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The supernatural (Medieval Latin: supernātūrālis: supra "above" + naturalis "nature", first used: 1520–30 AD)^[1][2] is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature. With neoplatonic and medieval scholastic origins, the metaphysical considerations can be difficult to approach as an exercise in philosophy or theology because any dependencies on its antithesis, the natural, will ultimately have to be inverted or rejected. In popular culture and fiction, the supernatural is whimsically associated with the paranormal and the occult, this differs from traditional concepts in some religions, such as Catholicism, where divine miracles are considered supernatural.

In Catholicism[link]

It has been suggested that Supernatural order be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since September 2011.

In Catholicism, while the meaning of the term and its antithesis vary, the “Supernatural Order” is the gratuitous production, by God, of the ensemble of miracles for the elevation of man to a state of grace, including the hypostatic union (Incarnation), the beatific vision, and the ministry of angels. Divine operation, “spiritual facts” and “voluntary determinations” are consistently referred to as “supernatural” by those who specifically preclude the “extrinsic concurrence” of God or by those espousing a materialist or determinist worldview that excludes immaterial beings or free will. Barring disingenuous intent, there is no objection to this manner of speaking.^[3]

Catholic theologians sometimes call supernatural the miraculous way in which certain effects, in themselves natural, are produced, or certain endowments (like man's immunity from death, suffering, passion, and ignorance) that bring the lower class up to the higher though always within the limits of the created, but they are careful in qualifying the former as accidentally supernatural (supernaturale per accidens) and the latter as relatively supernatural (prœternaturale). For a concept of the substantially and absolutely supernatural, they start from a comprehensive view of the natural order taken, in its amplest acceptation, for the aggregate of all created entities and powers, including the highest natural endowments of which the rational creature is capable, and even such Divine operations as are demanded by the effective carrying out of the cosmic order. The supernatural order is then more than a miraculous way of producing natural effects, or a notion of relative superiority within the created world, or the necessary concurrence of God in the universe; it is an effect or series of effects substantially and absolutely above all nature and, as such, calls for an exceptional intervention and gratuitous bestowal of God and rises in a manner to the Divine order, the only one that transcends the whole created world… It is obvious also that this uplifting of the rational creature to the supernatural order cannot be by way of absorption of the created into the Divine or of fusion of both into a sort of monistic identity, but only by way of union or participation, the two terms remaining perfectly distinct.

— Joseph Sollier, The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14., Supernatural Order

Divine revelation of the supernatural order is considered to be a matter of fact, contingent upon proper evidence of such, (miracle, prophecy etc.). “The revelation and its evidences are called extrinsic and auxiliary supernatural, the elevation itself retaining the name of intrinsic or, according to some, theological supernatural.” The supernatural order was analyzed primarily by scholastic and post-Tridentine theologians. Theories denying or belittling the supernatural order, are historically classified into three groups:^[3]

1. present de facto condition (Pelagianism, Beghards, Stoic influence),
2. the original status of man (Reformers such as Baius, Protestant and the Jansenist School),
3. possibility and evidence (Rationalist School, from Socinus to the present Modernists).

Rosmini … unwittingly, [may] have paved the way for them in the following vaguely Subjectivist proposition: “The supernatural order consists in the manifestation of Being in the plenitude of its reality, and the effect of that manifestation is a God-like sentiment, inchoate in this life through the light of faith and grace, consummate in the next through the light of glory” (36th Rosminian proposition condemned by the Holy Office, 14 Dec., 1887). Preserving the dogmatic formulæ while voiding them of their contents, the Modernists constantly speak of the supernatural, but they understand thereby the advanced stages of an evolutive process of the religious sentiment. There is no room in their system for the objective and revealed supernatural: their Agnosticism declares it unknowable, their Immanentism derives it from our own vitality, their symbolism explains it in term of subjective experience and their criticism declares non-authentic the documents used to prove it. “There is no question now,” says Pius X, in his Encyclical “Pascendi” of 8 Sept., 1907, “of the old error by which a sort of right to the supernatural was claimed for human nature. We have gone far beyond that. We have reached the point where it is affirmed that our most holy religion, in the man Christ as in us, emanated from nature spontaneously and entirely. Than this, there is surely nothing more destructive of the whole supernatural order.” …

