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- Convenors:
-
Vlad Naumescu
(Central European University)
Arnaud Halloy (University of Nice Sophia Antipolis)
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- Format:
- Workshops
- Location:
- 430
- Sessions:
- Thursday 28 August, -, -, Friday 29 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Ljubljana
Short Abstract:
This panel explores spirit possession in the light of recent research in cognitive sciences. Our empirically-driven questions are: how can we make sense of an experience which is entirely subjective and social in the same time? Which theoretical and methodological approaches could grasp the ways in which possession is actually learned and transmitted?
Long Abstract:
Spirit possession is an extreme way of knowing the 'other' by embodying it; the kind of 'first-hand' religious experience, in William James' terms, which still provokes great interest among anthropologists. While in some societies spirit possession and trance have been considered as favorite means of expression for marginalized and oppressed, in others, cultivated by religious experts, they form the core of the local religion. In spite of the variety of possession cults and practices around the world there are strong similarities in the possession experience. In this panel we intend to bring together cases of spirit possession from various religious traditions, from Christianity to Brazilian Candomblé, in search of its underlying characteristics. Our interest is to explore the processes through which this human experience becomes religious or dissociative (disorder), as negotiated between cultural frames and individual insight. For this, we will focus on processes of 'learning possession' and the successful transmission of representations related to spirit possession. Although much has been written about it, few anthropologists addressed possession as a mode of knowledge or a mode of attending to the world. In this panel we intend to pursue this direction further in the light of recent research in cognitive sciences. We are interested, among others, in the role of cognition and imagination in creating an experience of dissociation and in the role of emotions as somatic markers for 'recognizing' possession.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 28 August, 2008, -Paper short abstract:
Examples of case studies on the religious experience among the members of Hare Krishna in Zagreb, Croatia with some theoretical approaches will be discussed using the notions of «captivated consciousness», «cultivated imagination» as well as Indian conceptions of emotion in rasa theory.
Paper long abstract:
In my presentation I would like to give an overview of my ongoing research on the religious experience among the members of Hare Krishna, a religious community active in Zagreb, Croatia since the late seventies.
The applied phenomenological methodology revealed religious sensations reported by the informants with a variety of sensorial, cognitive and affective elements.
On the examples of several case studies I would like to show how intimate and subjective reality of the supernatural is shaped by social environment satiated with complex theological beliefs and practices systematically applied in the pursuit of the ultimate aim of Vaishnava systematic theology - creating the experience of love of Krishna.
I shall also try to propose several theoretical approaches adopted in the line of phenomenological framework of my research. Notions of «captivated consciousness», and «cultivated imagination» as well as the Indian conceptions of emotion in rasa* theory will be discussed. Such reflections will hopefully prove useful in better understanding how Hare Krishna theistic philosophy and culture with its elaborate and repetitive method of imbuing religious practice with devotional passion facilitates experience conceptualization and it's immediate impact on both subjective and social levels of an individual.
• flavour, taste, aesthetic or religious sentiment, charm of exchange in a relationship
Be(com)ing a cult member or spirit medium: the malopo cult in South Africa revisited
Johann Kriel
(University of Pretoria)
Paper short abstract:
This paper revisits the malopo spirit possession cult in South Africa by examining the way in which membership is attained through an intense emotional journey from afflicted individual to a fully cured spirit medium, involving intense training and major cognitive adjustments.
Paper long abstract:
The spirit possession cult known as malopo in South Africa apparently has it roots in East and Central Africa. Ever since its introduction to the inhabitants of the Limpopo Province in the early twentieth century, the cult has evoked ambivalent views among local people. Although some are not interested at all and others merely participate in the often spectacular possession dances, some have indeed become active cult members and spirit mediums.
