Monday, January 19, 2009

The Reality of Spirits

"Then I knew the Africans were right. There is spirit stuff, there is spirit affliction: it isn't a matter of metaphor and symbol, or even psychology. And I began to see how anthropologists have perpetuated an endless series of put-downs about the many spirit events in which they participated — 'participated' in a kindly pretense. They might have obtained valuable material, but they have been operating with the wrong paradigm, that of the positivists' denial." [146]


The Reality of Spirits
Edith Turner

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