Waiting

This chapter explores the dialectics of walking and resting, and of mobility and waiting, with regards to creativity in language. It thereby focuses on the interruption and unintended break as an opportunity for interactions and encounters across linguistic epistemes, boundaries and norms. Walking as a methodology and epistemic approach has been discussed in anthropology, the social sciences and literary critique, but met very little interest in linguistics. This chapter on the one hand consequently attempts to address walking as a substantial approach to the study of multilingualism and improvisation, but on the other aims at highlighting disruption and stillness as creating the very liminal space and practice through which language creativity can emerge and be realized. It touches upon various practices that are crucial: being stuck, passing time, getting lost. Points of special interests interest include the role of language in the love songs and other genres, especially in the context of the Mediterranean, disruptions associated with migrations and peoples’ movements, the context of tourism, and the linguistic effects of spirit possession.

Encountering the Goddess in the Indian Himalaya: On the Contribution of Ethnographic Film to the Study of Religion

This paper examines the benefits of ethnographic film for the study of religion. It argues that the exploration of gaps between colloquial descriptions of divinities and their practical manifestation in ritual is instructive of the way religious categories are conceptualized. The argument is developed through an analysis of selected scenes from the documentary AVATARA, a meditation on goddess worship (Śaktism) among the Khas ethnic majority of the Hindu Himalaya (Himachal Pradesh, India). Centering on embodiments of the goddess in spirit possession séances, it points to a fundamental difference between the popular depiction of the deity as a virgin-child (kanyā) who visits followers in their dreams and her actual manifestation as a menacing mother (mātā) during ritual activities. These ostensibly incongruent images are ultimately bridged by the anthropologically informed edition of the material caught on camera, illustrating the added advantage of documentary filmmaking for approximating religious experiences.

Chasing Shadows

“Chasing Shadows” offers an intimate portrait of the current practice of the prophetic movement called Kyangyang in Guinea-Bissau. Kyangyang means “the shadows”, but its followers also call themselves “Children of God”. The members of the movement, belonging to the Balanta ethnic group, communicate with their ancestors, who transmit messages from the high God through prophetic writing, glossolalia, divination rituals, and spirit possession. Guided by the ancestors, they heal and give advice in collective ceremonies. This film delves into the creative and poetic world of Kyangyang by giving voice to its members, young and adults, men and women. It also explores the relations between Kyangyang and Balanta cosmology and between the prophetic movement and the two main "world religions" in the country: Islam and Christianity, in its Catholic and Evangelical modes. Original idea and Research: Ramon Sarró and Marina Temudo Direction, camera and sound: Roger Canals Editing: Jordi Orobitg Production: University of Oxford and Jordi Orobitg Produccions

SPIRIT POSSESSION IN EVANGELISM

Spirit possession is associated with good and bad Spirits. The good spirits comes in loving relationship while the bad is to be cast out. There has been confusion concerning the manner of casting out or healing in the churches. Those who practice it, want to link their practices to the ministry of Jesus. There are frequent testimonies to divine healing at evangelism campaigns, however, there are small number of definite miracles of healing compared to the great numbers who were prayed for. The healing may be termed ‘miraculous’ in the sense of being a wonderful sign of God’s activity. The findings from the research, was that the healing was real. Some miracles were instantaneous, others take some time to manifest. The miracles lead to conversion of the individual. The method adopted in the research is critical analysis and socio-religious.

Possessed by a slave, not slavery

The present paper is divided into three large steps around the themes of spirit possession and the historical imagination of slavery in Cuba. These three steps reflect both ethnographic dimensions of these themes and broader theoretical approaches towards them. The last step, ‘apomimesis’, is the one proposed by the author, not by way of replacement but displace­ment. The first step, ‘formulaic’ historical imagination, covers the ground of a direct expression of slavery as historical trauma through spirit possession. The second step, ‘mimesis’, displaces the first by adding into it the possibility of reversal, of empowerment, the slave becoming an anti-slave. The third creates another simultaneous condition. Through the negative dialectics of apomimesis the non-slave emerges.

The Value of Collaboration between Psychiatrists and Exorcist Priests

The article presents the issues of cooperation between psychiatrists and exorcist priests, taking into account the psychiatrist, exorcist priest, patient, and the unusual disease of possession, paying particular attention to when and why the cooperation is essential. And it is necessary mainly in difficult cases of possession. Possession does not only exist as another mental illness; possession is a parapsychological disease, an unusual disease in which supernatural phenomena occur, and is therefore more than a patient’s conviction that he or she will be subjected to demons. Possession is the real seizure of the possessed body by an evil spirit. Possession needs a specific diagnosis and treatment, by a unique specialist, which is an exorcist priest. For the work of exorcist priests, it is very important the cooperation with psychiatrists, who recognize and treat cases of pseudo-possessions and mental illnesses that may coexist with possessions. The article also points out when psychiatrists should refer patients to an exorcist priest. The golden rule turns out to be to give the psychiatrist what belongs to psychiatrists, and to the exorcist priest what belongs to exorcists.