Spirits in Culture, History and Mind

Book Overview

Spirits in Culture, History and Mind reintegrates spirits into comparative theories of religion, which have tended to focus on institutionalized forms of belief associated with gods. It brings an historical perspective to culturally patterned experiences with spirits, and examines spirits as a locus of tension between traditional and foreign values. Taking as a point of departure shifting local views of self, nine case studies drawn from Pacific societies analyze religious phenomena at the intersection of social, psychological and historical processes. The varied approaches taken in these case studies provide a richness of perspective, with each lens illuminating different aspects of spirit-related experience. All, however, bring a sense of historical process to bear on psychological and symbolic approaches to religion, shedding new light on the ways spirits relate to other cultural phenomena.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415913683
• ISBN13: 9780415913683
• Release Date: April 1996
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Good collection, geographically limited

This is a fine collection of articles on spirit beliefs in the Pacific, even if the empirical studies contradict the assertions of the introductory essay. The introduction claims that gods and spirits are distinguishable along a continuum, but the facts here, and elsewhere, suggest otherwise. There is no dividing line, or even dividing spectrum, between gods and spirits. The very concepts may be culture-bound Western ones. Sometimes what they call "gods" are highly personal, sometimes not. Sometimes they are moral, sometimes not. In the end, there is nothing that distinguishes them except the Western/Christian meanings of the terms. That said, the case studies are very well done and interesting. They raise many valuable points about belief, history, and cultural integration. If only this or a similar compilation went beyond the Pacific and looked at spirit/god beliefs in a truly global perspective.

Superlative Text

It has been my great pleasure to be instructed by Dr. Mageo, as well as to have read this top-drawer collection of essays. The scholarship displayed in this collection is superb, and I would _highly_ recommend this book for both academic and recreational reading. Its presentation is masterful, its individual essays highly informative and superlatively written, and its central theme(s) strong and clear. Anyone with even a passing interest in folk religions, psychological anthropology, or simply cultures in general will benefit a great deal from this text.

Spirits in Culture, History, and Mind

This book is a collection of 11 high quality articles, most by anthropologists, that brings a variety of approaches to the study of the relation of spirit possession to history in the islands of the Pacific Basin. The authors situate their studies in Samoa, Tonga, Nukulaelae (Tuvalu), Anuta (Solomon Islands), Rotuma (Fiji), Dadul (Papua New Guinea), Chuuk (Federated States of Micronesia), and South Sulawesi (Indonesia). Fortunately, the editors provide a map of the Pacific Basin, without which this reader, at least, would have been at sea. The aim of the collection "is to examine the changing roles that gods and spirits have played in various cultures, relating them on the one hand to specific historical and cultural contexts, and on the other to cultural and psychological universals" (2). I will say emphatically that the lead article, "Gods, Spirits, and History: A Theoretical Perspective," by Robert I. Levy, Mageo, and Howard (11-27), should be required reading for anyone undertaking work on spirit possession. Among the issues that Levy et al. discuss is the difference between gods and spirits. While this differs from culture to culture, their conclusions are that gods represent and participate in mainstream morality and social institutions, are mediated by high-status priests, are subject to manipulation through praise, supplication, and gift giving, and are more distant from sensual and other kinds of personal experience, while spirits are inherently more dangerous, are comparatively free from the control of hegemonic institutions, are mediated by people of ordinary or low status, have the power to possess, enter or contaminate people, are more likely to engender disease and disorder, and exist in the margins of human social and epistemological order. Two topics recur through many of the articles: (1) the effect of modernity on belief in spirits and on possession, particularly because of the modifying influence of modernity on performance modes, and (2) the effects of Christianity. On many of the islands possession has been on the decrease as lifestyles have changed due to the pressures of both modernization and Christianity. However, the Christian Church has not always been effective in eradicating beliefs in local spirits. In other cases, the Church has not even attempted to eradicate beliefs in local spirits. In short, this volume is an important addition to the field of possession studies.