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Rating: 
Summary: How can people believe this stuff? -- an inquiry
Review: The ethnographic detail (and it is quite rich) of English covens is just the beginning --the book is fundamentally about belief and the justification of belief. Is there any real difference between marginal practices like drawing pentagrams and casting spells and mainstream practices like taking communion and praying? Are there perhaps commonalities among "altered states" of meditation, prayer, and the like? No definitive answers, but a fascinating exploration.
Rating: 
Summary: The Condescension of Anthropology
Review: This is the only book I've read in the past five years that I haven't finished. I stopped reading in disgust. Luhrmann is extremely patronizing to the population she's writing about, neopagans, and it drove me crazy. I also felt like she missed the point of what it is that we do. Most neopagans don't consider themselves as magicians primarily, and much of the ritual we do is not to create material results. Her point is that magic does not create material results but we act as though it does. I don't think either of those are necessarily true, and even if they were true, they're beside the point of a spiritual path. In Luhrmann's defense, the anthropology tradition has a long and venerated history of holding itself loftily above the people it studies. So perhaps it's not entirely her fault. But I don't think that redeems the book. I wouldn't recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: The Condescension of Anthropology
Review: This is the only book I've read in the past five years that I haven't finished. I stopped reading in disgust. Luhrmann is extremely patronizing to the population she's writing about, neopagans, and it drove me crazy. I also felt like she missed the point of what it is that we do. Most neopagans don't consider themselves as magicians primarily, and much of the ritual we do is not to create material results. Her point is that magic does not create material results but we act as though it does. I don't think either of those are necessarily true, and even if they were true, they're beside the point of a spiritual path. In Luhrmann's defense, the anthropology tradition has a long and venerated history of holding itself loftily above the people it studies. So perhaps it's not entirely her fault. But I don't think that redeems the book. I wouldn't recommend it.
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