The journal of the British Association for the Study of Religions (BASR)

Edited by the Executive Committee of BASR

ISSN 0967-8948

DISKUS Volume 9 (Autumn 2008)

Contents:

Index of Articles

Editorial Comment

In my view, one of the great strengths of the BASR is its capacity to foster an engagement with issues of contemporary relevance while keeping in mind the important historical trajectories that have shaped our discipline over the years. The urgencies of the present are not allowed to eclipse the achievements of the past. In some cases this dual perspective becomes manifest in critiques of some-time classics or calls to abandon outdated theories in light of fresh evidence. But we also have a willingness to recognise the continuing value of work that has transcended the contingencies of its immediate historical context in identifying insights – truths perhaps – that have a lasting significance. Who can honestly dismiss Max Muller’s famous dictum ‘he who knows one, knows none’, for example, in light of its force as a rationale for comparative study? Edward B. Tylor’s work on ‘primitive culture’, while limited by its late 19th century categories, nevertheless probes the role of religious phenomena in projecting order onto the mysteries of life in a way that still carries resonance today. Arguably, both neo-atheist critiques of religion - see Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Polly Toynbee, etc - and debates about religion among cognitive neuro-scientists revolve around the same questions. We cannot escape the past, it seems, no matter how much we delude ourselves that we can.

A further example of how past and present concerns emerge in dialectical conversation is in debates about spirit possession. This is a topic that can be traced back to the very beginnings of the discipline of the history of religions, and attempts to understand spirit possession can be traced from the intellectual speculation of Victorian ‘arm-chair anthropologists’, through the exotic ethnographic encounters of the pioneer fieldworkers, to the application of categories in western Christian contexts, and the more conceptually critical discussions of today. The more recent scholarly contributions on this topic – influenced in no small part by the ‘cultural turn’ in social science and post-colonial critiques of ethnography – have re-sensitised us to the complexities of one of the perennial questions mentioned above, namely, what are the cultural limitations of apparently universal categories of analysis? Does it really make sense to speak of ‘spirit possession’ as a cross-cultural phenomenon, or do local cultural and linguistic factors undermine the explanatory force of such generic ideas? What about shamanism, witchcraft and magic? Can such categories still play a useful role in illuminating religious phenomena, bearing in mind the cultural particularities of religious experience on the one hand, and the cross-cultural influences fostered by colonialism and now globalisation on the other? It is in facing these urgent conceptual and methodological questions that we recognise both the limitations of our own efforts, and the value of lessons learnt in the distant past.

These thorny issues form the heart of this issue of DISKUS, and we have Bettina Schmidt of the University of Bangor to thank for bringing together such an impressive group of scholars who engage with them in light of their own research. Bettina gathered together a series of papers for a special panel on ‘New Perspectives on Spirit Possession’ for the 2007 annual BASR conference in Edinburgh, and the resulting sessions were a notable highlight of this enjoyable event. Bettina has also been instrumental in translating those conference papers into the collection of articles we have here, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank her for her valuable work in co-editing this issue with me. I will not spend time here summarising the articles as they speak for themselves, but I should note that I am particularly happy to commend them for several reasons. Firstly, and most obviously, they represent an impressively high quality of scholarship, and I can safely speak for the executive committee of the BASR in affirming our pride in helping to promote this work. Secondly, the articles are all based on original research, for the most part empirical research, and it is both encouraging and challenging that the theoretical issues mentioned above are being addressed not in the abstract but in light of studies of religious phenomena happening on the ground. Thirdly, we have here examples of specialist research from across the globe: the Indian sub-continent, southern Africa, the Caribbean Diaspora, and from advanced western contexts as expressed in the media of popular culture. It was inspiring to see such a global range of research contexts represented at a BASR event, and rewarding to be able to promote emerging insights in this journal. The debates about spirit possession are far from resolved, but hopefully, with contemporary research and historical antecedents firmly in mind, we might advance a little further as a consequence.  

Mathew Guest

1. Geoffrey Samuel
   Possession and self-possession: spirit healing, tantric meditation and avesa
   Article
   
   
   
2. Bettina Schmidt
   Oshún Visits the Bronx – Possessed Women in the Cuban Orisha Religion
   Article
   
   
   
3. James Cox
   Community Mastery of the Spirits as an African Form of Shamanism
   Article
   
   
4. Beatrix Hauser
   Acting Like God? Ways to embody the Divine in Religious Play and Deity Possession
   Article
   
   
5. Louise Child
   Possession in Contemporary Cinema: Religious and Psychological Themes
   Article