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Natural/supernatural conceptions in Western cultural contexts

Michael Jindraa
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Department of Sociology, Spring Arbor University, Spring Arbor, MI, USA

Online publication date: 09 June 2010

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 Anthropological Forum, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2003

Natural/supernatural conceptions in Western cultural contexts

MICHAEL JINDRA*

When considering the distinction between natural and supernatural, we usually

think we are talking about religion or religious phenomena. Yet if the whole
category of religion is problematic, might this also throw the natural/super-
natural dichotomy into doubt? What is the relationship between the debate over
the usefulness of these terms and the debate over the validity of the concept of
religion? I shall not argue that the term ‘supernatural’ be expunged from our
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vocabulary. One can make a better case that the term ‘religion’ should be
eliminated as an artefact of Western categorisation, as Timothy Fitzgerald (2000)
argues. ‘Supernatural’ as a term does seem to allow people, especially in the
West, to communicate some things about their experience of the world. The use
of the term, however, comes out of a specific historical/theological context (Saler
1977). My intention is to show that the distinction between the natural and
supernatural breaks down in a number of contexts, especially in ‘new religious
movements’ and other practices that are commonly thought to be on the (non-
existent) border between the ‘religious’ and the non-’religious’.
A little history first: as Louis Dumont (1986) has argued, a distinctive ‘modern
ideology’ has been constructed over the centuries in the West. A chief feature of
this ideology is a separation between the realm of relative values, or religion,
and the realm of the factual, neutral, rational and secular. Religion becomes
separated from its obverse: the ‘natural’ world of objective facts, markets, and
individuals that underlies much of Western social science. Is the natural/
supernatural distinction also implicated in the historically particular construction
of the ‘modern ideology’ that Dumont discusses, a reflection of our construction
of categories (going back at least to Kant) into natural (facts defined as rational
and universal) and relative (values defined as beliefs and particular), or, in other
words, the fact/value distinction (Dumont 1986:227–233; MacIntyre 1984:77ff.;
Taylor 1989:54–57)?
Yes, to a large extent it is. Hindu, Japanese, Indonesian, Native North
American, and many African cosmologies all contain notions of beings that are
essentially ‘natural’, but have extraordinary powers, sometimes at different
gradations, which serve to violate any boundary we might construct between
the natural and supernatural (Aragon 2000:18; Chilver 1990; Fitzgerald 2000:81,

*Michael Jindra, Department of Sociology, Spring Arbor University, Spring Arbor, MI 49283, USA.

ISSN 0066-4677 print/ISSN 1469-2902 online/03/020159-08 DOI: 10.1080/0066467032000129824

© 2003 Discipline of Anthropology and Sociology, The University of Western Australia
 160 ANTHROPOLOGICAL FORUM

pers. comm.). In Africa, for instance, notions of ancestors and elders can overlap,
since both can have extraordinary power (Kopytoff 1971).
In early Christianity, as Benson Saler (1977) has argued, there is a basis for
making the distinction, given assumptions about the creator and creation.
Natural law, as distinct from revelation, posits that God created a world with
universal rules, though God is also capable of intervening—and one cannot often
be sure which is happening, since even the Catholic Church takes a long time
to certify miracles and saints. One thus has the basis for conceptions of a law-
like natural and a supernatural. This conception was important for the early
scientists, and to a large extent led to the scientific revolution in the West
(Braudel 1994). The premise of God was largely dropped by many later scholars,
and we now find Western academia, though not the public as a whole, dominated
by a secularist framework that had its roots in theistic conceptions of the
universe (Stewart 2001:325). Thus, secularists largely hold this distinction, but
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often end up discounting the supernatural, thinking it implausible. The general

public does have a folk conception that distinguishes natural and supernatural,
though the public is much more likely to consider the plausibility of the
supernatural.

Are ideals natural or supernatural?

