METHODS OF RESEARCH

My primary research strategy in conducting research on both the Levite sect and the Spiritual movement was participant-observation. As a participant-observer, I not only observed the lives and activities of the Levites and Spiritual people but also participated, at least in part, in their round of activities. As Crane and Angrosino (1984:64) argue, participant- observation is not so much a technique for field research but rather “more a state of mind, a framework for living in the field.” From the beginning of both of my studies, I kept a log of my observations and conversations with the Levites and Spiritual people, respectively. In the case of the Levite sect, I wrote notes on my observations while alone, either at home after reli- gious or study meetings at the Salt Lake and Springville branches, or else during visits to the desert communities of Eskdale and Partoun. I was reluctant to take notes during religious services or at community events among the Levites because I feared, probably erroneously, that I might somehow offend them. In contrast, in my many visits to Spiritual churches in various parts of the United States, my confidence in my research abili- ties had matured to the point that I felt comfortable routinely taking notes at religious services and study classes.

I also conducted interviews on a wide variety of topics with leaders and members of both the Aaronic Order and many of the Spiritual churches that I visited. These included interviews with 35 Levites about their con- version experience and with 8 Spiritual healers (Baer 1978, 1981). While formal interviews with members of both of these religious movements provided me with useful information, I feel that an even more important source of data were casual conversations during work (in the case of the Levite desert communities), in people’s homes, after religious and study meetings, and before and after meals at the Eskdale commune and during suppers in Spiritual churches. As Crane and Angrosino (1974:57) note, “Most anthropologists [and many sociologists] freely admit that a surpris- ingly large part of their information—sometimes the best information” comes from informal or impromptu interviews.

I gathered most of the data for my study of the Levite sect between October 1973 and November 1975 while a graduate student in the Depart-

ment of Anthropology at the University of Utah. This research was fol- lowed up with interviews of some members after a major schism that occurred following the expulsion of the leaders of a Pentecostal or charis- matic movement within the Aaronic Order. Between January 1975 and June 1975 I was involved in full-time fieldwork among the Levites. During this time I frequently visited the desert communities of Eskdale and Par- toun, attended worship services and study classes at the Salt Lake and Springville branches, and interviewed members in all the branches. Fol- lowing more than a decade of direct contact with the Levites, I revisited the Eskdale commune and the Salt Lake branch over the course of several days in December 1986 in order to update myself on changes that had occurred in the Order for the epilogue of a book that I was in the process of completing (Baer 1988a).

Whereas the greater portion of my ethnographic research on the Levite sect served as the central component of my initiation as an anthropologist, my research on Spiritual churches allowed me to mature as a fieldworker. There are few advantages that derive from the experience of being some- thing of an academic gypsy in the tight market that anthropologists have faced over the past two decades. As for myself, one of the inadvertent benefits of this otherwise awkward situation was the opportunity to con- duct ethnographic research on Black Spiritual churches in various parts of the country. After I discovered my first Spiritual church in October of 1977, I visited over the next 20 months, at least whenever time permitted a break from my teaching load, the 11 Spiritual churches in Nashville, Tennessee. My research focused upon the Temple of Spiritual Truth (pseudonym), a storefront near the central business district, but I also visited all of the other Spiritual churches in the city at least twice. During the period of 1977–87, I visited 42 Spiritual congregations in 16 cities and 12 states and attended over 100 religious services, as well as many other events, includ- ing study classes and suppers, in Spiritual churches.

As a postdoctoral fellow in the Medical Anthropology Program at Michigan State University during the 1979–80 academic year, I visited 14 Spiritual churches in southeastern Michigan, 8 of them in Detroit, 5 in Flint, and 1 in Saginaw. Two of these congregations, one in Detroit (the national headquarters) and one in Flint, were affiliated with the Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church (UHSC) established by Father George Hurley, the “Christ of the Aquarian Age,” in 1923 (see Baer 1984:82–109). During the 1980–81 academic year, I conducted research on four temples affiliated with the UHSC in the New York metropolitan area (two of these congre- gations were located in New York City and the other two in New Jersey). I visited one of the congregations in New York six times and the other four times. I visited one of the congregations in New Jersey twice and the other once. During 1981–82 I conducted in-depth research on a congregation in a small Mississippi city affiliated with the Spiritual Israel Church and Its

Army, an association that I had first discovered in Michigan. Over the course of my research, I also visited two Spiritual congregations in Indi- anapolis, three in Chicago, one in Pittsburgh, one in Cleveland, one in Memphis, one in New Orleans, one in Kansas City, Missouri, one in Balti- more, and one in North Little Rock, Arkansas. My research on the Temple of Spiritual Truth in Nashville, on the Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church in Detroit, Flint, and the New York metropolitan area, and with a Spiritual Israel congregation (see Baer 1985) in Mississippi provided me an inten- sive view of the Spiritual movement; my work elsewhere allowed me to develop a more extensive view.