Becoming cult members or spirit mediums implies altering existing views about the relationship between the 'living' and the 'living dead' and accepting new ideas about the cause, diagnosis, and treatment of illness and disease. The core question that this paper aims to answer is how this process of adjustment is managed by the individual. How does the individual reconcile the 'old' belief that the ancestral spirits should be confined to their ancestral abode to preclude illness and misfortune with the 'new' belief that such spirits should be enticed to actually leave their abode and enter the body of a living person to facilitate a cure? What are the successive steps that a person has to take in order to progress from an afflicted individual to a fully cured spirit medium or cult member? Is it possible for an individual to feign an affliction in order to become a cult member?
This paper explores the processes of becoming a malopo spirit medium or cult member by focusing on the emotional struggle to submit to the 'call' of the ancestral spirits.
Paper short abstract:
The Miskitu people of Eastern Nicaragua are occasionally troubled by a spectacular illness called grisi siknis or “crazy sickness,” said to be caused by spirits. This paper inquires into how Miskitu healers ritually transform the experience of the afflicted through an idiom of the spirit world.
Paper long abstract:
The Miskitu people of Eastern Nicaragua are occasionally troubled by a spectacular illness called grisi siknis or "crazy sickness," said to be caused by spirits. The problem, which occasionally takes epidemic proportions, is characterised by a violent, hysterical reaction as the afflicted loose consciousness, begin to run around together, and may hurt both themselves and others. Western medical personnel have never found any organic cause of the problem and have had difficulties finding a cure. Treatment is instead performed by Miskitu healers who isolate the patients and ritually transform the experience of the afflicted through an idiom of the spirit world. Afflicting spirits are ritually turned into supporting ones, and the afflicted develop a new attitude and a new way of understanding themselves and their problem. Illness and suffering is reinterpreted as signs of possession and sorcery and given concrete form which also makes possible resolving the problem. It is suggested that the Miskitu spirits may represent both positive and negative social relationships, and both well-being and illness. Spirit possession help the Miskitu to interpret the world as the spirits may be a sign of, or express, social, psychological, and physiological conditions. Similarly, the spirits represent a model for healing and wellbeing as they can change a person's condition from illness to health.
Paper short abstract:
We have used the orixas cosmology to cure psychological diseases. And the results were successful. This therapeutical way is developing from an universal understanding of the relationship between humans and nature according to a holistic perspective. We will discuss here a clinic case of depression.
Paper long abstract:
Winnicott have perceived the threat of disintegration and chaos because of undifferentiated structure of primary mind processes. During the early few months, the baby gets illusion that she/he is responsible for creating the world, feeling to be oneness with the mother, either in a positive oceanic sensation, or in a terrifying sensation of fragmentation. The baby experiments sway states, embedding mother's emotions but also environment nature energies. Have the baby others possibilities than those which run on a line from psychotic answers, to creative answers ? So what does Milton Erickson do when he inducts a hypnosis trance by sending confused messages which connect the archaic dissociated communication from an altered consciousness state ? Doing that, he manages a regression until the dissociated states of mind appear. He takes the place of the "sufficiently good mother" in order that the sway is a new experience of healing by connecting emotional positive balance. Is there a possession ? May be yes, by Erickson's one unconscious. He plays, at this moment, the holding function of the shaman. So, we are able to understand what means the formula : hypnosis is a trance of possession without possession. But it is the result of a hidden therapeutic role, as psychoanalysts say a "non-dit". So the psychoanalytic theories give an answer.
Paper short abstract:
The study compares systematic visual data of possession trances in three unrelated cultural settings. A number of similar somatic & psychomotor markers were identified cross-culturally. However, their time sequencies and local "subcultural" interpretations differed.
Paper long abstract:
The present study springs from documentatary work over a decade in North Indian healing shrines (Hindu and Muslim) including extensive visual documentation of trances and possession trances used in local treatments of mental health problems. The author decided to compare those observed at the famous shrines of Balaji (Rajasthan) with material of two independent visual series from Europe:
First, the richly documented and illustrated descriptions of "major attacks of hysteria" in photos and drawings by Jean-Martin Charcot at La Salpetrière over a century ago in Paris. He considered that "the hysterics of today are the possessed of yesterday". He also specifically described a "demonic variant of major hysteric attacks".
