{"product_id":"manifesting-spirits-an-anthropological-study-of-mediumship-and-the-paranormal-9781912807888","title":"Manifesting Spirits: An Anthropological Study of","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn exploration of contemporary trance and physical mediumship at a private spiritualist home-circle called the Bristol Spirit Lodge.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eLocated in a garden on the outskirts of Bristol, the Lodge is a wooden shed specially constructed for the purposes of mediumship development and spirit communication. Through a combination of ethnographic observations in séances – including his own experiences of mediumship development – and interviews with spirits and their mediums, Hunter delves into a sub-urban world of trance states, ectoplasm, spirit lights and discarnate entities. Issues relating to altered states of consciousness, personhood, performance and the efficacy of ritual are examined in order to make sense of the processes by which spirits become manifest in social reality.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eA large part of \u003cem\u003eManifesting Spirits\u003c\/em\u003e is given over to a broader discussion of anthropology's evolving attitudes toward the 'paranormal' as a component of the 'life-worlds' of many people across the globe, and argues for the development of a non-reductive anthropological approach to the paranormal, and mediumship in particular. This emerging framework – referred to as 'ontological flooding' does not attempt to explain away the existence of spirits in terms of functional, cognitive or pathological theories (as most mainstream theorists tend to do), but rather embraces a processual perspective that emphasises complexity and multiple interconnected processes underlying spirit possession performances and experiences.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eABSTRACT\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eACKNOWLEDGEMENTS\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eNOTE\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eINTRODUCTION \u003cbr\u003e Anomalous experiences in a garden shed\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eCHAPTER ONE - Problems and approaches\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eCHAPTER TWO - Spirit mediumship in Bristol\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eCHAPTER THREE - Mediumship and spirit possession: A literature review\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eCHAPTER FOUR - Physical mediumship\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eCHAPTER FIVE - Anthropology and the paranormal\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eCHAPTER SIX - Rethinking the séance\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eCHAPTER SEVEN - Mediumship and the experiential self\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eCHAPTER EIGHT - Conclusions\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eREFERENCES\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eINDEX\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aeon Books Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51043204071767,"sku":"9781912807888","price":33.25,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781912807888.jpg?v=1750957409","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/manifesting-spirits-an-anthropological-study-of-mediumship-and-the-paranormal-9781912807888","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}