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Paper short abstract:

In this presentation, I review various ways to tackle the ontological challenges raised by the exploration of contemporary spiritualities and their epistemological and methodological consequences. In doing so, I also use my own work on Iban animism as well as contemporary spiritualities in Canada.

Paper long abstract:

Doing ethnography of contemporary spiritualities, especially in Western countries, is facing the ontological issue of a world multiple. In coining this expression, I am inspired by Anne-Marie Mol’s book “The body multiple”. This world multiple is not akin to the various worldviews that anthropologists are so used to navigate. It is a materialistic world which collides with a world made of visible and invisible dimensions that humans can eventually perceive through attention and presence. It is a world devoid of spirituality opposed to a world populated by invisible, sentient beings of human and non-human origins, to whom human are in relationships. It is a world made of conflicting configurations of what is real and different ways of inhabiting it.

Doing ethnography of contemporary spiritualities is fundamentally being confronted to this ontological question, without ever solving it. It is also facing the limits of cultural relativism. It then turns into an ethical, epistemological, and finally a methodological question: how to explore those spiritualities and through them this world multiple?

In this presentation, I’d like to review various answers to this question, especially since the so-called ontological turn in anthropology. In doing so, I will also draw on my own work on Iban animism as well as contemporary spiritualities in Canada.

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Paper short abstract:

A survey about haunted houses requires investigators to think about "believing" in the stories collected, to avoid any onto-centrism. Among other consequences, this applies to the relationship with the respondents, which cannot be reduced to a disbeliever/believer relationship.

Paper long abstract:

As part of a research project on haunted houses in France, we are conducting a survey that questions the researcher/respondent relationship. We are confronted with a field in which strangers, acquaintances, friends, are intermingled.

This methodological choice is not without consequence, as it requires us to think about "believing" in the phenomena we are investigating. Our relationship with our object of study and with our interlocutors does not pose an ethnosociological problem. The risk, of an ontological nature, is that of onto-centrism. By reducing the question to the limits of classical ontology, we would lock the interlocutors into a schema in which believing in the ghost is tantamount to believing in its existence.

Without an effort at ontological displacement on the part of the interviewers, the words collected become inaudible:

- Impossible to consider the phenomenal and experiential fields at their true value.

- Difficulty in considering uncertainty as a meaningful being-in-the-world.

- Incomprehension of the anthropological efficacy of experienced phenomena, regardless of whether or not we believe in them.

- Intellectual empowerment of (disbelieving) investigators over (gullible) interlocutors.

Our choice is to consider the phenomenon not only in terms of its occurrence, but in terms of the narrative that encompasses it. Thereby, we hope to break the hermeneutic circle of a science that tends to stick to the facts. In so doing, we free ourselves from an epistemological constraint and extend our analysis to the negotiations that govern the practices of the respondents in the space of the phenomenon.

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Paper short abstract:

Meditation as a spiritual practice mediates numerous seemingly paradoxical states. Developing a grounded awareness of the body, time, and place, opens a door to a parallel world of inner space and experience. A phenomenological study of meditation requires a broad, flexible, and eclectic toolkit.

Paper long abstract:

Meditation as a spiritual practice mediates numerous seemingly paradoxical states. It teaches awareness of the body, time, and place though techniques such as controlled breathing. This heightened awareness is not an end in itself but a means of expanding one’s consciousness to a place of non-duality, where time, space and separation no longer exist. The journey beyond the body starts with a heightened perception of that body and of the world around it. An ethnography of meditation can prove challenging. For the individual practitioner the experience is often wordless, defying first-hand description and objectification. Viewed from outside the practice does not easily reveal the energetic connections and subjective inner journeys taking place, and there may be little cultural expectation that these will be subsequently narrated or elaborated. For the ethnographer, given this potentially unpromising scenario, a broad, eclectic, and flexible methodological toolkit is useful (Zeitlyn, 2022). It can include reflexive autoethnography, what Zeitlyn calls ‘exemplars’ and ‘vignettes’, theoretical, historical, and phenomenological accounts, and scientific studies of the phenomenon. I also draw on Lang’s (2000) notion of human embodiment as inhabiting. Lang focuses on ways in which the body learns to inhabit external space, but the body can also be seen as the fulcrum between this external space and inner space. In both instances there is a transformation of space into place. The paper draws on many decades of experience of meditation from a variety of traditions, drawing on Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi and Western esoteric, ‘New Age’ teachings and techniques.

