JSRE - Volume 1 Number 1 - 2015 76 Journal for the Study of Religious Experience "Spirits are the Problem": Anthropology and Conceptualising Spiritual Beings Jack Hunter Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol discarnates@googlemail.com This paper examines a variety of different theoretical perspectives on the nature of spiritual beings from within the discipline of anthropology. It takes a broadly historical perspective, outlining the devel- opment of key approaches from the earliest pioneers to the present day. It is argued that reductive explanatory models fail to account for the complexity of spiritual beings as social agents, especially in the context of the author's own research into contemporary trance mediumship, which forms the basis for this exploration of anthropology’s engagement with spirits. It is suggested that an ontologically open-minded, participatory and experiential approach to the nature of spiritual beings, which empha- sises the many processes involved in their manifestation as socially active agents, represents a po- tentially fruitful direction for future research. Keywords: Anthropology; Experience; Ontology; Spirits; Theories “Spirits are the Problem” At a symposium on ‘Anthropology and the Paranormal’ held at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, in October 2013, folklorist David J. Hufford argued that for many in Western academia the belief in spirits represents the ‘cut -off point' between the ‘primitive’ and the ‘modern.’ His paper explored the processes of disenchantment that have gradually overcome Western academic thinking, and highlighted some of the problems that contemporary encounters with ostensible spiritual beings pose for the dominant framework of Western rationalist materialism (which actively constructs itself in opposition to the 'spiritual'). In this respect, so Hufford argues, ‘Spirits are the Problem.’ It is from Hufford’s paper, therefore, given on the very edge of the Pacific Ocean, that the title of this paper is drawn. This paper will, then, survey a variety of different approaches to the 'problem of spir- its' from within the discipline of anthropology, and in so doing will hopefully suggest some interesting directions for possible future research on contemporary entity en- counters. A Brief Note on Terminology The term 'spirits' is a particularly broad one used to refer to a wide variety of ostensi- ble non-physical entities, ranging from the spirits of the dead (as the spirits I encoun- tered in the field claimed to be), to nature spirits, ancestors, Angels and deities, amongst numerous other varieties, types and forms (Evans 1987; Klass 2001: 57-