ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of three aspects regarding the supernatural. The first is to show that the term “supernatural” covers a wide range of phenomena. The supernatural is not a single thing but the term refers to a range of phenomena that are widely distributed in human cultures, some of which are part of religious traditions and others that are found outside of religious settings. Secondly, the concept supernatural is a complex cultural concept that continues to pose serious theoretical challenges to be applied across human cultures and societies. Some of the theoretical positions in the study of the supernatural are presented. Two specific trends in the study of the supernatural are identified: Transcendental and non-transcendental theories. It is shown that each trend is based on intricate sets of nested assumptions that characterise analyses of the supernatural.
