Ryan Morelock
THE SUPERNATURAL
Aim: What is the Supernatural?
Learning objective: To use critical thinking in explaining the concept of the
supernatural
Many people talk about the supernatural world or supernatural events. We have prepared
a chart with some situations. Read each story and decide whether this event is natural or
supernatural, based on your experience. Use the right column of the chart to write the
reasons that support your opinion
Situation
Natural or
Why?
supernatural?
1. Your best friend was absent from
school yesterday. Today she came
back with a cast leg. She said she had Natural
a car accident, but she can't
remember anything.
Your friend could be
suffering from memory loss
related to the accident. Not
remembering a broken leg
could be a result of shock or
a blow to the head; it
doesn’t have to be
supernatural.
2. This little kid is followed by a
gang of classmates determined this
time to catch him and beat him up
well. The kid jumps some trash cans
in the school yard. The others corner
Supernatural
him. There's no escape. He jumps
again and all of a sudden he realizes
that he is on the rooftop. He later gets
reprimanded by the principal for
walking on the school roof.
I consider this to be
supernatural because there
is no way to physically
explain how a kid can jump
up onto a rooftop. He also
can’t remember how he got
onto the roof and can’t get
back down, which shows it
was a strange, one-time
happening.
3. In my dream grandmother told me
that 2,6, and 7 are my lucky numbers.
Natural
I played the lottery the next day and I
won 5,000 dollars!
I personally think that this
was a coincidence. I would
bet that most of the dreams
that involve someone telling
someone else lucky
numbers are probably the
byproducts of a spicy
dinner. It doesn’t seem
supernatural to me.
4. The leader saw the enemy
There’s no way to explain
Supernatural
approaching. His own people were
weary and discouraged. They
wouldn't last a minute the emperor's
disciplined and well-armed troops.
Just in front of him the sea was calm,
deep, and endless. It prevented any
escape from death and captivity. But
he knew what to do. He stroked the
land with his cane and all of a sudden
the waters departed. There was now a
path in the middle of the sea where
his people could walk away from
danger.
5. His great-great-grandfather at the
beginning of time was the prairie
buffalo, the one that gives his tribe
strength and courage to battle
enemies and storms. Every Indian
knows this fundamental fact and
respects the buffalo and all living
animals.
a calm sea parting before a
person besides by a
supernatural force. This
story sounds something like
the story of Moses, who
parted the Red Sea with the
help of God. This is outside
human ability to part a
gigantic body of water, and
is definitely a supernatural
occurrence.
Natural
All Indian tribes have
legends, and this is
probably an example of
one. This is probably just a
story to make sure that all
Indians respect nature and
its abundance. The greatgreat-grandfather wasn’t a
buffalo at the beginning of
time; it is only folklore.
Give examples of a natural event and another example of a supernatural event. What
about an event you are not sure of? Use your own life and experience. Write at least an
event and be prepared to motivate why you placed that event in one of these three
categories.
Natural event
Short description:
I woke up one morning
remembering a strange
dream that I had had
about a pop quiz in Social
Studies. Sure enough,
later that day the teacher
handed out a pop quiz. I,
luckily, had been
prepared and was ready to
take it.
Supernatural event
You are not sure?
Short description:
Short description:
I had just gotten off of
the bus and was about to
run across the street to my
house. I dropped
something, and had to
stop a few seconds to pick
it up. When I began
again, a car whizzed right
by in the place that I’d
have been had I not
picked up the item. The
One night in Kokomo, we
heard a large booming noise.
We looked up into the air and
saw a fiery object flying
towards the ground at an
incredible speed. We looked
at the paper the next day, and
found that the military
claimed responsibility and
that it was a test on weapons
aboard fighter planes.
rearview mirror nearly
grazed my shoulder. Had
I not stopped for a
second, I would’ve been
hit.
Rationale:
This event was too
strange to be considered
Rationale:
natural. I had dropped an
This is a natural event
object before walking
because it was just a gut across a street and
feeling that I had the quiz. narrowly being missed by
There was no way I could a car. It seems too
be for certain, but it
extraordinary that I had
wasn’t outside of the
dropped an item which
ability. It was yet another had bought me a few
coincidence.
seconds to avoid being hit
the only time a car
doesn’t stop at a stopped
school bus.
However, no planes were
supposed to have flown near
such a crowded city testing
weapons. Also, No such
planes were scheduled to fly
in the area by the military.
Rationale:
I don’t know whether this
event was natural or
supernatural. On one side,
the military claimed
responsibility for the action,
claiming it was a test. On
another hand, it was found
out that no planes were
scheduled to fly in that area.
It seemed strange that a giant
ball of fire would go
streaming down into the
ground as a military test.
However, I could be
completely wrong and it
could’ve been a test. I can’t
determine it.
Aim: How Do Some People Explain the Supernatural?
There are numerous ways of explaining the supernatural. Let us present one of them.
There are two different worlds that stay separated most of the time. Sometimes, not quite
often, these two worlds come into contact. This is when supernatural creatures visit the
natural world for a short time.
Natural World
Supernatural World
In the world of fairy tales and ancient myths, there is also the possibility that the most
powerful heroes find a way to the supernatural world: they slay dragons, they battle
monsters and witches, and they even visit the world of the dead. Gilgamesh, Hercules,
and Orpheus went there to prove their power or to search for answers.
Some of you saw Harry Potter, the movie, or you read the book. Remember Fluffy, the
three-headed dog that guards the Sorcerer's Stone? Fluffy is in fact Cerberus, the monster
whose only weakness is the sound of music. This is how Orpheus convinced him to let
him into the Underworld to look for his dead wife, Eurydice.
Written Assignment:
1. Do you know of any other way of explaining the supernatural? Suggestion: Use this
quote to draft another possible answer:
"The supernatural is the natural not yet understood"
I think that the supernatural is just the undiscovered parts of our world. For
example, the giant sea monsters that used to plague the sailors of the seas. However, it
has been found that what used to be a feared monster is only an animal called the
oarfish. The oarfish is around twenty feet long, and can’t sink a ship or attack it in any
way. Until the oarfish was discovered, though, people still believed in mysterious sea
monsters that would attack and sink vessels. The supernatural world and normal world
aren’t two separate entities; they are the same world, but one is the undiscovered and the
other is the discovered. As soon as we can prove or disprove creatures like the Loch Ness
monsters and the moth men of the world, the mysteries of supernatural will no longer be
mysteries.
Copied from Internet January 4, 2009: http://www.teachnetlab.org/fklane/dracula/dracula/I.%20The%20supernatural.htm