An Anthropological Study of Spirits 303125919X, 9783031259197

Table of contents :
Preface
Acknowledgments
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Things that Go Bump in the Night (and Day)
References
Chapter 2: Anthropology and the Science of the Supernatural: Souls, Ancestors, Ghosts, and Spirits
2.1 What Is Anthropology?
2.2 Tylor and the Anthropology of Spirits
2.3 Boas, Malinowski, and the Critique of Tylor
2.4 The Golden Bough and the Anthropology of Magic
2.5 Psychedelics, Insanity, and the Shaman in Mid-Twentieth Century Anthropology
2.6 Spirit Possession During Late-Twentieth Century Anthropology
2.7 Brain Neurology during Late-Twentieth Century and Early Twenty-First Century Anthropology
2.8 The `Social Ghost´ of Early Twenty-First Century Anthropology
2.9 Our Path Forward: The Construction of a Scientific Framework for the Anthropology of Spirits
References
Chapter 3: An Observational Classification of Spirits
3.1 Defining (Various Kinds of) Spirits
3.2 The Ethnosemantics of Spirits
3.3 Those Who Work with the Spirits: Shaman, Priest, or Something Else
3.4 Ethnosemantics Case Study 1: Deifying the ``Ten Girls´´ in Vietnam
3.5 Ethnosemantics Case Study 2: Religious Specialists in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal
3.6 A Footnote on Embracing Ambiguity in Heuristic Definitions
References
Chapter 4: Spirits in the World
4.1 The Shamanic Universe
4.2 Climbing the World Tree using the Axis Mundi
4.3 The Spirits of Nature
4.3.1 Whirlwinds
4.3.2 Water, Lightning, Thunder, and Rain
4.3.3 Caves
4.3.4 Plant Spirits
4.4 The Spirit of Things
4.4.1 Noisemakers
4.4.2 Bundles
4.4.3 The Spirit of the House
4.4.4 Miscellaneous Objects
4.5 Building Ethnosemantics
References
Chapter 5: Spirits and Their Helpers
5.1 The Deep, Deep Origins of Shamanism
5.2 Spirits Transform the Shaman
5.3 Spirits Initiate the Shaman
5.4 Spirits and the Working Shaman
5.4.1 Spirits as Healers
5.4.2 Spirits and Divination
5.5 Vision Quests
5.6 Spirits and Priests
5.7 The Ethnosemantics of Spirit Specialists
References
Chapter 6: Defense Against the Dark
6.1 A Starting Caveat
6.2 Magic-Based Spirit Protection
6.2.1 Protecting the Self
6.2.2 Protecting the Home
6.3 Protecting Against Malicious Spirits
6.3.1 The Special Case of Demons
6.4 The Unwanted Possession
6.4.1 Types of Possession
6.4.2 Ending Unwanted Possession
Possession by the Dead
Possession by Demons
6.4.3 A Final Comparison of Voluntary and Involuntary Possession
6.5 Discussion
References
Chapter 7: Neurology, Physiology, and the Mind/Spirit Interface
7.1 The Spiritual Brain
7.2 The Religious Gut
7.3 ASC with and Without Entheogens
7.4 The Brain Beyond ASC
7.4.1 The Miracle of the Dancing Sun
7.4.2 Mass Hysteria
7.5 The Brain of the Dead
7.6 Discussion
References
Chapter 8: Modeling the Ethnosemantics of Spirits
8.1 Cross-Cultural Regularities
8.1.1 There and Back Again
References

Citation preview

Christine S. VanPool Todd L. VanPool

An Anthropological Study of Spirits

An Anthropological Study of Spirits

Christine S. VanPool • Todd L. VanPool

An Anthropological Study of Spirits

Christine S. VanPool Department of Anthropology University of Missouri Columbia, MO, USA

Todd L. VanPool Department of Anthropology University of Missouri Columbia, MO, USA

ISBN 978-3-031-25920-3 ISBN 978-3-031-25919-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25920-3

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To our sons Roy and Basil who kept asking the hard questions. To Logan E. VanPool whose curiosity has been an inspiration.

