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

Spirit Possession and Communication in Religious and Cultural Contexts explores the phenomenon of spirit possession, focusing on the religious and cultural functions it serves as a means of communication. Drawing on the multidisciplinary expertise of philosophers, anthropologists, historians, linguists, and scholars of religion and the Bible, the volume investigates the ways that spirit possession narratives, events, and rituals are often interwoven around communicative acts, both between spiritual and earthly realms and between members of a community. This book offers fresh insight into the enduring cultural and religious significance of spirit possession. It will be an important resource for scholars from a diverse range of disciplines, including religion, anthropology, history, linguistics, and philosophy.

In her innovative new book, Kalpana Ram reflects on the way spirit possession unsettles some of the foundational assumptions of modernity. What is a human subject under the varied conditions commonly associated with possession? What kind of subjectivity must already be in place to allow such a transformation to occur? How does it alter our understanding of memory and emotion if these assail us in the form of ghosts rather than as attributes of subjective experience? What does it mean to worship deities who are afflictive and capricious, yet bear an intimate relationship to justice? What is a "human" body if it can be taken over by a whole array of entities? What is agency if people can be "claimed" in this manner? What is gender if, while possessed, a woman is a woman no longer? Drawing on spirit possession among women and the rich traditions of subaltern religion in Tamil Nadu, South India, Ram concludes that the basis for constructing an alternative understanding of human agency need not rest on the usual requirements of a fully present consciousness or on the exercise of choice and planning. Instead of relegating possession, ghosts, and demons to the domain of the exotic, Ram uses spirit possession to illuminate ordinary experiences and relationships. In doing so, she uncovers fundamental instabilities that continue to haunt modern formulations of gender, human agency, and political emancipation. Fertile Disorder interrogates the modern assumptions about gender, agency, and subjectivity that underlie the social improvement projects circulating in Tamil Nadu, assumptions that directly shape people’s lives. The book pays particular attention to projects of family planning, development, reform, and emancipation. Combining ethnography with philosophical argument, Ram fashions alternatives to standard post-modernist and post-structuralist formulations. Grounded in decades of fieldwork, ambitious and wide ranging, her work is conceived as a journey that makes incursions into the unfamiliar, then returns us to the familiar. She argues that magic is not a monopoly of any one culture, historical period, or social formation but inhabits modernity—not only in the places, such as cinema and sound recording, where it is commonly looked for, but in "habit" and in aspects of everyday life that have been largely overlooked and shunned. Fertile Disorder will be of interest to a wide range of scholars in anthropology, religion, gender studies, subaltern studies, and post colonial theory.

Stevan Davies argues that the historical Jesus of Nazareth had little to do with the initial foundation and spread of Christianity, rejecting the standard views that the Christian movement was initiated by the teachings of Jesus, or by stories that Jesus had been seen alive after his death. It was Jesus' experience of Holy Spirit possession, and then the Holy Spirit possession experiences of Jews and Gentiles throughout the Roman empire, that gave rise to the Christian religion. In addition to the entire text of Jesus the Healer this book contains important new essays on the Pentecostal origins of Christianity, and the apocryphal Odes of Solomon as evidence of a pre-Christianity. Praise for Jesus the Healer: "Stevan Davies offers a fascinating reading of the Gospels that takes serious account of their description of Jesus as a spirit-filled exorcist and healer." Elaine Pagels, Princeton University, author of The Gnostic Gospels "The Jesus-quest has spawned a number of seminal studies of late, but none more brilliant, surprising, and engaging than this one. Purely on the basis of secular anthropology and psychology, Davies makes a persuasive case for Jesus as a Spirit-possessed healer and exorcist . . . The work is a tour de force that opens a whole new vista on Jesus and the forces he unleashed." Walter Wink, Auburn Theological Seminary "Jesus emerges not only as a healer and exorcist of demon-possessed sufferers, but as one who is, at times, himself spirit-possessed. The resulting picture brings Jesus and his people into a world of healers and prophets, sufferers and followers consistent with what we know of colonial peasant societies." Erika Bourguignon, Ohio State University, author of Religion, Altered States of Consciousness, and Social Change "What about Stevan Davies's recent hypothesis that Jesus was an ecstatic healer who taught others how to meet God in ecstasy? Jesus himself spoke Johannine-like when in ecstasy and synoptic-like when not in ecstasy. That explains both these traditions as equally primitive and also explains that wide swath of Spirit-possessed trance in the primitive church." John Dominic Crossan, author of Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography and The Historical Jesus. Stevan L. Davies is Professor of Religious Studies at Misericordia University and the author of several books on early Christianity, including Revolt of the Widows, The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom, The Gospel of Thomas: Annotated & Explained, and The Secret Book of John: the Gnostic Gospel Annotated & Explained.