary sensory observation, filosofy, praxeology, mathematics, and the hard sciences), and, when referred to ideas such as UFOs, communication with the dead, ghosts, fairies, or unicorns, instantly dismiss them as not only fictitious, but fictitious without doubt? And why is it that others, all lack of evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, continue to believe these fictions?

The "paranormal" is a pleasant fantasy to those who lack capacity or self-esteem in discovering reality by the proper methods. Instead of working to improve their mastery of rational methodology, they instead lapse into wishful thinking, attempting to justify their wishes, whims, and desires by inventing a "paranormal" world where loved ones can come back from the dead (to psychologically mitigate the horror that is death), or where UFOs can appear out of thin air (the real world is often either boring or intimidating to people who do not know how to deal with it and succeed in it). Some of them are outright imposters, capitalizing on others' more sincere credulity and satisfying their wishful thinking in exchange for money, power, or just affirmation from those whom they deceive.

I would have said that these "paranormal" fenomena need to be subjected to the rigorous scrutiny of the rational methods in order to account for any genuine fysical causes for those alleged observations which have them. However, it is all too often that the people who say they are examining these "observations" systematically are themselves filled with superstitious ideas about the world (e.g., psychology, sociology, "alternative" medicine). The ones who are firmly rooted in the three rational methods often have far better things to do than verify every "paranormal" sighting, premonition, or fantasy.

All events and observations classified as “paranormal” either have perfectly rational explanations to account for them, or are outright fabrications and lies on the part of the paranormal-believing “observer.”

G. Stolyarov II is a science fiction novelist, independent philosophical essayist, poet, amateur mathematician, composer, contributor to Enter Stage Right, Le Quebecois Libre, Rebirth of Reason, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Senior Writer for The Liberal Institute, and Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator, a magazine championing the principles of reason, rights, and progress. His newest science fiction novel is Eden against the Colossus. His latest non-fiction treatise is A Rational Cosmology. Mr. Stolyarov can be contacted at gennadystolyarovii@yahoo.com.