Preface

“I noticed a white mist come walking through the doorway. . . Obviously something does not want us here”—trailer to “The Haunted” Episode 7, Leave House.

On a hot summer day in 2014 my son, Roy, and I venture inside to the cool, air-conditioned den and he asked to watch The Haunted produced by the Animal Planet. As the dog days of summer progressed, we watch the show’s two seasons on Netflix. Roy, then a curious 8-year-old, was like most American boys and had (and still has) a fascination with ghosts and the paranormal. As we watched the shows, he asked insightful questions; it boggled his mind that someone believed that a house— not a person, but a house—would want to harm them. I found myself explaining why people might believe what was presented on the show. Roy was full of questions that summer and his older brother, Basil, soon joined the discussions. Basil is (and will likely always be) our critical scientist who grounded the discussion. Like most Americans (including his father, Todd), he is skeptical of ghosts, and he is sure that there are logical, naturalistic reasons to explain the unusual incidents that are reported in the shows. As our discussions continued, I found that my anthropological training took over as I tried to explain that since the late 1800s anthropology had discovered that people all around the world frequently reported seeing or hearing spirits and were able to communicate with them. Anthropology as field of study in the social and behavioral sciences seeks to understand people by understanding their culture (socially transmitted rules of behavior that impact how people think about and do things). No doubt our perceptions of our world are based on our cultural knowledge. When Roy asked, “Why would a house want to kill someone?” or “How can a spirit come into a house when someone is meditating?”, I could not give him a single answer. The reasons vary from culture to culture. Thus, I drew upon anthropological examples to explore Roy’s questions while suggesting to Basil that not all humans view the natural world as an American scientist does. The stories from the show are not unusual when viewed in a cross-cultural framework, a fact that surprised Basil. When placed within this cross-cultural framework, the stories flashing across our

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television screen that summer were typical in many regards, although in our North American, USA in particular culture they are considered strange, even abnormal. This book grew from my discussions with my boys as I sought to help them understand the importance most people (past and present) have placed on their relationship with spirits, and the incredible variation in their views of who spirits are and what they want. I am pleased that both of my boys found these conversations of great interest. Roy has even been asking me to write a “bloody, detailed ghost story full of facts.” I am sad to report to him that this book is not a ghost story, but rather an exploration of how different cultures explain ghosts, souls, spirits, demons, or spirit possession. Yet, it is based largely on my interactions with my boys. I found that I could only help my boys understand spirits when I took the supernatural claims of the various cultures seriously, as opposed to treating them as “fairytales” to be snickered at. My boys quickly understood that they may not believe spirits worked the way that an ancient Aztec priest or Brazilian shaman do but do appreciate the importance of spiritual beliefs if they understood the role these beliefs played in the cultures that held them. This cultural relativism, defined as the premise that a person’s beliefs and actions should be understood based on that person’s culture, helped them appreciate and overcome their natural ethnocentrism, which was their natural tendency to find the beliefs and actions of people in other cultures strange and even incomprehensible, because “they don’t do things like I do.” In the following discussion, Todd and I invite you, the reader, to consider the spiritual views of other cultures, as we will present them as faithfully as possible. We do not start from the assumption that there are no spirits, that the supernatural does not exist, and that people who believe in spirits and the supernatural are somehow mentally deficient. Starting an analysis of spiritual beliefs by rejecting the very beliefs one wishes to study is steeped in ethnocentrism and changes the discussion from attempting to understand the importance and variation in cross-cultural views of spirits into a discussion of how people can be tricked into believing in something that is not real. We refuse to start from the premise that the Yanomamo shaman working to keep his village safe from harmful spirits is just a wacky loon howling at the sky, or that the Navajo healer creating a sandpainting as part of a healing ceremony is a charlatan playing with dirt. The work of these individuals is important, and their roles make sense within their own cultures. By looking at such practices we can learn something, both about the practitioners and about ourselves. As a result, we do not take a position here about whether any specific case study or cultural belief is true in an absolute, objective sense. We also use a cross-cultural perspective that relies on case studies from outside of Western culture as well as case study from modern, US/European contexts. The Judeo-Christian perspective of spirits is indeed historically and currently important, but it is only one perspective of many. Understanding the subject matter of this book requires us to think more broadly. For example, the Judeo-Christian perspective tends to hold that spiritual possession of humans is bad, perverse, and dangerous (think, The Exorcist) whereas the Puebloan people of the American Southwest view spiritual possession of men involved in Kachina ceremonies (communal dances performed by masked dancers to bring rain and ensure fertility for the land and

