Narrating Spirit Possession

Katharina Wilkens

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Chapter 2 Narrating Spirit Possession

In: Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion

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Katharina Wilkens

Katharina Wilkens
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 45–65

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004421677_004

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Abstract

Spirit possession rituals and exorcisms are deeply enmeshed with narrative traditions. Mostly, stories surrounding spirits, demons, and their actions are tied to very specific aesthetic, cultural, social, and religious frameworks. But some structural elements of these narratives do lend themselves to comparative study. Wilkens distinguishes between autobiographical narratives of people having undergone trance and mythical stories about the spirits themselves. Focusing on uncertainty and skepticism as major elements of characterization and plotting, Wilkens then describes the changes in the narrative when they are translated into scientific settings, including both anthropology and psychiatry. The combination of spirit possession trance and narrative contribute to an aesthetic knowledge of spirits in which perception, experience, and imagination play a decisive role in vernacular spirit stories whereas arguments or belief (including narrative reality constraints) dominate in the academic translations. It is precisely the openness of narrative imagery and agency that render the stories-as-boundary-objects polymorphous rather than amorphous. It enables a bridging of two quite distinct narrative cultures. This contribution explores spirit possession as narrative culture with examples from Christian and Islamic contexts in Tanzania, Nigeria, Denmark, and elsewhere.

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Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion

Series: Supplements to Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, Volume: 14

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004421677

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 23 Jan 2020

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies
  - Cultural History
  - Memory Studies
- Religious Studies
  - General
  - Comparative Religion & Religious Studies

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Chapter 2 Narrating Spirit Possession

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Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion

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