Are there any works of literature and philosophy that take the supernatural and the miraculous seriously that aren't either Christian (or generally religious) or esoteric/occult/traditionalist?I'd be interested to know if anybody's ever tried to sit down and write about supernatural phenomena in a way that isn't attached to a broader philosophical and religious system, but that also doesn't dismiss it all out of hand.
>>24143511Journey to the West.
>supernatural but not occultRetard alert
>>24143511Kant, Schopenhauer and Jung
>>24143511Pedro Paramo and all it spawned
>>24143511The only thing that comes to mind is the Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, but I'm having a hard time conceptualizing what you even mean when you say "isn't attached to a broader philosophical and religious system". Nothing exists in a vacuum. Even James's pragmatism is in a tradition and a conversation. There are a few books of the paranormal that are mostly just cataloguing but they aren't very satisfying, because as it turns out, its hard to write about things like ghosts without having questions about souls, or miracles without God, and so on. Every phenomenon requires a condition that facilitates our experiencing it as the thing that it is. Even the most even-handed treatment of this sort of thing to exist, which is probably Charles Fort, requires a sort of Hegelian approach to reality that allows him to take these phenomena seriously as a brute fact without needing any one specific explanation for each.
>>24143511They Flew, by Carlos EireHe is Catholic, but it is a neutral book
>>24143511Isn't that just magical realism.Anyways, I guess Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling would fit your needs.
>>24144488I've heard of this book. Will check it out.
>>24143511The Future of the Body by Michael Murphy would probably be right up your alley. Murphy was part of the whole 60s combination of Indian religion, psychology, and New Age (you can looks up 'Human Potential Movement' for more info) but the book is a massive treasure trove of examples of supernatural powers throughout history and across cultures looked at through a vaguely scientific lens. Deals with stuff like telepathy, remote viewing, miraculous healing, with lots of attention to the powers ascribed to saints, gurus, etc. but also lots of New Age psychology.>Kripal and Strieber - The Super Natural: A New Vision of the Unexplained>Anything Kripal has written since 2016 really. One of very few believers in the paranormal who is an actual academic>Huxley - Doors of Perception>Vallee - Passport to Magonia (aliens and other supernatural visitors)>Jung - Flying Saucers (A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky)>Irwin - Reincarnation in America: An Esoteric History
>>24143511Jung.
