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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Spirit possession'
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Pantaleoni, David Armstrong. "High spirited: spirit-work in contemporary China." Thesis, University of Iowa, 2015. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1719.
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The People's Republic of China is home to numerous beliefs, practices, and customs dating back hundreds, if not thousands of years. In the time since the death of Mao Zedong, many practices have been revived, including the practice of spirit possession. Through careful examination of books, articles, videos, and other sources, I have come to the conclusion that individuals now capable of being possessed in China are a break from previously documented spirit-mediums, nor do they fit into the category termed `shamans' best defined by Mircea Eliade and I.M. Lewis. These individual are heirs to a long history, but have innovated as well as revived previous practices. They now embody a new category, one I have termed spirit-worker. Spirit-workers incorporate aspects of both traditional spirit-mediumship as well as what has been termed shamanism. Although I did not have a chance to do my own fieldwork, through looking at the various sources, we can come to understand how spirit-workers have begun to emerge in China, and what the future may hold for these individuals.
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Shilubane, Paul Xilavi. "The nature and implications of spirit possession among the Tsonga." Thesis, University of Limpopo, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/10386/2395.
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Ncozana, Silas Samuel. "Spirit possession and Tumbuka Christians 1875-1950." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.328726.
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Amusan, Samuel. "Music and spirit possession in Yorùbá worship." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2018. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/music-and-spirit-possession-in-yoraba-worship(a1241239-d079-4b2c-aac5-15889fc2a11a).html.
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This is a study of the relationship between music and spirit possession among the Yorùbá of the South-Western part of Nigeria. Through the ages, philosophers and scholars have been interested in the relationship between music and trance possession, especially the question of whether music triggers, influences or sustains trance or spirit possession, and if so, how. This thesis seeks to focus on the relationship between the music used in worship practices where possessions take place, and how the music might initiate and drive the possession states. Spirit possession is a phenomenon which springs from and is associated with the social and belief systems of different people. However, the Aládurà church (an Independent African Church - AIC) worshippers dissociate themselves from the possession practices that are experienced among the Yorùbá indigenous traditional worshippers, while the traditionalists claim that the spirit possession practised in the Aládurà churches originated and has its roots in the traditional practices. This suggests an inherent difference in the two belief systems even though the possession experiences among them are characterised by similar presentations. Following the theory that spirit possession practices are culturally determined, this research seeks to identify the specific cultural elements in the music used in Yorùbá worship traditions where possessions take place, not as a cause and effect, but how music affects the possession process. My study, therefore, sets out to investigate what could be a common factor between the two structurally and contextually different types of music used by the two sects of worshippers with the aim of identifying the common factors in the music, which seem to be the link between the two worship groups. Key words: Music, Spirit Possession, culture, worship.
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Frimpong, Emmanuel Kwabena. "Mark and spirit possession in an African context." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2006. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2342/.
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The Gospel of Mark is a moving story especially when one looks at the way Mark recounts Jesus’ struggle with evil, the extent of the power and the fate of Satan and demons and the type of life the followers of Jesus are to lead: whether a demon-free life or a life of struggle with demons; and how scholars interpret Mark’s views today. This thesis begins with a review of a debate between J.M. Robinson and E. Best who hold divergent views on Jesus’ struggle with evil and the extent and the fate of Satan’s power and demons in Mark. This is followed by a critical analysis of Mark’s views on the baptism and the temptation narratives and Jesus’ inauguration of the Kingdom in a world dominated by Satan and its implications. The review of Mark 3: 22-27 serves as a background to the section that examines Spirit Possession cases and the ways Jesus exorcises these demons in Mark, bringing to light Mark’s views and the views of Western scholars. This is followed by categorising diseases into those caused by demons and those caused naturally and how Jesus exorcises and heals these diseases, demonstrating his power over evil. The section on Evil in African Traditional Religion focuses on the sources of evil and how evil is eradicated from the traditional African society. This is followed by a report of field research, which took the form of Bible Studies among Africans with the focus on Ghanaian Christians from twenty one churches in London. The purpose is to find out how these Christians whose world-view approximates that of Mark, read and interpret some texts in Mark. We were interested in what Ghanaian Christians would make of these texts because they might help us to see them as Mark’s readers would have seen them, and to discover the issues and questions which they would have brought to the texts. The final section of the thesis brings together the views of Mark, Western scholars and Ghanaian Christians showing how these views complement each other.
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Kontarakis, C. "Muslims possessed : spirit possession and Islam in Cairo." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2015. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1463634/.
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In Cairo, infidel spirits called jinns threaten to possess Muslims with weak souls, a weakness that is deemed to be closely connected with lack of faith and morality. An informal group of Muslims called sheikhs exorcise the invading spirits, and in doing so help to constitute the discursive logic underlying spirit possession in Cairo. Through a ritual that asserts the centrality and supremacy of God, the sheikhs reinstate God’s presence by reciting the Qur’an in order to exorcise the jinns out of the Muslims’ bodies. Based on the findings of a fifteen month fieldwork research in Cairo (2007-2008), this thesis focuses on the ritual of the Qur’anic exorcism, along with the cosmology and the discursive logic that surrounds it, as this is expressed by the agents involved in it: the exorcists, the possessing spirits and the Muslims possessed, all forming a particular spirit possession complex that dwells in Islamic grounds and evolves at a certain socio-historical moment, being part of the broader cultural process of what is called “Islamic Revival”. By offering a perspective on anthropological debates about Islamic pluralism, the thesis argues that the Islamic ritual of exorcism escapes binary classifications inspired by the Gellnerian interpretative tropes, and reveals the ability of Islam to express itself poetically and in plural ways while at the same time constituting its monism through an underlying metaphysics concerned with establishing God as both centre and border of Islamic practice and cosmology. Taking ritual as an expression of the broader social and cultural orders within which it is embedded, the thesis shows that the Islamic exorcism in Cairo is in crucial ways homologous with the social and moral order of the world in which the Cairenes live, a moral order that is to be understood in relation to the “Islamic Revival” as an ethical project.
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Keene, Liam. "Invoking heterogeneous cultural identities through Thokoza sangoma spirit possession." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12838.
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Staemmler, Birgit. "Chinkon kishin mediated spirit possession in Japanese new religions." Berlin Münster Lit, 2002. http://d-nb.info/992752477/04.
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Maraire, Dumisani. "The position of music in Shona mudzimu (ancestral spirit) possession /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/11274.
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Meveni, Siphiwo Douglas. "Spirit possession and social panic: Amakhosi possession and behaviour among learners in selected schools in Mdantsane Township." Thesis, University of Fort Hare, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1018564.
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This research sought to investigate the phenomenon of strange behaviour related to spirit possession called amakhosi in Mdantsane Township in East London in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. This spirit phenomenon has recently been prevalent in Township schools in the Eastern and Western Cape Provinces where school children were said to be possessed by a spirit which caused them to demonstrate a strange kind of destructive behaviour. These occurrences were also reported in the newspapers and community radio stations. All these media communications reported that teachers, parents and community leaders were increasingly concerned over a growing trend wherein children purchase muti called amakhosi which makes them to behave mysteriously and at times climbed school walls with their bear hands and at time becoming violent to the extent of threatening other learners and educators. The informants included community members, learners and educators. In a mainly qualitative research method, empirical data was collected from five selected high schools by means of observations, individual interviews and group discussions. The main aim of this study was to better understand this amakhosi phenomenon and to determine whether it is a spiritual, drug related or a social phenomenon. The findings of the study suggested that amakhosi possession is partly a spiritual phenomenon and should not be overlooked as it can result into serious crimes leading to death just like in the recent cases of satanic killing reported among the youth in South Africa. Secondly, there is also a strong element of drug abuse among the youth associated with amakhosi rituals. Lastly, amakhosi is more than just a spiritual issue. It is a socio-economic problem which mostly involves the youth who are struggling in identifying their roles and positions in the post apartheid South Africa. The main recommendation is that the amakhosi phenomenon needs a „wholistic‟ approach and not to just intervention by involvement of prayers and traditional healers.