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village) is healthy, beneficial, and benign. It is only through cross-cultural comparisons that we can begin to see the underlying structure of spiritual beliefs held by all (or at least most) cultures and the aspects of culture that vary from group to group. Anthropologists call the attributes shared among humans cultural universals and the traits unique to specific cultures cultural particulars. Our discussion will bring forth both types of cultural traits and place them in a larger context of human behavior. This book is intended to be academically rigorous, but it is also intended to be accessible to anyone interested in anthropology or in paranormal beliefs. Its purpose is to look at the long history of how humans have perceived spirits, how they have talked about them, and more importantly how they have dealt with spiritual issues. We also summarize modern scientific studies that seek to explain how the brain might create apparitions, although there are currently more debates and speculations about how the brain works than there are concrete generally accepted answers (see Chap. 7). Our ultimate goals for this book are threefold. First, we want the reader to understand both the cultural universals characterizing human beliefs in spirits and some of the cultural particulars. For example, people in/of most cultures believe that human disease and healing can be influenced both positively and negatively by spirits (a cultural universal) but the nature of healing rituals varies drastically from culture to culture (cultural particulars). We will explore this and other topics throughout the book. Second, we want to assure the reader that your perceptions of spirits fit within a pattern for humans. Others have and do share your experiences and perceptions through time and across cultures; you are not “crazy.” This is true even if you reject spirits and the supernatural. Third, we will explore the physiological and cultural factors that affect beliefs in spirits to help explain why people of specific cultures have the beliefs they have and why human universals exist. This might sound like we are attempting to explain why “people believe in things that are not there” and are therefore backtracking on our position to take belief in spirits seriously, but we are not. Assuming spirits exist, human perceptions of them require that we have the mind and body appropriate to perceive them. The fact that we can study the physiological and cultural characteristics that affect human perceptions of spirits does not discount their existence any more than being able to study a working radio disproves the existence of radio waves. Whether or not spirits and other supernatural entities exist is a question that cannot be answered simply by demonstrating there are aspects of our brains or our cultures that affect our perceptions of spirits and the supernatural. Fourth, we hope to show that two methodological approaches, humanistic and scientific, can be used in tandem to study spirits. Anthropologists frequently use a humanistic approach focusing on a culture’s meanings and values to gain a holistic knowledge of that society. There are several ways that anthropologists apply this approach, but often a hermeneutic approach is used. Hermeneutics, as either a scientific or interpretive approach, in its simplest form is working from the anthropologist’s cultural knowledge to explore the unknown cultural elements of another group. To abbreviate the process to its simplest form, the anthropologist uses the information gained from anthropology to understand a particular culture, but then uses the insights and information gained from that culture to tweak or modify his or her anthropological knowledge. This in turn can improve

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insights to the specific culture the anthropologist is studying, which may in turn help clarify anthropological knowledge. Knowledge is thus furthered through a “back and forth” process as the anthropologist goes from the data to the methodological/ theoretical frameworks and back again, refining both to see hidden relationships and overlooked insights. Further, as the anthropologist learns new things, he or she explores how these elements are similar or different than his/her cultural knowledge and carefully considers how s/he might have a cultural bias. Hopefully through this process, one can gain a solid understanding of the other culture despite the omnipresent influence of one’s own cultural perspective. I suggest in my classes that a humanistic/hermeneutical framework is often a useful starting point to understand other cultures and a great way to help the anthropologist formulate research questions. Once research questions are possible, then one can, if they want, start a scientific project that focuses on specific questions, which is often the focus of scientific anthropology. By asking specific questions, anthropologists can conduct scientific studies. But it is hard to know what to ask if one does not have a good starting point of understanding. Here, I suggest the same is true for studying spirits. Thus, in this book Todd and I interweave humanistic and scientific approaches together to ultimately build a scientific research design for studying spirits. And last, but not least, we hope you have fun reading this book. Spirits are a fascinating topic, and we hope to feed your curiosity in the same way as we did our boys’ curiosities. Columbia, MO, USA

