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We are seventeen in number, sitting in a circle in a darkened room on a
Friday night in winter. We are in a church; actually, it is a rented space
on the second floor above a used book and video shop in a slightly
seedy street in central Montreal. Among the Middle Eastern grocery
stores, used bookstores, and other small businesses, restaurants, and
cafés, one also finds a sex shop with life-size mannequins in the win-
dow, and a strip club. For us, though, the lights and sounds of down-
town, just outside the window, seem far away.
Michel sees a man standing behind Daniel, describes him as “big,
like a Viking.” When it is Sylvie’s turn to talk, a woman in her early
sixties, she talks about the same entity, invisible to the rest of us: “The
one with the mustache, right?” she asks. “Yes, that’s him,” Michel an-
swers (Fieldnotes, January 26 , 2001 ).^1
This incident, part of my ongoing fieldwork on Spiritualists in Mon-
treal, allowed me to glimpse intersubjectivity of a very different kind
from what is usually presented in methodology handbooks. I hope
to show here that participating in extraordinary experiences such as
the one just described has shaped my interpretations about what I
observe and has allowed me to better understand the extraordinary,
sometimes ecstatic, experiences of those I study.
Fieldwork in the Cape Verde Islands in 1972 (Meintel 1984 ) allowed
me to observe ecstasy in others for the first time, and, in a small way, to
experience it myself.^2 In the celebrations for the patron saint of Brava,
the island where I lived longest, the saint’s banner is of great signifi-
cance. In the concluding event of the feast, which has been going on
Experiencing Spiritualism
6. When the Extraordinary Hits Home
deirdre meintel
