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I am a highly scientifically minded person. I believe that everything that exists is explainable in highly defined terms. I also apply this logic to all things 'paranormal'.
Personally, I define paranormal as things that are simply not explained by science as of yet.

From what I know (And note, this is simplified) there are only two types of stuff in the universe.
The first is matter. Not only all normal matter (elements), but anti-matter, and dark matter. All physical objects are composed of this.
The second is energy. Energy is rather like matter, and in fact is what matter is inevitably made of. However, energy acts differently than matter, and so must be classified as such.

There is also something else crucial to these two things, rules. The rules that are in place in our universe (The speed of light, Planck's Constant, The laws of conservation of matter, etc...) are absolute. While they may change gradually over time as the universe expands, they have never done so while humanity has existed. Without these rules being set very, very close to the values that they are at, the universe as we know it would not exist.
Even other universes, as supposed by the string theory, are governed by similar rules, and made of similar stuff.
Heck, even dimensions above and below us apply the same basic rules as our dimension does, just with greater complexity.

So basically what I'm saying here is that everything can be scientifically explained. This included not only magic, but everything else that we consider paranormal. From the astral plane to deities, everything is governed by these rules. Nothing can break the rules of the universe, because if they did, then the universe would very quickly cease to exist. Even the most minor infraction of these rules would likely destroy all that we know. The rules of the universe CAN NOT BE BROKEN. I don't care if you're a god or an any, you can't defy the natural laws.

What this means for magic (or psionics) is that what most people view as 'mystical' must also be scientifically explainable. This leads me to believe that a lot of what people claim to know about the mystical is, in fact, false.
For instance, with the massive amounts of claims related to the astral plane interacting in some way with our world leads me to believe that such an influx of interaction would definitely be noticed by the highly sensitive equipment that science has built. The fact that is is not noticed subtracts from its believability.

That is not to say that no paranormal phenomena exist. From my own experience I know that thins that have yet to be explained do exist, but I don't believe that they are what people attribute them to. Mainly, mystical sources of power.
It is my personal belief that all forms of 'magic' and 'psionic power' are, in fact, byproducts of some yet-to-be-understood process directly involving the human mind. There is no need to drag the likes of faeries or dragons or other unseen forces into these discussions. Magic, in my mind, is wholly natural.

I am basically claiming here that most of what is claimed as magic or magical experience is fictitious. There are probably multitudes of real experiences scattered among these fake reports, but the next time someone tells you they met with a fay queen, second-guess them and look for an explanation that fits in with what we already know to be true.
This includes your own experiences. Any practitioner of any 'mystical' art should look first for known explanations to the effects of their craft before delving into hypothetical causes.

No visible external stimuli, that is. I say this as someone who has personally levitated, so I'm not skeptical that weird things happen, just how they happen.
Whenever something strange happens people instantly shout "it was god!" or "it was magic!". It's a case of crying out miracles when we don't need to. There are definitely things that we don't know about yet, but I believe that we can know about them.
For instance, it's now supposed that our entire existence was caused by vibrations resonating in the 10th dimension. Truth is stranger than fiction for sure, but it's not unknowable.
And even if we knew how everything functioned it wouldn't, for me at least, subtract from the beauty. I know that a rose is simply a chain of hydrocarbons cleverly woven together, but I still think it smells quite nice.
That's like saying that just because you know that the Aurora Borealis is caused by the collision of charged particles, found in the magnetosphere, with atoms in the Earth's upper atmosphere that it's any less impressive.

Even in the case of consciousness and the supposed soul I would argue that they're scientifically quantifiable, not beyond the known. Heck, the fact that human-like AI is just around the bend substantiates that consciousness arises from physical processes.
Like I said, any of the laws of the universe being broken would likely cause a cascade effect that would destroy either a local area, or the universe. The law of gravity being violated would cause matter to either form super-compact objects, or to dissolve them. Break the law of conservation of energy and things will either freeze or burn, depending on which way you violate the law.
Even a chair's motion in sliding across the floor must be caused by something that expends energy. If there is no energy expended, there can be no acceleration, no acceleration on the mass of the chair, no force to push it.

Also, alchemy never truly died out, it transformed. It abandoned the useless spiritual aspect and became chemistry. As the understanding of the principals and materials used in alchemy became more known and studied, it was realized that there was no need for spiritual explanations to natural events.

What's to say things like faeries and such aren't a part of the natural order as well? I get what you're saying, but you said it yourself: there are things that exist that science is not capable of cataloging, identifying, or measuring. Thus, according to science, they cannot exist.

Seems pretty pretentious for science to claim to know everything and anything they don't know simply doesn't exist.


My view is that there is no such thing as the "unnatural" because it's simply an impossibility. You've got one universe, or in the possibility of more than one universe you've got a "multiverse". It's all one thing ultimately. A closed system no matter how enormous it may be. Nothing can exist outside of all that is. We don't know hardly anything about our universe, let alone any other universes, planes, etc. Also, "scientific fact" is subject to change. Always has been. Even universal constants are subject to change.

I'm not disagreeing with you, only elaborating with how I view things. Everything has an explanation, we just might not have that explanation. The "paranormal" really isn't that paranormal at all, it's only perceived as such because we don't have a large understanding of it, those of us that don't automatically say it doesn't exist.