Running with the Fairies: Towards a Transpersonal Anthropology of Religion
Gaffin's book, enlightened by very recent studies made by other practitioners of religions or holy ways of life, is of great value because it is by a practitioner/scholar of fairyhood and because the field is only sparsely covered in our time. Gaffin shows that his type of fieldwork is appropriate to the evanescent subject matter, fairies: I deeply respect his method here. We see the difference between these figures and those in straight Chrisitianity. We badly need the fairies lightening up, humor, and love of fun. Here is a profound critique of Jung, who termed his spirit figures archetypes which is a word that doesn t work and who reckoned always from inside of the person, the individual, not seeing that a great many of us have indeed had visitations from outside ourselves. This book plays on the leading edge of anthropology, using a relatively humble theme, the personal experiences of a group of people. But for those familiar with spirituality, the book has made a great advance. The innocence of the phenomenon, showing no binding laws or exclusivisms, no structures, is of the very stuff of spirituality. We have now learned about a beautiful new country which grows naturally in its own right. Fascinating. This book will be immensely popular and most definitely appealing and useful across disciplinary boundaries, to audiences in religious studies departments, anthropology, art, psychology, medicine, Celtic studies, and philosophy --Edith Turner is a distinguished anthropologist who teaches at the University of Virginia. She is known for her fieldwork in Africa with her late husband, Victor Turner, and for her more recent work among the north Alaskan Inupiat.This is an important work, a careful analysis of the nature of belief in a realm of the supernatural dismissed as childish or superstition by adherents to mainstream religions. It is well-written and well-argued: and packed with data. There is a definite need for this kind of study in anthropology today. Gaffin quotes recent statements of other mainstream respected scholars in different social science disciplines in support of his approach. I would say that his work fits squarely within this important but under-represented realm of the anthropological study of human experience. Gaffin s recognition and admission that he has crossed over into a realm which his professional colleagues eschew, renders his study the more important. He experiences what probably a majority of the world s people experience indeed, what is fundamentally human, and the subject of increasing neurological research today. He knows that his attempt to objectively analyze his beliefs is professionally risky, yet he boldly does so, convinced that such analysis is important. And I agree. This study is valuable, it is well-organized and well-written, and it can be an important contribution to anthropological understanding. Anthropology desperately needs more such careful detailed examinations of the development of beliefs in extraordinary phenomena. The psycho-neuro-bio-cultural processes by which people come to a supernatural experience are insufficiently described in anthropology, and here is where Gaffin s book can make an important contribution. An important project, very well conceptualized, well constructed, and well-written. --Phillips Stevens, Jr. is a Professor of Anthropology and Religion at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. Author of numerous works, he is the editor of the 2011 four volume Anthropology of Religion: Critical Concepts in Religious StudiesThis is an important work, a careful analysis of the nature of belief in a realm of the supernatural dismissed as childish or superstition by adherents to mainstream religions. It is well-written and well-argued: and packed with data. There is a definite need for this kind of study in anthropology today. Gaffin quotes recent statements of other mainstream respected scholars in different social science disciplines in support of his approach. I would say that his work fits squarely within this important but under-represented realm of the anthropological study of human experience. Gaffin s recognition and admission that he has crossed over into a realm which his professional colleagues eschew, renders his study the more important. He experiences what probably a majority of the world s people experience indeed, what is fundamentally human, and the subject of increasing neurological research today. He knows that his attempt to objectively analyze his beliefs is professionally risky, yet he boldly does so, convinced that such analysis is important. And I agree. This study is valuable, it is well-organized and well-written, and it can be an important contribution to anthropological understanding. Anthropology desperately needs more such careful detailed examinations of the development of beliefs in extraordinary phenomena. The psycho-neuro-bio-cultural processes by which people come to a supernatural experience are insufficiently described in anthropology, and here is where Gaffin s book can make an important contribution. An important project, very well conceptualized, well constructed, and well-written. --Phillips Stevens, Jr. is a Professor of Anthropology and Religion at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. Author of numerous works, he is the editor of the 2011 four volume Anthropology of Religion: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies--This text refers to thePaperbackedition.