Animism rather than Shamanism: new approaches to what shamans do (for other animists)

What shamans do is sometimes said to involve possession by spirits. However, shamanism has also been defined in opposition to spirit possession. This chapter proposes that approaching shamans and their activities, ideas and communities via the perspective provided by recent re-examination and re-definition of "animism" may improve and and enrich scholarly understanding and analysis of the activities and unvolvements of shamans

Market Timing Ability and Volatility Implied in Investment Newletters' Asset Allocation Recommendations

We analyze the advice contained in a sample of 237 investment letters over the 1980-1992 period. Each newsletter recommends a mix of equity and cash. We construct portfolios based on these recommendations and find that only a small number of the newsletters appear to have higher average returns than a buy-and-hold portfolio constructed to have the same variance. Knowledge of the asset allocation weights also implies knowledge of the exact conditional betas. As a result, we present direct tests of market timing ability that bypass beta estimation problems. Assuming that different letters cater to investors with different risk aversions, we are able to imply the newsletters' forecasted market returns. The dispersion of the newsletters' forecasts provides a natural measure of disagreement in the market. We find that the degree of disagreement contains information about both market volatility and trading activity.

Expectations of Equity Risk Premia, Volatility and Asymmetry from a Corporate Finance Perspective

We present new evidence on the distribution of the ex ante risk premium based on a multi-year survey of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) of U.S. corporations. Currently, we have responses from surveys conducted from the second quarter of 2000 through the third quarter of 2001. The results in this paper will be augmented as future surveys become available. We find direct evidence that the one-year risk premium is highly variable through time and 10-year expected risk premium is stable. In particular, after periods of negative returns, CFOs significantly reduce their one-year market forecasts, disagreement (volatility) increases and returns distributions are more skewed to the left. We also examine the relation between ex ante returns and ex ante volatility. The relation between the one-year expected risk premium and expected risk is negative. However, our research points to the importance of horizon. We find a significantly positive relation between expected return and expected risk at the 10-year horizon.

Religious experience in contemporary society

There is no single thing that can be bottled and neatly labelled as ‘religious experience’. What happens in an Anglican eucharist is not the same as in an Hasidic Seder. A Baha’i Fireside does not feel the same as Buddhist meditation. Participation in a Druid Grove is not like Friday prayers at a Mosque. These experiences are not the same, nor are they easily comparable. Not only are the actions and locations different (this would be a simple matter of description), but the essences, purposes, effects and moods are different. Not only are these religious experiences different in their outer appearances but their hearts are different. This discussion begins with a sketch of the diversity of spiritualities experienced in Britain today. This is not merely a token recognition of plurality or pluralism, but is an important aspect both of contemporary religious experience and of its study. Central sections are devoted to a particular complex of religious experiences which can, with certain reservations, be labelled ‘animism’. These both illustrate the diversity available and exemplify the challenge to various alternative understandings of spirituality. The conclusion notes some problems arising from the diversity of religious experience. Observing diversity is central to understanding spirituality because the range of experiences which people label ‘spiritual’ vary far more than some commentators have allowed. It is also significant as diversity or plurality, if not always pluralism, is an increasingly important part of the contemporary, postmodern world, and of spiritualities which affirm it. The conclusion thus notes not only the importance of diversity for the study of religion, but also suggests that the study of contemporary animism contributes significantly to that discipline

Respectfully eating or not eating: putting food at the centre of Religious Studies

With reference to data drawn from both ethnology and ethology, I argue that studying food-ways does not merely add additional information about religions, but enables better understanding of religion. Rather than defining religion cognitively in relation to beliefs and believing (modernist tropes that have shaped the study of religion) I explore the effect of defining religion in relation to the questions, ‘what do you eat?’ and ‘with whom do you eat?

If Not all Stones Are Alive…: Radical Relationality in Animism Studies

Irving Hallowell’s conversation with an Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) elder in the early twentieth century has gained increasing attention in recent decades. It has been cited by many involved in the multi-disciplinary ‘turns’ to ontology, materiality and relationality. In particular, it has inspired many researchers involved in the ‘new (approach to) animism’. This article considers efforts to rethink what ‘person’ or ‘relation’ might mean in the light of Indigenous ontologies and of the ferment of reflection and analysis offered by many colleagues. It proposes that we have not yet sufficiently understood what the elder intended by telling Hallowell that only some stones are animate. A more radically relational understanding of personhood has implications for the ways in which we approach and engage with/in nature, culture, science, and religion

Elsewhere: seeking alternatives to European understandings of “religion”

Problems in defining and studying religion are well known to us. What we might identify as a specific European legacy, now exported globally, could be more radically challenged by concerted efforts to respond to alternatives more positively and more robustly. This article identifies some problems for the study of religions: not only an inherited definition that privatises religion as "belief" but also a theological legacy that encourages scholarly ambitions to divine objectivity. In setting out alternatives, I propose that starting "elsewhere" will be helpful. Studies of material, performative, vernacular and lived religion establish some rich possibilities. A reconsideration of Maori tapu/taboo protocols may demonstrate the value of retheorising "religion" beginning "elsewhere" than the still normative refrain of "belief and practice" encourages. In order to more radically indicate the problems of dominant scholarly approaches (rather than solely definitional issues) I say a little about "witchery" in South Africa and the difficulties of knowing how to respond as a scholar of religion. My argument is that we must change our approaches because we have changed our definitions

Indigenous rituals re-make the larger than human community

Within the context of the annual Sami organized Riddu Riđđu festival (in western Sapmi/Arctic Norway) and the London-based biennial ORIGINS Festival of First Nations, Indigenous actors, musicians, artists, film-makers, chefs, storytellers and other performers draw on the resources of customary ceremonies and protocols to present work to audiences. Inspired by critical studies of Indigenous literatures, Harvey considers movements between and among international Indigenous performers and their ideas, inspirations, expectations and aspirations. Specific moments in performances and conversations during the festivals are brought into dialogue with notions of personhood that could be summed up as ‘dividualism’ and ‘new animism’. In the former, persons are not points or positions in a structure but inherently and necessarily relations. Beings become persons precisely by engaging and interacting with others. Rather than considering identities, dividual or relational personhood points to the definitive value of performance and interaction. The ‘new animism’ emphasizes that humans are in no way separate from other persons. They do not exist in a distinct environment but are made up of relations involving both human and other-than-human persons, all with needs and fears, some of which conflict with those of others. Indigenous performances draw on customary rites and knowledges which convey a pervasive (and definitively Indigenous) assumption of a larger-than-human community. Reassembling thoughts and practices related to ‘democracy’, in this perspective, necessitates consideration of relations with mountains, rivers, salmon, ancestors, masks and many others. Harvey argues that entertainment and education fuse within these festivals as Indigenous performers seek to inspire ‘world-making’ that is more inclusive and thus more democratic in a more-than-human world

Indigenizing by the Assembling Actors of Riddu Riđđu’s Ritual / Spectacle

Reflection on key aspects of a Sami organised cultural festival generates discussion of relational processes that resonate with and/or expand on Latour’s actor-network and composting proposals. Riddu Riđđu is a trans-Indigenous cultural festival, i.e. one that brings together performers, presenters and participants from many Indigenous nations globally. As such, it provides an invaluable lens through which to ignite new thinking about “indigenizing”, empathy with customary practices, and ritual as world-making in relational ontologies. The article pays attention to diverse styles of performance to illustrate understandings of ritual, including performances, speech-making and etiquette. The festival’s geographical location provides insights into other-than-modernist relations with mountains and rivers as relations. This approach to larger-than-human community casts interesting light on ritual-related discussions