In contrast to anthropologists who subscribe to the hands-off approach to religious truths and paranormal beliefs, there are those who embrace the spiritual and paranormal suppositions of the people they study. This kind of anthropology developed around the personal anomalistic or weird experiences of several researchers while they were engaged in field research in cultures away from home. These types of events are nothing new or unique. What is new is how some researchers have interpreted such occurrences.

During my fieldwork in Nepal, the paranormal was always around. Nepalese shamans with whom I worked are practitioners who claim to have access to recondite, otherworldly knowledge and to possess the capacity to interact with and embody spirits, foretell the future, and divine the sources and causes of misfortune and illness. Paranormalists, psychics, clairvoyants, evangelical faith-healers, and other such practitioners in the West more or less say the same thing. Nepalese shamans can also purportedly communicate with ghosts, raise the souls of the dead in cremation grounds during late-night ceremonies, exorcise evil spirits, and summon demons at crossroads to harm enemies. There is also a remarkable parallel between the “alien abduction” narratives commonly reported in the United States and the supernatural kidnapping stories associated with the shamanic calling in Nepal (see Sidky 2008: 147– 62).

In the Tibetan community in Northern India, I encountered individuals who claim to be the reincarnations of known deceased personages and say they can recall their past lives. Some Tibetan monks avow that they can levitate during meditative states and invited me to observe their remarkable abilities.