A MOMENT WITH CHRIST - THE IMPORTANCE OF FEELINGS IN THE ANALYSIS OF BELIEF

This article considers an uncanny feeling experienced during fieldwork in Malta, and examines indigenous explanations of this and other simi lar feelings. In Malta, explanations of such strange or uncanny experi ences vary, but religious explanations present themselves as particula rly convincing. The religious indoctrination process involves the crea tion of powerful feelings, which are sedimented as memories in the bod y of the believer and serve as a reference point for subsequent strang e experiences. I therefore argue that feelings are both produced by, a nd give meaning, to religious belief. It has become de rigeur to criti cize the 'logocentrism' of anthropology and to favour an anthropology of the body. I suggest that such an approach should also incorporate t he anthropology of feelings, but that this need not entail a shift in ethnographic writing.