ABSTRACT
One of the outcomes of writing this book is my conviction that questions of religion-Are people inherently religious and, thus, is religion central to explanations of human history?—cannot be extricated from questions of agency, by which I mean the power to alter relationships and to shape history (Latour 1999: 303). Certainly, religion involves mystical agencies that, it is claimed, influence the affairs of people. Understanding how that happens means pinpointing the convergences wherein the ethereal is presenced on earth (Parker Pearson 2001: 203). How closely is this process connected to the agency of people?
