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Social Science Cultural

Being Changed by Cross-Cultural Encounters

The Anthropology of Extrodinary Experience

edited by Jean-Guy Goulet & David E. Young

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Jan 1994
Category
Cultural, General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781551110400
    Publish Date
    Jan 1994
    List Price
    $43.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442602366
    Publish Date
    Jan 1994
    List Price
    $27.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781551110325
    Publish Date
    Jan 1994
    List Price
    $66.00

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Description

Anthropologists of recent generations have always expressed enormous sympathy with 'non-rational' modes of thought, with the 'supernatural' experiences of people around the world. What they have rarely in their scholarly writing admitted to doing is giving any credence to the 'irrational' themselves -- though such beliefs have long been common among those who have lived and worked for extended periods in cultures different from those that dominate Western society.

Now, in a ground-breaking volume, leading anthropologists describe such experiences and analyze what can occur ""when one opens one's self to aspects of experience that previously have been ignored or repressed."" The ten contributions to the book include Edith Turner on 'A Visible Spirit Form in Zambia', Rab Wilkie on 'Ways of Approaching the Shaman's World', and Marie Francoise Guedon on 'Dene Ways and the Ethnographer's Culture'. The editors' introduction and conclusion extensively discuss the general issues involved.

span style=""font-style: italic;"">Being Changed is a book that directly challenges the rationalist bias in Western tradition by developing a new, 'experimental' approach to extraordinary experiences -- and a book that takes traditional cultures seriously in a way that anthropology has rarely done before.

About the authors

Jean-Guy Goulet is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Calgary.

Jean-Guy Goulet's profile page

David E. Young is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. He is the author of Cry of the Eagle: Encounters with a Cree Healer (University of Toronto Press, 1990).

David E. Young's profile page