Chapter Possession/Trance Phenomena

For centuries, European and Global North observers of non-Western societies have been fascinated by African bodily expressivity and power. Artistic and ritual displays of bodily ways of knowing have captivated explorers, traders, missionaries, anthropologists, historians, and tourists, and this engagement has spawned a robust industry of representational accounts of African affect and sensibilities. Both European colonialism and American imperialism created and produced voluminous documentation of “the black body” through study of folklore, proverbs, myth, sculpture, masks, adornment objects such as beads, tunics, hair combs, and so forth. In addition, film and still photography have been used to capture vivid portrayals of bodily powers revealed in dance and possession trance. A history of such documentation and collection reveals shifts over more than a century in the way body, affect, and sensing have been understood and studied. Anthropology and psychology took the lead in attending to affect and the senses, but by the late 20th century additional fields such as music, art history, archaeology, and history joined in the sensory turn.

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Mysticism among the Pedandas of Bali

Religions ◽

10.3390/rel11110585 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (11) ◽

pp. 585

Author(s):

June McDaniel

Keyword(s):

Daily Life ◽

Ethnographic Research ◽

Religious Leaders ◽

World Religions ◽

Religious Rituals ◽

Holy Water ◽

Mystical Experiences ◽

Possession Trance

On the island of Bali in Indonesia, the traditional Hindu religious leaders are the pedandas, or brahmin high priests. Their religious status is largely based on their mystical states, during which they create the highest and most valuable form of holy water, which is needed for all religious rituals on the island. It is one of the rare examples in world religions where mysticism is not only integrated into the daily life of the community but is vital to it. These are the religious authorities who maintain the ancient forms of Indonesian Hinduism, standing against the encroachment of Westernization, Islamization and modernization. Little ethnographic research has been done on them—there are no books about their lives and experiences in any Western languages, and only a few biographies in Indonesian. In this paper, we examine the lives of some Shiva pedandas, discussing their mystical experiences, and the ways that their states fit in with other sorts of mystical experiences in Bali. These other sorts of experiences include those of Buddhist priests, local healers or balians, and the debatably mystical experiences of possession trance.

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Kerauhan: Individual life changes and dynamics of Balinese possession-trance experience

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e627722013-499 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Bagus Ari Nugraha Suela ◽

Luh Putu Prema Diani ◽

Virgina Dharmasasmitha ◽

Yohanes K. Herdiyanto

Keyword(s):

Life Changes ◽

Individual Life ◽

Possession Trance

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