"He couldn’t believe in ghosts or demons. He knew that supernatural happenings tended to break down, under detailed examination, into eminently natural events. The ones that didn’t break down—stopped. Ghosts just wouldn’t stand still and let a nonbeliever examine them. The phantom of the castle was invariably on vacation when a scientist showed up with cameras and tape recorders."

"Saint Thomas’s important contribution to the emergence of a technical theology of the supernatural represents a special development of the concept of surpassing effects. Saint Thomas and others of the Scholastics have left us as one of their legacies a dichotomy between the natural and the supernatural that is theologically rooted in the distinction between the Order of Nature and the Order of Grace."

"The eventual development of a clear concept of the supernatural in Christian theology was promoted both by dialogues with heretics and by the influence of Neoplatonic philosophy."

"I have never figured out why people want to believe in the supernatural. It’s as if they find the existence of the irrational somehow reassuring."

"The most parsimonious explanation for why science has been unable to confirm anything supernatural is because the supernatural doesn’t exist."

"So I had to face the fact that I was blessed with abilities that were considered symptoms of emotional abnormality or mental derangement by psychology, often thought of as demonic by religion, and whose very existence was denied altogether by science. So in my darker moments I used to think that my psychic initiation and subsequent experiences were a mixed bag, to say the least. But the fact is that I was very sensitive to criticism for the very good reason that often I shared many of the beliefs that stimulated it."

"“Man’s responsibility increases as that of the gods decreases” (quoting André Gide). Every step taken by science claims territory once occupied by the supernatural."

"Religion does not complement science but preempts and co-opts scientific discourse in support of supernaturalism."