ACTS OF SPIRIT POSSESSION ACROSS CULTURES

This book describes various acts of possession taken from ethnographies of various parts of the world. This is only an attempt to understand what are various acts involved in spirit possession and exorcism. The analysis shows that most of these acts like prolonged silence, lewd and lurid words and actions, improper gestures, improper consumption of food and drink, facial expressions and so on are contrary to the mainstream social and cultural values and etiquette. The author encourages the scholars from diverse fields like medical science, psychology, anthropology, sociology and biology to give more importance to great details of acts of spirit possession to understand, investigate and describe possessed persons. Ultimately, various acts of spirit possessions may also symbolically represent existing socio-cultural, economic, political and gender relations in the society. It is through critical analysis and interpretations we may arrive at these relations for better understanding of society.