The Supernatural in Society, Culture and History ed. by Dennis Waskul and Marc Eaton (review)

Dennis Waskul and Marc Eaton's interdisciplinary anthology offers readers important perspectives on supernatural phenomena as forms of social knowledge, privileging the meaning of the supernatural within human community, rather than its representation in popular culture or questions of its verifiability. Early chapters introduce readers to theoretical and methodological foundations for the larger volume's inquiry. For instance, in the chapter on cryptoscience, William Ryan Force argues that supernatural reality is what Durkheim describes as a "social fact" (20), compelling and convincing but, Force adds, also describing phenomena that are "out of frame—or illegible" in regard to dominant social discourses (25). Jeannie Banks Thomas' chapter on researching the supernatural provides a thoughtful method and a case study for examining contested space, useful for students and researchers alike for determining what meaning looks like when centering context and the human experience of the supernatural.

The remaining nine chapters are dedicated to an interdisciplinary study of supernatural events, practices, beliefs, and identities. These chapters vary significantly in their style and approach, an eclecticism which may make the larger text difficult to categorize or apply. Close reading, however, reveals unifying themes and methodological concerns. Dennis Waskul's chapter on ghosts and hauntings offers a descriptive framework for types of hauntings and different forms of ghosts, explaining the value of these labels for informants. Equally informative are Tea Krulos' review of the diverse "cryptids" (190) sought out and investigated by cryptozoologists, Janet Baldwin's historical and anthropological analysis of Tarot reading, and Scott Scribner's "Teller-Narrator" model for documenting the evolution of alien abduction narratives. Many pieces in the anthology also work to explain motivations for engaging in particular supernatural experiences, such as Rachael Ironside's examination of "dark tourism," and "legend tripping." Her piece is critically complex, engaging the potentially uncomfortable "commercialization of death and tragedy" (99) while usefully explaining how such experiences may allow participants to consider existential, moral, and spiritual quandaries.

As a central theme, several chapters engage the question of dominant power in the construction and experience of the supernatural. Marc Eaton's discussion of paranormal investigation insightfully evaluates the kinds of knowledge privileged during investigators' own searches for legitimacy. Stephen Muzzatti and Emma Smith link the "liquid modernity" (117) of late capitalism to a growing interest in fortune-telling, illustrating how supernatural explanations may flourish where dominant modes of understanding the world fail us. Finally, Joseph Laycock and l'Nasah Crockett both consider social groups and identity as they relate to power and the supernatural. Crockett explores the impact of black culture on the "meaning of place" (152) in New Orleans as this space is understood through the negotiation and renegotiation of definitions of Voodoo through Voodoo tourism (which she differentiates from the religion vodou or vodun). In his analysis of vampirism, Laycock exposes the cultural tensions surrounding acceptance of "real vampires" (173), and the very idea or reality of socially constructed identities.

Defining the supernatural as "everything that we cannot make understandable using socially legitimated means of knowledge production" (7)—unlike religion which is imbued with "cultural authority" (6)—the book operates from an intentionally modern(ist?) classification that readers may find curious or troublesome for the text's overall project. The anthology works to privilege contextual knowledge and meanings constructed in communities rather than prevailing cultural interpretations of supernatural events. Yet, separating or isolating the supernatural from the religious may unintentionally emphasize dominant or Eurocentric and heteropatriarchal understandings of what counts as religion. These starting definitions seem unnecessary and potentially limiting in light of the actual work accomplished in this text which saliently asks readers to consider: what does it mean for a phenomenon to be treated as or rendered "supernatural" (i.e. illegible)? Such analysis could be more usefully framed in connection to the long history of feminist, queer and/or decolonial religious thought.

The Supernatural in Society, Culture and History presents...