the veil of objectivity: prophecy, divination, and social inquiry

The Veil of Objectivity: Prophecy, Divination, and Social Inquiry

BENNETTA JU~.ES-ROS~.I-IX University of Calijornia, Suji Diego

I t is possible for,folk inquiry l o become a source f o r the modfication of anthropological thought. 7 h u Paper discuses two alternative knowledge systems: traditional dimnation and syncretic prophecy in Central Africa. The processes of scientific discovery, cawal reasoning, and the evaluation of evidence are compared with oracuhr reasoning and prophetic prediction. The oracular aspecls of scientific reasoning are delineated along with the problenrr of reformulating and presenting basic data. Part of this presentational pro . cess iS the “lranshlion” of events f r o m the context of their occurrence into a lheoretrca~ framework. The modljications generated by data analysis affect the exphnalory ude- quacy of the method of inquiry. A rapprochement between folk inquiry and Western scientljic assumptions diminishes the forms of theoretical reductionism that inhibit the possibility for describing and analyzing contrasting belief system within an an - thropological framework. [folk inquiry. prophecy, divination, scientific reasoning, Africa]

Then the “real forces” of action are not expressed in the theory, but the latter is like a veil covering them, which it is the business of the sociologist to tear away (Talcott Parsons 1937:270].

THIS PAPER DELINEATES the theoretical implications of folk inquiry for rethinking the social sciences. Part One discusses the social sciences and presents an epistemology for the comparative analysis of thought forms. Part Two describes traditional African divination and syncretic African prophecy as distinct alternative thought forms that both resemble and can contribute to the social sciences. The oracular structure of these types of folk inquiry is outlined and assessed. It is emphasized that the social sciences sustain their own oracular structure by using the concept of objectivity as a shield. Part Three urges a final removal of this “veil of objectivity” and illustrates ways in which the example of folk inquiry can be used toward this end. Many of the empirical references are derived from ex- tensive research on African Christianity. My apprenticeship in this form of folk inquiry is described more fully elsewhere (Jules-Rosette 1975). Here, I have drawn upon personal

BENNFITA JULES-ROSETTE. Asociate Professor of Sociology at the University of California. San Dirgo. received her B.A. (1968) in Social Relations at Radcliffe College and her M.A. and Ph.D. (1975) at Harvard Univenity in Social Relations. Since 1969. she has conducted a x r i n of field studies in southwestern Za’ire (1969 and 1971 -72) and Lusaka, Zambia (1974. 1975 77. 1978). on religious movements and more recently on popular African artists. supported by the Ford Foundation. the National Institute of Mental Health. and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Her publications include: A/ricaii Apuslles Rilual arid Coiiiursiun in fhe Church ofJohn Maranke. A Paradigin /or Looking- C r u ~ ~ - C u N u r a l Research wifh Visual Media (with Beryl L. Bellman). T h e N e w Religiotis of Afrira PriesIs and P h e ~ l e u e s in Conlemporary Culls and Churches (an edited volume). and articles on contemporary African religion. music, and art. Her major areas of internt are religion. comparative epistemology. expressive culture. and social change. She is currently completing research on religious movements and urban social change in Zambia with National Science Foundation support.

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550 AMERICAN AN THR 0 PO LOGIST (80, 1978

knowledge to chart the conceptual encounter between the social sciences and othcr forms of expression.

THE POSITION OF T H E SOCIAL SCIENCES

What makes the reflections of an observer with minimal familiarity with the language, culture, or attitudes of those studied capable of cogently explaining their beliefs? Primarily, i t is the necessity for, and calculated use of, detachment (cf. Weber 1947:89-91, Schutz 1964:36-38) that distinguishes the social scientist from the lay practi- tioner and the social sciences from various forms of folk inquiry. This enforced detachment also separates the social sciences from the physical disciplines, where the phenomena studied are already defined as objects and relationships to which the observer has no personal access.

No mystery shrouds the points of convergence of the social sciences and folk inquiry. The two can be bridged humanely. I t is, in fact, often necessary for the social scientist to learn a lay practice and to engage in lengthy apprenticeship in order to analyze his topic. This journey toward “becoming the phenomenon” (see Mehan and Wood 1975) under investigation, however, requires the social scientist to drop the veil of objective inquiry and make his explanatory language compatible with the form of communication that is under examination. The difference, therefore, between social sciences and folk inquiry is not that one is precise while the other is imprecise but, instead, that one (the social sciences) makes a claim to understand the other with only partial knowledge.

The standards of adequacy and prediction presented in the social sciences are, in many cases, distorted versions of an idealized scientific method once applied to the natural sciences. The problem of prediction and expression in interpretive sciences that attempt to explain the structure of human behavior may be regarded as matters of form. Inform- ation is the communication of form. Typically, the termjotm has an expressive connotation in the social sciences, while the concept of system has a cognitive connotation. Here, the two concepts are used interchangeably to refer to the procedures of ordering that are the goals of all types of inquiry. More than a descriptive communication, therefore, is involved, for the notion of form includes both esthetic and evaluative meanings.

Form defines a mode of expression. I t also contains its own criteria of truth and evaluation for the community that uses that mode. When I speak of a rapprochement between social sciences and folk inquiry, I refer to a translation of form whereby the social scientist’s endeavor attempts to assume the competence of the subject studied at various points subsequent to the conception of the problem in a development of theory toward practice. Through this translation of form, a standard of validity is created by which the relationship between the descriptive vocabulary of social science and the phenomenon under investigation can be assessed.

Folk Inquiry and Commonsense

Many social scientists and philosophers of language have idealized folk sciences and forms of inquiry.’ In his analysis of African traditional thought, Robin Horton (1967) stresses the difference between commonsense treatment of disease (i.e., by means of a specific herbal remedy) and the causal analysis of disease according to a diviner’s diagnosis of malefic social and spiritual agencies. It is assumed that commonsense thinking, while it contains causal features, is devoid of “a jump” to the theoretical that is em- bodied in both folk inquiry and Western science. Commonsense thought, whether traditional or Western, is considered devoid of a global synthesis, a theory, or a metaphysic. I t is also treated as uniform, without any particular distinctions from one context to

Jules- Rosette] PROPHECY, DIVINATION, A N D SOCIAL INQUIRY 55 I

another. When commonsense and traditional thought are grouped together, both are idealized. Both are considered to be impenetrable to any detailed analysis of their structure, strategies, and constitution.

Similarly, John Mbiti (197034-35) describes a traditional African ontology based on the concepts of now and then (sasa and zamani), a temporal dimension that embraces much more than time. Placide Tempels (1959:esp. 15-16, 27-46) reduces traditional thought to the animistic notion of “vital force,” which he uses as the base for understanding an African ontology and a variety of the religious and artistic forms through which it is expressed. In each case (although less so in Horton’s analysis), traditional and commonsense thought are analyzed not as strategies for handling problems in daily life, but rather as underlying theories of existence and orientations to the social and natural world. It is this failure to place commonsense thought within the context of its use (see Garfinkel and Sacks 1970) that I refer to as the idealization of knowledge.

When the social scientist encounters another culture, language, or thought form, the temptation to idealize is an overwhelming one. Differences rather than similarities in the content of thought are stressed. T h e alien content constitutes the exotic and must be grasped by empathy or by a leap of faith that still holds one’s commitment to science intact. While these differences in content are viewed as objective, understanding them is a mystery glossed over by positing different interpretations of time and levels of abstraction. Similarly, the personal point of reference of traditional thought does not describe this form of thought completely or render it nonscientific. Horton asserts:

One thing that may well continue to bother the reader is my playing down of the difference between nonpersonal and personal theory. For while I have provided what seems to be an adequate explanation of this difference, I have treated it as a surface difference concealing an underlying similarity of intellectual process. . . . The point I have sought to make is that the difference is more than anything else a difference in the idiom of explanatory quest. Grasping this point is an essential preliminary to realizing how far the various established dichotomies used in this field are simply obstacles to understanding [ 1967:69-70).