Christine S. VanPool Todd L. VanPool

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the kind words provided by Chris Carr, David Freidel, Laura Lee, and Paul Robear who have discussed aspects of these topics with us over the course of many years and to Tom and Clair May for giving us helpful books on Gullah/ Geechee mediums. Two anonymous reviewers and Laura Lee provided helpful comments. We are most indebted to Lee Lyman, who provided detailed comments on an early draft of this manuscript, and to our students, who have consistently served as useful guides and thoughtful partners as we have explored the anthropology of spirits with them. And, finally, to our sons, Basil and Roy, who continually encourage us to explore new ideas in new ways and have the patience to let us get the job done!

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Contents

1

Things that Go Bump in the Night (and Day) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2

Anthropology and the Science of the Supernatural: Souls, Ancestors, Ghosts, and Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 What Is Anthropology? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Tylor and the Anthropology of Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Boas, Malinowski, and the Critique of Tylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 The Golden Bough and the Anthropology of Magic . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Psychedelics, Insanity, and the Shaman in Mid-Twentieth Century Anthropology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Spirit Possession During Late-Twentieth Century Anthropology . . 2.7 Brain Neurology during Late-Twentieth Century and Early Twenty-First Century Anthropology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.8 The ‘Social Ghost’ of Early Twenty-First Century Anthropology . . 2.9 Our Path Forward: The Construction of a Scientific Framework for the Anthropology of Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3

An Observational Classification of Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Defining (Various Kinds of) Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 The Ethnosemantics of Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Those Who Work with the Spirits: Shaman, Priest, or Something Else . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Ethnosemantics Case Study 1: Deifying the “Ten Girls” in Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Ethnosemantics Case Study 2: Religious Specialists in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 A Footnote on Embracing Ambiguity in Heuristic Definitions . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 5 7 9 11 13 16 18 23 25 27 30 41 47 48 51 57 61 63 65 67

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4

Spirits in the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 4.1 The Shamanic Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 4.2 Climbing the World Tree using the Axis Mundi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 4.3 The Spirits of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 4.3.1 Whirlwinds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.3.2 Water, Lightning, Thunder, and Rain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 4.3.3 Caves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 4.3.4 Plant Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 4.4 The Spirit of Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 4.4.1 Noisemakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 4.4.2 Bundles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 4.4.3 The Spirit of the House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 4.4.4 Miscellaneous Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 4.5 Building Ethnosemantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

5

Spirits and Their Helpers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 The Deep, Deep Origins of Shamanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Spirits Transform the Shaman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Spirits Initiate the Shaman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Spirits and the Working Shaman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.1 Spirits as Healers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.2 Spirits and Divination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Vision Quests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Spirits and Priests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 The Ethnosemantics of Spirit Specialists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

111 112 115 120 123 124 129 130 132 135 137

6

Defense Against the Dark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 A Starting Caveat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Magic-Based Spirit Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 Protecting the Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 Protecting the Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Protecting Against Malicious Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 The Special Case of Demons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 The Unwanted Possession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.1 Types of Possession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.2 Ending Unwanted Possession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.3 A Final Comparison of Voluntary and Involuntary Possession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

143 144 146 149 152 155 161 164 165 169 183 189 193

Contents

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7

Neurology, Physiology, and the Mind/Spirit Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 The Spiritual Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 The Religious Gut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 ASC with and Without Entheogens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 The Brain Beyond ASC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.1 The Miracle of the Dancing Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.2 Mass Hysteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 The Brain of the Dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

199 200 207 209 210 212 216 223 227 229

8

Modeling the Ethnosemantics of Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Cross-Cultural Regularities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.1 There and Back Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

235 245 246 247

. . . .

