SPIRITS, GODS AND MAGIC
An Introduction to the Anthropology of the Paranormal
Jack Hunter
Across the
globe and through time, diverse cultures have developed elaborate systems for
understanding and interacting with strange forces and invisible beings. Since
the nineteenth century anthropologists have theorised about the nature of the
extraordinary experiences and beliefs recounted to them by their fieldwork informants,
at home and abroad.
Spirits, Gods and Magic is an introduction to the anthropology of the
supernatural. The book features introductory chapters outlining key
anthropological perspectives on Shamanism and Spirit Possession, Witchcraft and
Magic, and Ghosts, Spirits and Gods. It also includes chapters exploring the
relationship between Ethnography and the Paranormal and what the fields of
Anthropology and Parapsychology can learn from each other. With a Foreword by
anthropologist Dr. Fiona Bowie and an Afterword by parapsychologist Dr. David
Luke, the book makes an important contribution to inter-disciplinary paranormal
studies.
About the author
Jack Hunter, Ph.D., is an Honorary Research Fellow with the Alister
Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre and a member of the Sophia Centre,
both at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and is Research Fellow
with the Parapsychology Foundation, New York. He is the founder and editor of
Paranthropology: Journal of Anthropological Approaches to the Paranormal and
the author of Engaging the Anomalous (2018) and Manifesting Spirits (2020). He
is the editor of Strange Dimensions: A Paranthropology Anthology (2015), Damned
Facts: Fortean Essays on Religion, Folklore and the Paranormal (2016), Greening
the Paranormal: Exploring the Ecology of Extraordinary Experience (2019), and
co-editor with Dr. David Luke of Talking with the Spirits: Ethnographies from
Between the Worlds (2014). He lives in the hills of Mid-Wales with his family.
Publisher: August Night Press
Published April 2020
144 pages