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Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I will adopt an autoethnographic approach to discuss how the ethnographer is led to negociate her position and to handle relationships in a mindfulness-based somatic workshop named “Contemplative Theatre”.

Paper long abstract:

The series of workshops facilitated by Toshimitsu Kokido (an artist, actor and practitioner of drama and movement therapy), Chizuko Tezuka (a psychologist and researcher of ‘naikan’–i.e. introspection–therapy), and Yuki Imoto (an anthropologist and researcher of mindfulness practices), was first developed in the autumn of 2017 as part of Imoto’s class on Contemplative Studies and Mindfulness at Keio University. Since 2018, the three have also organized workshops for the general public. I joined as a participant in August 2018 and has been following the development of the Contemplative Theatre workshops until 2021. This paper aims for an autoethnographic approach based on my experience of being both ‘subject for experiment’ and ethnographer. Specifically, I question the uncertainties of relationships between participants.

As an ethnologist of the Chinese countryside, I found myself confronted with a number of new issues: collaborative research, the difficulties of negotiating one's place in the field and creating projects, how to handle interviews with people who themselves have a very elaborate discourse on their practice.

This experience raised several methodological questions that my anthropologist colleague also shared. We thus discussed how our academic work could take account of these introspective and contemplative experiences, which are, by definition, beyond words. The question also arose of the heuristic value of the Contemplative Theater workshops, of the "authenticity" of a field created to be a laboratory for experimentation. The proposed paper shall reflect on all these aspects of regimes of presence and communication.

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Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnographic fieldwork of a Christian ashram in Italy, this paper aims to explore the question of relationality, communication, and presence through the prism of silence. It also discusses the methodological challenges of doing ‘silent ethnography’ during residential meditation retreats.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork of a Christian ashram in the mountainous hamlet of Malfolle, Italy, accomplished in 2018. The ashram was founded in 1982 by a Catholic priest right beside his church and it hosts various activities, namely silent spiritual retreats over several days. It is a space of ritual experimentation inspired by Hindu and Buddhist ascetic practices that lies at the margins of the Catholic institution and is till today open to all religious affiliations.

Using the ethnography of Malfolle, I approach the question of relationality, communication and presence through the prism of silence. Silence is at the heart of the spiritual experience of Malfolle: it is spatially conceived for the realization of silence which is considered the privileged path for communication with God. Silence characterises heterogeneous spiritual practices that take place in the ashram, and it shapes the relationship between practitioners and divine alterity.

In a context where there is no verbal communication between people during the spiritual retreats, silence also interrogates the methodological challenges of ethnographic participation. In this paper, I will present the successive adaptations I resorted to during my research as listening and speech were supposed to be absent, by for example considering the sensory dimension and corporal experimentations of fieldwork. Immersion in silence offers interesting tools to question how contemporary “spiritual” practices penetrate and transform contemporary Catholicism.

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Paper short abstract:

In this paper I reflect on my experiences as a 'scholar-practitioner' of contemporary Paganism in Scotland. I argue that critical reflection on emic perspectives can help to explain the relevance of studying contemporary Paganism, placing it within a wider 'cultural turn' within western culture.

Paper long abstract:

This paper reflects on my ongoing fieldwork among contemporary Pagans in Scotland, a community I am also a member of in my personal life. Pagan Studies is a subfield of Religious Studies which has been particularly strongly criticized for engaging in normative constructions of its subject, and over privileging emic perspectives – of being ‘caretakers’ rather than ‘critics’ (Davidsen 2012). While the field has changed since Davidsen’s sharp critique, there still remains a large presence of ‘scholar-practitioners’. At the same time it is rare to encounter a religious community which has such a strong presence of former or current anthropologists, Religious Studies scholars and other academics in its membership.

Pagans describe their religion to me as having an emphasis on experience (literally) ‘in the field’ and a set of questions and practices rather than creedal beliefs, and if true, it is perhaps not surprising that contemporary Paganism and academic anthropology sometimes attract the same people. This shared method of thinking and the strong interest which many pagans take in academic work, should make for a constructive relationship between the two. While it may complicate the ‘narrower’ study of a New Religious Movement (NRM) as advocated by White (2016), I argue it should not prevent critically insightful RS scholarship which can speak not just about developments within pagan NRMs, but how this leads and is reflected in a wider ‘cultural turn’ (Ezzy 2016) within Western culture as a whole.

