and institutionalized possessions, differ in each individual
case. Generalizations tend to become overgeneralizations.
The spirit idiom is subtle and, as the existentialists would say,
reflects the subtility of the individual in situation. It is, of
course, important to recognize that possession also plays an
important role for those who witness it, providing them with
an often theatrical representation, an objectification, of their
cultural presuppositions, their social situation, and their psy-
chological conditions. For them and for the possessed, pos-
session confirms belief in the spirits. Exorcism affirms faith
in a social and cultural order, an order that gives perhaps only
the illusion of mastering the “irrational forces” that surround
and on occasion besiege its members.
SEE ALSO Affliction; Consciousness, States of; Demons, arti-
cle on Psychological Perspectives; Devils; Enthusiasm; Exor-
cism; Frenzy; Glossolalia; Oracles.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bastide, Roger. Le condomblé de Bahia. Paris, 1958. A detailed
study of Afro-Brazilian possession.
Beattie, John, and John Middleton, eds. Spirit Mediumship and
Society in Africa. New York, 1969. An anthology of social an-
thropological studies of spirit mediumship and possession in
Africa.
Belo, Jane. Trance in Bali. New York, 1960. A detailed, descrip-
tive study of trance in Bali.
Bourguignon, Erika. “The Self, the Behavioral Environment, and
the Theory of Spirit Possession.” In Context and Meaning in
Cultural Anthropology, edited by Melford E. Spiro,
pp. 39–60. New York, 1965. Anthropological consideration
of the relationship between self- and spirit possession.
Crapanzano, Vincent. The Hamadsha: An Essay in Moroccan Eth-
nopsychiatry. Berkeley, Calif., 1973. An anthropological
study of a Moroccan Islamic religious brotherhood whose
adepts mutilate themselves when in possession trace.
Crapanzano, Vincent, and Vivian Garrison, eds. Case Studies in
Spirit Possession. New York, 1977. An anthology of case
studies of spirit possession from around the world. For a
more detailed account of the arguments in this entry the
reader is referred to the introduction to the book.
Firth, Raymond. Tikopia Ritual and Belief. London, 1967. In-
cludes an interesting discussion of spirit possession and
mediumship among these Pacific Islanders.
Goodman, Felicitas D. Speaking in Tongues: A Cross-Cultural
Study of Glossolalia. Chicago, 1972. A study of speech pat-
terns in trance.
Goodman, Felicitas D., Jeanette H. Henney, and Esther Pressel.
Trance, Healing and Hallucination. New York, 1974. Three
studies of trance and possession, on St. Vincent, Brazil, and
the Yucatan.
Huxley, Aldous. The Devils of Loudun. New York, 1952. A semi-
novelistic study of spirit possession in seventeenth-century
France.
Jeanmarie, Henri. Dionysos: Histoire du culte de Bacchus. 2 vols.
Paris, 1951. A study of Dionysian worship in the ancient
world that draws parallels with North African possession
cults.
Kapferer, Bruce. A Celebration of Demons: Exorcism and the Aes-
thetics of Healing in Sri Lanka. Bloomington, Ind., 1983. A
detailed symbolic anthropological study of spirit possession
and exorcism in Sri Lanka.
Leiris, Michel. La possession et ses aspects théâtraux chez les Éthio-
piens de Gondar. Paris, 1958. An insightful study of Ethiopi-
an spirit possession by one of France’s most original anthro-
pologists and poets.
Lewis, I. M. Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit
Possession and Shamanism. Harmondsworth, 1971. A broad
social-anthropological study of possession.
Lienhardt, Godfrey. Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the
Dinka. Oxford, 1961. A brilliant study of the religion, in-
cluding spirit belief, of a Nilotic people.
Métraux, Alfred. Voodoo in Haiti. Translated by Hugo Charteris.
New York, 1959. The classic study of Haitian Voodoo.
Monfouga-Nicholas, Jacqueline. Ambivalence et culte de possession.
Paris, 1972. A study of possession among the Hausa of West
Africa.
Obeyesekere, Gananath. Medusa’s Hair: An Essay on Personal Sym-
bols and Religious Experience. Chicago, 1981. A psychoanalyt-
ically oriented anthropological study of ecstasy and posses-
sion at the Hindu-Buddhist pilgrimage center of Kataragama
in Sri Lanka.
Oesterreich, Traugott K. Possession, Demoniacal and Other, among
Primitive Races, in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and Modern
Times. Translated from the German by D. Ibberson. New
York, 1930. A classic compendium of case material on spirit
possession.
Ortigues, Marie Cécile, and Edmond Ortigues. Oedipe africaine.
Paris, 1966. A psychoanalytic study, owing much to Jacques
Lacan, of spirit possession in Senegal.
Prince, Raymond, ed. Trance and Possession States. Montreal,- An anthology of religious, anthropological, and psy-
chophysiological studies of trance and spirit possession.
Sargant, William Walters. Battle for the Mind. Garden City, N.Y., - A Pavlovian psychophysiological study of, among
other things, spirit possession.
Spiro, Melford E. Burmese Supernaturalism. Exp. ed. Philadelphia, - A study of Burmese belief in spirits and spirit posses-
sion.
Tart, Charles T. Altered States of Consciousness. New York, 1969.
A useful anthology of psychophysiological studies.
Tremearne, A. J. N. The Ban of the Bori: Demons and Demon-
Dancing in West and North Africa. London, 1914. An early
comparative study of spirit possession among the Hausa and
in North Africa.
Wirz, Paul. Exorcism and the Art of Healing in Ceylon. Leiden, - A highly detailed account of Sinhala exorcism and
curing.
Walker, Sheila S. Ceremonial Spirit Possession in Africa and Afro-
America. Leiden, 1972. An important survey.
Zempléni, Andras. “Possession et sacrifice.” Temps de la reflexion
5 (1984): 325–352. A carefully argued analysis of the rela-
tionship between spirit possession and sacrifice.
New Sources
Behrend, Heike, and Ute Luig, editors. Spirit Possession: Modernity
& Power in Africa. Madison, 1999.
SPIRIT POSSESSION: AN OVERVIEW 8693