Possession

(...) particular kinds of "deprivation" encourage the development of religious movements. (...) deprivation consists of any and all of the ways that an individual or group may feel disadvantaged in comparison either to other individuals or groups or to an internalized set of values. (...) Religions of the revival type appear in times of social stress and as society becomes structures, formal organization takes over. (...) the inspirational type of religion could present a source of instability to a stable society and an organized religion. (...) such inspirational religions may involve the concept of possession trance, or in quite a different way, the inspirational source of the religious message may come in the form of a prophet's vision.

(...) possession-trance cults as they exist in our own society, in the form of neo-Pentecostalism and to some extent spiritualism, are signs of crisis, expressions of needs. They do not appear to be solutions to the problems of society. They are expressions of anxiety, together with many of the other signs that abound. The interesting aspect of all of this is primarily the observation that under certain type of stress many individuals will not only turn to religion for help, but specifically to types of religious forms that appear to provide profound emotional catharsis and the kind of conversion experience and commitment that reach deep into the person's unconscious. The individual abandons his conscious control over his self temporarily in psychologically regressive behaviour to allow what he believes to be a more powerful force to take over his body and his tongue and to act through him.

(...) there is a relationship between the complex of economy, social organization, and child-training practices and the complex of religious beliefs and practices, specifically beliefs concerning possession of human beings by spirits and the ways in which this possession is manifested. These beliefs and behaviours reflect the patterns of social interaction in the society, the values prized and taught to children, and the personalities that individuals develop in the process of growing up in particular kinds of societies. Possession beliefs and rituals then reflect and express both social structures and the personalities of the participants. They are not simply matters of historical inheritance. When such inheritance loses its social significance and profound personal psychological meaning, the beliefs will disappear and possession-trance rituals will become theatrical performances.

The types of societies which exert strong pressure for compliance are also those where we expect to find possession trance. the types of societies which exert strong pressure towards assertion are those for which we expect to find nontrance possession beliefs. the personalities and value systems developed in a society may be expected to be consistent with the conditions of livelihood and social organization which people face. And these in turn are reflected in their ideas concerning spirits and powers which constitute their religious beliefs. In societies in which one succeeds by being obedient, responsible, and nurturant, in short by being compliant, we may expect that such behaviour appropriate towards elders and those in power will also be appropriate toward powerful spirit beings. the individual enhances his power and his status by total abdication and self-effacement before the spirits. Hi abandons his body to them as their mount; his spirit vacates its place before them. he can achieve dominance and assertion only indirectly, through the unconscious pretense of obedience and submission.

On the other hand, the shaman who acquires power, and the witch as well, do not impersonate spirits, do not abdicate their own identity; even the patient who is diminished in some sense by spirit-intrusion illness remains himself. Those who through some form of possession acquire powers for good or for evil have these powers supplement their own; their selves are strengthened rather then displaced. A shaman,s chances for achievement are enhanced by the acquisition of spirit power. His relation with the spirit is not dependent on the group; rather, he has most likely obtained it on his own, in his own dealings with the spirit. Nontrance possession represents an alteration of the individual's capacities, not an alteration of his consciousness. In societies which socialize for assertion, such an alteration of capacities results from the interaction of dependent, self-reliant human beings with spirits or powers of limited capacities.

The spirit a a powerful superhuman entity, can do as he pleases, both with the horse he has mounted and with other human beings present. We thus have an expression of extreme passivity in the interpretation of possession trance. Yet, if we as objective observers consider the behaviour of the spirit to be in fact the behaviour of the individual himself, acting out unconsciously , the role of s spirit, we see great expression of aggression, mastery, self assertion, authority, and the likes. Women assume the roles of males and men those of females. Thus, we might translate this observation as follows: Possession trance offers alternative roles, which satisfy certain individual needs, and it does so by providing the alibi that the behaviour is that of spirits and not of the human beings themselves. And furthermore, in order for human beings to play such assertive roles, they must be totally passive, giving over their bodies to what are ego-alien forces. In a hierarchical society, demanding submission to those in authority, one acquires authority by identification with symbols of powers, identification which goes as far as the total assumption of the other's identity, total loss of one's own. In this authoritarian society, it is possible to act out dominance fantasies by pretending, to self as well as others, total passivity and subjection.