By examining the diversity of beliefs and associated practices today, we can see
how the distinction breaks down, both for academics and for participants, since
many of the features one finds simply cannot be neatly categorised as natural or
supernatural. Substantive, as opposed to functional, definitions of religion
assume some sort of deity or powerful being(s) as fundamental. Most folk ideas
of religion also assume a supernatural, personal force. For many secularists,
however, ideals like progress, liberty, justice or nationalism function as guiding
life principles. The historian, Jules Michelet, argued that, for the French, France
should take the place of God (Bernstein 1999:114 cited in Casanova 2001:425).
For Comte and Frazer, the replacement for God was (social) science, which had
the potential to usher in a utopia. Many modern notions, such as progress or
manifest destiny, belong in this influential Hegelian tradition, which locates
meaning in a secularised historical process, and includes offshoots such as
Marxism and belief in inevitable human and social progress. Christian ideals
have been easily shifted into secular ones, progressive ones in which history
has, in effect, become a vehicle of salvation.
These ideals, of course, have been personified in much iconography. Stewart
Guthrie (1993:139) finds no clear divide between representations of gods and
representations of abstract ideals in classical art, both of which have used the
human being to stand for important beliefs, such as liberty or progress. These
are not gods in the sense that they are prayed to (see Lohmann this issue), but
 NATURAL/SUPERNATURAL CONCEPTIONS 161

for many they personify one’s highest hopes and dreams. Anthropomorphism
utilises themes ‘continuously from religious to secular’, according to Guthrie
(p. 139), while an examination of state mottos shows us the same thing: beliefs
are expressed, alternatively, in God, the people, providence, progress, liberty,
growth, freedom and a number of other ideals unique to Western civilisation
(Shearer & Shearer 1994). For example, on top of the Capitol dome in Wisconsin,
a female figure, representing the state motto, ‘Forward’, points east, the direction
of progress in the late nineteenth-century Midwest. One could certainly argue
that passionate secular notions such as progress and liberty take on a religious-
like intensity. It is certainly a stretch to categorise them simply as ‘natural’.
Whether one calls them (invisible, implicit, civil) religions, ideologies or symbolic
universes, faith-based viewpoints that elude definition as natural or supernatural
permeate contemporary society.
Why do we have this situation in the supposedly scientific West? Science is
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wedded to a naturalism that philosopher Charles Taylor (1989) has pointed out
is not fundamentally plausible as a way of life. Most of us desire something
beyond scientific explanation, something that gives us some orientation to the
world, a moral space in which to differentiate right and wrong, make judgments,
and construct meaning in our lives. Thus, we have a continual ferment of new
religious movements and other identity-transforming organisations that not only
dissemble the categories of religion and non-religion but also leave the observer
wondering whether they assume natural or supernatural forces in their
ontologies.

New expressions of spirituality

Many new religious movements, expressions and practices cannot be neatly
categorised into those that hold natural or supernatural beliefs. Work on new
religious movements and so-called quasi or implicit religions (Greil & Robbins
1994) often reveals an indistinct amalgamation of beliefs in the natural and
supernatural. Irving Hexham (1994) calls many of them ‘mythological’ fragments,
often going under the rubric of ‘New Age’ movements, which can include Wicca
or Neo-paganism, astrology, Native American spirituality, spiritual healing and
UFO religions (Lewis 1995). Some new religious movements can be called
parascientific or pseudoscientific, depending on how one regards them, because
they have borrowed from the sciences and share a belief in the convergence of
science and spirituality (Lambert 1999:313). New spiritual movements such as
Human Potential, Scientology and Transcendental Meditation are examples, as
are older ones like Christian Science. These movements are not limited to North
America or Europe, either, for one also finds them in Africa and other areas of
the world. Many of these groups, intentionally or unintentionally, seem to elide
 162 ANTHROPOLOGICAL FORUM

the difference between the natural and supernatural. Some can be regarded as
an inevitable effect of the rise of science and modernity as dominant worldviews.
Even the most intense users of high technology, and believers in the efficacy
of scientific engineering, find themselves reaching beyond the natural and
rational when looking for meaning in life. Macintosh computer enthusiasts have
adopted Eastern and Western spiritual forms (Lam 2001) to forge a sense of the
transcendent, which involves a mystical bond between human and computer
and among Mac users themselves, and is expressed in a way of life that has
gnostic and utopian implications.
Star Trek fandom presents another interesting case. From research I did in the
1990s ( Jindra 1994), I reported the way Star Trek stimulated an immense number
of fans over the last 30 years, some of whom have taken this cultural production
as an expression of their deepest views on the nature of the universe and the
destiny of humanity. For a significant portion of these fans, Star Trek is thoroughly
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naturalistic, in that it constructs and accepts a fact/value distinction, while

