To boop: “if you fantasize that natural-science somehow can include super-natural explanations, or even explanations of the super-natural, then I would challenge you to find some official dictionary which says that explicitly.”
Spirited: To paraphrase Kierkegaard, natural science (as opposed to science in search of truth and reality) is the ‘science’ of Tolkien’s Gollum. Gollum is the quintessential ‘blood and soil’ being in search of power here below. His soul is materialized, or as the prophet Jeremiah put it, his soul/spirit is a cistern without living water. To spiritually-dark Gollum, the supernatural is nonsense.
Interesting way to approach this ... in times past, the Jews who practiced their religion while traveling would carry a plumb-bob, to determine if the water they wanted to use in ritual washing was moving or not (alive or sedentary).
Sheer nonsense.
In fact Gollum's power -- his "precious" -- was a totally non-scientific magical power for evil.
It was opposed ineffectively by other magical powers for good (i.e., Gandolf, elves), but was ultimately defeated by Hobbit-courage and the absolutely natural-science of Mount Doom's volcano.
In the very end, Tolkien like many people regrets the passing of that age of heroic magic & myth, to be replaced by the "Age of Men" -- boring, scientific men -- but he offers us up no hope of the previous age ever returning...