The Dynamic Cosmos: Movement, Paradox, and Experimentation in the Anthropology of Spirit Possession

Description

This edited volume applies the analytic notions of paradox and play to the ethnographic manifestation of spirits, angels, and demons in different locations around the world. The 10 case studies conceptualize the co-presence of humans and entities with terms that do not exclude spiritual reasoning on the one hand, and social explanations on the other. Through in-depth descriptions of localized possession cosmologies, the different chapters collectively propose path-breaking methodological directions in this field, which incorporate ethnographic theories of simultaneity into anthropological theories of religion, kinship, and ritual. Framed by an introduction written by the editors and an afterword by Michael Lambek, a leading authority in possessions studies, the volume contains cutting edge analyses that will provide readers with new tools to evaluate previously unstudied aspects of spirit possession; all of which stem from the fantastic forms of human movement that accompany the phenomenality of paradoxes in mundane reality. Contents List of Contributors Introduction: Possession and Paradox • Matan Shapiro and Diana Espírito Santo 1 Angels and Demons: Notes on Kinship and Exorcism at an Ethiopian Orthodox Shrine • Diego Maria Malara 2 Spirit Possessions, Racial Dispossessions: The Second Diaspora of Race in Afro-Cuban Religious Experience • Anastasios Panagiotopoulos 3 Between Possessor and Possessed: Warping Spacetime and Agency through Co-Presence • J. Brent Crosson 4 Waiting for Deities: Spirit Possession in the Middle Voice • Miho Ishii 5 The Motion-Power of the Collective, or How Spirits “Come into View” in Cuba • Diana Espírito Santo 6 (EN)Spirited Pedagogy: Learning and Simultaneity in Pentecostalism • Bruno Reinhardt 7 A Theory of Passage: Paradox and Neo-Pentecostal Expulsion of Demons in Brazil • Matan Shapiro 8 The Threshold of the Cosmos: Priestly Scriptures and the Shamanic Wilderness in Southwest China • Katherine Swancutt 9 The Mormon Dead • Jon Bialecki 10 On the Existence of Witches (Or How Anthropology Works) • Marcio Goldman Afterword • Michael Lambek Notes Bibliography Index