attempting to maintain a position of value neutrality. Fandom has utilised the
basic elements of the various Star Trek series, including the secular humanist
beliefs of its founder, Gene Roddenberry, and created structures such as fan
clubs whose members argue about the Star Trek canon, organise for charity, go
on pilgrimages, perform role plays, and collect representations of the Star Trek
universe. Intense activity is involved in adding to and filling out the details of
the Star Trek universe through the consumption of Star Trek novels and manuals.
Star Trek fans in essence construct a consistent utopian world, in which Star Trek
takes on the mythological functions of providing explanations for human history
and destiny by giving science control over the problems of life and society. A
quintessentially modern cultural production ends up creating a popular mean-
ingful symbolic universe. Both Star Trek and Star Wars straddle the natural/
supernatural boundary by combining science and symbolic themes. Star Trek
utilises science much more than Star Wars, but both use quasi-magical themes—
time travel, transporters, ‘Q’, ‘The Force’—to help their narratives along. Other
popular productions, such as The X-Files, also confound the boundary. This is
not just a recent phenomenon. Malinowski (1979:40) discussed the unclear
boundary between science and magic in different cultural contexts, noting that
‘it is very difficult to discover where common sense ends and where magic
begins’.
Sociologist of religion William Swatos (1983:330) discusses how science turns
into magic, a state of affairs that he anticipates in newer symbolic universes
where magic/science is relied upon to provide control in areas outside our
ability to master. ‘The desire for mastery that motivated the scientific quest away
from institutional and dogmatic religion motivates the new religious quest as
well’ (Swatos 1983:330). We are relatively successful at manipulating nature, but
not people, or ourselves. Happiness still escapes many, and social problems
 NATURAL/SUPERNATURAL CONCEPTIONS 163

stubbornly persist. Thus, we turn to magic after science fails to do the job. In
fact, many exhibit a faith in science rather than knowledge of the scientific
method (Hexham 1994:312), and attempt to utilise science well beyond its
capability to solve problems of meaning. The ‘triumph of the therapeutic’ can
also be seen in this light (Rieff 1966). In a society where science has become so
dominant, it takes on mythological functions. The ‘natural’ slides into the
‘supernatural’.
More broadly, many new religious movements cannot reliably be categorised
as pre-modern, modern or post-modern, precisely because of the pragmatic
mixture of elements that could be described as both supernatural and natural
(Dawson 1998). Many new religious movements, such as those broadly categ-
orised as ‘New Age’, attempt to harness the techniques of instrumental rational-
ity to advance ends. The new sources of power—spiritual energy derived from
the mind, crystals, and so on—are directed to practical applications, such as
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improved health, the environment, human rights or peace. Many of them have
a preference for pragmatism that seeks to reconcile the religious and scientific
worldview. In essence, the new spirituality focuses not so much on the super-
natural ‘great transcendences’ of the world religions, as on the ‘little transcend-
ences’ of the mundane world (Dawson 1998:148 citing Beckford 1992).
In some organisations, one finds contrasts between what might be called
naturalists and rationalists on the one hand, and spiritualists on the other.
The current situation in Unitarian Universalism (UU), which was born in the
nineteenth century out of a belief in reason as the ultimate arbiter of religion,
is a good example (Lee 1995). Although UU adherents quickly rejected the
supernaturalism of orthodox Protestantism, this also resulted in continual ten-
sions between the rationalists, on the one hand, and the transcendentalists
(including Ralph Waldo Emerson, who later dropped out) and spiritualists who
attempted to communicate with the dead, on the other. In the early twentieth
century, the conflict became one between humanists or atheists on the one hand
and theists on the other, and, by the 1950s, it was clear the humanists had won.
Anti-supernaturalism became dominant in the denomination, which reflected
the 1950s and 1960s domination of modernism and rationalism in high culture
and academia, the sectors of society in which many adherents of UU were found.
By the 1980s, however, after declines in membership, leaders called for spiritual
revitalisation and, again reflecting trends in broader high culture, a new spiritual-
ity began to take hold, involving meditation, healing rituals, and religio-therapy.
The interdependence of the bodily, spiritual, and material dimensions was
stressed. A common conception of human beings is that they ‘embody a spark
of the divine, therefore, each person is sacred’ (Lee 1995:387). If humans are said
to be divine, and divinity is equated with the supernatural, then the very
definition of humanity involves the supernatural, at least in some New Age and
other conceptions.
 164 ANTHROPOLOGICAL FORUM

