Possession and the Modern Soul in Bali and India

Abstract

Abstract Trance possession is attested and sometimes even cultivated in many human societies past and present. Its rejection as “deviant” in modern Western thought leads to medicalization or exorcism. Yet it is not the existence of trance possession that needs theoretical explanation but rather its radical repression and displacement as a legitimate discourse and part of public life in modern Western societies. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam it is often seen in exclusively negative terms: people are “possessed” only by ghosts and demons. “Secular” societies reject it because it seems irrational and inconsistent with mainstream ideas about what constitutes a normal human subject. Research in India and Bali helps to refute both these assumptions. There are several “positive” forms of possession that do not require exorcism but rather are to be cultivated, for example, in helping to solve judicial disputes and to connect the community to nature.