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Article: Science in the New Age: The Paranormal, Its Defenders and Debunkers and American Culture.
- Article from:
- Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
- Article date:
- March 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Royal Anthropological Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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David Hess comes to the subject of this book from an extended study of spiritism in Brazil, which provokes little of the strongly held positions pro and con among some fifteen million of its adherents as do the various manifestations of otherworldly spirituality (the paranormal) in the United States. In its broad sense this New Age embraces such diverse beliefs and practices as spiritism (consulting the spirits of the dead), meditation, holistic alternative medicines, psychics, the wisdom of the east and crystal healing, to mention some of the more prominent. What makes it of special interest to a very large number of Americans is the search for meaning to fundamental human ...