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Honwana, Alcinda Maria Rodolfo Manuel. "Spiritual agency & self-renewal in southern Mozambique." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.360714.
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Werth, Megan Renee. "Spirit Possession: Exploring the Role of the Textual Tradition in Islam." Wright State University / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1334615227.
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Goblirsch, Jack Price. "Innovative ethnography in the study of spirit possession in South Asia." Thesis, University of Iowa, 2017. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/5480.
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The study of possession phenomena in South Asia presents a unique set of challenges for scholars. Because of its occurrence within diverse contexts, from healing temples and ritual performances to festival celebrations and devotional practices, attempts on the part of scholars to hone in on a concise vocabulary and conceptual framework with which to articulate the critical nature and function of possession has resulted in an extensive body of literature with wide-ranging methodological and theoretical dispositions. Each of these approaches, in its own way, contributes to an increasingly complicated web of intersecting disciplinary approaches.
As this body of literature continues to grow, and with it, the resources for generating a more productive academic discourse surrounding possession, so too grows a set of distinct challenges. How is one to sort through the maze of interpretive strategies and the conclusions they produce? Is it possible to assemble them in such a way as to develop a cooperative and mutually beneficial approach? Is there hope for arriving at a commonly shared vocabulary of possession capable of functioning across disciplinary boundaries? And if so, would such a vocabulary avoid forcing localized experiences and practices to conform to ill-fitting, non-native criteria of analysis?
Through critical evaluation of ethnographic contributions to the study of possession, this paper sets out to arrive at a set of conclusions about what works best for furthering the depth of appreciation and understanding for how diverse, complex, and pervasive possession practices are within a South Asian context. My criteria for this evaluation focuses on the degree to which specific approaches are established in, and guided by, an ethos of inclusivity, one that develops a healthy and vibrant dialectic between indigenous models of experience, practice, and interpretation, and those of the scholar. Along the way, I investigate key issues raised in the study of possession, such as ritual efficacy, embodiment, agency, and the nature of human relations with various nonhuman beings.
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Burrow-Branine, Jonathan. "The practice of Holy Spirit possession: Experiencing God in three pentecostal communities." Thesis, Wichita State University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10057/3471.
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This thesis seeks to analyze Holy Spirit possession in Pentecostal communities through case studies in Jamaica, Ghana and Papua New Guinea. This study will contribute to the comparative concerns of the growing subfield of the anthropology of Christianity as well as address the lack of in-depth studies of Pentecostal rituals in the anthropological study of Pentecostalism. It is argued that the traditional anthropological study of spirit possession, while showing the similarity of possession phenomena among institutional and traditional religions, is somewhat limited by privileging either explanatory or interpretive approaches and by its traditional focus on non-Christian, small-scale spirit cults. In order to organize Holy Spirit possession for cross-cultural comparison, this thesis will review and suggest the usefulness of Emma Cohen’s typology of executive and pathogenic forms of possession. Finally, building on a theoretical orientation of skilled learning as well as Catherine Bell’s notion of ritualization, it will be argued that through the practice of Holy Spirit possession the Pentecostal’s life-world is continuously being reworked and defined. In the study of Pentecostalism and Pentecostals, anthropologists need to take this practice seriously, not only in specific instances of possession, but also what this might mean for Pentecostal conceptions of personhood that informs belief and behavior.Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Anthropology.
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Makris, Gerasimos. "Social change, religion, and spirit possession : The Tumbura cult on the sudan." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.503463.
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Stewart, E. E. A. "The cognitive foundations of spirit possession in an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.419417.
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Halder, Florence. "Entre possession et folie, soins religieux et psychiatriques : itinéraires thérapeutiques en Inde du Nord (Jharkhand)." Thesis, Toulouse 2, 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017TOU20114.
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Cette thèse porte sur l’itinéraire thérapeutique des personnes qui se pensent possédées par un esprit maléfique ou une divinité à travers les différentes thérapies disponibles à Kanke, ville du nord de l’Inde. Trois hôpitaux psychiatriques, construits à l’époque coloniale, s’y concentrent. Depuis quelques décennies un dargah, sanctuaire musulman, a été construit sur les terres-mêmes de l’un d’entre eux. Il est spécialisé dans le traitement des personnes possédées, tout comme les bhaktain, dévotes possédées par des divinités qui officient à leur domicile. Le travail de terrain a été réalisé dans deux hôpitaux psychiatriques, au dargah, et auprès de deux bhaktain. Dans les thérapies délivrées par les bhaktain et thérapeutes du dargah, l’émotion est suscitée chez le patient : il s’agit de provoquer l’esprit impur possédant le patient au moyen de substances divines. L’esprit maléfique se manifeste, et sera contraint de quitter ce corps. Si certains affirment avoir guéri, d’autres possédés consultent en psychiatrie. Les enjeux familiaux et socioéconomiques jouent un rôle de taille dans le choix du lieu de soins.L’interprétation des troubles est bien différente en psychiatrie où les professionnels utilisent des manuels de classification des troubles mentaux rédigés aux Etats-Unis pour diagnostiquer ces patients de milieu rural, pauvre, et parfois tribal. Ici, la possession est considérée comme un signe de maladie mentale. Les professionnels tentent de décourager l’interprétation des troubles en termes de possession au profit d’une conception neuroscientifique des problèmes et encouragent le patient à un contrôle émotionnel, usant parfois de références à l’hindouisme brahmanique.Les patients qui circulent entre ses lieux de soins sont pris dans ces logiques de soins antinomiques. La difficile articulation des différentes interprétations et pratiques thérapeutiques nous renseignent sur les enjeux politiques qui sous-tendent les rapports entre les différents thérapeutesThis thesis is about the therapeutic journey of people who think they are possessed by a malefic spirit or a divinity. Various therapies are available for them in Kanke (north India). Here three psychiatric hospitals, built in the colonial period, provide mental health care. Few decades ago a dargah, a Muslim sanctuary, was built on one of them. It is specialized in the treatment of possessed people, like bhaktain, devotees possessed by divinities, which provide therapy at home. The fieldwork was realized between 2008 and 2014 in two psychiatric hospitals, in the dargah, and with two bhaktain.In the therapies delivered by bhaktain and therapists of the dargah, the patient’s emotion is stimulated : the impure spirit possessing the patient is provoked by means of divine substances. The malefic spirit manifests itself, and is forced to leave the body. While some possessed people assert being cured, others consult in psychiatry. The family and socioeconomic stakes play an important role in the choice of the place of care.The interpretation of the disorders is very different in psychiatry where the professionals use medical textbooks of classification of mental disorders published in the United States to diagnose these rural, poor, and sometimes tribal patients. Here, the possession is considered as a sign of mental illness. Only the private hospital tries another approach. The professionals try to discourage the interpretation of the disorders adopting a neuroscientific conception of the problems and encourage the patient to an emotional control, sometimes referring to Brahmanical Hindu texts. The patients who circulate between these places of care are caught in these paradoxical logics of care. The difficult articulation of the various interpretations and therapeutic practices the patient encounters informs us about the political stakes which influence relationships between therapists of various places of care
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Brockman, Brittany. "Spirit Possession, Exorcism, and the Power of Women in the Mid-Heian Period." Wittenberg University Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wuhonors1338405581.
