Trends in the Anthropology of the Supernatural, by Jack Hunter

Definitions, Origins, Functions and Experiences: Trends in the Anthropology of the Supernatural from Tylor to Turner

The branch of anthropology that most frequently encounters the supernatural is the anthropology of religion. Religion has been a key concern for anthropologists since the very dawn of the discipline in the mid-Nineteenth Century. In light of the apparent diversity of forms that religion takes throughout the world—from the monotheism characteristic of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam to the polytheism of Hinduism and Buddhism and all the many variations and varieties in between—one of the first tasks facing the early anthropologists was to try to develop a standard definition of religion. At first glance this might seem like an easy task, but a generally accepted definition has, even today, yet to be devised. The problem lies in the complexity of the various phenomena usually classified as religious in nature, and in understanding how all of these disparate parts relate to one another. For example, religion may be defined in terms of the beliefs of a certain people or in terms of their practices—that is, their rituals, rites and performances. Religion might also be interpreted politically and economically, or described using the language of psychology and philosophy. This complexity, combined with huge cultural variation, makes the development of an all–encompassing definition and theory of religion a particularly difficult task (Boyer 2001, 2–3).

Defining Religion:

Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917), widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology, realized that any definition of religion would have to be inclusive of the broad spectrum of religious ideas present throughout the human world. Tylor was shocked to read in the reports of pioneering explorers and missionaries that many newly discovered societies were described as possessing no religion at all, despite their apparent preoccupation with spirits, demons, and ancestors. This, he thought, arose from too narrow a definition of what religion entails. He argued that if our definition of religion is built around belief in a supreme deity, judgment after death, or the adoration of idols (which are hallmarks of both classical and contemporary European religions), the beliefs of a great many non-European people would immediately be excluded from the category of religion. To Tylor this simply did not make sense. The problem with this sort of definition was that it was based upon a particular development of religion, namely a Judeo-Christian development, and not upon religion itself. In order to counter this apparent bias, Tylor defined religion, in its simplest terms, as the belief in spiritual beings, a common trait of which he found ample evidence in the vast majority of ethnographic documents he read. Tylor’s definition of religion, therefore, highlighted the significance of belief, as well as the supernatural objects of these beliefs (Tylor 1930). Another definition of religion was offered by Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), a contemporary of Tylor’s, who argued that belief in spiritual beings, although common to many religions, could not be considered a minimum definition of religion because there are religious traditions that do not hold such beings as centrally important. To illustrate this point Durkheim gives the example of Buddhism, which does not consider gods and spirits to be central to its beliefs (though it does not exclude them), but rather emphasizes the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths (dukkha, “suffering”; samudaya, “craving”; nirodha, “the end of suffering”; and the Eightfold Path to end suffering) as its main creed. Durkheim suggested, therefore, that religion could best be defined as a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things (rather than supernatural beings specifically) and as beliefs and practices that unite its adherents in a single moral community. To Durkheim, religion was to do with the sacred, which he defined as things set apart and surrounded by prohibitions. For Durkheim, then, the sacred did not have to include supernatural concepts; his definition of religion could, for example, equally be applied to other social phenomena, as long as they were treated with a special kind of respect and separated from normal everyday life by certain prohibitions. Above all of this, Durkheim thought of religion as a social and communal phenomenon (Durkheim 2008); we will discuss the influence of Durkheim’s sociological view of religion shortly.

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