"A very unusual combination of anthropology and art studies, showing how sacred images are born, live, and die. Laurel Kendall uncovers the deeper meaning of the objects admired by collectors and connoisseurs as revealed through the eyes and hands of the people who make, use, and revere them."--Piers Vitebsky, author of Living without the Dead: Loss and Redemption in a Jungle Cosmos "Mediums and Magical Things is a contribution to the study of the materiality of religions in Asia. Not limited to a single field, it is instead a comparative study based on fieldwork of Vietnamese, Burmese, Balinese, and Korean practices and concepts. Kendall has devised a conceptual framework that allows meaningful comparison and brings out both similarities and differences. The process results in new perspectives, derived from the comparison, on individual fields. Through its methodological and conceptual framework, the book may also be an inspiration to researchers of other material objects used in a religious context and other regions."--Boudewijn Walraven, author of Songs of the Shaman: The Ritual Chants of the Korean Mudang