From the commonly received axiom that “grace does not destroy but only perfects nature” they establish between the two orders a parallelism that is not mutual confusion or reciprocal exclusion, but distinction and subordination. The Schoolmen spoke freely of nature's possibilities (potentia obedientialis) and even conations (appetitus naturalis) towards the supernatural. To those traditional methods and views some Christian writers have, of late, endeavoured to add and even substitute another theory which, they claim, will bring the supernatural home to the modern mind and give it unquestionable credentials. The novel theory consists in making nature postulate the supernatural. Whatever be the legitimity of the purpose, the method is ambiguous and full of pitfalls. Between the Schoolmen's potentia obedientialis and appetitus moralis and the Modernist tenet according to which the supernatural “emanates from nature spontaneously and entirely” there is space and distance; at the same time, the Catholic apologist who would attempt to fill some of the space and cover some of the distance should keep in mind the admonition of Pius X to those “Catholics who, while rejecting immanence as a doctrine, employ it as a method of apologetics, and who do this so imprudently that they seem to admit that there is in human nature a true and rigorous necessity with regard to the supernatural order and not merely a capacity and suitability for the supernatural such as has at all times been emphasized by Catholic apologists” (Encyclical “Pascendi”).

— Joseph Sollier, The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14., Supernatural Order

Contrasting views[link]

One complicating factor is that there is no universal agreement about what the definition of “natural” is, and what the limits of naturalism might be. Concepts in the supernatural domain are closely related to concepts in religious spirituality and occultism or spiritualism. Additionally, by definition anything that exists naturally is not supernatural.

For sometimes we use the word nature for that Author of nature whom the schoolmen, harshly enough, call natura naturans, as when it is said that nature hath made man partly corporeal and partly immaterial. Sometimes we mean by the nature of a thing the essence, or that which the schoolmen scruple not to call the quiddity of a thing, namely, the attribute or attributes on whose score it is what it is, whether the thing be corporeal or not, as when we attempt to define the nature of an angel, or of a triangle, or of a fluid body, as such. Sometimes we take nature for an internal principle of motion, as when we say that a stone let fall in the air is by nature carried towards the centre of the earth, and, on the contrary, that fire or flame does naturally move upwards toward heaven. Sometimes we understand by nature the established course of things, as when we say that nature makes the night succeed the day, nature hath made respiration necessary to the life of men. Sometimes we take nature for an aggregate of powers belonging to a body, especially a living one, as when physicians say that nature is strong or weak or spent, or that in such or such diseases nature left to herself will do the cure. Sometimes we take nature for the universe, or system of the corporeal works of God, as when it is said of a phoenix, or a chimera, that there is no such thing in nature, i.e. in the world. And sometimes too, and that most commonly, we would express by nature a semi-deity or other strange kind of being, such as this discourse examines the notion of.

And besides these more absolute acceptions, if I may so call them, of the word nature, it has divers others (more relative), as nature is wont to be set or in opposition or contradistinction to other things, as when we say of a stone when it falls downwards that it does it by a natural motion, but that if it be thrown upwards its motion that way is violent. So chemists distinguish vitriol into natural and fictitious, or made by art, i.e. by the intervention of human power or skill; so it is said that water, kept suspended in a sucking pump, is not in its natural place, as that is which is stagnant in the well. We say also that wicked men are still in the state of nature, but the regenerate in a state of grace; that cures wrought by medicines are natural operations; but the miraculous ones wrought by Christ and his apostles were supernatural.^[4]

—Robert Boyle, A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature

The term "supernatural" is often used interchangeably with paranormal or preternatural — the latter typically limited to an adjective for describing abilities which appear to exceed the bounds of possibility.^[5] Epistemologically, the relationship between the supernatural and the natural is indistinct in terms of natural phenomena that, ex hypothesi, violate the laws of nature, in so far as such laws are realistically accountable.

Parapsychologists use the term psi to refer to an assumed unitary force underlying the phenomena they study. Psi is defined in the Journal of Parapsychology as “a general term used to identify personal factors or processes in nature which transcend accepted laws” (1948: 311) and “which are non-physical in nature” (1962:310), and it is used to cover both extrasensory perception (ESP), an “awareness of or response to an external event or influence not apprehended by sensory means” (1962:309) or inferred from sensory knowledge, and psychokinesis (PK), “the direct influence exerted on a physical system by a subject without any known intermediate energy or instrumentation” (1945:305).^[6]

—Michael Winkelman, Current Anthropology

Many supporters of supernatural explanations believe that past, present, and future complexities and mysteries of the universe cannot be explained solely by naturalistic means and argue that it is reasonable to assume that a non-natural entity or entities resolve the unexplained. Proponents of supernaturalism say that their belief system is more flexible, which allows more diversity in terms of intuition and epistemology.

