Vol. 85, No. 2/3 – Summer/Fall, 2026

Truth, Belief, and a World in Flux

Tim Thurston (editor)

Articles:

Transferring Misfortune in the Eastern Minyag Community: Sutɕywu and Sutɕywumɨni

Wei Chen 

ABSTRACT:  The Eastern Minyag people handle the adversities of everyday life with a set of ritual practices of transferring misfortune. This article examines the two types of misfortune transference—Sutɕywu and Sutɕywumɨni—and explores their mechanisms and implications for the community involved. The article argues that Sutɕywu creates cohesion within the community, while Sutɕywumɨni can cause tension between community members. These two methods interknit, complement each other, and fulfil the demands of the Minyag.

KEYWORDS: Misfortune, Transference, Minyag, Vernacular, Eastern Tibet

The Legacy and Function of Mormon Women’s Divination Communities: Cattle, Counsel, Marriage, and Money

Millie Tullis

ABSTRACT: Peepstone women and tea-leaf readers performed significant social, economic, and interpersonal functions in their Mormon Utah communities well into the twentieth century. They were often sought out over gendered concerns, and gender impacted their perceived authority in their religious community. The way descendants recounted family stories about Mormon divination shifted over time, as the role of divination in early Mormonism grew increasingly disconnected from mainstream Mormon cultural memory.

KEYWORDS: Mormon, gender, divination, peepstones, tea-leaf reading

Ravenous Spirits for Social Control: Another Way to Take Local Perspectives Seriously 

Response Essay to Kanya Wattanagun’s “Devoured by Ravenous Spirits,” published in 84.1 (2025)

Ian G. Baird

Spectral Evidence, the Phi Pob, and the Wish to Believe: an Ontological Disputation

Response Essay to Kanya Wattanagun’s “Devoured by Ravenous Spirits,” published in 84.1 (2025)

Michael J. Bell

Can Ravenous Spirits Devour One’s Mind?

Response Essay to Kanya Wattanagun’s “Devoured by Ravenous Spirits,” published in 84.1 (2025)

Elliot Oring

ABSTRACT: Under the influence of the “ontological turn” in anthropology, Kanya Wattanagun has argued against the ethnographic use of the term “belief” in the characterization of phi pob—vengeful spirits—in northeast Thailand. Rather, she proposes that folklorists should accept these spirits as having real existence. This article responds to that proposal.

KEYWORDS: folk belief, supernatural, phi pob, ontological turn

Worlding Otherwise: Multiple Worlds as a Method in Belief Studies

Kanya Wattanagun

ABSTRACT: To address criticisms of “Devoured by Ravenous Spirits: Absurd Deaths, Obscure Diagnosis and the Phi Pob Tradition in Northeast Thailand,” I make three salient points in this paper. First, granting givenness to others’ truths functions as a heuristic device within a thought experiment that seeks to understand different ways of worlding. As a methodological posture rather than a proselytizing tool, it doesn’t require converting to informants’ truths. Second, the notion of multiple realities of multiple worlds addresses unequal positionalities in knowledge production. It shifts the question from why informants hold false beliefs to “what kind of world must be in place for this truth to hold true?” This reframing invites the ethnographer to decenter assumptions rooted in their ways of worlding. Third, like any analytical lens, the concept of multiple realities can be put to various uses and is not inherently tied to specific implications. Whether it condones harmful beliefs or fosters skepticism and resistance to an oppressive, dominant truth depends on how it is put to use.

KEYWORDS: Ontological Turn, Phi Pob, Belief Tradition, Multiple Worlds

German Folklore during National Socialism, with Some Thoughts on Today’s “Alternate Facts”

A lecture in honor of Norine Dresser

James R. Dow