Deirdre MeintelChurch of Healing was also professional, and that I was an anthro-
pologist, he immediately invited me to join a closed group (the first
time I had heard of such groups), on the condition I be discreet (i.e.,
not disturbing the religious atmosphere of the gathering) and partici-
pate like other members. I accepted these conditions enthusiastically,
since what interested me most was the Spiritualist experience, what it
was like to see clairvoyantly, to give healing, and to know how every-
thing fit in with the daily lives of the participants. At the time, I was
unaware of the privilege such an invitation represented; later I would
find that there are fewer places than there are would-be members for
the groups Michel directs. (These are limited to twenty or fewer indi-
viduals.) I expected that the group would be a way of meeting mem-
bers of the church and perhaps even for getting to know a clairvoy-
ant or two. It would prove to be much more.
Inspired by Favret-Saada’s study ( 1977 ) of modern witchcraft in
Normandy, my own research, from 1999 to 2001 , was based exclu-
sively on participant observation, with note taking reserved for later,
outside the church context. I went on this way for about two years,
except for three interviews with Michel the summer after I joined the
closed group. It was clear that in order to study the experience of Spir-
itualists, I would have to, paraphrasing Favret-Saada, agree to become
a participant in the situations where it is manifested and in the dis-
course in which it is expressed ( 1977 , 43 ).^12
By 2001 I knew a number of members of Michel’s group informally,
meeting some outside for coffee, a meal, or a leisure activity such as
roller-blading, and moreover, I had a sense of them as Spiritualists,
that is, a sense of their commitment to spiritual development and their
particular gifts as mediums or healers. I began to interview ten key
informants, later enlarging the study group to sixteen, evenly divided
between men and women, mostly between thirty-five and fifty years
of age, who had been going to the Spiritual Church for at least three
years. Interviews cover topics such as the individual’s life history, reli-
gious trajectory, and beliefs and experiences around healing and clair-
voyance. This ongoing fieldwork continues part-time, since the closed
group meets twice a month for nine months a year, and, like me, most
participants in the study work full-time. Some of the Spiritualists I