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Feriali, Kamal. "Music-induced spirit possession trance in Morocco implications for anthropology and allied disciplines /." [Gainesville, Fla.] : University of Florida, 2009. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0024654.
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Grossklaus, Michael [Verfasser]. "Free Church Pastors in Germany – Perceptions of Spirit Possession and Mental Illness / Michael Grossklaus." Frankfurt a.M. : Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2017. http://d-nb.info/1136248331/34.
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Großklaus, Michael [Verfasser]. "Free Church Pastors in Germany – Perceptions of Spirit Possession and Mental Illness / Michael Grossklaus." Frankfurt a.M. : Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2017. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:101:1-201707024187.
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Stafford-Walter, Courtney Rose. "The sickness : sociality, schooling, and spirit possession amongst Amerindian youth in the savannahs of Guyana." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15549.
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The goal of this thesis is to explore the recent changes in the social landscape of a Wapishana village, due to long-term separation from kin. I consider the impact of a recent educational shift from small scale community based education to regional boarding schools on family life and community structure amongst Amerindian people in the hinterland of Region 9, Guyana. Furthermore, the project analyzes an emergent form of spirit possession that affects almost exclusively young women who live in the dormitories, locally referred to as the sickness. Using the sickness as an analytical lens, the thesis examines the ways in which young Amerindian women navigate a shift in expectations from their parents and communities as well as how they experience this rapid social change and transformation. Various vantage points employed in the analysis of the sickness help to illustrate the complexities of the current lived reality of Amerindian life. By exploring the experience of kinship and community in the Wapishana village of Sand Creek, it is possible to demonstrate how these relationships are produced and reproduced in everyday life through the sharing of space and substance. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider different aspects of the Creole and Amerindian notions of the spiritual world and their intervowenness in Wapishana lives, drawing out human and non-human agency and how they effect change in the world. Additionally, drawing on the anthropology of education, the thesis identifies the influence the state has on people's lives through institutionalized education, and locates this process within the wider context of historical indigenous residential schools. The ethnographic data on the experience of the sickness is put in dialogue and contrasted with other conceptions of spiritual vulnerability in Amerindian communities, examples of ‘mass hysteria' in schools or other institutional settings in other parts of the world, and the Afro-Caribbean experience of spirit possession. Finally, through an analysis of the etiology of the sickness, the final chapter draws on Amazonian literature to examine the embodiment of gender and the local gendered history of knowledge production in the area. The sickness is a phenomenon that permeates life in Southern Guyana for Amerindian youth, their families, and their communities. Undoubtedly, these various themes found in Wapishana young women's lives influence one another, irrespective of an ultimate manifestation of spirit possession. In the concluding section I show how these themes can be placed in the wider Amazonian framework of alterity and ‘Other-becoming', illustrating how this phenomenon provides a productive tool for the analysis of the experience of rapid social change among Amerindian youth and the impact of these transformations throughout the region.
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Nicolau, Pares Luis. "The phenomenology of spirit possession in the Tambor de Mina : an ethnographic and audio-visual study." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.286260.
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Von, Maltitz Emil Arthur. "Occult forces -- lived identities: witchcraft, spirit possession and cosmology amongst the Mayeyi of Namibia's Caprivi Strip." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013279.
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Around Africa there seems to be an increasing disillusion with 'development', seen under the rubric of teleological 'progress', which is touted by post-colonial governments as being the cure for Africa's ailments and woes. Numerous authors have pointed out that this local disillusion, and the attempt to manage the inequities that arise through development and modernity, can be seen to be understood and acted upon by local peoples through the idiom of witchcraft beliefs and fears (see Geschiere & Fisiy 2001; Geschiere 1997; Nyamnjoh 2001; Comaroff & Comaroff 1993; Ashforth 2005) and spirit possession nanatives (see Luig 1999; Gezon 1999), or more simply, occult beliefs and praxis (Moore & Sanders 2001). The majority of the Mayeyi of Namibia's Eastern Caprivi perceive that development is the only way their regiOn and people can survive and succeed in a modernising world. At ~he same time there is also a seeming reluctance to move towards perceiving witchcraft as a means of accumulation (contra Geschiere 1997). This notion of the 'witchcraft of wealth' is emerging, but for the most part witches are seen as the enemies of development, while spirit possession narratives speak to the desire for development and of the identity of the group vis-a-vis the rest of the world. The thesis presented argues that, although modernity orientated analyses enable occult belief to be used as a lens through which to 1..mderstand 'modernity's malcontents' (Comaroff & Comaroff 1993), they can only go so far in explaining the intricacies of witchcraft and spirit possession beliefs themselves. The dissertation argues that one should return to the analysis of the cosmological underpinnings of witchcraft belief and spirit possession, taken together as complementary phenomena, in seeking to understand the domain of the occult. By doing so the thesis argues that a more comprehensive anthropological understanding is obtained of occult belief and practice, the ways in which the domain of the occult is constituted and the ways in which it is a reflection or commentary on a changing world.
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Wastiau, Boris. "Mahamba : the transforming arts of spirit possession among the Luvale-speaking people of the upper Zambezi." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 1997. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/53659967.html.
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Rossé, Elisabeth. "Ancestralité et migrations urbaines : le cas des Tandroy de Toliara (Madagascar)." Thesis, Paris 10, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016PA100074.
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Cette thèse traite de la manière dont les Tandroy, population originaire de l’extrême Sud de Madagascar, produisent leurs identités collectives en situation de migration urbaine dans la ville de Toliara. Les Tandroy, qui vivent depuis près d’un siècle en situation de circulation à travers l’île, sont le plus souvent assignés à un statut de migrants précaires, pour lesquels la ville demeure un espace étranger. Je montre, à travers une ethnographie de situations rituelles, comment cet état de la migration peut être considéré comme un espace de transition, dans lequel se joue le passage d’un état de mobilité à un état d’ancrage. Je montre également comment ce passage implique la remise en cause d’une identité collective construite avec la colonisation, et cristallisée au début des années 1970, époque où sévit une révolte paysanne menée par Monja Jaona, leader politique tandroy d’envergure nationale. Mes enquêtes se situent dans deux domaines, celui de la politique, et celui de la possession. Dans les deux cas, l’ancrage en ville s’exprime de manière paradoxale à partir du maniement de symboles ancestraux, pourtant fragilisés par le phénomène migratoire et jugés inadaptés à l’espace urbain : le poteau sacrificiel hazomanga, et l’esprit de possession kokolampo. Je m’intéresse à la manière dont ces éléments participent à l’élaboration de constructions symboliques confrontant des catégories identitaires articulées à l’expression d’une mémoire collective, et porte une attention particulière à la musique produite dans les situations ethnographiées, laquelle peut amener à une forme alternative de relation à l’identité collective, favorisant l’expérience de l’ancrageThis thesis deals with the way the Tandroy people native of the South of Madagascar, produce their collective identities in situation of urban migration in the city of Toliara. The Tandroy have lived for almost a century in situation of migration through the island. They are assigned most of the time to a status of precarious migrants, for whom cities remain a foreign space. I show, through an ethnography of ritual situations, how this state of the migration can be considered as a space of transition, in which a state of mobility to a state of sedentarization takes place. I also show how this passage implies the question of the building of a collective identity with the colonization, and enhanced at the beginning of the 1970s, when arises a peasant revolt led by the tandroy political leader Monja Jaona. My inquiries focus on two domains : politics and spirit possession. In both cases, urban sedentarization is expressed in a paradoxical way from the manipulation of ancestral symbols, nevertheless weakened by migrations and considered unsuitable for the urban space : hazomanga-stake, and spirit possession kokolampo. I am interested in the way these elements participate in the elaboration of symbolic constructions confronting categories articulated in the expression of a collective memory and I thoroughly observe the music produced, which can bring to an alternative relationship to the collective identity, favoring the experiment of the sedentarization
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Schmidt, Lauren Noelle. "East Asian Fox Legends: Read at Your Own Risk, Possession Possible." Miami University Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=muhonors1290465314.
