"Alongside the captivatingly rich and detailed ethnographic portrayal, the refreshing scholarly analysis authoritatively examines many of the epistemological, ontological and ethical questions that the millennia-old and vital shamanic divination practices put to the human sciences and their modernist mode of inquiry and world view." * Rene Devisch, Catholic University of Leuven " - an important study of Mongolian magical innovations to change fortunes. Focusing on the temporal dimensions of magic, distinguishing the delayed effect from the immediate effect, Swancutt challenges numerous conventional anthropological ideas of magic." * Uradyn E. Bulag, University of Cambridge "[A] well mapped-out ethnographic background and a welcomed contextualisation of religious practices and local cosmologies, the author brilliantly brings alive the micropolitics of religious activity at the household level." * Stephane Gros, Center for Himalayan Studies, CNRS
