“seeing” things). Meintel examines the “events” (in the sense given
to this term by Augé) that have shaped her study of Spiritualists and
shows how they have proved integral to the research itself.
Like many previous fieldworkers trained in the tradition of eco-
logical and cognitive anthropology, Edmund Searles was perplexed
by the tales of sorcery, reincarnation, and prophecy that he encoun-
tered while doing fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic in the 1990 s. The
more Searles pondered these tales, the more he realized that his ini-
tial reluctance to engage with them was a symptom of his insecuri-
ties as a scholar rather than a reflection of the realities of Inuit social
life and experience. In chapter seven, “Prophecy, Sorcery, and Rein-
carnation: Inuit Spirituality in the Age of Skepticism,” Searles exam-
ines these stories in light of his recent encounters with the mystical
and the sacred in his professional and personal life. From this van-
tage point, he demonstrates how Inuit accounts of sorcery, reincarna-
tion, and prophecy are part of a concrete and complex world of reli-
gion and spirituality that includes both Christian and pre-Christian
beliefs and practices.
Entanglements and Faithfulness to Experience