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Goslinga, Gillian Marie. "The ethnography of a South Indian god : virgin birth, spirit possession, and the prose of the modern world /." Diss., Digital Dissertations Database. Restricted to UC campuses, 2006. http://uclibs.org/PID/11984.
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Goslinga-Roy, Gillian. "The ethnography of a South Indian god : virgin birth, spirit possession, and the prose of the modern world /." Digital Dissertations Database. Restricted to UC campuses, 2006. http://uclibs.org/PID/11984.
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Harvey-Wilson, Simon B. "Human levitation." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2005. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/642.
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Human levitation occurs when the physical body rises into the air and then hovers or moves around, seemingly in defiance of the force of gravity. Traditionally most levitation reports have originated from seven groups: shamanism, people supposedly possessed by demonic spiritual entities, those subjected to poltergeist activity, Spiritualism, people who believe they have been abducted by aliens, martial arts such as qigong and mysticism. These anecdotal reports generally describe levitation as rare, spontaneous and involuntary, although some people seem able to levitate at will. So far almost no scientific research appears to have been conducted into this phenomenon. In order to persuade empirical sciences such as parapsychology that human levitation warrants further investigation, this qualitative study contains two components. Firstly, there is a thematic comparison of historical and modern levitation reports from the seven groups to see what physical, cultural and phenomenological circumstances they may have in common. Three kinds of evidence have been examined in this comparison: general features of the groups that produce levitation reports; interviews about paranormal phenomena such as levitation with a sample of Christian priests and pastors, Spiritualists and qigong instructors; and six people who claim to have levitated have also been interviewed. Secondly, to assist future researchers in their investigations, the thesis includes a hypothesis generating exercise which seeks clues from the thematic comparison and interviews as to how human levitation might work. The conclusions reached in the thematic comparison are that most members of the seven groups believe in one or more spiritual realms that contain entities and/or energies that can facilitate paranormal phenomena such as human levitation. Members of some groups (eg: shamans, Spiritualists, qigong practitioners and mystics) may deliberately seek to interact with or access these entities or powers, while others (eg: poltergeist activity and spirit possession) may encounter them involuntarily. It also appears that, regardless of which group they belong to, all those who levitate, whether deliberately or involuntarily, do so while in an altered state of consciousness (ASC). The hypothesis-generating exercise, therefore, postulates that certain ASCs facilitate human levitation, and that further research into the capacity of consciousness to access what appears to be transcendent or transpersonal powers is recommended.
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Wood, Matthew R. "Spirit possession in a contemporary British religious network : a critique of New Age movement studies through the sociology of power." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1999. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11874/.
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Studies of phenomena classed as part of the New Age Movement have become increasingly common in recent years. This Thesis develops a new perspective on these through the use of anthropological and sociological analysis of structures of social power and the contextualisation of symbols and discourse. Research was based on a two and a half year ethnographic study of a network in Nottinghamshire, Britain, which included a meditation group and a spiritual fair. Spirit possession was seen as particularly important to these, in the forms of channelling and mediumship. The concept of nonformative spirituality was used to delineate the network as lacking enduring leadership and authority, such that participants' experiences varied within groups and practices. Thus, the network was not seen as part of a movement, but as a collection of informal groups linked through people's practices. Theory of bodily performance, with a critical analysis of the sociology of knowledge, was used to interpret the four sorts of practices in the network: channelling, meditation, holistic health therapies and divination. By paying attention to people's spiritual biographies, their careers of seekership were understood to develop through dissonant experiences. Nonformative spirituality was compared with those more formative groups which it drew upon, such as spiritualism, the Anthroposophical Society and occult study groups, thus providing a broader picture of its place in contemporary Britain.
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Bellezza, John Vincent. "Invocation, possession and rejuvenation in Upper Tibet : the beliefs, activities and lives of spirit-mediums residing in the Highest Land." Thesis, University of Kent, 2018. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/67422/.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation comprehensively examines the hereditary links, ritual practices and pantheon of indigenous deities on which the spirit-mediums of Upper Tibet rely. Known as lha-pa, dpa' bo and lhamo, these specialists in channeling the gods operate in the overlapping Stod and Byang-thang regions of western and midwestern Tibet. This work is based on in-depth interviews and the translation of a variety of Tibetan texts. It utilizes a diachronic model to explicate ethnohistorical dimensions as well as legendary and contemporary aspects of the spirit-mediums through both oral and literary sources. This work, drawing upon a wide range of ethnographic and textual materials to investigate the phenomenon of lha-bzhugs (spirit-possession) in Upper Tibet, analyses the way in which its historical and present-day characteristics are interrelated. Thus, the continuity of the tradition of spirit-mediumship and the way in which it has been conceived and preserved, is the underlying theme giving this work its narrative and analytical coherence.
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Mungadze, Jerry Jesphat. "A Descriptive Study of a Native African Mental Health Problem Known in Zimbabwe as zvirwere zvechivanhu." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1990. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc332278/.
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This is a study conducted in Zimbabwe which compared a group of 50 zvirvere zvechivanhu patients and a group of 50 non-patients in age, sex, marital status, level of education and claims of spirit possession. Claims of spirit possessions and types of spirits, as pointed out by Bennel (1982), were used as symptoms of zvirwere zvechivanhu. The two groups were also compared in symptom dimensions of the SCL-90-R used in the study. The SCL-90-R, developed by Derogatis (1975), is a 90-item symptom check list used to screen people for psychological problems reflected in the nine symptom dimensions of somatization, obsessive/ compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, psychoticism and in the three global scores of Global Severity Index, Positive Symptom Distress Index and Positive Symptom Total. The subjects were chosen from two different sites, using a systematic sampling method. Three statistical methods were used to analyze the data. The Chi-square was used to analyze data on descriptive variables. The T-test and 2 x 2 analysis of variance were used to analyze the data on symptom dimensions and global scores. The study had one main hypothesis and nine subhypotheses. The main hypothesis was that zvirwere zvechivanhu patients were significantly different from the non-patients on the overall global scores. The nine subhypotheses stated that the patient and non-patient groups were significantly different in the nine separate symptom dimensions. The study concluded that the zvirwere zvechivanhu patients were significantly different from the non-patients in the overall global scores. In the nine separate symptom dimensions, it was concluded that the two groups were the same in all except the somatization and obsessive/compulsive system dimensions.
