SUPERNATURAL IN HONG KONG 145 The criticism that the anthropologist defines what is part of reality takes relativism to an extreme. Klass(1995: 31-32)minimises the importance of the fact that we know the rainmaker is only symbolically effective, while the agricultural expert is instrumentally effective. I would argue, instead, that there can be little doubt about the relative instrumental effectiveness of the two (though the agronomist is also unlikely to bring rain), but that often the point of traditional rainmakers and curers is not instrumental effectiveness so that it is incorrect to compare the two. At a natural level, it is possible to test the material impact and effectiveness of a rainmaker and an agricultural expert Of course, the agricultural expert may be wrong. Furthermore, it is also true that for most people, belief in science is like belief in magic or religion; as Arthur C Clarke's(1973: 2 1)third law states, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Most people use computers with only a vague knowledge of how they work (as is frustratingly obvious when they do nof work). Yet instrumental effectiveness and the degree of control(that is, reprodu- cible results)offered by natural science are what has led to the expansion of the domain of natural science and to the use of the natural/supernatural distinction. If we recognise that the rainmaker is operating at a social or cultural level and not instrumentally(bringing rain in the natural sense), then the comparison is false. This is precisely why the concept of the supernatural is important. It tells us that the phenomenon needs to be analysed at a different level from the instrumental level; it is socially, symbolically or experientially special, and may or may not be instrumentally valid or significant. In the case of the university ghost stories, the stories are true at a cultural level. They have a real effect producing fear, changing peoples routes and behaviour after dark, passing on moral lessons-even if the ghosts themselves do not attack anyone. They deserve to be taken seriously at the level I have analysed them above, but not at the natural or literal level that many students tell the stories. In one sense, I have treated the ghosts, or, more accurately, the ghost stories, as natural phenomena, and put aside their supernatural aspects. Calling the ghosts supernatural makes it possible for me to avoid the mistake of trying to capture the ghost, as one 1970s graduate of The Chinese University has told me he and his friends spoke of doing. If the ghost were entirely a natural phenomenon or, better, if I were not to make a distinction between natural and supernatural, interviewing the ghost would be a logical research strategy. Defining it as supernatural, however, can justify a strategy of interpreting the stories and not investigating the ghost as a natural phenomenon. In Chinese, the term for supernatural, chaoziran(literally'super-nature'), is a neologism only about a century old. The terms'supernatural'and'superstition came into the Chinese language as part of the concept of modernity from the West. The Western categories were translated into Chinese as part of the importation of science. The term mixin(superstition) came to replace previousSUPERNATURAL IN HONG KONG 145 The criticism that the anthropologist defines what is part of reality takes relativism to an extreme. Klass (1995:31–32) minimises the importance of the fact that we know the rainmaker is only symbolically effective, while the agricultural expert is instrumentally effective. I would argue, instead, that there can be little doubt about the relative instrumental effectiveness of the two (though the agronomist is also unlikely to bring rain), but that often the point of traditional rainmakers and curers is not instrumental effectiveness, so that it is incorrect to compare the two. At a natural level, it is possible to test the material impact and effectiveness of a rainmaker and an agricultural expert. Of course, the agricultural expert may be wrong. Furthermore, it is also true that, for most people, belief in science is like belief in magic or religion; as Arthur C. Clarke’s (1973:21) third law states, ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. Most people use computers with only a vague knowledge of how they work (as is frustratingly obvious when they do not work). Yet instrumental effectiveness and the degree of control (that is, reprodu￾cible results) offered by natural science are what has led to the expansion of the domain of natural science and to the use of the natural/supernatural distinction. If we recognise that the rainmaker is operating at a social or cultural level and not instrumentally (bringing rain in the natural sense), then the comparison is false. This is precisely why the concept of the supernatural is important. It tells us that the phenomenon needs to be analysed at a different level from the instrumental level; it is socially, symbolically or experientially special, and may or may not be instrumentally valid or significant. In the case of the university ghost stories, the stories are true at a cultural level. They have a real effect— producing fear, changing people’s routes and behaviour after dark, passing on moral lessons—even if the ghosts themselves do not attack anyone. They deserve to be taken seriously at the level I have analysed them above, but not at the natural or literal level that many students tell the stories. In one sense, I have treated the ghosts, or, more accurately, the ghost stories, as natural phenomena, and put aside their supernatural aspects. Calling the ghosts supernatural makes it possible for me to avoid the mistake of trying to capture the ghost, as one 1970s graduate of The Chinese University has told me he and his friends spoke of doing. If the ghost were entirely a natural phenomenon or, better, if I were not to make a distinction between natural and supernatural, interviewing the ghost would be a logical research strategy. Defining it as supernatural, however, I can justify a strategy of interpreting the stories and not investigating the ghost as a natural phenomenon. In Chinese, the term for supernatural, chaoziran (literally ‘super-nature’), is a neologism only about a century old. The terms ‘supernatural’ and ‘superstition’ came into the Chinese language as part of the concept of modernity from the West. The Western categories were translated into Chinese as part of the importation of science. The term mixin (‘superstition’) came to replace previous