List of Figures

Fig. 4.1

Fig. 4.2

Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2 Fig. 8.3

Casas Grandes Transforming Shamans as Indicated by the Pound Sign. 4.1a Casas Grandes Smoker Effigy Jar (Courtesy of the Amerind Foundation). 4.1b Casas Grandes Dancers with Headdress (Courtesy of the Centennial Museum at the University of Texas, El Paso). 4.1c Metamorphizing Shaman with Headdress Off (Courtesy of the Casas Grandes Museum of the Northern Cultures). 4.1d. Shaman in Flight with Tutelary Bird. (From Di Peso 1974b v.2:272.) . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . 75 Casas Grandes Shamans in the Spirit World Interacting with Tutelary Birds, Horned-Plumed Serpents, and Double-Headed Macaw Diamond Motifs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 A common structure of the spirit world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Spirits view of the middle world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Humans view of the spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

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List of Tables

Table 3.1 Table 4.1 Table 5.1 Table 6.1

Categories of spiritual specialists in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal based on Gellner (1994) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Spirit Realms of the Akawaio Cosmos as Presented by Cooper (2015:80–94) . . .. . . .. . . .. . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . .. . . .. . . .. . 73 List of spiritual traits and behaviors of shamanic initiations and shamanic trance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Traits revealing spirit possession by scholars. Normal text indicates the traits that were specifically mentioned as revealing possession. Italics indicate traits that we noticed from the case studies but were not stressed as a primary sign of demonic possession by the researchers during their summary of possession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

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Chapter 1

Things that Go Bump in the Night (and Day)

Abstract Here we introduce the book and briefly sets the foundation for the anthropological study of spirits. We start by emphasizing the universality of the culturally distinct concepts of spirits and human souls, and explicitly challenge the notion that humans who believe in spirits are mentally deficient or ill. We provide brief case studies illustrating these points. We then briefly discuss E.B. Tylor’s 1871 Primitive Culture, which laid the foundation for cross-cultural study of spiritual beliefs. In his book, Tylor outlines the concepts of culture and animism, which are central to the rest of our discussion. We define these terms and emphasize the pervasive influence that spirits exert in many cultures.

Anthropology is the science which tells us that people are the same the whole world over— except when they are different.—Journalist Nancy Banks-Smith (Guardian, London, July 21, 1988)

Anthropology is a discipline in the behavioral and social sciences, but it is also a way of understanding the human condition by examining how people in different cultures think about their world. No doubt our perceptions are based on our cultural knowledge; our culture is our tinted glasses. Anthropologists have documented tremendous cultural variation through time and around the world. Every culture is atypical in some ways, but every culture is also consistent with our shared humanity. One of the consistencies is that every culture has a concept of a “spirit world” that transcends the physical world of the here-and-now. Each culture, however, also has its own view of how the spirit world is structured, and these views are often quite different. For many people, knowing how to deal with the supernatural is considered as essential as knowing what foods to eat, where to get potable water, and how to stay warm on a cold night. In these cultures, belief in the supernatural is a given, and care is taken to ensure the young know how to deal with spirits when they show up. Spirits are influenced, controlled, or banished with elaborate rituals that are often costly in terms of time, resources, and even an individual’s health. Spirits can be friendly, sometimes essential to human life, or malevolent and potentially fatal. The spirits of our dearest loved ones may be viewed as powerful sources of strength that can protect one from danger, or they may be deadly threats that will bring misfortune © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. S. VanPool, T. L. VanPool, An Anthropological Study of Spirits, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25920-3_1

