Talking With the Spirits is a cross-cultural survey of contemporary spirit mediumship. The diverse contributions to this volume cover a wide-range of ethnographic contexts, from Spiritualist seances in the United Kingdom to self-mortification rituals in Singapore and Taiwan, from psychedelic spirit incorporation in the Amazonian rainforest, to psychic readings in online social spaces, and more. By taking a broad perspective the book highlights both the variety of culturally specific manifestations of spirit communication, and key cross-cultural features suggestive of underlying core-processes...

• Includes contributions from the late Ralph Metzner, Chris Bache, Whitley Strieber, Jeffrey Kripal, Angela Voss, Bill Richards, Chris Timmermann, Michael Winkelman, Luis Eduardo Luna, Anton Bilton, Bernard Carr, Daniel Pinchbeck, Dennis McKenna, Ede Frecska, and David Luke • Explores DMT beings, alien abduction, plant sentience, neuroscientific DMT research, the connections between LSD and DMT entities, and the nature of mind and reality Found throughout the plant and animal kingdom, DMT (dimethyltryptamine) is also naturally occurring in humans, and may be released during near-death...