Paper short abstract:

Questions about the ‘efficacy’ and ‘functions’ of healing need to be understood from a critical perspective. This paper draws on ethnographic research on possession and healing in Mahanubhav temples in Maharashtra to discuss issues in the theorization of ritual healing.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is based on my doctoral research on spirit possession and ritual healing in the Mahanubhav sect in Maharashtra, India. The Mahanubhav sect has a long association with spirit possession and healing due to a tradition of providing temporary residence to people suffering from spirit-related afflictions. Persons possessed by ghosts stay in the temples for a specified duration and experience trance during the worship sessions. The trance is seen as crucial in drawing out the illness from the person, thereby moving the person towards healing.

In this paper, I question certain taken-for-granted assumptions about healing. Much of the research on ritual healing has been guided by attempts to understand how healing works, and what factors constitute the efficacy of healing. At the same time, I argue that such questions about the 'functions' and 'efficacy' of healing draw from a conceptualization of healing as effecting 'cure' through universal processes and mechanisms. Rather than studying healing in terms of abstract universal processes and functions, I focus on the articulation of healing in specific cultural contexts. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research in three Mahanubhav temples, I present the narratives of healing articulated by persons experiencing possession and monks in the temples. These temple narratives and discourses of healing suggest a conceptualization of healing that questions biomedical notions about cure and efficacy. I discuss these findings, which have important implications for the theorization of possession and healing in psychological and anthropological theory.