There are other obstacles to understanding. Among these is the assumption that traditional thought, or, more precisely, both commonsense thinking found in certain non- Western settings and the disciplines of folk inquiry, always involve a magical, closed, situation-specific, and limited belief system. Any form of thought, when viewed from the outside and approached holistically as a system, is limiting. This comparison never turns the mirror of assessment in the other direction. It is chiefly when one claims to present an objective interpretation of such a system from the outside that the structure of these limitations emerges.

For example, E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1937:314-315) readily saw the limitations in divination by the Azande poison oracle (benge), claiming that oracular reasoning was a closed and self-sustaining system. He was amazed that, regardless of the oracle’s outcome and internal contradictions, it could never be proven wrong. The Azande justified their contradictions in numerous ways, e.g., by saying that a taboo had been broken in the mixture’s preparation or in the casting of the oracle. Evans-Pritchard was among the first ethnographers to address the use of indigenous interpretations as a topic of study, but he still believed that these interpretations could be contradicted by objective logic. He used the circumstance of oracular contradiction to discover and clarify his own interpretation of the Azande’s situation. However, he remained firmly rooted within the logical tradi- tion of Western social science. Despite the sensitivity and detail of his descriptions of the oracle and other magical beliefs, his own explanatory categories of faulted mystical belief and empirical commonsense were not disturbed.*

Horton (1967:172) explains that science is “one jump ahead of experience” by virtue of its insistence on an experimental method forcing the scientist to look for, and even ar-

552 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [80, 1978

tificially produce, the defects in his theories. Yet, looked at from another vantage point, the experimental method becomes a way of subjecting all occurrences to the criteria of a given theory without submitting the theory or method themselves to further scrutiny.

Indeed. Evans-Pritchard used logic and experimentation to investigate the oracle. He established to his own satisfaction that its operators were not deliberately manipulating i t to achieve a desired result, as he considered them to be in the case of curing and counter- magic (1937229-239, 246-250. 323-325). He used the oracle in daily interaction as a matter of practical courtesy and found it as useful a device as any for managing mundane affairs (1937:269-270). His discovery that witch doctors “cheat” but that oracle operators “do not,” made his puzzlement at the Azande’s acceptance of both even stronger. He found both to be grounded in social interpretation rather than physiological fact (1937:337 339). His experimental method explicitly took into account the social context in which the oracle was used, but he was unable to turn the mirror upon the social context in which his own theory of scientific causality was accepted.

Idealizing folk inquiry may also move toward the opposite extreme. The unwillingness of the social scientist to reflect upon the grounding of his theories leads to a universalism used to explain all forms of thought as essentially the same with a few minor, apparent differences. Tempels asserts:

Without excluding other factors (divine and human), we must postulate, seek and discover a logical system of human thought as the ultimate foundation of any logical and universal system of human behavior [ 1959:14].

Thus, at the root of all systems of thought is an ultimate foundation for their ontology. While this essentialist view strikes at Evans-Pritchard’s logical distinction between

mystical and scientific thought that is used to undercut the poison oracle, i t seeks a reduc- tion of various thought systems to a single or ultimate explanation. Thus, “Bantu philosophy” becomes an ontology of life force and animism that explains all further secular and religious systems associated with it regardless of cultural variations. The analytic advantage of this type of idealization is that it brings folk inquiry and specific forms of non-Western thought into the forefront as philosophies that are products of careful reflection and that are worthy of detailed study. However, logical and ontological reductionism share their failure to provide a means for analyzing the scientist’s own presuppositions. In the former case, scientific logic and principles of experimentation are applied without reservation to alternate thought forms. In the latter, familiarity with other thought forms is postulated on the basis of ultimate universals. These universals are developed according to ad hoc theoretical criteria and the scientist’s own unexplained familiarity with the forms of thought examined.

When Mary Douglas (1966: 14) asserts: “We cannot start to compare primitive religions until we know the range of powers and dangers they recognize,” she too is employing an essentialist theory. Her treatment of purity (1966:38-40, 1976:249-318) as a system of natural and social classification by which ambiguous objects are regularly avoided and ritually handled relies on drawing out the universal elements in various belief systems. In- sofar as Douglas is concerned with the localization of anxieties within a given set of beliefs, her theory resembles Horton’s assertion that magic as a form of folk inquiry is characterized by an intolerance of and anxiety about threats to its established body of tenets (Horton 1967:155-167). Each belief system posits certain forms of anomaly and their ritual treatment, rather than finding inconsistencies in its own foundations. If such threats to a magical system persist, its equilibrium is destroyed. Anomaly for which the system is unprepared results, and an “irretrievable jump into chaos” (Horton 1967: 169) is made from which little can be salvaged.

The process of idealization is closely tied to the issue of understanding in the social

Jules-Rosette] PROPHECY, DIVINATION, A N D SOCIAL INQUIRY 553

sciences and is used to mask an inability to grasp another interpretive system. This mask- ing is a complex process from which no one is free. One may. therefore, ask whether understanding is anyone's birthright. Does the participant or informant fully immersed in a culture or an arcane system of thought understand that system of thought? Is understanding synonymous with the translation of the system of thought into another form of logic? I t will be argued here that understanding is always incomplete. I t is con- stantly in the process of being established and infinitely recedes; understanding is never equivalent to translation.

The occurrence of lies or contradictions in the statements of anthropological informants may also be considered as occasions of idealizing folk inquiry and giving i t a consis- tent form. In such a case, the informants may simply be unsure of the facts. On the other hand, as I have often experienced, the informant may be unable to locate the proper means or formulae to translate a certain piece of information from his own lived cx- perience to the social context of the observer. The lie or contradiction consists of searching for the appropriate idiom of explanation and imagery, or the suitable linguistic category, to convey the force of an experience to someone who has never had i t . Thus, idealization may be explained in terms of three processes: ( 1 ) the logical reductionism of the detached scientist, (2) the ontological reductionism of the empathetic observer, and (3) the contextual reductionism of the participant unable to translate what has been observed from one idiom to another. All of these processes effectively hide the practical organization of one system of thought from another.

Establishing an Epistemology

Exactly where the discovery of differences in perception and perspective begins is difficult to determine. Cross-cultural psychologists have examined cultural differences in terms of eye movements, the perception of carpentered vs. uncarpentered environments, and differences in logical and syllogistic rea~oning .~ Often they assume that the logic of their hypotheses proves radical differences in the perceptions and world views of others. The psychologists emphasize the important relationship between seemingly minor differences in perception and the environment of the perceiver. Their findings suggest the impossibility of logical invalidations of entire systems of thought without an understanding of how objects in a given environment are perceived and used. Explaining the principles by which objects are perceived, in turn, requires an understanding of the unifying principles or systems by which these objects are placed in a social context. While the psychological examination of perception is one point of departure, another is an attempt to grasp the uses of a system of thought or style of perception. Combining these approaches reduces the chances of idealizing a particular form of interpretation.

More than a method of inquiry is necessary, however, to compare diverse forms of thought. A theory of knowledge that contains an explanation of the process whereby one system of thought encounters and discovers another is needed. For the purposes of this discussion, the process of discovery will be described in terms of four stages of knowledge: the conception of a theory, its encounter with another thought form, the process of mutual ewluafion across forms of thought, and the communication of one theory or thought form with respect to another.

The notion of conception is closely tied to the present interpretation of form (see Arn- heim 1971:13-14). The organization of objects, in this case, depends upon the social context in which they are perceived. For the more positivistic social scientists. alternative forms of thought often represent interesting randomizations of the underlying structure or order of a phenomenon. These variations may be attributed with a senseless or ar- bitrary character because the social background of their distribution and of the scientists'

554 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST 180. 1978

original concept is never fully examined. To analyze this background, i t is necessary to reevaluate the system used to derive form and order. Far from presenting chaos or disorganization, these randomizations provide a clean slate for further interpretation. Their use. however, depends entirely on the stable underlying order that the social scientist’s working paradigms present.

I t has been suggested that the scientist’s conception of basic order is distinguished by the openness to alternatives and the absence of anxiety when the underlying principles of a system are threatened (Horton 1967: 156). The challenge to scientific tenets differs from the breach of taboo in that the former supposedly does not threaten social disorganization and cosmic chaos. However, even a scientific system of thought by definition has its boundaries. Moving beyond boundaries that are inclusive of prevailing paradigms found in the scientific community threatens the sacred cows standing between science and various forms of folk inquiry. I t is objectivity that makes the cards of social description fall into place.

