Research methodology issues of belief in the supernatural
Authors:   Mariupol State University, Hudyma Ihor 
Published: February 2023

In the article, the author's research attention is focused on the issues of the methodology of religious studies, the characteristics, state and quality of modern research on belief in the supernatural. The author tries to identify and outline a number of cognitive obstacles that face the researcher of religion, to find adequate epistemological acts aimed at identifying the essential in religion, clarifies a number of initial theoretical and methodological provisions and activities of religious studies studios. The thematization of the article, the choice and application of theoretical and methodological approaches are determined by the very subject of thought and the nature of the tasks. The following methods of cognition were used in the article: general philosophical, special general scientific theoretical methods. The author followed the principle of objectivity, applied causal analysis. Theoretical conclusions and conceptual generalizations in a concentrated form are presented in the following position - a set of techniques and operations for obtaining true knowledge about the nature of religion should manifest itself primarily in clarifying the issue of the ontological status of religion itself and identifying the levels of adequate religious knowledge in the field. It is difficult to overestimate the place and role of methodology in the process of scientific knowledge, its value for the scientist seems undoubted and self-evident. However, in the history of any science there are periods when methodological issues become particularly acute and relevant. The days of the idea of unfounded knowledge, where no starting point can be a realm of subjective certainty, but necessarily requires careful practical verification or theoretical proof, seem to be long gone and gave way to another ideal of scientific rationality, which requires the presence of conceptual foundations and assumptions for research. It is known that the absolutization of fully proven foundations in the process of cognition and attempts to deprive the knowledge of unproven provisions were unsuccessful. The modern system of methods and operations of acquiring new knowledge is too diverse, as well as science itself. Thus, the study of the supernatural, which in the field of religious science is associated with a number of cognitive barriers and requires adequate epistemological acts, should begin with clarifying the original theoretical and methodological provisions and measures. The latter will be the source of those ontological predicates that will later be introduced into the interpretation of an array of broad factual material and a variety of empirical data. Their effectiveness, moreover, should be manifested primarily in clarifying the ontological status of religion itself and identifying levels of adequate religious knowledge in the field. Hence the choice of topic due to the need to provide a proper philosophical assessment of the new state of development of the science of religion, the purpose of this article is to identify and interpret those effective epistemological phenomena used in the study of belief in the supernatural. A promising direction in the development of the methodology of modern religious studies is the discussion and further substantiation among religious scholars of the inadmissibility (because of their para-scientificity) of those cognitive activities where implicit non-cognition and unrepresentativeness of religion and in no way impartial.