A second comparative series became available as the author was invited to document the trance sessions of a well-known Finnish "energy healer" in Helsinki. Along with interviews, the healer and her patients accepted to be extensively photographed and filmed during treatment session.
In this presentation, the three series are illustrated and compared using slides and videoclips. The data show in discrete psychomotor trance manifestions and somatic markers intriguing similarities. In terms of repertory, frequency and intensity they are most striking between the Indian and the Charcot series. Motor phenomena in the Finnish series had similarities with both other series but their repertory was smaller, less frequent and less intensive. It is obvious that the observed similarities cannot be due to chance. Neither could they be explained by supposing similar suggestions or learning paths.
In terms of process and time sequence of psychomotor and somatic phenomena the three series showed differences. Also, the "sub-cultural" local meanings assigned to them were quite different.
The study discusses the observed similarities and differences . A common psychophysiological capacity for trance phenomena is presumed. Paradoxically, it can be manifested both in healing rituals and pathological conditions, nowadays often called dissociative states. Cultural context is decisive for process and local interpretations. Based on the comparative analyses a new cultural hypothesis is presented on the "major hysteric attacks" as non-therapeutic ritual possession trances.
References:
Charcot JM, Richer P. Les Démoniaques dans l´art. Paris: Macula, 1984. (original by Delahaye&Lecrosnier, Paris 1887.)
Didi-Huberman G. Invention de l´Hystérie: Charcot et l´iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière. Paris, Macula 1982.
Hernesniemi, A: "Do 'healers with healing hands' emit thermal radiation to patients?". Book of abstracts. Lääkäripäivät 2001 : luentolyhennelmät. 292 p. Suomen lääkäriliitto: Helsinki. 2000.
Pakaslahti A. Family-centered treatment of mental health problems at the Balaji temple in Rajasthan. In: Parpola A, Tenhunen S. (eds): Changing patterns of kinship and family in India. Studia Orientalia 84. The Finnish Oriental Society. Gummerus: Helsinki, 1998, pp. 129-166.
Pakaslahti A. Ritual possession trance and dissociative disorder: a cross-cultural comparison. WorldPsychiatric Association: Transcultural Newsletter/Autumn 2001.
Pakaslahti A. Terminology of spirit illness: an empirical study from a living healing tradition. In: D Wujastyk (ed). Papers of the World Sanskrit Conference 2003. Vol 7 Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. Delhi: 2008, in press, pp 155-192.
Spirit possession in Guinea-Bissau and Senegal
Maria Teixeira
(umr1123 ECEVE - Inserm - Université Paris Diderot)
Paper short abstract:
Possessed Manjak women discover misfortunes that threaten their society and, by the same way, offer it a means to counter witchcraft by specific divinatory and therapeutic ritual. The ritual action is accomplished by the irruption of a divinity with whom an immediate communication is possible.
Paper long abstract:
Possession exists in so many societies that it seems banal. However, each society gives to this phenomenon a particular place and meaning within its religious system. The assignment of one or the other sex to the possession, its more or less spectacular forms and more or less organized rituals, show its great diversity. However, I argue that it is possible to have a more global comprehension of this phenomenon. In order to defend this argument, I will use the Manjak example, analyzing the language of the possession and its various codes by the projection of a short audio-visual document. In this paper, I will describe a relatively recent possession cult, which appeared a hundred year ago. In this cult, possessed persons prove to be women although men rank among its leaders. Manjak trance is seldom spectacular even though emotions could overflow and make the possessed women become more violent, threatening, or in tears. The control of the possession is done gradually but without any formal initiation, nor recourse to psychotropic substances. Possessed persons discover misfortunes that threaten Manjak Society and, by the same way, offer it a means to counter witchcraft by using specific divinatory and therapeutic ritual. Officiants give a meaning to misfortune by creating answers which symbolism is recognized by all. The ritual action is accomplished by the irruption of a divinity with whom a direct and immediate communication is possible.
