It might be odd to say that "the paranormal" doesn't really exist. Surely that's either an easy submission to the sceptics, or the weary refrain of yet another researcher who's concluded, after years of studies, that telepathy or the Sasquatch doesn't exist (a la Susan Blackmore). Instead, I'm rguing that terms like "paranormal" and "supernatural" are rhetorically loaded, and carry too many presuppositions to be either meaningful or useful in debates over the status of anomalous phenomena (my preferred term).
Think of it this way. The terms "super-natural" and "para-normal" instantly imply that the phenomena being so described are somehow apart from, beyond, or contrary to the "natural" or "normal" order of things. This, of course, presumes an implicit sense of what is natural or normal. If falls of frogs from the sky are supernatural, it is because it it not natural - in a literal sense of the word - for little froggies to fall thusly.
But where does this implicit sense of normality or naturality come from? Well, lots of places: social and cultural values, values and conditioning; scientific and other education; the insistences of experts and specialists; personal reading and investigation; and so forth. "Reality", in the sense of the natural order of things, is a constant negotiation between competing institutions, values, ideas, presumptions, and prejudices; with your individual consciousness caught in the middle.
This implies, of course, that you can resist the attempts by culture, society, science and education to impose certain worldviews upon you. You can resist and defy these attempts to structure and constrain your perception and interpretation of the world. You can craft and shape your own reality, defining and redefining naturality and normality as you please.
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