2 things:  The human mind is incredibly powerful but easily-deceived, and works to fill in gaps in its understanding and find 'meaning' or utility or a threat wherever possible. Which is a big evolutionary advantage, because if something isn't useful, or a threat, or whatever you're just mistaken, but if it is it could save your life. Dawkins in the God Delusion has the great example of optical illusions like the slowly turning mask appearing solid when it's hollow.  In atmospheric circumstances, with trance like concentration or if you're half-asleep, surrounded by forceful or beguiling personalities, anyone could be convinced to do or believe anything.  Look at the Nazis' Nuremberg rallies.  But the supernatural has been debunked so clearly so many times it just doesn't hold water.  Secondly, I fooled around with a Ouija board when I was a kid, and it's just hocus pocus - the small involuntary movements of a group of people's fingertips even out to make the pointer move a bit in one direction, and then your reactions keep it going.  9 times out of 10 the 'spirit' spells out fbdhmst or something, but when it reads aunt or pig that one time when you're all hyped up it gives you a scary thrill, and some people are gulled into thinking it's 'real'.

I remember playing with a oija board as a kid. But it ended up apparent to me that it was just the big kids trying to have some fun at the little kids expense. Needless to say, it didn't work as they'd expected.

There is one thing in common to all of these experiences of what people interpret as the supernatural.  What is it? The human brain.

 The fact that all the people who claim to experience the supernatural have a very similarly evolved device for perception, intellect, emotion, etc tells me that what is going on is a shared type of reaction or process when in similar environments and situations.

It would be akin to giving everyone red-tinted glasses and then concluding that the world is really fundamentally red. It's not the world, it's the device interpreting the world.

Shaun 

I was raised atheist and explored paganism as a teen.  It followed through my early 20's and I eventually became a Wiccan High Preist, and ran my own coven with the help of my now ex-wife.  I have extensive knowledge of Tarot Cards and other forms of divination, and have even made a few of my own Tarot decks, in fact.  I never really felt like I fit in with those people though.  Now, years later, I know that it's all bs.  Cold reading is one way to do it, but if you read the interpritations of wht the cards are supposed to mean, they're all very vague.  So when you flip one card, and then another, the person will usually make a connection in their own mind, and fill in the blanks from there,even if cold reading someone isn't working.  If they don't resonate with the first or second card, usually one will come along and they'll say, "oh, I know what that's getting at, so that one back there must mean this, and this," and so on. 

 In short, the huamn mind can very easily play tricks on it's self, making mundane actions under the right set of circumstances and stimuli, seem divine or supernatural.  When, in fact, it's all in your head.  Does anyone believe the people in a schitzophrenics head are real, the ones that talk to them and seem as real as you or me to them?  No.

I could try being diplomatic, and say that supernatural phenomena are allergic to me, and that's why I never encounter such things.

 It's entirely more plausible though, that my brain simply doesn't fascilitate such delusions, and delusions is all they are.

One things we humans love is being correct. Not necessarily knowing the truth... just feeling correct. So when a person or two in the room with the ouija board gets a chill and says it could be something supernatural, the easiest way for the others to be correct is to agree.

There has been at least one study wherein there are a number of lines and people are asked to point out which line is shorter. If asked on their own, they are very accurate. If on the other hand, you ask a group and have a plant pointing out the wrong line. Most people in such a group will eventually agree with the plant. They want to feel correct. They don't care about counting, someone has already made the decision for them. (See also the bible and its "answers".)

I think this behavior ("going along with the herd" ) helped out our ancestors living in danger of being eaten. It probably goes very well with the tendency to hallucinate.

Imagine a group of early primates in a grassy area. A lookout sees some movement or shapes in the grass. It could be a tiger. If it isn't and the primate thinks it is, he calls the alarm, everyone runs a bit (and, due to his reaction, possibly "see" the tiger as well.) The group has wasted some energy but no one got eaten. If he hits too many false positives, they waste a lot of energy and bad things happen.

If he decides there's no tiger (or is taking too long to decide) and there is a tiger, he gets eaten, maybe a few of his clan get eaten, and bad things happen.

Who is more likely to be eaten outright? The one who doesn't hallucinate. Who is more likely to survive? The one who is a little paranoid. Which group is most likely to survive? Those who tolerate some false positives and even go along with them, but know when to draw the line and stop listening to the totally paranoid ones.

I think this behavior has stuck with us so that people who see things _everywhere_ are considered crazy while people can get away with some hallucinations (seeing faces in smoke, objects in clouds, briefly hearing voices).

-Triften

I appreciate everyone's input.

Bottomline: guess it is just VERY difficult for me to give up these belief systems when, again, it has been so engrained in my head since I was around age 5 or so and obviously very impressionable.

The "super/para-natural" seems to be allergic to me as well...

I used to play with ouiji boards a little in high school and they always seemed to work then.  But now that I'm in my 30's with an education that involved the studies of critical thought and science, the magical movement of the "mystical oracal" seemed to have dissapeared.  The group mindset of teenagers open to the notion that paper and plastic can communicate with the dead can indeed make it happen, at least in thier minds.  When people that don't buy into the notion of the supernateral use these walkie talkies of the dead they always seem to be broken. 

Things appear more supernatural the younger one is.  A five year old child perceives the world through the filters of his limited knowledge and physiology.  I remember going to Disneyland when I was young child and thinking the place was huge and the haunted house ghosts looked real and the pirates of the cribbian looked menacing and scary.  Now as an adult, the park seemed smaller, the ghosts obviously had projectors and transperent screens, and the pirates looked fake and silly. But I was also a fraction of the size I am now, and I had yet to learn of concepts like light projection and animatronics. 

The mind takes in the information from our senses and creates abstractions that we can understand based on our expiriences and what we tell ourselves what these expiriences mean.  Our senses also can fool us.  People that where blindfolded and then given samples of chocolate icecream but told that the sample was strawberry acually thought they tasted strawberry!  When you soak your hand in warm water and then place it in cold water the initial sensation is that the water is hot.  As for these cold room sensations, did the mercury actually drop or did you just feel it?  Because I feel a simular cold chill when I hear fundies talk about how things should be.