Abstract
Folklore, like its approach to the supernatural, changes over time. It reflects changes in the social realm and adapts to scientific and technological advances.
While it might seem that the influence of these factors would rationalize the approach to the supernatural, this view is only one of several that can be encountered, and it is often the new technologies, or rather the distrust of them, that reinvigorate belief in the supernatural. In addition to rational concepts that seek to explain supernatural phenomena scientifically, it is very often also approaches that respect belief in the existence of the supernatural as a sociocultural reality, and treat it as such.
In addition to folkloristic concepts, researchers often work with anthropological or psychological concepts. The text presents several approaches to the supernatural that have emerged in the field of contemporary legend research, especially in the folkloristic literature of Western European countries and the USA, where the phenomenon has been most reflected since about the middle of the last century.