Not sure we understand each other. It is easy to imagine worlds where the paranormal exists. But it is something deeper—it is about inrreducibly mental phenomena. To stick to my example, a potion or fountain of healing depends on the mental model of what changes in the body do human minds consider beneficial. It is conceivable as something designed by a human mind e.g. nanomachines, but as a naturally, paranormal-naturally, supernatural-naturally occuring phenomenon it is simply a logical contradiction in all logically conceivable worlds, unless a non-human mind designed it, such as a gods.
From this angle, of course, any mental thing can be made irreducible and thus truly supernatural by simply referring to poly-or monotheism, i.e. a universe inherently imbued with mental things that do not reduce to anything else because their source, their creator is mental. Putting it differently, fantasy can be rescued by making it more unashamedly theist than the average Krondor type stuff. You can have e.g. trees with irreducibly mental souls without a structure as long as they are created by an irreducibly mental god I guess.
But if you leave it out, it becomes logically contradictory in all imaginable universes. A good example is Star Wars. The Force is too mental to be a non-designed phenomenon. But in all non-designed phenomena their mentality is not their inherent characteristic, but our part of our model of it, part of the map. A non-designed Force should work in ways that does not fully make sense for humans.
Interestingly, as far as I can tell, Wiccans for example understand something like this, they see their magick as something akin to a prayer, directing divine force. Non-theist magic would be a paranormal phenomenon acting in the terrain yet following the rules of the map, following mental concepts like healing, which is a contradiction. But of course by simply adopting theism this is fixable, as it comes with the assumption mental concepts made the terrain too, so mental things can be real forces.
Not sure we understand each other. It is easy to imagine worlds where the paranormal exists. But it is something deeper—it is about inrreducibly mental phenomena. To stick to my example, a potion or fountain of healing depends on the mental model of what changes in the body do human minds consider beneficial. It is conceivable as something designed by a human mind e.g. nanomachines, but as a naturally, paranormal-naturally, supernatural-naturally occuring phenomenon it is simply a logical contradiction in all logically conceivable worlds, unless a non-human mind designed it, such as a gods.
From this angle, of course, any mental thing can be made irreducible and thus truly supernatural by simply referring to poly-or monotheism, i.e. a universe inherently imbued with mental things that do not reduce to anything else because their source, their creator is mental. Putting it differently, fantasy can be rescued by making it more unashamedly theist than the average Krondor type stuff. You can have e.g. trees with irreducibly mental souls without a structure as long as they are created by an irreducibly mental god I guess.
But if you leave it out, it becomes logically contradictory in all imaginable universes. A good example is Star Wars. The Force is too mental to be a non-designed phenomenon. But in all non-designed phenomena their mentality is not their inherent characteristic, but our part of our model of it, part of the map. A non-designed Force should work in ways that does not fully make sense for humans.
Interestingly, as far as I can tell, Wiccans for example understand something like this, they see their magick as something akin to a prayer, directing divine force. Non-theist magic would be a paranormal phenomenon acting in the terrain yet following the rules of the map, following mental concepts like healing, which is a contradiction. But of course by simply adopting theism this is fixable, as it comes with the assumption mental concepts made the terrain too, so mental things can be real forces.