Conception is the point at which the social scientist first becomes aware of the alternative systems of thought that are the object of description. It may be viewed not only as a general stage of knowledge but also as a stage of research. When Evans-Pritchard (1937:338) described the Azande experimentation with oracles as “ritual behavior and mystical belief,” he saw their activities from the vantage point of conception. He was unable to generate categories to suitably describe that knowledge system by reaching outside of the tenets of his own theory. Whereas the awareness that alternative theories are acceptable may be defined as the hallmark of science (Horton 1967:159), in a given empirical application, i t is often difficult for the social scientist to reach such openness without fear of having succumbed to subjectivity.

When, however, a theory moves beyond its own defensive boundary maintenance, the stage of discovery is reached. Discovery is the full encounter of another thought form in an effort to approach it on its own grounds. This does not necessitate the destruction of the scientific theory, but it does require a reexamination of its underlying principles. Harold Garfinkel forecasts the feasibility of this discovery when he states:

The “rediscovery” of common sense is possible perhaps because professional sociologists. like members, have had too much to do with common sense knowledge of social structures as both a topic and resource for their inquiries and not enough to do with it only and exclusively as sociology’s programmatic topic [ 1967:75].

The essentialist approach stands at the threshold of discovery: i t examines the essence of another thought form and mirrors this essence through itself, but it goes no further.

As a stage of research as well as one of knowledge, discovery marks the moment at which another technological system, a new cosmology, or another theory of existence begins to emerge as coherent and sensible for the social scientist. Through discovery, my “seeing” begins to converge with the vision of an alternative system. Yet, my seeing (the social scientist’s vision) is not absorbed by or the same as the alternative thought forms. They unfold without being totally submerged by the scientific system.

Discovery is the point at which the social scientist attempts the first translation from the language of theory to the field of new experience. To explain Azande witchcraft sociologically in terms of misfortune is no longer adequate at the point of discovery. Once one understands the existing beliefs and social relationships in a community, i t is possible to explain both misfortune and witchcraft with respect to participants’ knowledge of the familiar, as long as one’s own commonsense reasoning does not remain the hidden resource according to which the alternative theory is described. As a stage of research, discovery, therefore, involves gaining more intimate familiarity with what one is examining. It embraces the dangerous, boundary-breaking process of “going native,” that is, of attempting to exchange subjective positions with the other in order to experience a situation as he does.


This process of translation (cf. Palmer 1969:26-32) introduces evaluation, the third stage of knowledge. If the researcher becomes completely drawn into the doctrine, cosmology, or system studied, one may legitimately inquire about the line to be drawn between sheer advocacy of the new-found belief and investigation of i t . Discovery does not ensure total understanding of an alternative thought form. I t does not improve either appraisal or the ability to return to an analytic stance. Evaluation is the process of step- ping back to find a bridge between scientific theory and new experience. This process of translation requires a new mode of expression neutral enough to reflect the initial phases of conception and discovery. Evaluation places the theory's encounter with experience in a historical perspective. It includes the initial encounter with and immersion into folk in - quiry but goes further to assess previous moments of contact.

An example of the evaluation process drawn from my own research is that of religious conversion. While studying the Apostolic Church of John Maranke. an indigenous African church, I became a member of the group. Both personal commitment and curiosity influenced this decision.' However, baptism into the group and my initial instruction did not provide me with full explanations of its ritual and organization. These questions, originating from my sociological conception of the group, could be addressed only once I placed my membership in the church in a broader perspective and returned to an analytic stance. Nevertheless, the conversion was an ongoing stage of discovery that did not stop with my renewed sociological inquiry. That inquiry differed considerably from my initial proposal to study the church as an outside researcher. I could no longer examine faith healing, confession, or tests of the spirit (such as exorcism) as exotic ritual happenings that had no bearing on me. This, however, did not mean that 1 had become incapable of abstract reflection.

Such moments of detachment characterize the evaluation process, for they involve a v i - sion of alternatives from within the new frame of thought. Evaluation, therefore, entails the posing of initial questions from a new perspective, the assessment of discovery, and the retreat from a nonreflective or total involvement. Evaluation embraces both the new frame of thought and the former perspectives that approach it. I t is important to add that even for a lay person, nonreflective involvement is seldom an actual possibility (cf. Garfinkel 1967:12-13). Rather, it is generally the product of the social scientist's ideal world in which human beings act in blind accord with the researcher's manipulation

Communication, the final stage of knowledge, brings the series back in a full circle to conception. Through communication, the discoveries of all the previous stages are sub- jected to translation for a larger audience. During the process of discovery, the researcher moves away from the community of scholars and from the logical and defensive grounding of scientific theory to discover and learn from alternative theories. In evaluation, the scientific criteria of adequacy are reestablished without a pretense of objectivity through blending the interpretive understanding of the new theories and experiences with the reflective task of describing and assessing discoveries. Finally, these discoveries are communicated to those who have not undergone an "immersion" experience. This communication requires a lexicon that mirrors both experience and abstraction, a translu- cent vocabulary through which all the layers of experience and thought become visible.

Through this process of communication, the openness attributed to scientific theory becomes an actuality. The researcher has learned from the idiom of folk inquiry investigated and has transferred this knowledge into his own conception, all the while remolding, even destroying, his original conception in an effort to make the descriptive vocabularies of two specialized theories mesh.5 While some might argue that the last stage of communication becomes unnecessary once a genuine discovery has been made, 1 reply that unless this final translation is made, the necessity for referring to the outcome as a scientific communication disappears. Nonetheless, a personal journey, scientific

(Schutz 1964:4-42).

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theory, and folk inquiry may be so closely intertwined in the experience of an individual as to be virtually inseparable in a given expression. The aim, then, becomes to discover the motivation of the expression and whether a particular theory is triggering experience or vice versa. Communication is thus a reentry through the doors of science without the pretense that personal interpretations of alternative theories have resulted from the rigorous application of a deductive method.

Communication may also be considered a research stage. As such, i t is the moment at which the social scientist gropes for the terms of a definitive explanation. invariably finding the vocabulary of social science too rigid and too indexical to express the nuances of another realm of experience. The researcher’s frustration is not merely a practical dilem- ma. I t is an inevitable stumbling block of a double blind theoretical framework. A theoretical framework that contains no criteria for assessing itself and for unmasking its own veil of objectivity cannot arrive at the phase of communication that approaches or retains the pure experience of the object or event that i t purports to describe.

T W O CASES OF FOLK INQUIRY: DIVINATION AND PROPHECY

“Are you skeptical of African science?” he asked. I shook my head. “Then we shall begin,“ he replied. This was the beginning of the diviner’s work. The diviner. an ex- patriate from Congo (Brazzaville) now living in a European city, claimed that he could tell me the future and assure my fondest wishes if I would go through with the divination as he proposed i t . He had learned the craft from his father. But in the context of town life, this craft had surely changed. In turn, the demands that he placed upon clients coin- cided with those that he had to meet for urban survival.

He asked each client first to put his requests on a piece of paper. The paper was burned, mixed with water, and placed in a special calabash. An incantation was said. and the charred paper was then examined to see which parts had been destroyed and whether the remainder indicated that the request would be granted. At each stage, the client was told that more could be done if he were willing to proceed. The divination seemed potentially endless. An affirmative answer to the client’s queries was never really conclusive. It simply meant that another stage of the divinatory process had to be in- itiated. While I had not originally been skeptical as a client, my curiosity and patience waned. I approached the point of discovery but was overcome before that moment by my own theories about the Pandora’s box that seemed to supply the diviner with an infinite potential to evade my questions.