Older humanist UU members oriented to a scientific-technical rationality

have criticised the popularity of New Age, Neo-pagan, Zen Buddhist and Native
American spiritualities in the UU, and there has been some intra-denominational
conflict. Humanists have felt excluded by the quick change in UU to a pantheistic
and mystic sensibility. Individualism is really the overarching UU creed, but it
can be expressed in forms of mysticism, or in a humanistic rationalism. One
sociologist, however, argues that the ‘persistence of mysticism in this reason-
exalting movement suggest[s] that the two are in practice compatible with one
another’ (Lee 1995:393). While scientific and humanistic approaches were more
clearly separated in earlier UU history, they increasingly overlap in member
belief and practice. The fact that these perspectives have come together in a
relatively small institution, and that many participants in UU are comfortable
with both orientations, shows us how hard it is to separate them. Clearly, some
do draw very distinct lines between the natural and supernatural, but, even in
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a denomination with a predominantly high education level, many do not seem

too concerned with making a clear distinction.

Conclusion
From earlier work (Klass 1995; Pouillon 1982:6–7; Saler 1977), we have seen that
the term ‘supernatural’ is problematic, especially in non-Western contexts. Even
in the West, however, an examination of contemporary movements and practices
makes the term problematic, since spirituality may only be vaguely connected
with a higher power, and many non-scientific beliefs and practices attempt to
be scientific. The reverse is also often true. Even mainstream scientists such as
Einstein and Hawking often cannot avoid, explicitly or implicitly, reaching
beyond science to theology in order to find some meaning and purpose in the
universe. A ‘reflexive spirituality’ (Besecke 2001; Roof 1999) that combines
rationality and science with the pursuit of transcendent meaning is increasingly
popular, and incorporates diverse practices that simply cannot be categorised as
natural or supernatural. Parascience is a common theme, as seen in Scientology,
New Age groups and even amongst some Star Trek fans. New Age practices and
other religious experiences give people a sense of the transcendent, which may
or may not be described as supernatural by practitioners. Some may see elements
as supernatural, while others may view the same elements as natural.
This dichotomy of supernatural and natural is more relevant in the context
of institutional faiths with doctrines and creeds (as Fitzgerald 2000 argues for
the term ‘religion’; Raverty this issue, provides an example of this, as does
Griffin 2001), and in the related context of a secular and scientific rationality that
can be an impediment to anthropological research (Kapferer 2001; Stewart 2001).1
Since anthropology ought to avoid culturally particular categories, it should
desist from using the terminology of either of these unique (sub)cultures.2 In
 NATURAL/SUPERNATURAL CONCEPTIONS 165

other words, the distinction can be used in specific emic contexts that have the
distinction as part of their worldview, but should not be used in supposedly
neutral etic contexts. A better term is ‘superempirical’ (Yinger 1970:15; see also
Smith 2003:ch. 5), which is more tightly defined than ‘natural’, is based more in
methods than assumptions, and allows that many people understand both seen
and unseen forces as natural. Superempirical has been used to describe the
increased popularity of the ‘paranormal’ in Sweden (Sjödin 2002), and could be
applied in Europe and elsewhere where diverse spiritualisms are growing.
In other words, for anthropologists seeking to understand contemporary life,
the supernatural/natural dichotomy is less appropriate in situations of religious
pluralism and individualism. Faith may be put in the individual, humanity,
ancestors, spirits, an all-powerful being, or a combination of many of these
forces. Science and supernaturalism are often intertwined. As a number of
theorists argue (Bellah 1970:242; Taylor 1989), the construction of meaning is
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basic to humanity, and the cold rationalism of naturalistic philosophies can

rarely be satisfactory in this endeavour.

NOTES
Acknowledgements: I would like to thank all of the participants for their feedback, and
Roger Lohmann for herding us through the process.
1. In fact, the reason the dichotomy became popular in the first place is because of
the Western and Christian traditions (Saler 1977).
2. There is some question, however, as to whether social science can be, in the long
run, anything other than the expression of deeply held narratives or theological discourse
(Milbank 1990; Postman 1988; Smith 2003:ch. 4).

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