Views on the "supernatural" include that it is:

• indistinct from nature. From this perspective, some events occur according to the laws of nature, and others occur according to a separate set of principles external to known nature. For example, in Scholasticism, it was believed that God was capable of performing any miracle so long as it didn't lead to a logical contradiction. As a pedagogical exercise, a physics university instructor might ask what the aftermath would be, as nature returns to normal, following a hypothetical miraculous intervention by God, similar to a modern thought experiment. Some religions posit immanent deities, however, and do not have a tradition analogous to the supernatural; some believe that everything anyone experiences occurs by the will (occasionalism), in the mind (neoplatonism), or as a part (nondualism) of a more fundamental divine reality (platonism).

• incorrectly attributed to nature. Others believe that all events have natural and only natural causes. They believe that human beings ascribe supernatural attributes to purely natural events, such as lightning, rainbows, floods, and the origin of life.^[7][8]

See also[link]

Look up supernatural in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Magical thinking
• Miracle
• Non-physical entity

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (June 2011)

Jared Padalecki
Padalecki at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2011.
Born	Jared Tristan Padalecki (1982-07-19) July 19, 1982 (age 29) San Antonio, Texas, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1999–present
Spouse	Genevieve Cortese (2010–present)
Children	1

Jared Tristan Padalecki (born July 19, 1982) is an American actor. He grew up in Texas and came to fame in the early 2000s after appearing on the television series Gilmore Girls as well as in several Hollywood films, including New York Minute and House of Wax. Padalecki plays Sam Winchester on the CW television series Supernatural.

Early life[link]

Padalecki was born in San Antonio, Texas.^[1][2] He is of Polish ancestry on his father's side.^[3][4] He has an older brother, Jeff, and a younger sister, Megan. He started taking acting classes at the age of 12.

Education[link]

He attended James Madison High School in San Antonio and was named a candidate for the 2000 Presidential Scholars Program. In 1998, Padalecki and his partner Chris Cardenas won the National Forensic League national championship in Duo Interpretation.^[5] Padalecki won FOX's 1999 "Claim to Fame Contest"; he subsequently appeared at the Teen Choice Awards, where he met his current manager. After graduating from high school in 2000, he moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue an acting career, although he had originally planned to attend the University of Texas.^[1]

Career[link]

Padalecki's first credit was a minor role in the 1999 film A Little Inside. In 2000, he was cast as Dean Forester on the television series Gilmore Girls, a role he played until 2005. Throughout the early 2000s, he also appeared in several made-for-television films, including Silent Witness, Close to Home, and the Disney Channel Original Movie A Ring of Endless Light.

Padalecki had an uncredited part as a high school bully in 2003's comedy Cheaper by the Dozen, which he played after being asked by fellow actor and friend Tom Welling, who played the part of Charlie Baker, and the director of the movie, who wanted someone bigger than Charlie to pick on him. Padalecki originally auditioned for Welling's role, but gave it up in order to film a pilot titled Young MacGyver which was never picked up.^[6] In 2004, he appeared in the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen comedy New York Minute as Trey Lipton a cute boy who the Olson's characters are attracted to. He also landed a short role in the thriller Flight of the Phoenix alongside Dennis Quaid and Hugh Laurie. In 2005, Padalecki starred opposite Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray and Paris Hilton in the horror film House of Wax in which he plays Wade, one of 5 teens who are slashed and killed. In the same year, Padalecki appeared in yet another horror film, Cry Wolf in which he played Tom.^[7]

The same year, Padalecki was cast as Sam Winchester on the WB series, Supernatural. Sam and his brother Dean (Jensen Ackles) drive throughout the United States hunting paranormal predators, sometimes with their father (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The seventh season began broadcast on September 23, 2011 on the CW. The show is filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Padalecki also served as the host of MTV's horror reality series, Room 401 which was discontinued after only 8 episodes due to poor ratings.^[8]

He had the lead role in 2008's The Christmas Cottage, in which he played Thomas Kinkade.