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Malia, Linda M. "One little word rethinking a place for deliverance and exorcism within the church's healing ministry /." Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN), 1998. http://www.tren.com.
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Sörman, Linnea. "”Fought by two oppositions” : Om andebesättelse och rörelse mellan gränser i en kenyansk evangelisk församling." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Institutionen för kultur och kommunikation, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-134162.
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De praktiker och föreställningar som hör samma med den magiska verkligheten under etiketten ”witchcraft” verkar öka i popularitet i dagens Afrika. Medan vissa postmoderna antropologer har tolkat fenomenet som en kritisk kommentar mot moderniseringsprocesser är det troligt att föreställningen om den magiska verkligheten kan göra anspråk på fler uttryck än så. Syftet med den här undersökningen är att analysera hur informanternas syn på andebesättelse i en Luo-dominerad kristen evangelisk församling i Kibera, kan tolkas utifrån vissa ekonomiska, sociala och kulturella processer. Jag undersöker hur andebesättelse kan förstås med hjälp av informanternas förhållande till och synen på hemmet, familjen, könsroller, staden, landsbygden, avundsjuka och framgång. I analysen tolkas informanternas föreställningar om andebesättelse utifrån rörelser mellan de kenyanska gränserna rikedom/fattigdom, stadsliv/landsbygd och offentligt/privat. Andebesättelse kan därefter förstås som en slags medlare mellan dessa gränser, där de som befinner sig mellan någon av dessa oppositioner tenderar att vara särskilt utsatta för andliga attacker.The notion of witchcraft seems to grow in popularity in the contemporary Africa. While some postmodern anthropologists have interpreted the phenomenon as a critical commentary on the processes of modernization, it is likely to be able to claim more than that. The purpose of the thesis is to analyse the notion of spirit possession by the informants in a Luo dominated evangelical church in Kibera, and how it may be interpreted through certain economic, social and cultural processes. This is made by investigating the views on the home, family, gender roles, urban, rural, jealousy and prosperity. The informant’s notion of spirit possession is interpreted in the analyse as movements across the Kenyan boundaries of rural/urban, public/private and rich/poor. Spirit possession is understood as a mediator between these boundaries, and those who is found to be in between some of these oppositions tend to be most vulnerable to spirit attacks.
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Davhula, Mudzunga Junniah. "Malombo Musical Art in VhaVenda Indigenous Healing Practices." Thesis, University of Pretoria, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/64353.
Full textAbstract:
The traditional healing practices of the Vhavenda people include one very important
component, the malombo ritual healing practice.
This healing practice has been conducted for centuries. It involves the use of music
(including singing and the use of drums and shakers for rhythm), dance and elements
of theatre performed by the person to be healed, the healer, invited malombe
(community members who have been through the same ritual), as well as family
members and supporters.
The importance of this ritual as a healing process has long been acknowledged. Of
interest in this study, however, is the role-played by the music itself in facilitating the
healing process. The ritual cannot take place without the music; neither is the music
used outside this specific ritual.
Seven representative malombo songs have been partially notated by John Blacking
and N. J. van Warmelo also as recorded texts. However, since this ritual is closed and
seldom open to strangers, their research was, of necessity, limited. Through long-term
fieldwork, and from an insider perspective, this thesis is based on participation in
more than fifteen malombo rituals during the field research period (2005-2014).
Songs and performances were recorded as possible and some are included on the
accompanying CD. In addition, transcription was utilized as a tool to demonstrate the
core melody of selected songs, with the acknowledgement that transcription in
Western notation limits the demonstration of the creative mato1 process that is
fundamental to the malombo ritual.
This thesis argues that that music plays a vital role in this healing ceremony, and it is
through the mato process that the ancestors are called to heal. The texts of the songs at
times include words of the Tshikalanga language that is spoken by the Vhakalanga of
Zimbabwe. Most significantly, music is seen as the bridge between the ancestral
spirits and the patient and participants in the ceremony, thus underscoring its
fundamental importance in Vhavenda culture.Thesis (DMus)--University of Pretoria, 2017.
SAMRO
Music
DMus
Unrestricted
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Danowski, Christopher. "The medium and the message : Afro-Cuban trance and Western theatrical performance." Thesis, University of Plymouth, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/9512.
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The Medium and the Message investigates the incorporation of Afro-Cuban trance techniques in Western theatrical performance. Through art practice and research, I am asking two questions: how do performers, trained in Western theatrical contexts, articulate their experience with Afro-Cuban trance techniques? And how can my research methodologies illuminate the inherent intercultural tensions in ways that are productive for performance practitioners and theorists? To answer these questions, I created four new works of theatrical performance where I developed a method for performers, utilizing Afro-Cuban rituals adapted for non-practitioners. Working toward a phenomenological understanding of what is happening when a performer incorporates a character, I drew on the ritual knowledge of trance possession in Lukumí and Palo Monte in order to examine how ontologies might speak to each other in artistic practice. I also served as advisor for the creation of a fifth work in order to test the method outside of my studio. I constructed a studio practice methodology, called kanga (from the Bantu for tying and untying), using three methods based on aspects of Afro-Cuban ritual, and modified for performance contexts: spell, charm, and trance. This methodology enacts and complicates distinctions between performance and ritual, serving as a contribution to respectful and responsible intercultural performance practices. My research-led practice includes autobiographical writing and auto-ethnography under a phenomenological research methodology that uses three methods for data collection: formal recorded interviews, video footage of the studio work, and regular rehearsal debriefings. The overall methodology, bridging theory and practice, is bricoleur, drawing from ethnography, psychoanalytic theory, and phenomenology. Both research and studio work led to the articulation of a state of consciousness in performance that I call hauntological. This borrows from Derrida (1994: 10) but is redefined to refer to a state of being where reality is co-constituted by the living and the dead, where ancestral spirits are invoked to do the work once reserved for characters. Finally, this led to the construction of a creative artifact called The Ghost Lounge, an art work that evokes a hauntological state of consciousness in the viewer.
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Stotzer, Talhy. "Photography and the medium : a photographic dialogue in China." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2013. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/598.
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Using documentary photography with an ethnographic approach, this practice-ledbresearch project focuses on a case study of a Han-Chinese woman called Zai yu who practices mediumship in urban China. It aims to explore the relationships between herbmediumship practice and the medium of photography.
During a mediumship session, a spirit is represented as temporarily displacing the agency of the medium by entering his/her body and causing a change of identity. For the duration of the episode, the spirit can potentially provide access to divine powers and knowledge in order to counsel and to heal. In China the use of mediumship appears since the Shang dynasty (1600-1046 B.C.E.) and despite modernization, rationalization, and the severe persecutions of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), mediumship and other divinatory practices have remained prevalent.
