Review: Christ Returns from the Jungle: Ayahuasca Religion as Mystical Healing, by Marc G. Blainey

A review of Crockford's work highlights how her participant-observer approach, despite potential pitfalls and occasional divergence from her subjects' perspectives, successfully adds an intimate interpretive dimension to the study of contemporary New Age and alternative spiritual movements, offering insights not typically found in social science literature.

Study at a glance

Abstract

lives, and the anthropologist's interpretive context in which she sets these intersecting life stories.While being part of the story does present pitfalls, and while her analysis sometimes departs from the actual points her subjects are trying to make, Crockford is able to convince the reader that her participant-observer strategy works.There is an intimacy to her research that, not surprisingly, provides an added interpretive dimension not typically found in the social science literature on contemporary New Age and alternative spiritual movements.