Victor Turner’s (1975) discussion of the Ndembu “heap” oracle reveals a similar structure in the divinatory process. A heap of small carved objects of different shapes is tossed in a winnowing basket. The answer to the client’s problems is ascertained through the resulting arrangement of the pieces. If the pieces representing parties to the situation fall on top together with the piece of white clay, they are innocent: if with red clay, they bear a grudge. Other arrangements distinguish between human and spiritual enemies, test for the presence of false accusations, and suggest the prognosis of the case (Turner

Tossing the heap is an oracular act; interpreting the heap is a social process. I t would not be difficult to predict the possible arrangements into which the pieces might fall, given the basic organizing principles of the basket (e.g.. above/below, near/far, and the specific pieces involved). Like the paper divination, however, the possibilities for interpretation seem endless. The Ndembu heat falls into apparent disorder when it is thrown. The order of its arrangements emerges only through relating them to a set of prior assumptions about the complex web of Ndembu social life and the diviner’s knowledge of i t . The possible interpretations of a given situation are limited. not by the formal proper-

1975~243- 32 X ).


ties of the oracle or the meanings assigned to individual combinations but by thr diviner's ability to construct his answers in response to typical problems and solutions.

The diviner's interpretations rely on the social distribution of information. My skepticism about the paper divination increased, because the diviner's answers revealcd a lack of social knowledge about me. He was not able to place the stages of his divination i n t o the context of a community and was, therefore, unable to point to a resolution t o my problems.

Social anthropologists have long argued that divination is a major vehicle for uncovering and relieving social conflict through the involvement of a larger community (l 'urner 1967:359 361. 374-393). Its explanation is to be found in society rather than in the diviner's basket. Clyde Mitchell emphasizes:

The crucial link between witchcraft as the abstract causative element behind misfortune a man rxperiences and the network of social relationships out of which the witchcraft arises, is the divining dance [ 1965:194].

The diviner deals with a sequence of events that his client considers harmful, unfor- tunate, or unusual. While the scientist considers such a misfortune random, t o the in - dividual the event's real meaning must be explained from within the web of personal possibilities. I f the client's familiar surroundings are free from difficulty, there are no clues to explanation. Misfortune is not simply part of an isolated. random sequence of events. It must correspond to and have a causal base within something unusual in the client's environment. Therefore, the diviner actually explains and predicts the structure of this correspondence. My Congolese friend was unable to complete his oracle because of an inadequate base to demonstrate correspondence. However, in many cases, the diviner elicits the information necessary to establish a social context of prediction. He asks the client himself to diagnose the problem by presenting all of the likely variables and the context of their appearance in his daily life. The diviner then establishes a new context of explanation drawn from the descriptions and synthesized by the immediate social context in which they appear: the divining seance.

I t is, of course, difficult to predict a future event solely on the basis of previous occurrences. Yet, the diviner searches for the pebble thrown into still water that generates the recurrence of a pattern. The pattern is the diviner's finding, and i t is precisely this discovery that characterizes his expertise. He strengthens the discovery by showing the correspondence between an apparently random system and the train of misfortunes that the client reveals. The diviner is not interested in the probability emerging from a series of cowry tosses, but is instead concerned with attributing an overall patterning to these tossings and giving them a personal meaning for the client. This does not imply that the diviner lacks expertise in analyzing the probability of certain tosses as an isolated system. However, for him there is more order in a sequence of events that is redundant and regularly patterned than one whose basis is random and less redundant (cf. Arnheim 1971:19-20). He examines the probability of the tosses as a practical method for gauging the oracle's effectiveness as an indicative device on a particular occasion (cf. Evans- Pritchard 1937:336). The key to this patterning is established through the diviner's own uncovering of an event's essential structure.

Mitchell (1965: 179-201) describes the case of a Shona diviner who attributed the cause of a churchman's death to animosity from local religious leaders. Since there was no legitimate way in which these church members could be definitely accused of witchcraft, this particular solution had to be abandoned. Through outside information, the diviner discovered that when the man's father had died in Malawi, the family had not sent a representative to the funeral. Ancestral anger could be looked to as a legitimate cause of misfortune. With this interpretation, the pieces of the diviner's puzzle fell into place. If

558 AMERICAN A NTHR 0 PO LOGIST [80. 1978

thc. rnan's family were to sacrifice two goats and perform some libations for the deceased, their troubles would end. When they did not follow these instructions immediately, t h e divinrr's diagnosis and his predictions were again substantiated through the continuation o f misfortune.

T h e diviner had provided a meaningful solution to his client's problem by determining the appropriate social context through which events should be interpreted. This solution. based on background information about the man's life and community, had its o w n closed structure o f verification. Finally, the diviner's solution was enforced within a community of believers, the deceased's immediate family. The predictions were statements of familiar social situations that the family had already encountered. The force of prediction relied entirely on the family's willingness to accept the terms and the underlying pattern that the diviner had defined.

I shall summarize the most important aspects of divination as a form of folk inquiry. The oracular act presents an external order to be applied to an event, but its interprcta- tion rests upon the social distribution of this order. In a threefold way, divination tlcpends upon social contexts for acceptance: (1 ) the context of the oracular presentation, ( 2 ) t h e context of the initial event, and (3) the context of prediction, that is, the undcrly- ing social context of the matter under discussion. In this sense, the theorists who point to divination as a way of resolving community rifts by witchcraft accusations have moved away from a reductionist theory of thought forms. They have sought to explain divination not simply in terms of the logic of the oracular process but in a more complete man- ner with respect to its social logic.6 Nevertheless, there is a tautology in this type of scientific explanation. The scientist tacitly employs the diviner's methods of gleaning common knowledge about his subject's world and uses this as the basis of sociological interpretations enforced by the strong mandates of a community of scientific colleagues.

The implications of this comparison will be explored later. Here, it is more ap - propriate to review the process of social validation used by the diviner.

There can be no doubt that the effect of an allegation of wizardry by a diviner is to make the divination the concern of the community as a whole. If this is the effect, it is possible that this is also the desired end. In the case of the professional diviner, the motive for the allegation may be primarily to enhance his prestige. An allegation of wizardry is, therefore, an appeal to the moral feelings of the community in an attempt to involve the community emotionally in a certain state of affairs. The reasons for making the appeal depend on the person making it and the events of the moment [Crawford 1967:281].

Obviously, the diviner's verdict is personal. The diviner has also discovered a point of intersection between his particular oracular practice and the daily lives of his clients. This discovery is the same as that previously defined as the second stage of knowledge in the proposed epistemology. One system of ordering events has been translated to the level of daily experience. This translation involves experimentation and open alternatives. Nevertheless, once the diviner locates an underlying pattern, many of these alternatives vanish and social validation is enforced. In this sense, divination can only be seen as prediction in and about the social context of its own occurrence. As such, it provides an interesting contrast with other emerging non-Western thought forms.

Apostolic Prophecy and Accountability

The Apostles of John Maranke (Vapostori or Bapostolo) are an indigenous African church now numbering over 300,000 adherents across Central Africa.' The church was founded by John Maranke. a MuShona visionary from Umtali, Rhodesia. It mixes elements of Shona custom with fundamentalist Christian doctrine. The church's beliefs


center around inspiration from the Holy Spirit. This spiritual power endows members with the socially recognized ability to perform faith healings and prophecies and to convert and evangelize newcomers. Apostolic prophets are impressive figures whose predictions are intended to steer the individual and the church as a whole clear of sin and worldly pitfalls. The prophet’s message is said to come uniquely from the Holy Spirit without interference from alien spirits (varoyi) or from personal communications such as gossip Uules-Rosette 1975: 172-183). A mistake in either direction invalidates the prophecy and renders it a type of divination or casting of personal opinion in the eyes of Apostles. While any candidate for prophecy can reject what is told him as untrue, he does so at his own risk and in the face of strong public support for the legitimacy of the prophet’s work. A denial must, therefore, be proven to the group, particularly to the evangelists who act as judges (bafongi) for cases recommended to them by the prophets.

Among the major tasks of the prophets is the detection of evil intent, sinful action, and witchcraft (cf. Murphree 1969:56-57). The prophet may either detect witchcraft through a spiritual examination of the candidate’s activities or investigate witchcraft cases refer- red by the batongi. The prophet can give only a spiritual verdict concerning a specific candidate or a case. The final decision is made by the court of evangelists. These evangelists in concert with other church elders judge individual sins and political matters concerning the entire congregation. Crawford (1967:233-234, 278-281) suggests that Apostolic prophets and the indigenous spiritual churches in general have taken the role traditionally assumed by divination ordeals and antisorcery movements. However, the prophets resent any indication that their work is akin to that of diviners. They assert that the diviner is an individual who elicits personal information about his client and who requests money to assemble this information into a reasonable solution to his problems.