Demons and paths to church adherence ('votserkovlenie'): possession and conversion around a Russian Orthodox exorcist
Dr. Komáromi Tünde
(Károli Gáspár University, Budapest)
Paper short abstract:
Based on fieldwork in Sergiev Posad monastery, Russia I argue for an approach to demonic possession and exorcism deliverance that takes into account conversion studies in order to better understand the cognitive and social transformations under way.
Paper long abstract:
Religious conversion is often described as a radical reorientation of the self followed by a series of cognitive and social transformations. Possession is an experience of the spiritual forces from within the person; an eventual exorcism or deliverance 'restores' the self into its 'natural' state. My paper is exploring the intersection of these two concepts and argues using empirical case studies of post-possessed converts that the transformations associated with possession and exorcism are often lead to conversion.
During my fieldwork in an Orthodox Christian Russian parish I encountered several cases (mostly women) whose religious career was closely associated with personal experiences of suffering and relief from demonic influences. In these cases deliverance or exorcism from possession was followed by strong adherence to the parish and its associated structures (ex. serving as aides in the church, the canteen of the parish ('trapeza') or hostels built around the church etc).
Large part of the conversion studies focus on missionary work and conversion to Christianity in the protestant and neo-protestant denominations. The anthropological study of changing church adherence ('votserkovlenie' - in the Russian case) and conversion is relatively neglected in the Eastern Christian traditions. The experiences of possessed people and their conversion careers show that these phenomena far from being survivals 'from times long passed' are better understood as responses to contemporary social transformations and the postsoviet way to 'modernity'.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on a long tradition that underlines the intrinsic relation between imagination and religion, I propose a conceptual integration of different ideas related to the role of imaginative processes in particular religious experiences such as spirit possession and exorcism.
Paper long abstract:
Imagination and its most visible outcome, mental imagery, have always been a necessary presence in extraordinary religious experiences. What we perceive as visions, dreams or dissociative states appear as spontaneous experiences independent of the conscious thought. Such experiences are the outcome of a set of developed techniques for inducing states of enhanced imagistic activity for acquiring special religious knowledge; a cultural process described as the 'cultivation of mental imagery' (Noll 1985: 445).
The issue of 'training' religious imagery has not been raised until now in the context of the Eastern Christian tradition even though it is manifest in both its theology and practice. The ethnographic case I propose comes from my fieldwork in a male monastery in Western Ukraine. There, monks focused on a tradition of prayer that leads oneself to an experiential knowledge of God. Through their daily practice monks are cultivating a particular relationship to God that granted them access to divine power and mystical inspiration. I argue that the cultivation of imaginative practices should be regarded as a complex learning process involving cognitive, bodily-sensorial and social aspects at once. Moreover, I am interested to explore the creative potential of religious experiences, especially the capacity of some rituals to convert individual imagination into innovation.
Paper short abstract:
Je propose une analyse des cris émis par les divinités de la umbanda : une religion brésilienne hautement syncrétique apparue au début du XXe siècle dans les grandes métropoles du sud et qui se pratique à travers des rituels de possession.
Paper long abstract:
Dans un rituel umbanda, la masse sonore couplée à la religion est constituée des rythmes frappés sur plusieurs tambours et des chants qui les accompagnent. Au-delà de ces éléments, on relève d'autres manifestations sonores comme les cris qui informent sur le rituel même si on ne le voit pas. Si une personne crie, il y a possession. Soit c'est l'officiant qui crie pour appeler les divinités à « descendre » dans le corps des médiums, soit ce sont les divinités incorporées elles-mêmes qui crient. Cet élément sonore, le cri, est donc significatif de la possession pendant le rituel, en revanche chants et percussions sont omniprésents du début à la fin du rituel, qu'il y ait possession ou pas. Un connaisseur peut somme toute reconnaître un chant d'appel ou de renvoi de la divinité.
