So, the paranormal is, again, in a very specific and literal way, irrational and weird - it's a liminal (border) phenomena.
Do you see what I'm trying (perhaps inarticulately) to get at?
First, sorry about the misidentification.
I think so much depends on what your notion of the 'real' or 'normal' is. If our culture defines boundaries that limit and shape our sense of what is okay to experience, know and think about then that gives us a basis for defining what is irrational and weird.
There's a lovely little book called
Other Ways of Knowing by John Broomfield. John makes a critical point that other cultures have very different ideas about what is irrational and weird. We can elect to accept the 'world according to the West', or flick in favour of a more reality friendly way of knowing.
I think what we are doing, by engaging with Skeptiko, is redefining our shared notion of what is okay to know. I wrote my Masters thesis on the question as to whether my culture could accommodate my psi experiences, and concluded it could if the idea of animism (a Western idea) was incorporated. For me materialism has come to dominate 'respectable' thought, and so cast the shadows of irrationality and weirdness on what should be normal and natural. If you are a glutton for punishment I have serialised my thesis on my blog - its way better written than most theses, and, I think, well argued.
Emma Restall Orr's
The Wakeful World surveys Western Philosophy and shows that it is not materialistic. In fact materialistic philosophy is very late and not very good. I grew up steeped in materialism, as we all have done, and nothing from my normal education suggested to me that our culture's thought was other than materialistic. Its just not true at all.
Also my experience is that PSI is not 'border' experience, but embedded experience we have been trained to ignore. That training is a kind of rational overlay that teaches us to discount 'irrational' or 'weird' things - invalidate them as having no value. Rupert Sheldrake shows this in his stuff on 'telephone telepathy'. I experience this regularly, but not because I am especially 'sensitive', but because I validate the experience.
For example last week I was sitting in a very noisy pub and simultaneously had an intuition my partner was going to call me and I reached into my shoulder bag to get my phone to send her a text to not call but text. As I pulled the phone out of the bag she called. And I couldn't hear her, nor her me. So we did text.
So often we dismiss our discount intuitions. I don't know how often I have heard people tell me that they 'had a feeling' beforehand and ignored it, to their regret. I have educated myself to heed such feelings. A long time ago I was flying from Adelaide to Melbourne and as I was about to board the plane I had a strong sense there was going to be a drama, so I stepped aside and felt into it. I felt the plane would be okay and land safely at Melbourne. As we approached Melbourne the captain announced there was an issue with the undercarriage and we would delay landing to use up fuel.
It was a classic movie scenario. There was a guy with a respirator and a couple of nurses, a couple of nuns, some young families (wee kids and babies), some old frail folk, some business folk - and me, the token hippy who had a vision that it would be all okay. Of course the plane landed safely.
So I am saying that what is weird or irrational is what you decide, according to the rules you have set for yourself. For me psi is neither irrational nor weird. I don't even bother to tell people what I experience now, unless it is to make a point. And I do not consider myself 'psychic' - as in being especially gifted. I am just a normal bloke who has learned to allow himself to listen and respect his own input.