the psychic self
DESCRIPTION
Powerpoint presentation, Fiona Bowie. Contains notes, also reproduced as separate text version. Looks at witchcraft and spirit possession and release in Western contexts. Raises methodological questions as to how these can be studied ethnographically so as to do justice to the ontological and epistemological questions raised.TRANSCRIPT
The Psychic Self
Fiona Bowie
Exploring the Extraordinary 7York 4-6 December 2015
The Psychic Self
Boundaries, separation, integration, relationships
Ontology – a discourse about the nature of being
Epistemology – a discourse concerning the nature and possibility of knowledge about the world
M. Strathern: Western individual persons as individual agents v. Melanesian ‘dividuals’ as ‘the precipitaton of relationships’
Spirit possession and spirit release – extends boundaries of self and incorporates others, physically, psychically and semiotically.
Spirit Possession
Curses and Blessings
A Web of Words
Being affected
Narrating witchcraftExemplary narratives
Told to ‘believers’ by those who have been affected by witchcraft.
Witch not identified, but the rituals that made the curse rebound are described.
The dewitcher only obliquely referred to.
Ends with the reversal of fortune.
Exhortatory narratives
Told in situations of crisis.
Conversations between victims and dewitcher.
Aim to identify the witch and provide very specific remedies.
Reveal how witchcraft is thought to work – through direct contact with the family or their goods, which are then worked on magically.
De-witching as therapy
Spirit release
Carl and Elizabeth Wickland
Edith Fiore
Case study: BarbaraEarth-bound spirits and possession, suicide, weight-loss,Friendship and fear
Energy and matter
Multiple selves, multiple lives
Witchcraft and Spirit Release
Witchcraft Psychic power invested in
people, the witch and the dewitcher
This world oriented – search for power and wealth or revenge
Physical objects can be used to harm and protect (amulets), as well as ritual acts and words
Treatment involves sending the curse back to rebound on the aggressor
Spirit release Psychic power invested in the
healer/therapist and non-physical beings
Involves discarnate entities, often the recently dead
The victim may knowingly or unknowingly invite the possession
Treatment involves releasing the possessing spirit into the light
Help is sought from discarnate spirits or higher powers
Common features
The Self has permeable boundaries
There are different superimposed planes of existence, normally kept separate, but with frequent communication between their inhabitants
Certain actions and conditions strengthen or weaken the energy field and defences of a victim (over indulgence – sex, drugs, addictions, depression, inviting spirits via seances or using Ouija boards)
Outside intervention is often necessary to effect a depossession – a religious figure or specialist healer who can deal with spirits (exorcist, shaman, nganga, faith healer, spirit release practitioner)
We have a Higher Self that gathers experience from this plane, which which we will eventually be reintegrated
The power of thought
The methodological tool kit
Ontological turn – ‘Cambridge School’ 2000 onwards
Eduardo Vivieros de Castro – Amerindian perspectivism
Michael Scott – anthropology of wonder
Share Marilyn Strathern’s call to unsettle Western paradigms by taking the ‘native’s point of view’ seriously and according it ontological validity – or at least the possibility of it.
Critical realism – Graebe; Common core hypothesis – Hufford; Cognitive, empathetic engagement – Bowie