Padalecki also had the lead role in the horror remake Friday the 13th film alongside Danielle Panabaker, which opened on Friday, February 13, 2009. He plays Clay Miller, a character who heads out to the doomed Camp Crystal Lake in search of his sister who has gone missing.^[9]

Personal life[link]

Padalecki married his former Supernatural co-star Genevieve Cortese on February 27, 2010. He and his wife are currently residing in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.^[10][11] On October 10, 2011, he announced they were expecting their first child.^{[12] [13]} The couple's son was born on March 19, 2012.^[14][15]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jared Padalecki

• Jared Padalecki at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview with Jared Padalecki at SuicideGirls.com
• Jared Padalecki on Twitter

This article may contain inappropriate or misinterpreted citations that do not verify the text. Please help improve this article by checking for inaccuracies. (help, talk, get involved!) (November 2009)

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (November 2009)

Misha Collins
Born	Dmitri Tippens Krushnic (1974-08-20) August 20, 1974 (age 37) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, Producer
Years active	1999–present
Spouse	Victoria Vantoch (m. 2002) «start: (2002)»"Marriage: Victoria Vantoch to Misha Collins" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Misha_Collins)
Children	West Anaximander Collins (2010)

Misha Collins (born Misha Dmitri Tippens Krushnic) is an American actor, best known for his role as the angel Castiel on the CW television series Supernatural.^[1]

Personal life[link]

Collins was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Before acting, he interned for four months at the White House during the Clinton Administration in the Office of Presidential Personnel.^[1] Collins attended Northfield Mount Hermon School and the University of Chicago, where he studied social theory.^[2]

In 2002, Collins married Victoria Vantoch.^[3]

They have one child, West Anaximander Collins. He was born September 23, 2010.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Misha Collins

• Misha Collins at the Internet Movie Database
• Misha Collins on Twitter

Travis Rice (born October 9, 1982^[1]) is an American professional snowboarder. He is #13 on Snowboarder magazine’s list of the Top Twenty Most Influential Riders,^[2] He has been considered "the Paul Revere" of the big mountain freestyle movement.^[3]

Early life[link]

Rice was born in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He was raised near Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, where he continues to reside. Raised a skier by his father, a member of Jackson Hole Ski Patrol, Rice initially did not understand the rave of the new sport springing up on his mountain. However, he would soon catch on and join the local team.

Competition[link]

In 2001, without a sponsor and only 18 years old, Rice drove to Mammoth Mountain in California to ride at Snowboarder magazine’s “Superpark”. Recognition from the snowboarding world would come at this event, when Rice launched a backside rodeo off a 110 foot gap jump.^[4] Absinthe Films' producer Justin Hostynek immediately approached Rice to begin filming for their upcoming movie, Transcendence.^[2]

Films and Other Media[link]

Rice has filmed outstanding video parts year after year, producing jaw-dropping shots like his switch 540 over Chad's Gap in Utah, a 120 foot backcountry gap jump. On top of that, he has won several US Opens, an X-Games gold, and an Icer Air gold, where he landed the first double rodeo 1080 in competition.^[5]

In 2008, Rice co-produced (with filmmaker Curt Morgan) and starred in the snowboarding film That’s It That’s All. This film featured Troy Blackburn, Jeremy Jones, Mark Landvik, Terje Haakonsen, Nicolas Müller, Scotty Lago, Pat Moore, John Jackson, Jake Blauvelt, Danny Kass, and fellow Jackson Hole residents Bryan Iguchi and Kyle Clancy.^[6] Rice’s part in That’s It That’s All, which included the first ever double cork 1260, heavily influenced his sweep at the Transworld Magazine Rider’s Poll. He won Rider of the Year, Video Part of the Year, Standout of the Year, and Readers’ Choice award.^[7] On September, 07 2011, Rice released The Art of Flight, a film made in collaboration with the same team behind 'That's It, That's All, including John Jackson, Mark Landvik, Nicolas Müller and Jeremy Jones,Scotty Lago,Mark McMorris. The film divides the snowboard community, described as one of the best snowboard movies ever made, with a budget being well into the millions of dollars by some, and seen as a boring and soulless display of budget, far from the snowboard spirit and the respect of nature by others. It truly is one of the most inspirational movies ever filmed.^[8]

His sponsors are Quiksilver, LIB Tech, DC, Red Bull, Union bindings, Bluebird Wax, Contour, Jack’s Garage & Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.^[9]

He is also a downloadable, playable character in SSX. He is the first "real-life" snowboarder to ever be featured in the franchise.

