Paper short abstract:

Based on fieldwork conducted in São Paulo, Brazil this paper explores the relationship between possessing and possessed agencies. The focus will be on interviews with participants of possession rituals in Afro-Brazilian religious communities (mainly Candomblé and Umbanda) and Spiritist groups.

Paper long abstract:

The focus of this paper is on the understanding of the experience among people experiencing it, the mediums. The analysis is based on subjective narratives collected via open-ended interviews in São Paulo, Brazil. My aim was to explore the Brazilian possession religions adepts' view of the experience; however, it confronted me with the complex issue of how to include the ideas of devotees that have a possession experience inside an academic discourse without falling into non-academic, religiously motivated and un-scientific explanations.

In the centre of this paper are a variety of religions grouped together under the label Spiritism and Afro-Brazilian religions. Scholars usually describe this ensemble as a continuum of religious practices, with Kardecism on one end, the African derived traditions, such as Candomblé, on the other end and Umbanda in the middle. These traditions have in common rituals that embrace experience with spirits and deities, usually labelled as spirit possession. However, the term "possession" has gained a negative connotation in Brazil and practitioners prefer to describe their experience as incorporation, mediumship or merger. The problem with the correct terminology indicates already the complexity of the discourse.

I argue in this paper that spirit possession is at the cutting edge of the debate of the division between body and mind. Instead of locating the possession experience in the mind, and consequently making it a psychological event, this paper suggests a middle path that includes the bodily experience in the analysis, hence embraces the agencies of the possessing and the possessed.