(...) there is great variation in depth of dissociation in a single individual over an extended period of time, in one individual from occasion to occasion, and among individuals. The subject who experiences possession trance with more frequency comes to experience it with greater ease, with less disturbance, and with more control over the process. Also, the more knowledge of the experience is acquired, the greater the control. The Haitians recognize these facts when they say that the greater esoteric knowledge a person acquires the more rarely will he be possessed.

(...) possession trance is to be understood as involving the psychological mechanism of dissociation. However, the personality that appears in a state of dissociation is one that results from learning during the process of initiation. (...) the individual's secondary personality which asserts itself in dissociation in response to certain clues is a socially imposed personality. Several points are involved here: (1) cultural learning--this is clearly evident in the high degree of shared patterning visible in possession trance; (2) the concept of of dissociation, and indeed regression in psychological terms, which offers an understanding of how such alterations in personality are possible; (3) the notion that this behaviour is not the result of individual pathology in spite of its similarity to the multiple-personality syndrome sometimes seen in patients in Western society.
(...)
In Haiti, dissociation into diverse (spirit) personalities fits in with the understanding people have of the universe, of gods, and of human nature. In the United Stated, it does not. here we expect a person to be "himself", to be predictable and consistent, and we are alarmed when behaviour does not fit expectations.

(...) in a rigid social structure, where individuals have little opportunity for achievement and little control over their daily activities, possession trance is more likely to occur. (...) Possession trance, by offering a decision-making authority in the person of a medium, revealing the presumed will of spirits, allows persons oppressed by rigid societies some degree of leeway and some elbow room. As such. possession trance may be said to represent a safety valve, of sorts, for societies whose rigid social structures cause certain stresses.

(...) for people whose self-respect is in need of bolstering, the possession-trance role playing, the impersonation of powerful spirits, act as a mechanism of compensation, of balancing the neglect they experience in everyday life. It also appears to give them some real power over more dominant members of their groups.
(...)
It is of course of interest to observe the personal psychological aspect of possession trance behaviour. Yet we must keep in mind that this is only one level of meaning of this behaviour. To the participants the spirits are real, powerful entities, who overcome human individuals, ride them, engaging in vigorous and unusual behaviour. That personal conflicts are ventilated in this process, that individuals may obtain satisfactions and compensations is not perceived or articulated in these terms by them. This type of discussion is alien to their view of the universe. Yet both the ritual level and the personal level exist, and the personal level gives this ritual behaviour its strong emotional support. People are, quite literally, involved with all their being in their religious activities.

The Jews of the time of Jesus attributed two classes of behaviour to possession by "unclean spirits". On the one hand, there were madmen; they were characterized by the states in which spirits spoke out of people--spirits who answered questions and revealed their names, and left when ordered to do so by Jesus. On the other hand, there were spirits that did not speak. The possessed persons were not thought to be insane, but rather they were deaf, or mute, or lame. And these spirits could be exorcised also. In the first instance, the possession the people believed in revealed itself in a psychological alteration; in the second, in a physical alteration. the distinction between these two types of possession is important, and appears in much of the literature, although it is usually not made explicitly. To make it explicit, we shall call the first type possession trance. We shall say that a belief in possession exists, when the people in question hold that a given person is changed in some way through the presence in or on him of a spirit entity or power, other than his own personality, soul, self, or the like. We say that the possession trance exists in a given society when we find that there is such a belief in possession and it is used to account for alterations or discontinuity of consciousness, awareness, personality, or other aspects of psychological functioning.

In psychological and psychiatric terms, what we are calling possession trance includes a variety of different phenomena. However they all share alteration of consciousness, of sensory modalities, and the like.

Possession (...) is a belief, a cultural belief, a shared and not idiosyncratic belief. Insofar as the behavior involves acting out a personality which which is believed in, concerning which there are shared expectations, to that extent surely "possession states" cannot exist in societies where such beliefs are absent. Nevertheless, if we speak in very general terms about dissociation, fugue states, multiple personalities, fainting, functional epileptic seizures and other behavior of an apparently hysterical type, then the behavior is probably universal and occurs in all societies; however, it should not properly be referred to as "possession states".

In should be noted, furthermore, that where such states occur with a traditional religious explanation, this explanation is not necessarily one involving a concept of "possession". Particularly where hallucinations (or visions) are involved, the religious theory traditionally used is more likely to be one of a spiritual trip or voyage, the absence of the soul, and/or its adventures and encounters with various forces or beings.