Abstract
How do people work interactively to give voice, character and presence to spirits? Whether trying to gain knowledge from the dead, placate ghosts in a ruined landscape, or beseech God in prayer, ritual speech has broad social and political effects. Too often, however, social scientists focus so intensively on these effects that they overlook or sideline the emotionally engrossing experiences people feel when engaged in these kinds of speech. In this talk, I attempt to give life to the experience of speaking with spirits through a description of training as a Spiritualist medium in Australia.
Bionote
Matt Tomlinson is a sociocultural anthropologist who studies religion, politics, and language. At the heart of his work is the question of how people organize themselves to communicate with “extra human” figures (including God, ancestors, and spirits) and what social effects such ritual communications have. Tomlinson has conducted fieldwork in Fiji, Samoa, New Zealand and Australia. His most recent books are Speaking with the Dead: An Ethnography of Extrahuman Experience (Punctum Books, 2024) and Making Places Sacred: New Articulations of Place and Power (with Yujie Zhu, Cambridge University Press, 2025).
READ MORE: Matt Tomlinson - Australian National University