THE BI-AXIAL MODEL OF SUPERNATURAL ONTOLOGY: A META-TAXONOMIC FRAMEWORK FOR CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON

Traditional folklore classifications of supernatural beings are coherent within their cultural contexts, but generate confusion when applied across traditions or to entities emerging from modern digital narratives. Drawing on Monster Theory (Cohen, 1996), cultural translation theory (Asad, 1986), the concept of traveling ideas (Said, 1983), and structuralist folkloristics (Lévi-Strauss, 1955, 1962; Thompson, 1958), this paper proposes a Bi-Axial Model that locates any supernatural entity along two independent axes: Source (ontological origin: S-Nat, S-Soul, S-Bio, S-Cos, S-Rule, S-Concept) and Dimension (mode of manifestation: D-0, D-1, D-2, D-3, D-Info). The model distinguishes between immanent and transcendent origins via a structuralist heuristic, and between proximal ethereality and semiotic contagion via a morphological heuristic grounded in memetic theory (Dawkins, 1976). Case studies from Chinese classical literature, Western Gothic, cosmic horror, and digital folklore demonstrate the model's capacity to distinguish entities that share labels but differ ontologically and to group entities that differ labels but share structure. The paper argues that classification confusion arises primarily from semantic drift (Ullmann, 1962) and cultural translation (Asad, 1986) — problems the Bi-Axial Model resolves by decoupling naming from ontological function. The model is offered as an extensible, beta-version tool for scholars and creators. Rather than presenting a definitive taxonomy, this paper introduces a provisional analytical framework intended to generate testable classifications and facilitate future comparative research.