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Paper short abstract:

Researching Contemporary Paganism involves deep diving into the magical circle with the ones we work with. This paper explores the ways through which relationality, reflexivity, and creativity are promoted during research on Portuguese Contemporary Paganism.

Paper long abstract:

Researching Contemporary Paganism entails not just working with the people with whom we connect but also with the more-than-human, from spirits, entities, and the earth. This requires great creativity from us, as ethnographers, to describe and engage in a complex web of relationships. At the same time, it also calls for a fully embodied and emotional experience that sometimes can be uncomfortable and makes us confront feelings and sensations that we did not expect.

Based on long-term research with contemporary pagans in Portugal, this paper will focus on the methodological strategies developed throughout the years I have been conducting my research to promote relationality, reflexivity, and presence, discussing the experience of entering the field, and sharing the data with whom it has been done. As both an anthropologist and a practitioner of Contemporary Paganism, I will explore my lived experience of research and how I found that this double identity is extremely valuable, not only for establishing horizontal and empathic connections and being present in the field but also for generating fresh methodological tools that enrich the study of contemporary spiritual practices.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the analysis of contemporary devotion to the entity Sousa Martins in Portugal. Through the analysis of incorporation sessions, we will examine the entity's "presentification," the interactions between humans and other-than-humans, and the role of the ethnographer.

Paper long abstract:

This paper specifically delves into the analysis of devotion and interactions between the entity Doctor Sousa Martins (1843-1897) and his devotees. The origin of this devotion, which is trans-religious and exists outside any institution, dates back to 1904 in Portugal. Among the devotional relationship dynamics with the entity, we will emphasize the establishment of an intimate devotional relationship between the entity and its devotees. This intimate relationship facilitates the 'presentification' of the divine (Luhrmann, 2022); we will analyze it with a focus on incorporation sessions. In this ethnographic field, it became necessary to conduct an ethnography of, on, and through intimacy.

We will examine the interaction between the medium and Sousa Martins, the interaction between the embodied entity and the patient, and finally, the ethnographer's position. I participated in these incorporation sessions as an "assistant" to Sousa Martins and his medium, a role granted to me by the research participants. I assumed this position after establishing an intimate relationship with the research participants, and this made it possible to unveil the secrecy regime that protects the incorporation practices.

This case of incorporating the supernatural entity in domestic spaces enables us to reflect on 1- the layering of the Self when the medium incorporates and on the “presentification” of the entity; 2- the relation with the entity and the sensory experience of his "presence" and ; 3- the position of the ethnographer when integrated into the rituals and immersed in exchanges among humans and other-than-humans actors of the research.

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Paper short abstract:

Through my participant-observation study of a sacred cocoa ceremony in Montreal with active participation, I was able to discover a new form of spirituality focused primarily on feminine bodily experience, called the “sacred feminine”.

Paper long abstract:

In an attitude of resistance to biomedical care in the West today, women are increasingly turning to a network of holistic medicines, including for example acupuncture, osteopathy, massage therapy and naturopathy. These practices consider the individual through psychological, physical, environmental and societal factors, etc., in order to offer the most comprehensive support possible. From a methodological point of view, I have chosen to adopt an active participation, or more precisely a radical empiricism, in order to envisage research that combines empathy, emotion and embodiment within the framework of spiritual experience. This methodological reflection presented itself for my research, as I was joining familiar ground as a regular client of holistic therapists myself. For this reason, I propose to explore the effects of my involvement in the field, notably through the study of my participant observation within a sacred cocoa ceremony at a yoga studio in Montreal. I also undertook a reflexive approach to my own experiences with holistic medicine in Quebec City, where I had four osteopathy sessions, one massage therapy session, four yin yoga sessions and four sessions with an Ayurvedic therapist. Preliminary results suggest that adopting a radical empiricist approach gave me a better understanding of the different nuances of the body. What’s more, I’ve discovered a new form of spirituality that focuses on the feminine bodily experience, called the “sacred feminine”.