Over two field trips to China in 2009 and 2010, I witnessed many of these mediumship sessions when Zai yu was embodied by various spirit entities. I became interested in Zai yu’s mediumship practice as a form of meta-communication and representation because this practice raises some interesting parallels and differences with the medium of photography. Inspired by both contemporary and ancient ideologies, Zai yu’s practice provides a link between the past, present and future, the material and the spiritual, the living and the dead – concepts that have been explored in relation to photographic theory by cultural critics such as Benjamin (1931), Sontag (1978) Barthes (1981) and Cadava (1997). Zai yu’s mediumship practice provides a visually rich avenue to further explore these concepts, among others. I argue that analysing some of the parallels between divination (in particular mediumship) and photography can facilitate a re-engagement with photography’s intrinsic qualities. This is especially valuable in a digital age when the medium is being radically redefined and some of these qualities, which Benjamin already declared were in decline after photography became mechanically reproducible in the 1850s, are further anesthetized.
This research project includes a book of photographs of Zai yu and her daily life entitled Medium and a written component contextualizing the images and explicating the theoretical imperatives that motivated the project. As well as contributing to photographic theory by exploring concepts related to time, death and absent-presence, this research also aims to add to the knowledge of divination practices such as mediumship in urban China, a neglected field of inquiry. By using an ethnographic approach, the research project also aims to add to the development of using documentary photography ethically as a research tool and as a form of expression and representation.
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Perdomo, Alvarado Marcella Maria. ""Tu seras buyei". Le devoir de s'initier au Dügü, un culte de possession des Garifunas du Honduras." Thesis, Paris, EHESS, 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019EHES0020.
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Le Dügü est un culte de possession pratiqué par les Garifunas, un peuple afroamérindien originaire de l’île de Saint-Vincent, située dans les petites Antilles. Suite à leur déportation en masse vers l’Amérique Centrale par la Couronne britannique en 1797, aujourd’hui, les Garifunas constituent un peuple homogène et transnational répandu sur le littoral atlantique de l’Amérique Centrale. À la différence de la majorité des cultes afro-américains qui abritent pour la plupart un panthéon peuplé de divinités africaines, le Dügü est le domaine des esprits des parents défunts ascendants : les hiuruha et les gubida. Culte magico-religieux qui ignore le dogme et dont la pratique rituelle est la marque, le Dügü suppose la croyance aux esprits des ancêtres capables d’intervenir dans les corps des individus par la possession. Dans la trame cosmogonique du culte, les ancêtres sont censés suivre un itinéraire précis depuis Yurumein, l’île des origines, en traversant la mer des Caraïbes pour finalement débarquer au Honduras, la terre de l’exil. Ce passé est resté gravé dans le Dügü et survit souterrainement dans les sphères inconscientes des individus. Les ancêtres apparaissent en songe, dans des scénarios hallucinatoires, et sont également à l’origine de maladies et de l’infortune en générale. Ce souvenir a aussi donné naissance à un personnage essentiel pour sa propagation : le buyei. À la fois médium, guérisseur et chef de culte, le buyei est considéré comme le membre le plus éminent de toute la communauté religieuse. Or, pour arriver à ce statut, le Dügü exige des rites de passage au cours desquels les élus vont subir une transformation inédite de leur identité. Ce travail se donne pour objectif de décrire et d’analyser le parcours initiatique du buyei, qui s’appui sur deux années de recherche ethnographique au Honduras. L’un des enjeux essentiels consiste à comprendre comment ce personnage devient le fil capteur d’une mémoire historique grâce à la domestication de la possession. La possession est hautement valorisée dans le contexte du Dügü car elle est conceptualisée comme étant la manifestation directe des morts. Par ailleurs, la thèse accorde une place importante à l’expression de l’ontologie protéiforme des agents spirituels aussi bien dans des contextes rituels que non-rituels. Finalement, il s’agit de montrer ici que le cas garifuna révèle ostensiblement que l’articulation de la tradition à l’expérience individuelle constitue la clef de voûte dans les dynamiques de transmissionDügü is a possession cult practiced by the Garifuna, an Afro-Amerindian society originated on the isle of Saint-Vincent, located in the Lesser Antilles. After their mass deportation to Central America by the British Crown in 1797, in the present, the Garifuna are a homogenous and transnational group scattered along the Atlantic Coast of Central America. Unlike the majority of Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian cults, the African deities do not appear in the cosmological structure of the Dügü. Instead, the Garifuna worship two categories of spiritual entities: the hiuruha and the gubida, the spirits of the dead. As a traditional religious cult, the Dügü is not based on any form of dogma and relies rather upon ritual practice. The ancestral entities are believed to act on the bodies of their living descendants by spirit possession. In the religious repertoire, ancestors follow a precise itinerary from Yurumein, the original motherland, from where they navigate on the Caribbean Sea to finally arrive to Honduras, the land of the exile. This memory remains entrenched in the Dügü and it survives beneath the surface of individuals’unconscious realms. Ancestors become visible in dreams, in hallucinatory visions and they are also the instigators of illness and misfortune. This legacy also gave birth to an important character for its propagation: the buyei. Also known as a medium and a traditional healer, the garifuna religion relies on the leadership of such ritual character. Nevertheless, in order to achieve this position, candidates most go through initiation rites that will profoundly transform their own personal identity. The main purpose of this present study is to describe and analyze the buyei’s initiation journey, which relies on two years of ethnographic research in Honduras. It argues how this character evolves into a living-support for a group’s historical memory due to the ability to master spirit possession. Possession is highly valued in the Dügü, since it is conceptualized as a direct contact with the dead. Moreover, an important place will be accorded to the expression of the fluctuating ontology of the spirits during ritual and non-ritual contexts. Finally, I intend to show here that the garifuna case reveals ostensibly how the link between tradition and individual experience turns out to be a relevant keystone in transmission dynamics
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Hamrin-Dahl, Tina. "Tenshō-kōtai-jingū-kyō och karmakampen : En dōjō i Honolulu med besatthetsandar, häxeriföreställningar och transdans." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för idé- och samhällsstudier, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-156640.
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In 1952 a pro-Japanese group in Hawai'i became the religious movement Tenshō-Kōtai-Jingū-kyō, after the arrival of Sayo Kitamura, a charismatic woman from Japan called Ōgamisama. Her teaching was filled with traditional elements, and Japanese imperialism acquired a new form, and became a spiritual world – a world filled with spirits in need of redemption. To dance in an ego-free state and redeem the evil spirits was a goal for her followers, who learnt how to perform the ecstasy dance and to achieve an altered state of consciousness. Some families, though, were suspected of being carriers of evil spirits called inu-gami (dog spirits). This was a relic of witchcraft, and since hatred, jealousy, envy, and other emotional antipathies produced possession spirits among those who refused to accept Japan's position at the end of the war, Ōgamisama – the mouthpiece of The Sun Goddess Amaterasu – was welcomed as a faith healer and face saver.
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Esposito, La Rossa Maurizio. "L'or et l'argent : identifications dynastiques et relations hiérarchiques dans les royautés sakalava de Madagascar." Thesis, Paris, EHESS, 2020. http://www.theses.fr/2020EHES0159.
