The Reality of Spirits: A Tabooed or Permitted Field of Study?

Turner, Edith

doi:10.1525/ac.1993.4.1.9

Cited by 65 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Indeed, this does not do justice to the great emotional surges of joyful peace that I felt stood on Tara Devi. This was not born so much of an experience of communitas (Turner 2012) as of communion. The central point of the experience involved losing myself in a series of nested places as I looked out on the hill, which is perhaps akin to what the atheist and anthropologist Gregory Bateson describes as a sense of grace (Bateson & Bateson 1998).…”

Section: Secular Spiritual and Religious Placesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teachings of Tara

Miles-Watson¹

2016

Anthropology in Action

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Section: Secular Spiritual and Religious Placesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teachings of Tara

Miles-Watson¹

2016

Anthropology in Action

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“…For example, they deny the religious aspect of witchcraft, which is also rooted in people's experience of everyday life, and the possibility that it can exist in its own right ( [10], p. 114; [11], pp. [22][23][24][25].…”

Section: Religion and Secularism In Anthropologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, but at a different level, Turner [23], presented a provocative plea in favor of recognizing the existence of spirits, taking a more phenomenological and autobiographical approach that had entered anthropology in the form of ethnographic novels. This kind of experiential ethnography was a clear precursor to reflexivity in anthropology and could shed some light on how the religious manifested itself in fieldwork.…”

Section: Religion and Secularism In Anthropologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even before anthropologists started to shift their interest to ontology by building on Viveiros de Castro's perspectivism [60,61], there have been a few who advocated the study of the religious at face value based on the ontological terms of those they studied. Malinowski may have been the first to suggest this idea ( [62], p. 42), while others, such as Harner [63] and Turner [23] followed suit. Other anthropologists took a more autobiographical approach to address how they experienced the religious during their fieldwork and wrote ethnographic novels, as this subgenre of ethnography came to be known [24,26].…”

Section: Epistemology and Ontology Of The Penumbramentioning

confidence: 99%

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Occupying the Ontological Penumbra: Towards a Postsecular and Theologically Minded Anthropology

Merz

2017

Religions

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Abstract:In the wake of the postsecular turn, we propose to reappraise both the religious as studied in anthropology and how anthropologists who have religious or spiritual interests can contribute to an emerging postsecular anthropology. Such an anthropology recognizes the failure of secularization theory to dissolve the dichotomy between the religious and the secular. We propose that as anthropologists we consciously occupy the ontological penumbra, an ambiguous and plural space in which we engage with various counterparts, both human and nonhuman. This means that we have to be open to the real possibility of the existence of gods, spirits, and other nonhuman entities. These should not only be treated as subjects of study, but also recognized as valid counterparts with whom we can engage in the ethnographic encounter. While this necessitates relinquishing the former privileged position of secular and Western epistemology, it opens up the discipline to a potentially unprecedented ethnographic productivity that is epistemologically and ontologically innovative. Without neglecting its secular heritage, such a theologically minded postsecular anthropology places anthropology in a better position to explore what it is to be human, especially in terms of understanding religious and spiritual experiences.

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“…In the last decades, a new 'experiential' strand of anthropology gained momentum due to the influence of Edith Turner (1992Turner ( , 1993 who has pioneered the development of anthropology of experience based on the work of her late husband, Victor Turner. Fiona Bowie describes it as 'alternative anthropological tradition', which is based on an 'experiential lineage' (Bowie 2016: 21).…”

Section: The Contribution Of Anthropology To the Study Of Non-ordinarmentioning

confidence: 99%

Varieties of Non-ordinary Experiences in Brazil—a Critical Review of the Contribution of Studies of ‘Religious Experience’ to the Study of Religion

Schmidt

2017

Int J Lat Am Relig

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According to the latest national census, 64.6% of Brazilians identified themselves as Roman Catholic. However, the census has little or nothing to do with actual practice or belief. Professing to be a Christian (within any confessional specification) is still part of being Brazilian. But the self-identification does not take into account that religiosity is expressed in very diverse ways nor does it prevent people from believing and practising one of the many Brazilian traditions though identifying themselves as Christian in the census. This perception represents the framework of the following discussion of non-ordinary experiences in Brazil, whether they are perceived as religious, spiritual or 'just' extraordinary. This article presents an overview of studies about non-ordinary experiences in Brazil. The aim is to show the importance of these experiences for the understanding of the religious landscape of Brazil.Keywords Brazil . Religion . Religious experience . Spirituality . Anthropology . Candomblé . Spirit possession . Umbanda . Pentecostalism . SpiritismThe field of religious experience is an ambivalent area within the academic study of religion. To a certain degree, it has something to do with the origin of the interest in religious experience within theology (e.g. Schleiermacher 1999Schleiermacher [1799) and the aim of the academic study of religion to distance itself from its theological roots. The other problem is the unclear definition of religious experience and its often limited application from a Western perspective. Religious experience happens inside people, and it is therefore impossible to empirically proven its existence. Theologians such as Rudolf Otto who was influenced by Friedrich Schleiermacher cherished its numinous character Int

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The Reality of Spirits: A Tabooed or Permitted Field of Study?

Cited by 65 publications

References 3 publications

Teachings of Tara

Teachings of Tara

Occupying the Ontological Penumbra: Towards a Postsecular and Theologically Minded Anthropology

Varieties of Non-ordinary Experiences in Brazil—a Critical Review of the Contribution of Studies of ‘Religious Experience’ to the Study of Religion

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