ABSTRACT
Social anthropologists study a number of things which should be of interest to parapsychologists, such as witchcraft, magic, divination, and shamanism. So far, however, the evidence they have gathered in these subjects has ignored the possibility of ESP rather than confirmed or denied it. There seem to be three reasons why this is so: firstly, that they, like the rest of us, tend to think in terms of ‘body’ and ‘mind’, without knowing how to bring these two categories together; secondly, that even if an anthropologist were interested in the study of ESP, the proof of its existence is so tricky that he prefers not to waste time on it; thirdly, that he is more interested in social regularities than in individual happenings. Moreover, though he may hear numerous anecdotes which tell him that the people he is studying take ESP for granted, he usually finds that the pronouncements of diviners are based on information previously gathered by ordinary methods, that they are of such general application that ESP can be ruled out, or that successes can be attributed to sharpened psychological insight gained through long practice.
