[Bullet Magnet]

I've never had any paranormal experience and I don't expect to. Not least because I won't interpret an unusual experience as paranormal even if anyone else is. I may not ever find an explanation for such an experience, but I find "I don't know" to be a hell of a lot more satisfying than jumping to a conclusion that coincidentally (or rather, not) happens to correspond to a culturally significant myth. At the very least, a mystery is an incentive to find out, whereas an unsubstantiated conclusion closes the door on further investigation, or at least colours any further investigation and sets the scene for some substantial confirmation bias.

Of course, finding out that, say, ghosts are real removes them from the world of paranormal and into the world of the normal. I have mentioned in the past the concept of the "perinormal", which consists of that which is considered paranormal but is in fact a real phenomenon waiting to be properly discovered, studied and explained.

Then again, when I consider the universe as we know it, grand, majestic and mysterious as it is, and look back into geological time, the genomes of modern animals, and consider existence as a whole, the idea that the human species alone is somehow able to transcend matter and energy and persist after its metabolic processes have come to and end and continue to affect the world in some way is just patently ridiculous. The psychological, sociological and neurological routes to explaining bizarre experiences seems infinitely more sensible by comparison.