The supernatural.

Try bringing that up at a party and you’ll get eyerolls. Perhaps someone will tell you, “Maybe you should put on a tinfoil hat;” or, “Maybe you’re at the wrong party;” or, “Sir, this is a Wendy’s.” 

We spend our day-to-day in the natural — the supernatural seems nebulous and insubstantial. We have an instinct that there’s something “more” out there … but where? And what exactly is that “more”?

The vast majority of us believe in something supernatural — 71% of our generation is at least slightly religious; 78% of us are spiritual to some degree. But if you think about what it actually means to believe in something you can’t see, it gets messy. 

Christianity for instance, at its core, relies on an all-knowing, all-powerful God actually existing.

Easter is about a man coming back to life after dying. Full stop.

And it’s not just Jesus, either. Bible stories contain speaking flames and parting waters. Even today, the Catholic Church officially verifies miracles that seem to have no other explanation other than divine intervention.

I was just a cocky junior high kid when it sunk in with me how absurd all that sounds. No one actually comes back to life after they die. I knew that was a fact!

I remember feeling like my beliefs wouldn’t stand up to the tiniest whiff of scrutiny. Suddenly, I was a not-so-cocky kid wondering, “Is the whole Bible just a really long X-files episode?” I was pretty shook.

We all have a friend who genuinely claims to have seen a ghost. Or felt “a presence” — or even “God’s presence.” Or had a dream with an uncanny premonition. Or was healed or kept safe in ways that cannot be explained.

It took me a long time, but I finally decided to open up to the idea that things may actually occur here on Earth that science can’t account for. That decision helped me embrace some of my Christian beliefs. It also opened my mind to what humans have been claiming since the beginning of recorded history.

Ghosts, cryptids, fairy-folk, demons, angels, aliens — could it all be real? The number of witnesses would certainly lend one to think so. There were 55 sightings of Mothman in Chicago in 2017 alone!

So what does it mean to believe in something supernatural? Is it foolish to believe that there’s more to the world than what we can see and measure? I think we might be missing something really crucial if we simply dismiss the inexplicable.

Either way, it’s fascinating to ponder. 

So, that’s what we’re doing at Grotto this month: pondering the weird, mysterious, and unexplainable. The truth is out there!

—Josh Long
Senior Video Producer