Highlights[link]

Travis Rice's professional snowboarding career started in 2001. Various competition results taken from EXPN.^[10]

2008–2009

• 1st in X-Games Big Air Competition
• 4th - CJ - 5Star Red Bull Snow Scrapers (Ticket to Ride (World Snowboard Tour))
• Transworld Rider of the Year

2007–2008

• 11th, Nokia Air & Style Big Air Competition ^[11]
• 1st, ICER AIR, San Francisco, CA (Big Air event). With a best run score of 95^[12] for his Double backside Rodeo 1080.^[13]
• 1st Winter X Games Big Air Double Cork 1080

2005–2006

• 12th, FIS World Cup #1, Valle Nevado, Chile (Halfpipe)
• 8th, Nokia Air & Style, Munich, Germany (Slopestyle)
• 51st, Chevrolet US Snowboard Grand Prix Halfpipe #1
• 26th, Chevrolet US Snowboard Grand Prix Halfpipe #2
• 9th, X Games 10 (Slopestyle)
• 2nd, Honda Session at Vail, Co (Rail)
• 3rd, Honda Session at Vail, Co (Slopestyle)
• 33rd, Ticket To Ride World Snowboard Tour (Season End Rankings, Overall)

2004–2005

• Transworld Rider of the Year
• Named by Faces Magazine as one of the Top 20 Greatest Athletes Now
• 2nd, X-Trail Jam, Tokyo, Japan (Quarterpipe)
• 3rd, X-Trail Jam, Tokyo, Japan (Straight Jump)
• 1st, US Snowboard Grandprix, Breckenridge, Co (Rails)
• 2nd, US Snowboard Grandprix, Breckenridge, Co (Halfpipe)
• 8th, US Snowboard Grandprix Season End Ranking (Halfpipe)
• 10th, X Games 2005 (Superpipe)
• 3rd, X Games 2005 (Slopestyle)
• 2nd, Abominable Snow Jam, Mount Hood, Oregon (Quarterpipe)
• 3rd, Abominable Snow Jam, Mount Hood, Oregon (Slopestyle)

2003–2004

• 1st, Arctic Challenge, Trysilfjellet, Norway (Quarterpipe Overall)
• 9th, Arctic Challenge, Trysilfjellet, Norway (Slopestyle)
• 1st, Boost Mobile Pro-Jam (Rail)
• 1st, Boost Mobile Pro-Jam
• 4th, Winter X Games 2003 (Slopestyle)
• 21st, Winter X Games 2003 (Superpipe)
• 1st, Abominable Snow Jam (Slopestyle)
• 1st, Abominable Snow Jam (Quarterpipe)
• 1st, Grand Prix, Breckenridge, Co. (Rail)
• 1st, X-Rail Jam Tokyodome 2003 (Jam Session)
• 1st, US Open Rail Jam
• 1st, The Session, Vail, Co. (Rail)
• 4th, The Session, Vail, Co. (Slopestyle)
• 1st, Montana Christchurch Big Air, New Zealand

2002–2003

• 1st, X-Games (Slopestyle)
• 1st, Grand Prix, Breckenridge (Big Air)
• 4th, World Snowboard Federation Season End (Slopestyle)
• 4th, The Session, Vail, Colorado (Slopestyle)
• 1st, The Session, Vail, Colorado (Rail Jam)
• 2nd, Toyota Slopestyle, Kijimadaira, Japan (Slopestyle)
• 3rd, US Open, Stratton, Vermont (Slopestyle)
• 1st, US Open, Stratton, Vermont (Rail Jam)

2001–2002

• TransWorld Rookie Of The Year
• 1st (FIS Halfpipe), FIS, Park City
• 2nd, Vans Triple Crown Series, Breckenridge, Colorado (Slopestyle)^[14]
• 3rd, Vans Triple Crown Series, Snow Summit, California (Slopestyle)^[14]
• 4th, World Championships, Vail, Co. (Slopestyle)
• 1st, Yahoo Big Air, Breckenridge, Co. (Big Air)
• 7th, US Grand Prix, Mount Bachelor, Oregon (Halfpipe)
• 9th, Vans Triple Crown (Season End, Overall)

Video parts[link]

• The Art of Flight - Brainfarm (2011)
• Neverland - Absinthe Films (2009)
• That's It, That's All (2008)
• DC MTN.LAB 1.5 (2007)^[15]
• Billabong - Lines (2007)^[16]
• DC MTN.LAB
• The Gap Sessions
• First Descent
• The Community Project^[17]
• Pop
• Night of the Living Shred
• The Prophecy (2002)
• Revenge of the Grenerds
• Futureproof
• More
• Full Metal Edges
• Saturation
• Vivid (2002)
• Deeper (2010)
• Transcendence (2002)^[18]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Posts tagged 'Travis Rice' on SuperStoker
• Posts tagged 'Travis Rice' on THEBLEND