Dans quelle mesure le cri est-il un élément qui prend une valeur équivalente au chant ? Le cri est plus souvent considéré comme dissocié de la musique. Dans la umbanda comme dans beaucoup d'autres rites, la musique n'est pas dissociée de la religion, du rituel, de la magie.
The enactment of self and the nature of knowledge among mediums in Cuban espiritismo
Diana Espirito Santo
(Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)
Paper short abstract:
Cuban spirits, like their mediums, are pragmatic.Unconcerned by notions of belief or representation, they ask to be made present in a tangible social environment. Can we conceive of the 'possessed 'self', as Cuban spiritists do: transcending the boundaries of its body, yet made evident within it?
Paper long abstract:
In Cuba, spirit mediums, known simply as espiritistas, are individuals whose unique relationships to their muertos (their spirits) enable them to receive, discern and interpret valuable information from the spiritual world for the benefit of others. Learning to be a medium here involves learning to be attuned to the ways in which this manifestation occurs, trusting the senses and the imagination as tools of insight, and cultivating a relationship with one's body as it becomes an increasingly controlled instrument and marker of spiritual presence.
But spirits are far from 'other' to a medium's consciousness. They are part of her very constitution, and self, for they come with her, much like a pre-existing blueprint. Developing an awareness of herself as a medium implies an acknowledgment of her own multiplicity: of her capacity to be other to herself, but only in as much as this otherness is also intrinsic to her. Spirits embody the stories and images of an ethnically, religiously and culturally diverse Cuban past, simultaneously representing and enabling alternative avenues of behaviour and expertise through the enactment of such knowledge relations, in the present.
An anthropological understanding of possession in this context must engage with such indigenous notions of extended self and agency, and with the scope of individual creativity in her own self construction and understanding. In ths paper, I attempt to move away from purely mentalistic or functionalist views of the spirit-person dynamic and consider the value of processual, enactive, social behaviourist and distributed cognitive approaches to such phenomena.
Learning possession in the Xangô cult of Recife (Brazil): outline of an emotional theory
Arnaud Halloy
(University of Nice Sophia Antipolis)
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on my ethnographic research in the Xangô cult of Recife (Brazil), my main purpose is to give a precise description of possession and its relations to emotion and cognition.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on my ethnographic research in the Xangô cult of Recife (Brazil), I will first suggest a methodological approach of possession trance. Then I will argue for a theoretical hypothesis about spirit possession.
A first observation of possession trance in the Xangô cult points out that it is far from being as monolithic as numerous studies of possession are suggesting. My ethnography takes into account possession vocabulary, participants discourse about possession and numerous descriptions of possession episodes, including learning possession episodes. This data clearly shows that possession should be thought as a multiplicity of subjective states characterized by a series of somatic changes (sensations, perceptions, emotions) and different degrees of consciousness.
What suggests this ethnographic account is that anthropological studies of possession should be resolutely pragmatic. In other words, they should focus on the learning conditions of spirit possession but also on its specific interactional context (involving persons, artefacts, animals). My main purpose is to give a precise description of possession and its complex relations to emotion and cognition.
A theoretical hypothesis can be put forward from our ethnographic data. Possession, as I will suggest, might be conceptualized as a special kind of emotional learning process. From this point of view, recent researches in psychology and neuropsychology of emotions can be very useful for a better understanding of that phenomenon. In our theoretical perspective, possession might learn something from emotions… But possession can also teach us something about them.
Paper short abstract:
Possession should occasion a challenge to the fundamental ontologies of social sciences: what it means to be a 'person', to have a body, a mind, to be "culturally constituted". If we let in emotion and temporality into modifying our account of possession, how do we modify anthropology's ontology?
Paper long abstract:
This paper gathers up and addresses some of my long standing concerns with the wider implications of 'possession' for anthropology, for the social sciences more generally, and, speaking to the wider themes of the conference, even for emancipatory political struggles of the twentieth century insofar as they invoke a particular notion of agency.
