How to select which supernatural to believe?

[emjay]

certainly anything that claims to predict the future etc... such as astrology

Agreed -- this is frustrating. It's not only unbelievable, it's even a dumbing-down of what people used to believe about the supernatural and astrology. 

Back when respectable people believed in these things, astrology was not considered supernatural at all. It was just a part of nature, and the influence of the stars and planets was thought to be part of the way the world worked. The exact method of influence wasn't clear, but then there are a lot of natural things that aren't precisely explained, even today. The powers and energies of the world were woven together and people didn't assume that planetary influence was other than part of nature. 

When explanations changed, and planetary influence was no longer believable, apparently people moved astrology into a sort of catch-all category called "supernatural," with no clear definition.

Nor was astrology generally used to predict the future. It could suggest trends and days that were more or less under the sway of the desired influences, but it wasn't as if your future was decided by the stars. It was more like the weather, or like personality tendencies which you could take account of in making plans.

Partly the modern dumbing-down comes about through a change in what the word "supernatural" means. In the old days it had a precise meaning -- unlike the modern term which seems to mean just anything that isn't science. 

People assumed that every kind of thing has a nature -- a set of characteristics or qualities, and a set of potentialities and limitations. It is the nature of a cat, for example, to eat, play, and nap, and not in the nature of a cat to fly to the moon or compose opera. If a cat did something which was over and above (super-) its nature, then that was supernatural. A person who could do more than it is the nature of people to do would be considered to have supernatural powers. So the type of thing which was called supernatural was narrowly defined, and did not include ghosts, tarot cards, etc. 

Some of the things we today call supernatural were considered to be occult -- which just means that how they function is hidden. They may well be natural, but how their nature works is not known and is perhaps unknowable. Others were considered to be natural -- again, astrology was thought to be an aspect of how nature operated.

Interesting what you say about the different old world meanings of supernatural.

I think maybe your 'occult' may be a better word for what my family believe in, essentially by default, and ascribe to sorcery or the devil... just anything they don't think comes from God comes into this category, but the frustration for me just comes from them not even seeming to consider that there are simple psychological explanations for most of it. Ie even if there is occult stuff in the world... which I don't believe in obviously, but for the sake of argument.. doesn't mean all of it is, by default, when psychology explains it much better.

So does this mean you do not believe in things like divination (which I'm assuming to mean things like tarot cards, reading tea leaves and entrails etc)? Ie do you agree that any form of vague interpretation of something, regardless of what system of interpretation is used or how it came about (eg by design or by chance/evolution... probably for most of these things I'd guess a bit of both), is succeptible to perceptual bias in its fulfillment... and the vaguer/less constrained the interpretations, the easier it is to fulfill that way? Whether that be in the form of ascribing a vague statement to some concrete instance, one of many possibilities... and the vaguer it is, the more possibilities for fulfillment there are... or say for something like good and bad luck and the superstitions around that, simply becoming more aware of the predictions and that directly influencing/creating their perceptual fulfillment... eg if you're expecting bad luck you're more likely to focus on and enumerate the negative, more likely to be in a negative state that could physically and detrimentally effect your performance in some task or whatever... basically a self-fulfilling prophesy, physically and/or mentally. And vice versa for good luck, expecting good things makes you more relaxed and confident, likewise leading to better outcomes, physically and/or mentally. But even if objectively there was no difference in outcomes, perception still goes a long way, depending on how you frame things.