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and death to hasten their reunion with the living in the afterlife. Despite this variation, though, there are consistencies and important insights into human behavior and culture that can be gained through the analysis of human spirituality. As mentioned in the foreword, this book is neither a dismissal nor a defense of the existence of spirits and a spirit world. Instead, we present anthropological theories about the supernatural and case studies from around the world (including modern American examples) to explore age-old issues related to human perceptions of and relationships with spirits. We have our own twist, though, in that we take the spirit’s view, as opposed to focusing primarily on humans. What kinds of spirits are there and what do they want, if anything? How do they make their desires and goals known to humans? How do humans please, offend, and/or manipulate them? We want to answer these and similar questions. Our efforts are synthetic, in that we want to understand spirits from around the world and through time to identify common themes and practices. We also focus on developing a rigorous analytical framework for describing spirits and their manifestations. Of course, our analysis of spirits is through a human (anthropological) lens. Knowing more about spirits will in turn tell us about the wants, needs, desires, and fears of humans, which is our ultimate goal. Our case studies come from around the world, and include examples ranging from the Paleolithic hunting and gathering traditions of the last Ice Age to Vietnamese priests working in a rapidly shifting global economy. We include examples from the dominant Judeo-Christian-Muslim traditions as well. Our starting point is the realization that the belief in spirits is entirely normal for humans. In Western nations, spiritual people are not always respected. A belief in God or other creator deity is (generally) tolerated, but belief in additional spirits is often seen as a “red flag” in many social circles. Sociologist Christian Bader and his colleagues (Bader et al. 2017: 8) note in their book Paranormal America, that “Paranormal believers are often perceived as a little bit ‘nutty,’ if not completely out of their minds.” Yet they find that many believers are of sound mind, and are otherwise indistinguishable from millions of their fellow Americans. One of Christine’s goals when she started discussing ghost beliefs with our boys in 2014 was to illustrate to them that most Americans who see ghosts or otherwise interact with spirits are actually “normal,” regardless of how that term may be defined, when compared to other humans. Their experiences/perceptions are quite typical when viewed in a cross-cultural framework. Evidence from ethnographic interviews, folklore, ghostly images in cave painting, and pictures painted on pots of humans transforming into otherworldly spirits indicates that active spiritual encounters are common among most cultures. Humans have interacted with spirits for at least the last 40,000 years (and almost certainly earlier) and will continue to do so for as long as humans exist. It has been only in the last few centuries that Cartesian science, with its hard emphasis on empiricism, skepticism, and cause-and-effect relationships, has (partially) delegitimized beliefs in the supernatural. The reaction against the belief/study of spirits that has been ubiquitous in human cultures for tens of thousands of years has been so strong that some scientists even equate religious belief with a form of mass delusion (e.g., Dawkins 2006). Most scientists do not go that far, but many do consider spirits made-up phenomena that need to be explained via some form of

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cognitive imperfection or mechanism, rather than actual, legitimate experiences perceived by rational, typical humans. Such studies take different forms. Some neurologists are examining the human brain through MRIs, PET scans, and so forth to determine how the brain “tricks” people into believing in invisible things; sociologists are studying why Americans in different economic classes and ethnic groups “cling to religion” and have different beliefs about supernatural entities; and anthropologists exploring the evolution of human cognition often argue that believing in ancestral ghosts and watching spirits allowed our ancestors to cooperate with each other and otherwise navigate a hostile and dangerous world. Many disciplines study religion, but anthropology has been the source for most information about spirits outside of modern and historic state-level societies. What we have found is that every known culture has some notion of humans having at least one soul, and sometimes even more. Further, some aspect of these souls survive death, meaning that humans may be able to continue to interact with the dead, and vice versa. Americans and other Westerners love a good ghost story. Among our students every family seems to have its own favorite story, and TV shows such as The Haunted and popular books such as Ghost-Hunting for Dummies capitalize on this continued interest. Among Americans, a 2013 Harris Poll found that 64% believe in the survival of the soul after death (and 58% believe in the Devil, and 42% believe in ghosts). Nor is the belief in spirits limited only to the general public. According to Gross and Simmons’ (2009) study, a majority of college and university professors believe in the supernatural, although the percentage ranges widely; 64% of accounting professors report “I know God really exists and I have no doubts about it” whereas only 13% of psychologists feel the same. Yet separating the belief in ghosts and other spirits from structured religion is even more interesting; a 2016 analysis of nearly 12,000 YouGov profiles (Dahlgeen 2016) indicates that more Britons believe in ghosts (31%) than a creator deity (23%), and a 2020 YouGov survey of 17,000 Americans (Ballard 2020) found that even 18% of self-identified atheists believe in ghosts. We can attest that belief in ghosts continues to be common on university campuses across the United States. On our own campus at the University of Missouri, we have heard people talk about Mrs. Alice Read who haunts the Chancellor’s residence. Mrs. Read died in the house in 1874, and, according to an 1890 Columbia Missouri Herald article, continues to manifest as “eerie lights and shadowy figures” that waltz on the third floor and through the occasional chiming of a broken grandfather clock (Barile 2016: 91). According to our friends working in the Chancellor’s residence, they can still hear her moving around the third floor and she makes the lights on the modern elevator flash and the doors inexplicably open and close. At the national level, Abraham Lincoln’s ghost is said to haunt the White House, and other ghosts remain in many significant landmarks including battlefields and cemeteries that hold honored dead. Yet even in Western culture, there is considerable variation in the interpretation of ghosts and other spirits. For many, Mrs. Read and other ghosts are simply the souls of deceased individuals that stayed in the world for some unknown reason. Others, especially Christian and Muslim

