Throughout its history, humanity continued to believe in supernatural forces and phenomena. This has always fascinated believers and irritated skeptics. Over the millennia, belief in the existence of supernatural forces has constantly changed, its objects have changed. Once they were considered a thunderstorm, thunder and lightning, ordinary natural phenomena were endowed with mythical properties, but as science develops, more and more new objects begin to be endowed with the same qualities.
Today
Belief in supernatural powers is still popular today. News is published daily that a UFO, a ghost, a poltergeist has appeared somewhere. Television, where psychics charge water and demonstrate "wonderful abilities", greatly contributed to the popularization of individual ideas. As a result, faith in the supernatural powers of man among the mass of consumers has strengthened. At the moment, there are several realms that people still associate with the supernatural.
Monsters
Fearsome creatures have been called monsters since ancient times, the word itself is translated from Latin as “sign”, “omen”. Previously, people believed that the appearance of a hitherto unseencreatures warn of unusual events that are about to happen.
Usually, this word refers to terrifying creatures. It should be noted that belief in supernatural forces of this kind is strong: since ancient times, people got used to seeing a threat in everything unknown, anything, if only not reality.
The wild human imagination has been creating images of monsters for centuries, and legends have been passed down from generation to generation. This is easy to verify by reading medieval stories about unprecedented monsters that people saw in animals from other continents. Now that we know these animals and they are well studied, it is clear to everyone that they do not have the supernatural powers that our ancestors endowed them with. But it is human nature to fantasize in the absence of information.
After studying this, it is not difficult to guess that a similar process is taking place in our time. Not so long ago, the network was stirred up by a photo of the “Bigfoot”, Sasquatch pop up from time to time. However, in reality they turn out to be a bear or a Mowgli child, Sasquatch - ordinary monkeys. It is impossible to deny the fact that the child Mowgli seen can shock the unprepared human psyche, and in order to attract everyone's attention to such an object, he can make an elephant out of a fly. Cases of Mowgli children take place in the outback, they are unusual and look very wild. Naturally, such a spectacle is imprinted in the imagination of the eyewitness as something terrible, and confusion confuses society.
Ghosts
For centuries there is a tradition to believe in another manifestationsupernatural forces - ghosts. So called the souls of the dead, who are seen alive. They are painted with pale images that pass freely through solid objects. Some people think they are evil. It is believed that only those with a special gift can see them.
But upon close examination, stories of supernatural forces of this type do not stand up to scrutiny. Psychologists point out that the events that people attribute to ghosts have a natural explanation. It is easy to guess why people attributed them to the action of supernatural forces - they did not have knowledge about the nature of phenomena. Currently, eyewitnesses who learn that their "ghost" is just a gust of wind or flowing water are disappointed. It looks like people want to keep believing in miracles no matter what.
Poltergeist
Poltergeists are considered a separate supernatural force of nature. Most often they are seen by teenagers aged 12-16 years. According to the theory of believers, the human brain at this age produces a special energy - it becomes a source for such a phenomenon.
But in fact, poltergeists have nothing to do with it. This is just an effect of the psychokinetic activity of the brain, nothing more.
Psychics
Today in Russia, faith in psychics is strong. They call themselves extraordinary people, they are shown on television, where they demonstrate "supernatural abilities." As practice shows, a person is easily suggestible, especially when he himself is glad to believe in something incredible. Forpredicting many things of a sufficiently developed emotional intelligence, which allows you to perfectly feel people and their emotions, as well as logic. The true nature of psychic abilities will be discussed below.
UFO
In mystical stories there are many stories about unidentified flying objects - here there are meetings with alien guests, and unexplored crop circles, and the birth of extraterrestrial children. But you cannot say that aliens exist.
Science has not put forward a single confirmation of this fact. Many billions of planets remain unexplored, but scientists are taking steps towards contact with alien intelligence, sending special probes into deep space, broadcasting everywhere the coordinates of the Earth and information about our civilization. And so far, for many years, no answer has followed from anywhere. We are probably the most advanced civilization in the universe.
Really
At the moment there are official awards in the world - for example, the James Randi Prize, which gives $1,000,000 to anyone who displays a supernatural ability or phenomenon without resorting to fraud or self-deception.
Back in 1922, the US established a prize of $2,500 each. The first was awarded to anyone for a genuine photo of a ghost under the conditions of the test, and the second - for "demonstrating visible psychic manifestations."
The first person to volunteer was the medium George Valentine, who claimed that the spirits would communicatethrough a pipe that will begin to move through the air in a dark room. When Valentine was placed in a room with the lights out, he didn't know that his chair had been replaced with one that emitted a light signal to the next room when one got up from it. And the light signal worked, after which Valentine did not receive an award.
Do I need to say that in the entire history, as of 2018, neither the James Randi Award, nor the other two, nor another hundred of them have been taken by anyone. The total prize pool for all awards in 2003 was $2,326,500.
About James Randi
James Randi is a former magician who became a debunker of magicians at the age of 54. He arranged programs in which he offered the most diverse psychics to show their abilities by performing the simplest tasks. As a result, all eminent psychics showed results that did not differ from random.
Thus, the once-famous magician Uri Geller, who was invited on the air, could not cope with his usual demonstration of superpowers. The thing is that James Randi previously replaced the props like marked spoons, and glued the cans on the table. Because it did not make it possible to carry out a trick that was previously presented as the presence of Uri Geller's psychic abilities. And Randy's guess turned out to be correct: Uri Geller suddenly lost his "sense of power", unable to cope with elementary tasks.
Often exposed by James Randi and astrologers, suggesting that they sort people by zodiac signs. They didn't get the job done. He exposed psychics, peoplewho claimed to be able to sense the weapons of murder by choosing among hundreds of others, creators of incredible supernatural "mind-reading" machines. They all failed over and over again in conditions where fraud became impossible.
So, in the latter case, Randy spoke with a man who claimed to have created an apparatus for fixing thought processes. But through experience, Randy finds out that the device works even when the “transmit thought” signal has not been given.
In Russia
It should be noted that while such programs are being broadcast in the USA, in Russian reality television broadcasts shows about psychics, where superpowers are glorified. After the release of TV shows, these people collect impressive sums at personal receptions with believers.
At the same time, in Russia there is also the Harry Houdini Prize, a student of James Randi, which offers 1,000,000 rubles to anyone who has proven in experimental conditions that they have extrasensory abilities. And despite attempts, no one passed the tests, consisting of the simplest tasks.
