Spirits in Culture, History and Mind

"The essays . . . contribute importantly to our understanding of beliefs and behavior regarding the supernatural in several Pacific societies." -- AmericanAnthropologist
"The rich chapters in this collection offer the reader much to ponder. The editors are to be recommended... I would give this book my highest recommendation. JohnBarker, University of British Columbia."
"This book examines spirits--ideas about them, encounters with them--as the historical locus of tensions between zones of control and fluidity in social experience. Taking shifting senses of the self and the world it inhabits as their point of departure, the contributors are committed to an analysis of culture at the intersection between psychological, social, and historical processes. By refusing the conventional estrangement between the symbolic and the historical, the authors have established a new benchmark for future work." -- Dan Jorgensen, Department of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario
"I will say that the lead article, "Gods, Spirits and History : A Theoretical Perspective," by Robert I. Levy, Mageo, and Howard, should be required reading for anyone undertaking work on possession...In summary, this volume is an important addition to the field of possession studies." -- Religious Studies Review, Volume 27 Number 3, July 2001
"Spirits in Culture, History, and Mind consists of a series of contribtuions representing different perspectives necessary to a cross-cultural understanding of contemporary religion. The question the volume raises is not the validity of the exercise but whether the goal is fulfilled by an ethnographic treatment of spirits derived primarily from case studies of the Pacific basin, particularly since spirits in this region are said to have retreated "to the shadows." -- Religious Studies Review, Volume 27 Number 3, July 2001