Sensing the presence of gods and spirits across cultures and faiths.

Hearing the voice of God, feeling the presence of the dead, being possessed by a demonic spirit-such events are among the most remarkable human sensory experiences. They change lives and in turn shape history. Why do some people report experiencing such events while others do not? We argue that experiences of spiritual presence are facilitated by cultural models that represent the mind as "porous," or permeable to the world, and by an immersive orientation toward inner life that allows a person to become "absorbed" in experiences. In four studies with over 2,000 participants from many religious traditions in the United States, Ghana, Thailand, China, and Vanuatu, porosity and absorption played distinct roles in determining which people, in which cultural settings, were most likely to report vivid sensory experiences of what they took to be gods and spirits.

Bridging graduate education in public health and the liberal arts.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst is part of Five-Colleges Inc, a consortium that includes the university and four liberal arts colleges. Consortium faculty from the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the university and from the colleges are working to bridge liberal arts with public health graduate education. We outline four key themes guiding this effort and exemplary curricular tools for innovative community-based and multidisciplinary academic and research programs. The structure of the consortium has created a novel trajectory for student learning and engagement, with important ramifications for pedagogy and professional practice in public health. We show how graduate public health education and liberal arts can, and must, work in tandem to transform public health practice in the 21st century.

Similarities and differences in concepts of mental life among adults and children in five cultures.

How do concepts of mental life vary across cultures? By asking simple questions about humans, animals and other entities - for example, 'Do beetles get hungry? Remember things? Feel love?' - we reconstructed concepts of mental life from the bottom up among adults (N = 711) and children (ages 6-12 years, N = 693) in the USA, Ghana, Thailand, China and Vanuatu. This revealed a cross-cultural and developmental continuity: in all sites, among both adults and children, cognitive abilities travelled separately from bodily sensations, suggesting that a mind-body distinction is common across diverse cultures and present by middle childhood. Yet there were substantial cultural and developmental differences in the status of social-emotional abilities - as part of the body, part of the mind or a third category unto themselves. Such differences may have far-reaching social consequences, whereas the similarities identify aspects of human understanding that may be universal.

Everyday Care and Precarity: Buddhaghosa and Thai Social Story-Making.

In this article, Buddhaghosa's fifth century philosophy provides a productive framework for deciphering contemporary social caregiving in Thailand. In particular, his work and the tradition it inspired helps bring forth a local theory of mind and related narrative forms that, when utilized in examination of group patterns of interaction, illuminate the intertwining of care and precarity in everyday practices of providing for others. In turn, I call for experimentation in anthropological storytelling, including ensemble work, to ensure that habits of professional practice do justice to the care manifest in the precarious conditions in which anthropologists so often engage.

Narrating the Future: Population Aging and the Demographic Imaginary in Thailand.

Middle-aged, working- and middle-class people in urban Northern Thailand are using demographic categories to imagine their future identities as 'senior citizens'. I here introduce the term demographic imaginary to provide a conceptual framework for understanding how characterizations of the population at large are constructed, take hold, and shape group identification. More than simply justification for study and action, demographic categories and prognoses are key components of the social world made visible in narratives at the micro- and macro-social levels. With careful ethnographic attention to the stories people tell and those they refuse, I argue a synchronic future is at play in the present, underscoring the importance of narratives about the future for the lived experience of today.

Avian and pandemic influenza: a biosocial approach. Introduction.

The Harvard University Asian Flus and Avian Influenza Workshop, held in December 2006, introduced a biosocial approach to the preparation for and control of pandemics. A biosocial approach brings together the biological and social sciences to develop an integrative, collaborative response to the threat of pandemic influenza. The articles in this supplement provide a representative sampling of some of the ways in which the workshop worked toward this biosocial vision. These articles address the historical "siting" of epidemics, political and structural pandemic preparedness in China, lessons to be taken from the 1976 "swine flu affair," possibilities for genetic engineering as an alternative to poultry vaccination, issues to be considered in the control of infectious disease in swine and avian species, the ecology of influenza in migratory birds, and issues of stigma and trust during the control of epidemics. The need to build public trust and public health infrastructure is one of the primary messages of this collection.

Asian flus in ethnographic and political context: A biosocial approach.

This collection highlights some of the social, cultural, political and economic factors that must be considered in developing a biosocial approach to pandemic influenza control and prevention. To date, most discussions of the current spread of avian influenza and a predicted human influenza pandemic have lacked rigorous analysis of the local contexts in which flus arise and in which the effects of a pandemic would most strongly be felt. Such local engagement is necessary to the development of an effective and ethical programme of epidemic control. The papers in this special issue take a step towards filling this gap by exploring the local moral worlds associated with avian influenza in China, Indonesia and Thailand.