The prophet is formally forbidden to seek such information and may not engage in any sort of dialogue with the candidate during a ritual performance.8 One prophetess who spoke too long was told by an elder to cut her stream of advice short lest she become like a pagan diviner (cf. also Aquina 1967:212-213). The candidate’s only response to the prophet is yea (Amen) or nay. In the event of the latter response, the candidate must present the case to the batongi either in a special session or before the c~ngrega t ion .~ If the prophecy is too vague, the candidate has little social recourse except to affirm what has been said in the hope that a clarification will come.

Thus, there are problematic cases of prophecy, or, in the Apostles’ terms, “real” and “false” prophecies. While the prophet’s use of gossip is forbidden, referring to common knowledge is inevitable. In this case, since the prophet’s statement is not technically incorrect, it may be difficult to deny what is said. If a prophet sees a young married woman with only one or two children, he is likely to ask, during prophecy, why there are not more. If he knows that the candidate is unmarried, the prophet may provide information about when the marriage will take place and who the partner will be. Already in posses- sion of specific information about where the candidate works, the prophet may locate specific enemies there. On one occasion, a prophet told a candidate through the Holy Spirit: “I see that you are putting some films in a bag. What are they for?” Here, “1 see” means “I see in a vision.” He had indeed been taking photographs of the church ceremony. It was obvious that the exposed films were being taken and placed in a bag. Rather than ask a question that could be answered by saying yes or no, the prophet had requested specific information. His prophecy was not incorrect. It was, instead, a clear documentary of what had occurred publicly and was visible to everyone present. The prophecy was “false” not because it was inaccurate but because it provided no information about the candidate that could not be furnished by any competent observer.

This prophecy contrasts with the prediction given by a Zai’rean prophet in 1969 that famine, war, and drought would surround his country in the 1970s but that these adverse

560 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [80. 1978

conditions would never enter the country or affect the Apostles if they were faithful. An excerpt from this prophecy is as follows:

This is what will happen in the seventies. There will be incessant wars all over the world, in white man’s country as well as black. This war will not respect border lines between countries. This war will even spread to the countries bordering the Congo. The serpent symbolized the refusal of God to send destructive war to the Congo. He does not agree that Congolese blood be spilled once more. But the famine will take over, beginning in the 1970’s. Rains will change the calendar. People will not be able to grow anything in their fields. People will trade their children against fortune so that they can survive. Then God asks you to find the means to store so that you will not be in misery. God is with you. This is according to the Spirit of God. (Formulaic closing for all prophecies.) Uules-Rosette 1975:277].

In this case, no individual could have given the prophet this information. Although the prophecy was general, it was subject to verification both through the course of events and the actions of the community as a whole. When the leaders said the “Amen” of affirma- tion to this prophecy, the burden of proof to take note of events to come was placed upon them as well as upon the prophet.

In contrast, when a prophet presents an allegation of witchcraft, the proof may be in- conclusive. Evidence is often weak or vague. Tensions are released and prophecies evaluated through a community of believers. Validation is also said to come from an external spiritual source. This external validation might be compared with the structure of the divinatory act discussed above. However, the prophetic verdict contains no clear-cut ritual steps other than the prophet’s own request for spiritually inspired information. On- ly the format of the prophet’s questioning and the message itself can be used to reveal the force of the prophecy. If these criteria are met, the community’s support in enforcing the prophecy is assured.

While observing the prophecies and healings of a Zionist group, an Apostle com- mented that these events were not “real.” The Zionists beat drums, danced, and yodeled during their healing ceremonies in contrast to the calmer Apostolic laying on of hands. The Apostle concluded that the drumming and dancing, forbidden in his church, were a form of “theater.” “All of this can only be a game,” he exclaimed. Upon reflection, he concluded that there was some justification for these practices, because they resembled the rites of the ancient Israelites. The Apostle had found a basis for evaluating a ceremony as false and ineffective on the basis of its form. The music and gestures that the Zionists used in their ceremony convinced him that it had not come from the Holy Spirit. He had applied the doctrines of prophecy and healing used in his group to an alien system of thought. His evaluations were concerned with the structure of the event rather than the logic that motivated it. His reactions were more intuitive and esthetic than reasoned.

In turn, an outside observer questioned the Apostle about the validity of faith healing in his group. “If the germ theory can explain and cure disease, why is faith healing necessary?” she asked. The Apostle, a faith healer, replied that since all illnesses have a supernatural cause, they can only be healed spiritually. This response did not mean that he could not recognize the common cold as a product of physical conditions. Physical illness as the product of environmental conditions is valid for Apostles. For them, various explanations can exist side by side, and new tenets can be mixed with old. Indeed, this possibility is implied by the very existence of an indigenous African Christianity. The explanations of a germ theory are inadequate for them, however, when it comes to actually diagnosing and healing a disease. Its spiritual and social causes are considered to be more deeply rooted than any physical explanation of disease. Should faith healing fail, an explanation is found within the purview of Apostolic beliefs: the individual has sinned; the proper diagnosis was not followed; the patient is a victim of persistent malice and sorcery.

Jules-Rosette] PROPHECY, DIVINATION, A N D SOCIAL INQUIRY 56 1

To demonstrate that the candidate has suffered from malaria, leukemia, o r yaws i s reasonable, but larger questions are still posed. Why this person? Why here and now?

In one instance, an Apostolic woman had stripped herself and her children naked. Slic had then run about her house proclaiming that the world’s end had come. The prophets captured and diagnosed her. They found that she was possessed by seven demons and prescribed exorcism as a cure. After the exorcism, the woman no longer disrobed publicly. But she was still unable to worship with the other Apostles. She sat about 20 ft . frorii the place of prayer, clothed, but without her church uniform, babbling to her chi1drc.n. and holding her hands in the air. At a church conference, I saw her lying on t h e cold ground without a blanket, begging the prophets for the clues to exorcism and thr healcrs for cure. When asked why her treatment had failed, a healer rejoined that the woman was much better than she had been a few months beforr and that the cure would br complete once the rest of the demons left her. In such a difficult case, he said. only a few demons could leave the woman at one time. In this instance, the process of prophvtic diagnosis and cure validated itself. The woman’s partial improvement was taken to in- dicate the success of the treatment.

Prophecy translates the facts of daily experience into its own system. For believrrs in this system, it transcends commonsense and scientific forms of explanation. Apostles (lo not assert that prophecy predicts the future. One evangelist stressed its role in purifica- tion through the revelation of hidden sins. “The key to Apostlehood is confession,” hc said, “and confession goes hand in hand with prophecy.” He described the prophet’s tasks: “We have the prophets: those who can see hidden things.” Another evangelist said: “The Apostle is like a scale. He never knows everything, because the next one knows half morc than he does, and the next one knows half more than fie does. There is always more he can learn.” Much of this learning takes place through prophecy.

Prophecy, however, cannot be proven or disproven in the same way that the truth of a declaratory statement is tested. The prophet does not object to other forms of knowledge and behavior. Instead, he calls them into question and views the solution, which is not in - fallible, as superseding other interpretations such as the germ theory or deductive logic. It is obvious that Christianity is not equated with Western science. The prophet stands at the intersection of Western and non-Western thought forms (Christianity and traditional religious beliefs). He does not completely cast aside the latter system of thought any more than he denies the relevance of germ theory for those who believe in i t . Rather, the Apostolic prophet consciously evaluates other systems of thought with respect to his own. Such evaluation involves neither doubt nor suspension of disbelief. The presence of a given disease is never ignored as in the case of Christian Science’s interpretation of disease as an illusory occurrence. The prophet seeks an ulterior explanation through which all other diagnoses are evaluated. Prophecy does not deny the existence of ancestral and alien spirits, i.e., traditional religion, any more than it does the discoveries of Western science. Instead, it reevaluates these interpretations in terms of its own system of thought.

