Dear All,
I am pleased to announce the publication of "Talking With the Spirits:
Ethnographies From Between the Worlds," edited by Jack Hunter & David Luke,
a collection of 12 essays exploring spirit mediumship in different cultural
contexts.
The book is now available to order from Amazon UK for £19.95, or Amazon US
for $26.99:
*http://www.amazon.co.uk/Talking-With-Spirits-Ethnographies-Between/dp/0987422448
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/Talking-With-Spirits-Ethnographies-Between/dp/0987422448>*
*http://www.amazon.com/Talking-With-Spirits-Ethnographies-Between/dp/0987422448
<http://www.amazon.com/Talking-With-Spirits-Ethnographies-Between/dp/0987422448>*
*Featuring contributions from:*
1. Believing Impossible Things: Scepticism and Ethnographic Enquiry * Fiona
Bowie
2. An Agnostic Social Scientific Perspective on Spirit Medium Experience in
Great Britain * Hannah Gilbert
3. Spirits in the City: Examples from Montreal * Deirdre Meintel
4. Mediumship and Folk Models of Mind and Matter * Jack Hunter
5. Cyber Psychics: Psychic Readings in Online Social Spaces * Tamlyn Ryan
6. Spirit Possession in East Africa * Barbara Stöckigt
7. Developing the Dead in Cuba: An Ethnographic Account of the Emergence of
Spirits and Selves in Havana * Diana Espirito Santo
8. Mediumship in Brazil: The Holy War against Spirits and African Gods *
Bettina Schmidt
9. Psychedelic Possession: The Growing Incorporation of Incorporation into
Ayahuasca Use * David Luke
10. Anomalous Mental and Physical Phenomena of Brazilian Mediums: A Review
of the Scientific Literature * Everton Maraldi, Wellington Zangari, Fatima
Regina Machado, Stanley Krippner
11. Spirit Mediums in Hong Kong and the United States * Charles Emmons
12. Vessels for the Gods: Tang-ki Spirit Mediumship in Singapore and Taiwan
* Fabian Graham
*Some readers comments:*
'What happens when a largely tabooed method (comparativism) hones in on a
completely tabooed subject (spirits)? This. Astonishing possibilities,
insights, and new directions follow in the wake of these essays, which
demonstrate again and again both careful ethnographic description and a
most remarkable open-mindedness with respect to the phenomena themselves.
What some are calling the "ontological turn" in the humanities just got a
bit sharper.'
Jeffrey J. Kripal, Ph.D.*, *author of* Authors of The Impossible: The
Paranormal and The Sacred*
*'*This is a volume of great originality, full of rich primary ethnographic
data, presented in twelve original articles by as many scholars of
different backgrounds and with varying perspectives. They deal with
mediums and other spirtists in locations as diverse as England, Cuba,
Brazil, Taiwan, Quebec, Cyberspace, and more. Sharing much and differing
widely, acting often in competitive situations, mediums may find themselves
challenged by others like them or by people who start from different
premises, whether medical or religious: is a Cuban child suffering from
epilepsy or from a spirit seeking its development as a medium? Do
Afro-Brazilian houses serve spirits, or demons to be exorcised by
Evangelical Christians? Readers will be able to raise questions of their
own and may find some surprising answers. The volume is supplemented by
excellent bibliographies.'
*-- *Erika Bourguignon, Ph.D., Professor emerita, Department of
Anthropology, *The Ohio State University*
'*Talking with the Spirits* is a unique anthology of papers that presents a
wide range of "ethnographies of the ostensibly paranormal," especially
mediumship. Editors Hunter and Luke have done us a great service in
reminding the anthropology of consciousness of its roots in the
cross-cultural study of the paranormal. The volume is also a significant
contribution to interdisciplinary transpersonal studies.'
-- Charles D. Laughlin, Ph.D., author of *Communing With the Gods:
Consciousness, Culture and the Dreaming Brain*
'This is an important collection of essays, which makes a significant
contribution to a growing body of research and literature challenging
existing scientific paradigms by reiterating the universality of spirit
mediumship in human experience. The individual contributions offer
fascinating insights into knowledge traditions that have accepted the
challenge of exploring the range of phenomena mediumship gives access to.
More importantly for the academy, this book highlights the extent to which
one particular knowledge tradition, namely western scientific materialism,
together with the particular disciplines influenced by that attitude, has
substantially failed in this task. Fiona Bowie's opening contribution is a
careful but blunt articulation of why this failure matters, and why it
needs to be addressed. When the scientific community ceases to explore in
favour of policing a historically-conditioned political boundary between
acceptable and unacceptable knowledge, it risks finding itself in the
service of those who prefer to cramp intellectual endeavour rather
than face a possible diminution in their authoritative status, or other
personal fears. A good scientist accepts that knowledge, especially her or
his own, is provisional; by contrast, a poor scientist is content to remain
a theologian of the old religion. The contributors to this book are good
scientists.'
-- David Gordon Wilson, Ph.D., author of *Redefining
Shamanisms: Spiritualist Mediums and Other Traditional Shamans as
Apprenticeship Outcomes.*
'*Talking with the Spirits* is a unique collection of essays respectfully
and in great depth examining - using a myriad of investigative approaches
and perspectives - the variety of mediumistic phenomena that occur all over
the world. It will serve as an important resource for researchers as well
as anyone interested in the diversity of mediumistic experiences,
traditions, and practices.'
*-- *Julie Beischel, Ph.D., Director of Research,* The Windbridge Institute
for Applied Research in Human Potential*
All the best,
Jack
--
Jack Hunter
PhD Candidate, Dept. Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Bristol.
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/school-of-arts/people/jack-hunter/index.html
www.paranthropology.co.uk
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