Anthropologie de l'étrange: énigmes, mystères, réalités insolites (review)

As the author of a dozen books and as general editor of the journal Prétentaine, Jean-Marie Brohm is mostly known for his radical critique of sport and body culture. But with this new publication devoted to enigmas and mysteries, he surprises us by his move into more arcane territories. Unsolved mysteries and unexplained phenomena have been, and remain, common topics of best-selling books and documentaries. The general public's attraction to the supernatural and to the investigation of unexplained and unusual realities is reflected in particular by the large number of television programmes and series devoted to what has come to be defined as the 'paranormal television genre', of which Unsolved Mysteries (NBC), Les Trente Histoires mystérieuses (TF1), and Supernatural (BBC) are recent examples. However, few scholarly books have been devoted to these 'irrational' topics, which are not generally regarded as a serious subject for academic study. Anthropologie de l'étrange proposes to consider a selection of these phenomena under three themes: human/non human borders, ghosts and buried cities, and cosmic catastrophes. The book's originality lies not in its exploration of the myths and facts relating to such themes, but in the intellectual approach it outlines for considering them. In order to explore the human passion for the unknown, Brohm proposes an anthropology of the imaginary. Curiously, and in spite of the title he has chosen, his main influences do not lie with Gilbert Durand, author of Les Structures anthropologiques de l'imaginaire (1960) and one of the French pioneers in this field. He refers primarily to Edmund Husserl, Magalie Uhl, Louis Vincent Thomas, and George Devereux in a dual theoretical framework that combines phenomenology and ethnopsychoanalysis. Brohm's research has been underpinned by four aspects, which are clearly laid out: the complexity of these anthroposocial realities, which must be considered multidimensionally; the importance of a transversal methodology both as regards problems studied and research focus; an acceptance that any researcher inevitably works subjectively and intersubjectively; and an openness towards enigmas, mysteries, and other mythical realities that excludes dogmatic and unilateral thinking. Brohm's study of interactions between science and myth, normality and incongruity, reality and mystery is welcome at a time when what Mary Midgley has called the schism between 'science and poetry' is still at the core of our approaches to epistemology. From the famous Atlantis myth to the controversial realities of the asteroids, from the investigations of extraterrestrials to that of post-human cyborgs, the themes considered are so contrasted and require so many different fields of expertise and such a wide range of approaches that the reader may struggle to stay with the proposed methodology the author offers. Yet Brohm's argument is convincing: our perception of reality is dependent on many layers of knowledge, and our metaphysical quests need to open up to the study of myths, mysteries, and enigmas so that the occult does not remain hidden, as the etymology of the word implies, nor is it systematically dismissed in opposition to reality.