Going Native in the Peruvian Amazon: the Anthropologist as Fortuneteller

Abstract

Marlene Dobkin de Rios, a recognized anthropologist who has been studying for many years the traditional healing practices using plant hallucinogens in the Peruvian Amazon, this time describes her auto-ethnographic experience of working as a fortune-teller in the native Peruvian community. She analyses her experience through the lens of modern theories of emotions and hypnotic states, arriving to the conclusion that we need not call upon metaphysical explanations for the power of fortunetelling: simply we must understand the context and the players.

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