Jack Hunter, PhD, is author of Spirits, Gods, and Magic: An Introduction to the Anthropology of the Supernatural; Engaging the Anomalous; and is editor of an anthology titled Greening the Paranormal: Exploring the Ecology of Extraordinary Experience. He is also coeditor, with David Luke, of Talking With The Spirits: Ethnographies From Between The Worlds. He is also founder of the journal, Paranthropology.

Here he describes different approaches taken to the realm of spirits by scholars in anthropology. He recalls his own fieldwork studying spiritualist mediumship in the United Kingdom. He presents various cases suggesting that spiritual entities are part of the natural world. However, he acknowledges that it is exceedingly tricky to distinguish between living agent psi and autonomous spiritual entities.

(Recorded on August 31, 2020)

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LINKS TO BOOKS AND VIDEOS MENTIONED IN THIS INTERVIEW:

Published on February 19, 2026