The prophet’s evaluation must meet six important criteria: (1) It must be based on external spiritual verification rather than on personally collected information or theories. (2) The format of the spiritual diagnosis is self-validating. Apparent failures of the prophetic system are assessed only within that system. (3) Prophecies can apply to anyone, but they are enforced only within the group of Apostolic adherents. (4) The failure of a particular prophecy is possible only within the group. T o a believer, the process of prophecy cannot be disproven by global doubt, but individual prophecies can be refuted. (5) Prophecy is intended to readjust the candidate’s relationship to the larger group. Thus, an entire congregation may stand as a candidate for prophecy. (6) While individual messages can be challenged, prophecy as a self-validating system is enforced by the entire religious community.

562 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [80. 1978

Just as in the case of divination, extended objections to Apostolic prophecy are resolved on a piecemeal basis. This process of self-validation is the primary aspect of stability for any system of thought.

The stability of Azande beliefs is due in the first place to the fact that objections to them can be met one by one. This power of a system of implicit beliefs to defeat valid objections one by one is dur to the circularity of such systems (Polanyi 1964:288 2891.

All empirical facts are ultimately submitted to the premises of prophecy, and, on the basis of these assumptions. the system sustains itself. Nevertheless, there are degrees of circularity. Some circular systems do not admit other forms of evidence, while others a t - tempt to explain such evidence in their own terms. l 'his involves an evaluation of facts and of form. Most of the internal objections that Apostles posed to prophecy have to do with violations of form. External facts never violate form. They simply present more material to be molded into prophecy as a system of thought. These facts do not offer a threat to the system of prophecy, for they never challenge its foundations.

Through prophecy, facts are evaluated and its own grounds of knowledge and organization are examined. As part of a larger syncretic religious system, Apostolic prophecy shows its openness to other forms of thought. I t stands in contrast with essentialist reductions. such as the medical materialism so aptly criticized by William James (1902: 13 15). The medical materialist defines health and illness in purely physical terms. When these definitions cannot be sustained, materialism debunks other systems of thought as illusory and causally inadequate.

Prophecy suggests that two forms of thought can encounter each other with neither the pretense of objective neutrality nor the reductions of materialism. The prophet makes explicit the grounds on which he operates and from which he judges alternative explanations. Rather than doubt alternative explanations, the prophet uses them as a resource for his predictions. This process of reinforcement from other forms of thought characterizes syncretisms and thought forms in flux. These forms of thought move away from an exclusive circularity. However, some acknowledged element of circularity is needed to maintain the identity of one thought form with respect to another. Prophecy goes beyond the description of implicit belief systems as incapable of mutual evaluation:

T h e attribution of truth to any particular stable alternative is a fiduciary act which cannot be analyzed in non-committal terms. I shall return to this point in my next chapter. At the moment it only serves to make clear that there exists no principle of doubt the operation of which will discover for us which of two systems of implicit beliefs is true - except in the sense that we will admit decisive evidence against the one that we do not believe to be true, and not against the other. Once again, the admission of doubt proves here to be as clearly an act of belief as the non- admission of doubt [ Polanyi 19642941. This statement relies upon the implicit and unexamined aspects of a belief system.

Unlike traditional divination embedded exclusively in its own environment, the environment of prophecy includes other thought forms. When a system of thought is capable of evaluating itself, the criteria of judgment that i t uses with regard to alternative thought forms become clear. But after such evaluation, a further step is needed: the bringing to light of implicit tenets through critical communication.

REMOVING THE VEIL

Oracular Reasoning in the Social Sciences

Despite a certain awkwardness, the more positivistic schools of the social sciences retain the veil of objectivity associated with deductive proof. In a day when removing the veil is n o longer a scandal but rather a sign of self-assertion, the social sciences peer ovrr i t .


reluctant to confront the problems of subjective interpretation face-to-face. .l’hr celebrated lifting of the veil to reveal Max Weber‘s smile is given lip service in the legends o f t he discipline without taking further action. The seemingly explicit truths of objectivt, proof are, however, based on beliefs as fantastic and as circular as those carried in a Ndembu divining basket. The social sciences have their own divinatory methods that take the form of “valid” documentation, whether statistical or descriptive. These practices o f “oracular reasoning” (Garfinkel 1970-1971) include the search procedures of scientific inquiry and the circularity of the leap from intuition to axiom.I0 This “documentary search for meaning” (Mannheim 1952:56-57) involves assembling an order and searching for underlying patterns that render an apparently random and unanalyzed sequence of events sensible.”

The peculiar thing is, in fact, that in a certain sense one single form of documentary evidence gives a complete characterization of the subject; if we are looking further, it is in order to have corroborating instances containing the same documentary meaning in “homologous” fashion, rather than in order to supplement one fragment by others. Further, whatever documentary meaning we might have discovered by analyzing a partial aspect of a work can be corroborated only by other items of documentary interpretation as such [Mannheim 1952:57]. Documentary meaning gives form and structure to a swarm of events. It “involves the

treatment of an appearance as ‘the document of,’ as ‘pointing to,’ as standing on behalf of a presupposed underlying pattern” (Garfinkel 1959:57-58). Documentary meaning, therefore, gives the social scientist the illusion that prediction, whether interpretive or statistical, is a possibility. The divinatory trick involved is the creation of patterned results from individual pieces of evidence. Since any type of evidence can be fed into the social scientist’s plan and pattern, his methods are believed (if only by the social scientist himself) to substantiate objective truths. Thus, on the basis of only a few observations, the social scientist describes an event in the ethnographic present with the statement or the implications that it always takes place in the same way. Limited observations in one sector of a community allow the social scientist to predict how the entire community or population will respond. The collection of statistical data pushes the sociologist to make global predictions about occurrences that are actually hypothetical and limited to a small population.

The important feature about these predictions is that they establish circular criteria of truth that lead to infallible proof of an event’s occurrence and structure. The tacit caveat that such proof is subject not only to verification but also to the limitations imposed by the theories that generated it is seldom observed. Like the diviner’s art , this circularity permits doubt and questioning on a piecemeal basis within a system of thought as long as one returns to the underlying theory for answers. This circularity is implicit in such processes as axiomatizing and formalizing scientific systems. Each finding in a deductive system can be demonstrated to be a product of its theories and predicted through their methodological organization. However, this “logic of the artificial sciences” relies upon the resource of commonsense reasoning (Cicourel 1974: 123). If it is self-reflective. science can properly use other forms of reasoning to its advantage.

Certainly, in all cases, the social sciences do not pretend to be deductive and theoretically airtight. The criticism of basing conclusions on the statistical frequency of events has been taken up by many social scientists.

Few things in this world can be safely predicted from the frequency of their previous occurrence alone: and the voluntary abstinence by which pure statistics of this kind rejects any other criterion, that is to say any understanding of structure, will make calculations very difficult [Arn- heim 197 1 : 16- 171.

While few social scientists would rely solely on such calculations, many accept without question the relationship of correspondence between descriptions and events, between

564 AMERICAN A NTHR 0 POL OGIS T (80, 1978

tables and actual occasions of occurrence. This correspondence is. however, a sign relationship that resembles the equivalence established between the diviner's oracle and the event that he is predicting. For the diviner, so long as the act of divination follows its appropriate ritual form, the underlying correspondence that it establishes is unques- tionable.

The lack of ambiguity in the social scientist's documentation belies an "epicyclical" system of thought. This circular structure provides a "reserve of subsidiary explanations for difficult situations" (Polanyi 1964:291). All major interpretive frameworks have such a reserve that allows the thought form to remain intact and be repaired internally.

T h e rpicyciical character of Zande beliefs was shown above by the ready availability of eight different subsidiary assumptions for explaining a point-blank self-contradiction in the consecutive answers of a n oracle [Polanyi 1964:291]. Our everyday observation of events also relies on a similar epicyclical structure. We

take our perceptions of the world as infallible and usually do not question our eyes. Illu- sions are anomalies, unusual occurrences for which we are able to correct after the initial shock o f recognition. Because the social sciences approach the everyday world with the same assumption of infallibility, lay persons often confound them with commonsense thought. A theory is not, after all, necessary to explain how our neighbors will respond to insults o r how we will react under situations of stress.