Full textAbstract:
L’histoire est souvent racontée par les vainqueurs. Même lorsqu’il s’agit de l’histoire des vaincus, ce sont ou bien les vainqueurs qui la rapportent, ou bien les vaincus survivants assis sur le trône des vainqueurs qui la relatent. Tel est le cas de l’histoire des Zafinifotsy, des « descendants de l’argent », auxquels cette étude est consacrée. Identifiés par une tradition historiographique comme étant une branche dynastique mineure sakalava, vaincue par les « descendants de l’or », ces descendants de l’argent auraient fondé un nouveau royaume dans le nord de Madagascar au milieu du XVIIIe siècle : le royaume antankaraña. Cependant, une partie de ces descendants de l’argent se serait suicidée par noyade dans les eaux d’une baie au nord-ouest de l’île. Dans cette région, gouvernée actuellement par une royauté des descendants de l’or (Zafinimena), un culte de possession est dédié aux esprits de ces nobles de l’argent noyés, anciens rivaux des souverains de l’or. Face à la crise politique et économique que rencontre Madagascar depuis plusieurs années, c’est au travers de ces catégories dynastiques de l’or et de l’argent que des groupes claniques ainsi que des acteurs politiques négocient leur légitimité et leur position actuelle dans le contexte postcolonial de l’État républicain malgache. En s’occupant des rituels royaux, les descendants d’esclaves et les serviteurs des royautés sakalava, revendiquent une conception de loyauté et du travail différente de celle imposée d’abord par la colonisation, ensuite par l’État postcolonial. Les représentants du gouvernement national en revanche puisent dans leurs origines nobles, et plus généralement dans l’histoire des rois, pour légitimer leur pouvoir controversé au sein de la population. C’est cette idéologie du pouvoir royal et de la hiérarchie sociale mobilisée par ces acteurs que cette thèse interroge.À partir de l’étude des traditions orales et des activités rituelles dans les différents villages où ce culte est pratiqué, j’ai analysé les relations historiques et rituelles entre les groupes dynastiques ou claniques auxquels ses participants se rattachent. En effectuant un parcours à travers ces différents sites et, plus largement, à travers les principales capitales historiques des royautés sakalava, j’ai ainsi réalisé une histoire régressive de ces dynasties royales. Sur la base des contradictions ayant émergé des traditions orales et des interactions rituelles, cette histoire régressive, inspirée par les travaux de Marc Bloch et de Nathan Wachtel, a permis de révéler que ces dynasties royales sont à l’origine des catégories fonctionnelles et relatives permettant d’organiser la succession royale. Selon cette organisation, aux descendants de l’or revient le pouvoir de régner, aux descendants de l’argent, celui de légitimer rituellement le pouvoir des premiers. Cette hiérarchie ambivalente entre ces deux catégories de nobles est d’ailleurs façonnée sur les relations à plaisanterie qui lient les rois étrangers de l’or aux maîtres de la terre. C’est dans des conjonctures historiques particulières que ces catégories structurelles et contextuelles se sont cristallisées en appellations dynastiques. Ce processus de dynastisation a été initié notamment par les descendants de l’argent ayant fondé le royaume antankaraña, c’est-à-dire les anciens vaincus assis sur le trône des vainqueurs. Cet exemple ethnographique représente donc un cas concret de la « structure de la conjoncture » théorisée par Marshall Sahlins. En conclusion, cette étude montre sous un jour nouveau les mécanismes de fondation et d’organisation du pouvoir royal sakalava, ainsi que le caractère fonctionnel et structurel de ces catégories « de l’or » et « de l’argent », réifiées en groupes dynastiques réels dans des conjonctures historiques particulières. Plus généralement, cette thèse permet d’appréhender la nature relationnelle et contextuelle de la hiérarchie et des identités individuelles et collectives à MadagascarHistory is often told by the victors. Even the history of the defeated is recounted either by the victors or by those survivors amongst the defeated who find themselves seated on the victor’s throne. Such is the case with the history of the Zafinifotsy, or "descendants of silver", to whom this study is dedicated. Identified, by a historiographical tradition, as belonging to a minor branch of Sakalava royalty, defeated by the "descendants of gold", these descendants of silver founded a new kingdom to the north of Madagascar in the middle of the 18th century: the Antankaraña kingdom. However, a number of these descendants of silver committed suicide by drowning themselves in a bay on the northwestern coast of the island. In this region, currently ruled by a monarchy of the descendants of gold (Zafinimena), a cult of possession is practiced to honour the spirits of these drowned nobles of the silver, former rivals of the rulers of gold. Faced with the political and economic crisis that Madagascar has undergone for the last several years, clan groups and political actors negotiate their legitimacy and current position in the post-colonial context of the Malagasy republican state through these dynastic categories of gold and silver. In carrying out royal rituals, the descendants of slaves and the servants of Sakalava royalty claim a conception of loyalty and work that differs from that imposed first by colonisation and then by the postcolonial state. National government representatives, on the other hand, draw on their aristocratic origins, and more generally on the history of kings, to legitimise their controversial power amongst the population. It is the ideology of royal power and social hierarchy mobilised by these actors that this thesis examines.Through the study of oral traditions and ritual activities in the different villages where this cult is performed, I analyse the historical and ritual relations between the dynastic or clan groups participants belong to. In visiting these different sites and, more broadly, the main historical capitals of the Sakalava royalty, I have realised a regressive history of the royal dynasties in question. The regressive history, inspired by the work of Marc Bloch and Nathan Wachtel, has revealed, on the basis of the contradictions emerging from oral traditions and ritual interactions, that these royal dynasties were originally functional and relative categories used to organise royal succession. This framework grants the descendants of gold the power to reign, and the descendants of silver that of legitimising the power of the former. This ambivalent hierarchy between these two categories of nobles is, moreover, shaped by the joking relationships that link the stranger kings of gold to the masters of the earth. It is at particular historical junctures that these structural and contextual categories crystallised into dynastic designations. This process of dynastisation was primarily driven by the descendants of silver who founded the Antankaraña kingdom, i.e. those who, defeated in ancient times, took to the throne of the victor. This ethnographic example therefore represents a concrete case of the "structure of the conjuncture" theorised by Marshall Sahlins.In conclusion, this study shines a new light on the founding and organisational mechanisms of Sakalava royal power, as well as the functional and structural character of these categories of "gold" and "silver", reified into effective dynastic groups in particular historical conjunctures. More generally, this thesis provides insight into the relational and contextual nature of hierarchy and individual and collective identities in Madagascar
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Roberts, Corey Justin. "Consuming Brazil: Afro Brazilian Religion as a Base for Actor Training." VCU Scholars Compass, 2006. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/1023.
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Actor training, like the theatre in Brazil, has historically been a middle and upper class pursuit that followed European models, namely Stanislavski's system. Yet within Brazil there is a wealth of diverse cultures that are inherently theatrical and well suited for application in actor training. In this study I explore one such culture, the Afro Brazilian religion Umbanda. First, I examine its formation to illuminate how the religion itself performed (or served as a site for cultural interaction) throughout history. Then, I explore the practice of the religion both apart from and in relation to the theatre and Stanislavski's system. Using the archetypes of Umbanda as a base, I formulate a system of actor training that both allows access to a larger demographic of Brazilians, and also encourages cultural dialogue as an explicit part of acting process. I frame this study with two metaphors: anthropophagy, the notion of cannibalizing or consuming one culture by another; and, more specifically, the digestive tract. The anthropophagy movement in Brazil framed the country's thought throughout much of the 20th century; the digestive tract is a closer examination of the consuming process that epitomizes this system of actor training.
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Day, Sophie. "Embodying spirits village oracles and possession ritual in Ladakh, North India /." Thesis, Boston Spa, U.K. : British Library Document Supply Centre, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.318353.
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Ventimiglia, Andrew. "Spirited Possessions| Media and Intellectual Property in the American Spiritual Marketplace." Thesis, University of California, Davis, 2016. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10036192.
