Deirdre Meintelhealing, whereas for me, it is more like an electrical current. When I
talk with Marcel (a French-born Spiritualist in his fifties) about feeling
the presence of guides in daily life as being “like in clairvoyance,” he
nods knowingly. The way he feels clairvoyance is probably different
from how I do, but it is an individual permutation on a common ex-
perience. This commonality in diversity is something similar to what
Schutz describes when he writes of “the pluridimensionality of time”
that is experienced simultaneously yet differently by each participant
involved in “Making Music Together” ( 1964 , 175 ); the musicians are
attuned to each other without having identical experiences, nor nec-
essarily identical interpretations of what the composer wrote.^21
A number of factors blur the boundary between home and field, re-
searcher and subjects, their experience and mine. First of all, there is
considerable cultural proximity, in that the sch is situated in the city
where I have lived for much of my adult life. The working-class fla-
vor of the Spiritual Church is a bit different from my usual frame of
reference, and French is not my first language, as it is for most of the
Spiritualists in my study, but we share many cultural referents. More-
over, my Catholic upbringing in the United States bears many similar-
ities to the religious background of Québécois Spiritualists.
The fluid quality of in-group definitions in the Spiritual Church of
Healing also makes the boundaries between self and others hazy. Who
is “in” the church and who is not is not clear, even to church mem-
bers. As mentioned earlier, membership in the sch is not a matter of
conversion but of helping to pay expenses (see note 7 ). Conversion
in fact, is never mentioned. Adults are very rarely baptized. I know
of no such case in this congregation. In Michel’s words: most are al-
ready baptized as Catholics.
When asked if they would say “I am a Spiritualist,” some active
members who have participated in closed groups for years, including
some who do healing and clairvoyance in church, replied, like Sylvie
(a medium who has known Michel for decades): “I never thought of
it that way.” Members participate in church activities in very differ-
ent ways. Some attend closed groups as a means of personal devel-
opment but never attend church services, finding them too religious;
some among the older cohorts attend church services but are unin-
terested in closed group activities or are uneasy about them; a few