The oracular aspect of social science goes beyond commonsense thinking by insisting that i t can, indeed, prove that the typicalities assumed in everyday life will recur. This proof is based upon an unexamined belief in the possibility of an objective theory of human behavior. Objectivity resides not solely in the proclaimed methods of Western social science, which as we have suggested vary widely, but in the assumption of an un- questioned correspondence between fact and theory. Therefore, whether one approaches human behavior as an aggregate phenomenon or as the product of individual interpretations has little influence upon the sociologist's oracular reasoning about events. The point is that the magic tricks through which the sociologist comes upon findings remain an unexamined resource of divinatory art.

l ' h e social sciences are not free of the communal enforcement which was indicated as an aspect of divination and prophecy. What we take for granted in our mundane reasoning about events is often learned so subtly that we hardly realize that preconceptions are there. These very preconceptions are expanded and transformed into grounds of in- ference. ?'he circle of proof expands and is able to embrace commonly known facts as the kernel of unconditional truths. The theories embracing these facts are established and reinforced by a community of scholars who, like the diviner's village and the prophet's congregation, censure taboos and transgressions. This community sustains its own faith in objectivism by referring to it as evidenced in such "virtues" as openmindedness, neutrality, validity, and logical proof. These attributes mask a theory that is not potent enough to reach the stage of evaluation, afraid to attempt a return to its own preconceptions, and too weak to approach other forms of thought without the threat of chaos once the logical circle is broken. Polanyi prophetically suggests this critical absence of self- analysis in the social sciences:

Objectivism has totally falsified our conception of truth, by exalting what we can know and can prove, while covering up with ambiguous utterances all that we know and cannot prove, even though the latter knowledge underlies, and must ultimately set its seal to, all that we can prove. In trying to restrict our minds to the few things that are demonstrable, and therefore explicitly dubitable, it has overlooked the a-critical choices which determine the whole being of our minds and has rendered us incapable of acknowledging these vital choices [ Polanyi 1964:289; emphasis in original].

Jules-Rosette] PROPHECY, DIVINATION, AND SOCIAL INQUIRY 565

.Socr'd Iirqur'ry as Discovery

The mask of objectivism can still be lifted. This process must begin by examining thr assumptions behind the preconceptions and conclusions of the social sciences. PI-op11cc.y as a form of thought teaches the social sciences openness and a capacity for self-analysis. I t was initially proposed that this process begins with a movement toward discovery by which the challenge of another thought form is met with openness. and new tenets arc adopted. Discovery as a research strategy suggests that the social scientist can no longer maintain a comfortable distance from -or even reasonably define - "subjects." l 'he line between inquirer and the object of inquiry begins to vanish when the social scientist ceases to view every conversation as a potential interview.'* These conversations then become occasions for instruction and the discovery of new thought forms. The social scientist becomes an apprentice in the topics investigated and absorbs them until they arc. part of his understanding. This process of intersubjective exchange can never be rom- plete, nor should it be. The alien researcher cannot recreate a biography or assume new ascriptive characteristics. This, of course, is not to suggest that the student of the gay bar become gay, or of poverty, poor. But the existing obstacles of objectivism that stand in the way of the rapprochement between thought forms and between theories and experience can be assaulted through theoretical self-assessment.

These suggestions for a more reflextive and less objectivist social science remain programmatic. They include:

1 . Ati efhnography q/discovery. The process of moving from theory to experience can be documented from the researcher's initial point of contact with reshaping experiences. This means that the researcher's own presence at an event or encounter with an idea becomes an object of inquiry along with the ostensible topic. Through the ethnography of discovery, the fallacy of logical reductionism is avoided. Social inquiry does not fault other systems of thought because they do not apply its tenets of experimentation. Nor does social theory apply criteria that it cannot meet to other forms of thought.

I t may be argued that the term ethnography implies pure description without analysis or further reflection. Pure description, however, generally assumes that an external object can be approached with terms that have already been established by the researcher. The terms include the researcher's own preconceptions and growing corpus of experience. These very preconceptions render pure description an impossibility. An ethnography of discovery challenges these preconceptions and the conventional objectivism of the social scientist. Accounts of conversion, apprenticeship, culture shock, ideological transformation, and the theoretical immobilization of which social science students complain are all part of the process of ethnographic discovery.

2. Euuluafion ofevidence. Polanyi (1964:294) asserts that it is not possible to assess one thought form in terms of another without misinterpreting one of the systems of implicit beliefs. The ethnography of discovery is intended to make the underlying beliefs of the social scientist and the world encountered explicit. These underlying prejudices of the world and of theory become topics of investigation. Once the prejudices are enunciated, no meaning is lost in evaluation. If Evans-Pritchard had realized the source of his own fallacy, it would merely have become an ethnographic description of his search to document meaning rather than a logical assessment.

Evaluation, as I intend i t , goes beyond the ethnography of discovery. The case of Apostolic prophecy demonstrates how a form of thought may be open to structural as well as empirical change. An "evaluating" form of thought can explain and absorb other thought forms. Prophecy, however, still maintains its own boundaries as a system distinct from its environment or social context and from the input of other thought forms. If, indeed, evaluation leads to decisive evidence brought against one thought form from

566 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIS?’ [80. 1978

anotlirr and a personal assessment of this thought form, this assessment is based 011 explicit grounds. and it takes into account the differences in the organization and appearance of t h e two systems of thought.

3. ’I.ruti.dutwi. The process of moving from one thought form to another can be communicated. Thus. the occurrence of a phenomenon, let us say, the striking of lightning. can be assessed in t w o different systems without logical contradiction. The labels of witchcraft on the one hand and atmospheric disturbance on the other mask the motiva- tions of the theorists for describing the effects of lightning in a certain way. To understand these explanations of witchcraft, the social scientist must approach this experience with an open-ended method of investigation. It is, then, possible to evaluate what witchcraft could mean in the context of a specific individual community and to interpret malice, jealousy, and animosity with respect to a given event. The label of a natural occurrence may linger in the scientist’s mind, but the experience of an alternate interpreta- t ion is always present. The ability to move between one theory and another, between sociological preconceptions and experience, is a prerequisite for the process of translation. 4. A ti ulli~rticitirw lorin of’ cotnmunication. Translation is a necessary antecedent to

final communication. After translation. the social scientist returns to a new community t o present discoveries. The full community is not just the bounded group of scholars to which the objectivist returns but, instead, a community that includes those from whom he is translating, those encountered in experience. The idioms of circular theory are n o longer adequate for a system where mutual feedback must take place. Alfred Schutz (1964:44) points toward this process of mutual communication when he suggests that the theorist’s terms must be translated into layman’s language and must be acceptable to him.13

I am not suggesting that every finding or theoretical advance be open to ratification by a general public. In fact, Schutz’s suggestion is not feasible unless the layman’s own assumptions are dismantled along with the scientist’s theories. A new form of communication, however, would express the ways in which the social scientist’s discoveries and encounters are communicated and provide for feedback to the initial source, the people, and the alternative thought forms involved. The further recommendation that the social scientist be judged by the layman then becomes possible, although not essential. In this way, the social scientist is able to make the underlying assumptions of his theory explicit and to express the grounds on which its integrity is established. The social scientist is not placed in a defensive position by this feedback operation. A communication that extends beyond the evaluation of one theory by another becomes necessary, however. The absorbing evaluation exemplified in prophecy does not make the final analytic step of explaining how this evaluation has taken place.