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This dissertation explores the role that intellectual property law plays as it influences the circulation and use of religious goods in contemporary religious organizations in the United States. The coherence of many modern spiritual communities no longer lies in a centralized institution like the church but instead in a shared dedication to sacred texts and other religious media. Thus, intellectual property law has become an effective means to administer the ephemeral beliefs and practices mediated by these texts. I explore a number of cases to demonstrate how intellectual property law can be used to maintain and adjudicate social relations rather than simply determining the proper allocation of ownership over a contested good. This project uses a number of select case studies – the legal battles of the Urantia Foundation and Worldwide Church of God, Scientology’s lawsuits against Internet Service Providers, the practice of sermon-stealing as it relates to the growth of sermon databases – to examine how religious communities ethically justify forms of ownership in religious goods and to highlight the incongruities between theories of authorship, originality and ownership within spiritual communities and those embedded in the law. I conclude that religious property owners construct innovative strategies for knowledge production and distribution as they mobilize IP to organize social and spiritual communities, care for and protect sacred goods, produce new articulations of spiritual identity, and even use the prohibitions of law to enchant material forms.
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Määttä, Maarit. "Strange Spirits : – Possession and the queering of gender and other social positions in Yuan Mei’s Zibuyu." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Teologiska institutionen, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-411564.
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This thesis explores a Qing dynasty collection of stories about ghosts and other strange events written by Yuan Mei (1716–1798). The thesis focuses on a number of stories about possession of living persons by spirits, which are studied with the help of Sara Ahmed’s queer phenomenology. By studying stories in which the living and the dead and men and women’s identities overlap while they are possessed, we gain greater understanding about hierarchical relations during Qing dynasty, and how these stories both support and question these.Uppsatsen studerar en samling av berättelser om spöken och andra ovanliga händelser skriven av Yuan Mei (1716–1798) under Qingdynastin i Kina. Uppsatsen fokuserar på ett antal berättelser där andar tagit en människa i besittning, som studeras med hjälp av Sara Ahmeds queer fenomenologi. Genom att studera berättelser om de levande och döda samt män och kvinnor vars identiteter överlappar vid besittningar, får vi bättre förståelse över hierarkiska relationer under Qingdynastin och hur berättelserna både stödjer och ifrågasätter dessa.
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GATTI, MARZIO. "Possessione e strategie di potere nelle Igrejas Zione a Maputo." Doctoral thesis, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10281/30819.
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Questa ricerca si basa sullo studio delle chiese /zione/ nella capitale del Mozambico, Maputo. La particolarità di questi profili religiosi è l'aver introdotto, su una base "cristiana pentecostale", elementi legati
alla tradizione religiosa locale.Le chiese /zione/ fanno parte delle /AICs/ (/African/ /Indipendent/ /Churches/) e studi recenti concordano sul fatto che il loro crescente successo sta soprattutto nell'enfasi che
pongono nella guarigione divina, nella protezione e nella liberazione dalle forze del male. Inoltre la ricerca vuole porre attenzione alle credenze religiose locali come saperi e discorsi che circolano in quel
determinato contesto socio-culturale della città di Maputo, fondati sulla ricerca dell'armonia tra i vivi e i morti. E' in questo quadro del dialogo continuo tra i vivi e i morti che si situa un'ampia e crescente
aderenza di fedeli alle credenze e tradizioni religiose nel sud. Inoltre si esamineranno la figura del pastore /zione/ e le reti sociali che questi attiva all'interno della società mozambicana, oltre che le relazioni e le strategie di potere che vengono prodotte all'interno dell'/igreja/.
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Kuecker, Aaron J. "The Spirit and the 'other' : social identity, ethnicity and intergroup reconciliation in Luke-Acts." Thesis, St Andrews, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/532.
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Bruni, Silvia. "Riti femminili a Meknes. Le figlie e i "figli" di Lalla Malika." Doctoral thesis, Università degli studi di Padova, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11577/3421963.
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In Morocco the term m'allmat means “female craft masters”, but in Meknes it has come to indicate more specifically musical groups of women and sometimes effeminate men as well. They main role provide musical performances for the various rites practiced by women, and especially in the rites of female spirit evocation and possession. The main spirit is Lalla Malika (“lady queen”). In Meknes the cult devoted to her is particularly important, and special rituals are celebrated in her honor in which women and effeminate men play and dance. The m'allmat officiate these rituals.
The inquiry draws on my fieldwork in the ritual context in Meknes, on musical practices, possession cults and daily life of both musicians and devotees. By first investigating the interaction between religious brotherhood and female practices, then analyzing in detail the musical and ritual tradition of m'allmat groups, I demonstrate how m'allmat are characterized by a complex relationship between marginality and centrality. They live and work as musicians – alongside the more famous religious confraternities – in the city of Meknes, where they have put down roots and share rites, repertoires, and musical instruments of their own. Lalla Malika, and her cult, play a central role both for women and effeminate men in Meknes and offer them a way to actively reshape gender and social relations. For female devotees, she represents an ideal model of femininity to which they can aspire; they also conceptualize and experience this relationship as a fundamental element of their identity, a way of thinking and positioning themselves in the world. Effeminate men possessed by Malika, find an organic place within in the system of female practices, often as an officiant of cults or musician in a m'allmat group.In Marocco il termine m’allmat significa “maestre artigiane”, ma a Meknes si è specializzato ad indicare dei gruppi musicali composti da donne a cui, talvolta, si affiancano degli uomini effeminati. Il ruolo principale di questi gruppi è l’esecuzione musicale in diversi riti praticati dalle donne, e soprattutto nei riti di evocazione e possessione da parte degli spiriti femminili. Lo spirito principale è Lalla Malika (“la signora regina”). A Meknes il culto a lei dedicato ha una speciale importanza, e vengono officiati per lei dei riti specifici, nel corso dei quali suonano e danzano donne e uomini effeminati. Le m'allmat sono le officianti di questi riti. La ricerca si basa sul mio lavoro sul campo nel contesto rituale di Meknes, sulle pratiche musicali, i culti spiritici e la vita quotidiana delle musiciste e devote. A partire da un’indagine sull’interazione tra le confraternite religiose e i riti femminili, e dall’analisi dettagliata della tradizione rituale e musicale dei gruppi m'allmat, intendo dimostrare come le m'allmat si situino in un complesso rapporto tra marginalità e centralità. Vivono e operano come musiciste – accanto alle confraternite religiose più note –nella città di Meknes, dove sono radicate e condividono riti, repertori, strumenti musicali propri. Lalla Malika e il culto a lei dedicato hanno un ruolo centrale sia per le donne che per gli effeminati di Meknes e offre loro la possibilità di rimodellare le relazioni sociali e di genere. Per le devote è un modello ideale di donna a cui si aspira; ma il rapporto con Malika è anche pensato e vissuto come un elemento fondante della propria identità, del proprio modo di essere, di pensare, di collocarsi nel mondo. Gli effeminati posseduti da Malika trovano una collocazione organica nel sistema di pratiche femminili, spesso come officianti dei culti o come musicista in un gruppo m'allmat.
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Ha, Jaesung. "Liberation from the demon and the demonic critical analysis of women's experience in spirit possession /." Diss., 2006. http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/ETD-db/available/etd-03282006-100109/.
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Sorensen, Eric R. "The temple of God, the house of the unclean spirit : possession and exorcism in the New Testament and early Christianity /." 2001. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3029539.
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