The preternatural is defined as the world of forces which appear outside or beside the natural. These forces are suspended between the mundane and the miraculous, or between supernatural beings and material processes. It is not a personal force in the full sense, but it is a collective way of forces which partakes of the attributes of the personality or type of character of each individual to the extent of somewhat being connected arbitrarily to the body of these forces influencing the outcome of any enterprise or contest.
The term is used to distinguish marvels or deceptive trickery attributed to a strange phenomena of various kinds departed from the norms of nature.
God is the only one with the power to disregard the laws of nature that he has created, or His servants authorized by Him to do His commandments. The Devil and his demons and other elemental spirits living in that dimension are able only to manipulate the laws of nature by a form of trickery, to deceive the unwary into believing they had experienced real miracles. Although this entities (demons, astral intelligences, and other elemental spirits) might manipulate natural causes with superhuman dexterity and thereby work marvels, but as mere creatures they could never transcend from the preternatural to the supernatural and work genuine miracles. The laws that govern this dimension are not contrary to divine law, but used hidden, or as occult power, then it violates the normal pattern of natural phenomena.
In the 19th century the term was appropriated in anthropology to refer to folk beliefs about fairies, trolls and other such creatures which were not thought as demonic, but were perceived to affect the natural world in unpredictable ways.
Paranormal events described in popular culture are associated with the existence of this preternatural world of realities. The most notable paranormal beliefs include those that pertain to ghosts, extraterrestrial life, unidentified flying objects, psychic abilities or extrasensory perception.
A ghost is a manifestation of the spirit or soul of a deceased person. The belief in ghosts as souls of the departed is tied to the concept of animism, an ancient belief which attributed souls to everything in nature. Souls were seen as the creature within that animated the body. It was widely held that the soul was an exact reproduction of the body in every feature. This is depicted in artwork from various ancient cultures, including such works as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which shows deceased people in the after life appearing as much as they did before death, including the style of dress.
The belief of extraterrestrial life is not, by itself, a paranormal subject. Early in the history of UFO culture, believers divided themselves into 2 camps. The first interpreted them as unexplained occurrences that merited serious study. The second consisted in individuals who coupled ideas of extraterrestrial visitation from existing religious movements. These individuals were enthusiasts of occultism and the paranormal. Many had backgrounds as active Theosophists, Spiritualists, or were followers of other esoteric doctrines.
The paranormal does not conform to conventional expectations of nature. Some simply study the beliefs in the paranormal. Charles Fort (1874-1932) is the best collector of paranormal anecdotes. He compiled as many as 40,000 notes of unexplained experiences. These were odd events reported in magazines and newspapers. From this research Fort wrote 7 books, though only 4 survive: 'The book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931) and Wild Talents (1932). The events include tele-portation; ghosts or other supernatural entity responsible for physical disturbances; falls of frogs, fishes, and inorganic materials of an amazing range; crop circles; unaccountable noises and explosions; spontaneous fires; levitation; ball lightning; unidentified flying objects; mysterious appearances and disappearances; giant wheels of light in the oceans; and animals found outside their normal ranges (phantom cat).