Possession, if taken seriously, challenges all manner of rationalist 'explanations' as a model of what social science's mode of operation ought to be.However, even more profoundly, possession occasions or should occasion, a challenge to fundamental ontologies employed in the social sciences in assuming what it means to be a 'person', to have a body, to have a mind, or even what it means to be "culturally constituted". The paper will argue that it is not simply a matter of allowing 'possession' to interrogate ontologies implicit in the human sciences. Many of the Meanings around 'cultural construction' and 'embodiment' rely implicitly on an understanding derived from an unexamined notion of possession as the 'occupation' of a body that is vessel-like. This paper takes the opportunity presented by the panel's interest in re-examining possession and the specific role of emotion and learning in possession in order to ask: how might a better account of 'possession', one that lets in emotion and temporality, potentially modify the ontologies and epistemologies at work in anthropology?
Paper short abstract:
Le rituel chamanique est habituellement décrit comme attribuant des identifications spéciales au chamane. L’enquête montre pourtant que ces états sont aussi bien prêtés au profane. A quoi tiennent alors les spécificités de l’expérience profane et de l’expérience chamanique ?
Paper long abstract:
Dans le chamanisme de Sibérie méridionale, la distribution inégalitaire des expériences rituelles est fondée sur une inégalité supposée naturelle des compétences. La littérature anthropologique présente habituellement comme caractéristiques du chamane certains états extraordinaires qui mettent en cause les contours et l'identité de la personne : le chamane sort de son corps ou incorpore des esprits. On constate pourtant que ces états sont aussi couramment attribués aux profanes : la maladie est vue comme l'effet du départ de l'âme suivie de l'installation d'un esprit dans le corps, ce qui correspond au « voyage chamanique » et à la « possession ». Une description en termes de catégories d'identité et d'état n'est donc pas suffisante. La personne étant conçue ordinairement comme distribuée en divers lieux et objets, ce n'est pas dans l'opposition intérieur/extérieur mais dans le contraste entre des dynamiques d'expansion et de rétention que peut se lire la spécificité du voyage du chamane. L'analyse des dispositifs de l'action fait voir que l'interaction avec un agent non humain est spécifique du régime d'action chamanique alors que l'identification caractérise l'expérience profane. Tout en faisant éclater les limites de la personne du malade, le rituel assigne temporairement mais vigoureusement à chacun une identité de profane ou de spécialiste.
E-paper: this Paper will not be presented, but read in advance and discussed
Narrative reconstruction of spirit possession experience: the double hermeneutic of Gaddis religious specialists in Western Himalaya (India)
Daniel Côté
(Université de Montréal)
Paper short abstract:
Spirit possession in India is generally described as a means of social regulation and of conflict resolution through symbolic transformation. This communication explores the local meaning attached to it and its narrative reconstruction through a possible sanskritization process.
Paper long abstract:
Almost everywhere in India, spirit possession is described as a means of social regulation and of conflict resolution through symbolic transformation. This communication explores the meaning and the experience of spirit possession among the Gaddis, a semi-nomadic "tribe" of Western Himalaya, and its narrative reconstruction. Despite the assumption that possession in India is generally a belief and a practice prevailing among the "tribals" or among the low castes to complain against social oppressive patterns, Gaddis spirit possession narratives show how this intense and extravagant experience is articulated through the cultural idioms of orthodox Hinduism. Experiences of possession are interpreted in the light of yogic discipline, meditative techniques and the Hindu core concepts such as dharma, karma or samadhi (inner bliss). Concept of samadhi corresponds to the specific moment where a deity enters a human body and takes full control of his thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. This communication shows how a supposed peripheral practice may be opened up to mainstream Hinduism. Here, the spiritual discipline doesn't fit the traditional image of the renouncing yogis, but appears in the daily routine. At the same time, possession takes place in a public arena, always ritually induced with the intention to bring solutions to cross-personal or village litigations. The possibility of a double local hermeneutic is discussed here in the light of the sanskritization process and of the possible cultural legitimation through narrative reconstruction.
E-paper: this Paper will not be presented, but read in advance and discussed