T h e 7’rutislutioti of Form

A major goal of research in the social sciences is to provide information about daily social activities and ways of thinking that might otherwise be taken for granted. The word “information” literally means “to give form.”“ A form of thought is the sum total of the organization of experience for a given group or individual. These experiences may be organized through religion, legend, music, art, or science: “Aesthetic and religious experiences are not wholly devoid of form; i t is just that their forms are suigeneris and radically different from those of theory” (Mannheim 1952:39). To “translate” these forms into the logic of theory is the object of social scientific inquiry (cf. Mannheim 1952:39-40). In each event, a form or structure of thought corresponds with a genre of communication. For Apostolic prophecy, variations in form make the difference between what individuals perceive as truth, error, or imbalance, between serious life (ritual) and theater or illusion. Behind the divinatory apparatus of the social sciences. that is. its

Jules-Rosette] PROPHECY, DIVINATION, AND SOCIAL INQUIRY 567

tables. illustrations. and descriptive vocabulary, lies the underlying question of form. This question is sometimes publicized under the heading of cultural differences. t h r problem of social order, or under the misleading heading of methodology. I t is ultimately , however. the question of how the social world can be meaningfully organized in many different ways. To conceive of methodology as a question of form, therefore, is merely a rrvelation of “living research” (cf. Mannheim 1952:37).

The four aspects of communication and discovery suggest that there are many basic forms through which similar problems are represented. Why one type of music uses a cer- rain scale while another does not is a matter of form. This does not mean that i t is possible to say that one musical piece is merely expressing the same thing as another in a different form. Rather, the selection of important musical ideas is entirely different in each format. T h e contexts in which the music is played and the intentions of the musicians contribute to these differences. In the case of causal explanations of an environment, the types of conventional expressions available to explain the world and the social context o f explanation (its audience) must be taken into account.

Asserting that the social scientist, the diviner, and the prophet are examining “the same” situation does not establish an equivalence in what they see. There is a similarity in oracular disciplines, however, whether they be scientific or folk, Western or non- Western. All seek to provide a reasonable explanation for events that extends beyond the moment of their occurrence. Both science and folk inquiry contain interpretive frameworks intended to dispel doubt and offer a rationale for familiar and extraordinary events.

I t is often said that one form is superior to another simply because it is more complex. Since a mammalian body includes several types of cells and organs. its form is somehow more adequate and functional than a single cell. This analogy only works when one orders thought forms into a hierarchical system, ignoring t h e social context in which they were generated. The social context of thought can also be used to debunk it. After all, the Azande did not have to deal with the complexities of modern urban life. Somehow, however, there remains the uneasy feeling that the circularity of their reasoning resembles that of modern philosophers.

The certainty of oracular prediction in one idiom may be totally irrelevant in another. Just as the Azande did not apply the standards of logical experimentation to their oracle in the absence of ritual incantations, the social scientist can easily cast ritual incantations aside in his interpretation^.'^ What, then, is happening when one thought form denies another as superfluous or borrows from another only certain aspects of its expression? When an animist regards Christ as a witchdoctor or a scientist accepts herbal remedies as chemically effective, one aspect of an idiom of belief has been translated into another. The Christian eschatology and the diviner’s belief in spirits have been lost in the process of translation. Nevertheless, the original conception of synthetic remedies and the traditional notions of the supernatural have, in this case, been modified. The purist balks at the translation of form and at the contamination of “primitive” systems of thought without the recognition that any set of beliefs that is actively in use is internally engaged in its own translation of form. Skepticism and evaluation maintain the boundaries of a system of thought, but these orientations are both equally plausible within the system.

Belief, therefore, is not merely a matter of form. Form allows one to locate the boundaries of belief. to distinguish the real from the illusory. The uncovering of beliefs, however, is the task of an epistemology that allows the social sciences to mirror themselves and to see other thought forms through that mirror. There are standards that distinguish science from commonsense and observation from action. The fallacy of the social sciences is that these standards are taken to be stable, obvious, and objective. However, the very construction of such criteria remains invisible to the researcher. The first step in unveil- ing them is the offering of a mirror of self-reflection through the meeting of contrasting

568 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [80, 1978

forms o f thought . T h c translation of form unmasks thc oracular and self-validating character of the social sciences. This translation allows the social sciences to achieve gen- uinc comprehension of the experiences a n d thought forms that they intend to describe by forcing them to approach the world of mind a n d society without guile.

NOTES l'hese social scientists. including Malinowski (1948). Horton (1967), Evans-Pritchard ( 1937).

'l'rnipels (1959). and Mbiti (1970), have developed theories to explain traditional forms of folk inquiry. Zimmerman and Pollner (1970) have also purposefully grouped together several forms of folk i 11 q ui ry .

Evans-Pritchard (1937: 12) distinguishes between mystical notions, "patterns of thought that at- tribute to phenomena supra-sensible qualities . . . which they do not possess," commonsense notions. patterns of thought logically inferable from observation, and scientific notions, based 011

comnionsense but using better observation, experiment, and rules of logic. These unexaminrd categories ground his analysis throughout the Azande study, viz., his statement (1937:63) that "witches, as the Azande conceive them, cannot exist." This paper proposes a comparative epistemology rather than advocating folk inquiry as such.

' Thr work of cross-cultural psychology includes: Segall. Campbell, and Herskovits (1966): Cole. Gay. Click, and Sharp (1971); Cole and Scribner (1974); Serpell (1976).

' l 'he decision to convert and my subsequent experiences as a neophyte Apostle are described in Jules-Rosette (1976).

Cicourel ( 1974:56) explains that descriptive vocabularies are "constituent features of the ex- prriences being described." Descriptive vocabularies both alter experience through indexing i t and are transformed by experience. See also Bar-Hillel (1954). Garfinkel and Sacks (1970:353 354).

See Marwick (1952: 120- 135, 213-233); Marwick, ed. (1970:217-318); Middleton and Winter, rds. (1963): Douglas. ed. (197O:viii-xxxvi. though Douglas' volume goes far beyond the pure social conflict orientation): Evans-Pritchard (1937); Mitchell (1965).

' Barrett (1968 and personal communication, 1972) estimated the total number of Apostles as 150,000: both this and the present suggestion of church growth to 300,000 are based on in- conclusive data.

There are four spiritual gifts serving as organizational divisions in the Apostolic church: pro. phecy. healing, baptism, and preaching. These gifts are divided into three ranks of Lieb-Umah or community leaders. A committee of 12 Lieb-Umah is in charge of the organization of each congregation. On the prophet's role in disputes, see Jules-Rosette (1975:158- 162).

Confession format and discussion of prophecies vary with the occasion, the ritual setting, and the congregation. In Lusaka, Zambia, prophetic testimony and confession are held in the public worship settings as well as in a nearby secluded area.

l o Although this discussion of oracular reasoning differs from Garfinkel's intent, our treatments of it share the concern with the circularity of scientific reasoning. Cf. Pollner's (1973) description of conflict between mundane assumptions about the everyday world and a more critical approach that questions the epistemological basis of "fact." Cf. also Eglin's (1974:323-350) discussion of oracular reasoning in alchemy and science.

' I Mannheim (1952:56-57) states: "Documentary meaning also is conveyed by 'objectifications' -what is characteristic of the documentary sense may again be ascertained from the way in which the subject matter is selected and represented and from the way in which the medium is shaped. . . . Now after the documentary meaning of one phase of work is ascertained, we still need further evidence, in order to make the characterization of the man behind the work complete."

In his discussion of fieldwork,.Cicourel (1964:73) refers to every encounter between the social scientist and the layman as a potential interview. When the social scientist can begin to move away from this point of conception, learning about other systems of thought can begin.

I 3 Schutz (1964:44) emphasizes that: "Each term in a scientific model of human action must be constructed in such a way that the human act performed within the life world by an individual actor

Jules-Rosette] PROPHECY, DIVINATION. AND SOCIAL lNQUlR Y 569

be understandable for the actor himself as well as for his fellowmen in terms of common-sensr intcr pretation of everyday life. Compliance with this postulate warrants consistency of constructs o f thc. social scientist with the constructs of common-sense experience of social reality.” However, I am not suggesting that every statement requires such translation.

Arnheim (1971:15-25) explains the relationship of information to form and structure. Infor- mation theory conceives of form and order in terms of maximum randomness and minimum redundancy. The order is based on the irregular or that which does not fit into a series. The opposite is true for the interpretive sciences. Order, patterning, and redundancy are documented. We have discussed pattern finding here as the technique of the documentary search for meaning that characterizes all self-validating theories, whether folk or scientific.

”, Polanyi (1964:292-295) explains the treatment of outmoded theories by scientific inquiry

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the veil of objectivity: prophecy, divination, and social inquiry

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