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Title Spirit possession : multidisciplinary approaches to a worldwide phenomenon / edited by Éva Pócs and András Zempléni
Published Budapest ; New York : Central European University Press, 2002

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Description 1 online resource
Contents Cover -- Front matter -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Table of Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Foreword -- 1 Discerning Spirit Possessions. An Introduction -- Part I Current Constellations of Spirit Possession Concepts -- 2 Reflecting on the Vocabulary of "Possession" in a South Indian Context -- 3 "Incorporation Does Not Exist". The Brazilian Rejection of the Term "Possession" and Why It Exists Nonetheless -- 4 "Figures of Return". The Catholic Church, the Holy Spirit and Embandwa Spirit Possession in Western Uganda
5 Ideas about Spirit Possession and Anti-Devil Practices in the Religious Life of Some Eastern Hungarian Communities -- 6 The Indigeneity of Spirit Possession. A Contribution to Comparative Theory -- Part II Transitions and Thresholds of Change in Possession Concepts and Practices -- 7 Specter, Phantom, Demon -- 8 From Loudun to Dakar, and Back. Possession and Evil in Individualistic and NonindividualisticSocieties -- 9 Devil Possession in the Liturgy around the Tenth and Twelfth Centuries. Bringing Together the Body Like a Microcosm
10 East European Christian Prayers against Hailstorms. Aquatic Demons and Divine Powers in Canonical and Apocryphal Context -- 11 The Nightmare in Early Modern England -- Part III Interactive Transformations of Popular and Official Possession Idioms and Practices -- 12 Spirit (rwḥ) in the Dead Sea Scrolls -- 13 Domesticating the Dead. Ghosts and Spirit Possession in Late Medieval Italy -- 14 Demonic Possession in Orthodox Imperial Russia. Official and Popular Religious Conceptions through the Prism ofan 1839-1840 Case Study -- 15 The Healing of the Possessed in Medieval Canonization Processes
16 The Sabbat of the Soul -- 17 Ideas of Possession in Eighteenth-Century Hungarian Clerical Thought -- Part IV Possession and Social Reality: Possession as Indigenous Historiography -- 18 Possession, Communication and Power in Himachal Pradesh (North India) -- 19 A Day-to-Day Family Chronicle with "Personages" in Madagascar -- 20 Anthropological Spirits and Colonial Consciousness in Arabic-Speaking Sudan -- 21 From Illness to Trance. The Socialization of Spirit Possession in Senegal -- 22 On Spirit Possession and Some Parallels with Reincarnation -- Contributors -- Name Index -- Subject Index
Geographical Index -- Back cover
Summary "Possession, a seemingly irrational phenomenon, has posed challenges to generations of scholars rooted in Western notions of body-soul dualism, self and personhood, and a whole set of presuppositions inherited from Christian models of possession that was "good" or "bad." The authors of the essays in this book present a new and more promising approach. They conceive spirit possession as a form of communication, of expressivity, of culturally defined behavior that should be understood in the context of local, vernacular theories and empiric reflections. With the aim of reformulating the comparative anthropology of spirit possession, the editors have opened corridors between previously separate areas of research. Together, anthropologists and historians working on several historical periods and in different European, African, South American, and Asian cultural areas attempt to redefine the very concept of possession, freeing it from the Western notion of the self and more clearly delineating it from related matters such as witchcraft, devotion, or mysticism. The book also provides an overview of new research directions, including novel methods of participant observation and approaches to spirit possession as indigenous historiography"-- Provided by publisher
Analysis Exorcism, body & soul, rites, demons, trance, medium, participant observation
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed
Subject Spirit possession.
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural
Spirit possession
Form Electronic book
Author Pócs, Éva, editor
Zempléni, András, 1938- editor.
LC no. 2022007448
ISBN 9633864143
9789633864142