Lecture 18 Spirit possession and the self

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Lecture 18 Spirit possession and the self
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Janice Boddy Zar possession in Sudan

• Women are socially subordinate to men
• Persons are composed of ruh (soul), nafs (animal
  life force including lusts and desires), and
  aqel (reason, rationality, control of emotions
  and the ability to behave in socially appropriate
  ways)
• Womens moral frailty leaves them more open to
  invasion by malevolent jinn

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Beyond rational functionalism

• Possession provides women with a culturally
  sanctioned medium for articulating distress
• Possession is not analysed merely in terms of its
  role in alleviating social tensions or as a
  strategic game
• The experiential reality of possession is
  recognised
• This experience is constitutive of selfhood

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Over-determined selves

• Boddy distinguishes between a subjective self
  and an objective person.
• The cultural conception of interiority
• Women do not get the chance to mature, to
  develop a more individualised subjective self
  independent of this culturally defined person

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Zar possession and female selves

• Zar possession is lifelong and fundamentally
  incurable
• The spirits who possess Hofriyati belong only to
  foreign societies and epitomise all that is not
  Hofriyati
• The possessed woman sees through the eyes of the
  spirit into a normally invisible parallel
  universe
• Everyday reality is made to appear as just one of
  many

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Personhood

• The presence of a non-self (spirit) enhances, by
  opposition, a womans sense of personhood
• The spirit provides alternative sets of moral
  discriminations
• Women are able to develop a subjective self, an
  awareness of alternative possibilities

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Bruce Kapferer Mind, self and other

• Concerned with how the self is constructed
  through the performative healing of possessed
  individuals
• George Mead the self arises out of social
  experience and emerges in accordance with the
  individuals ability to treat himself as an
  object
• Subjective I and objectified me reflexively
  produced in the interaction between the
  subjective I and the Other

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The normal me

• The social person who acts in culturally
  appropriate ways and adapts their actions
  according to circumstances
• A product of knowledge that an individual
  progressively builds up over time
• The normal self is lost with demonic possession

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Cosmology (the healthy view)

• The supernatural order is dominated by the Buddha
• Below the Buddha is a myriad of deities, the most
  powerful being the four Guardian Gods
• Subordinate to these are a host of demons,
  followed by ghosts
• Humans occupy and intermediate position in the
  hierarchy between deities and demons

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Causes of possession

• Usually related to contact with sources of
  impurity
• It can also be traced to a sudden frightening
  experience.
• Women are considered more impure than men so more
  subject to demonic control
• Anger, jealousy, and hostility directed by others
  towards an individual can result in intervention
  of malign supernaturals.

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Curative performance

• A public performance conducted by exorcists and
  attended by the community as a whole
• 1st stage demonic reality as this is perceived
  by the patient. Demons are portrayed as
  dominating the world of humans
• Through this use of comedy the demons are exposed
  in their real nature, as being inferior to
  humans
• Audience is progressively more closely involved

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Reconstructing the self

• Brings the patients subjective experience of self
  into line with normal awareness
• The comedy and laughter of the audience is
  intended to draw the patient into a shared sense
  of self and awareness of the true cosmological
  order
• The community as a whole is made aware of their
  shared attitudes through participating in this
  We-relationship