ARC number: 16
(Technical Id number: 17)
| Author(s): | Taves, Ann |
| Title: | Where (fragmented) selves meet cultures: Theorising spirit possession |
| Category: | published article |
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| Keywords: | hypnosis; dissociation; mediums; spirit possession; spiritualism; suggestion; involuntary experience |
| | | Abstract: | Cognitive theories of religious experience, while helpful in explaining some aspects of spirit possession, do not provide a means of accounting for the experience of mediums whose ordinary selves are `absent' during possession rituals. Using the late nineteenth century medium, Mrs Piper, as a case study, I argue that hypnosis provides a means of inducing involuntary experiences similar to those experienced by possessed persons, and that models of how hypnosis works in both hypnotic `virtuosos' and ordinary subjects can be utilised in thinking theoretically about involuntary experiences in religious contexts. In conclusion, I suggest that phenomena of interest to scholars of religion might be subsumed under the heading `auto-suggestive phenomena' and contrasted with the `hetero-suggestive phenomena' associated with hypnosis proper and the `autosuggestive disorders' associated with hysteria in the nineteenth century, and conversion and dissociative disorders in the twentieth century. |
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| Bibliography: | Culture and Religion, Vol. 7, No. 2, July 2006, pp. 123-138, ISSN 1475-5610 print/1475-5629 online/06/020123-138 q 2006 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14755610600975860 |
| URL: | http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/01438301.html |
| | | Submitted: | 06/03/2007 17:21:32 (DD / MM / YYYY) | | Published: | 06/03/2007 17:50:34 (DD / MM / YYYY) |
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