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theologians, believe ghosts are demons or jinn that take the form of lost loved ones for their own sinister and potentially dangerous motives (Rhodes 2006). Non-Western cultures from around the world also have complicated beliefs surrounding the human soul(s) and other spirits. Early Spanish priests reported that the Aztecs of central Mexico believed that three souls inhabited the human body (Gimmel 2008: 182). Each soul did different things. Tonalli, the soul of the back of the head, could travel at night to the spirit world and come back, but it could also escape when one sneezed, returning to a person after a few minutes. People consequently had to be careful not to keep talking (or otherwise open their mouths) when they sneezed because another spirit might enter the back of their head and displace their tonalli, preventing it from returning (see Marcus 2019: 14). The teyolía residing in the heart was the source of life and the portion of the person that transcended death to continue into the afterlife. The ihíyotl of the liver was the source of a person’s physical vigor and emotions, and governed a person’s internal spiritual strength. We will have much more to say about various kinds of spirits, but this example illustrates that there is no single definition or perspective on terms such as “ghosts” or “souls” that will capture all the details and variation across cultures. Anthropology is a relatively young discipline, only beginning in the late 1800s and only hitting its stride in the early twentieth century, but anthropologists (and other explorers) attempted to reach every corner of the globe to study indigenous populations by the middle of the twentieth century (Harris 1968). Variation in beliefs about spirits was one of the first cultural differences anthropologists discovered and was central to Sir Edward Burnett Tylor’s (1871) book Primitive Culture, which was arguably the founding document of anthropology and why his is considered the “Father of Cultural Anthropology.” In his book, Tylor summarized spiritual beliefs that European and American explorers and scientists had recorded from “distant” lands. Tylor’s work gave us the term “culture” that became the defining focus of anthropological studies. He defined it as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tylor 1891: 1). This remains a common definition, although anthropologists have proposed many other definitions since Tylor’s original work; Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) list 164 definitions of cultures and more have been added since their time. Spirits and the religion they helped organize was central to art, morals, laws, belief, knowledge, and the other aspects of culture Tylor considered important, and were therefore central to each culture. One of the most striking features Tylor discovered was that people far and wide believed that plants, animals, and even natural phenomena and human-made objects also possessed spirits (Tylor 1891: 425). He formalized this belief under the term “animism,” which he suggested was the core concept of religion world-wide. Anthropologists have correctly criticized aspects of Tylor’s (1891) views, but they have served as a useful foundation for subsequent work. In the foreword to her book Native Nations: Culture and Histories of Native North Americans, Nancy Bonvillain (2001) notes that one of the major commonalities shared among most Native American cultures is the belief that there are spiritual essences (or beings) that animate almost everything, from clay, rocks, mountains, plants, and animals to

References

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Mother Earth herself. Even natural phenomena such as wind, dust devils, rain, lightning, and thunder are believed to be more spiritual than physical. Mesoamerican cultures (such as the Aztec and Maya) have similar animistic beliefs [see Evans (2004: 51–52) for a wonderful discussion]. Tylor argued that “civilized” humans would eventually outgrow these notions with the development of science, which allowed people to understand the movement of clouds, the flow of water, and the behavior of animals without relying on spirits. With that in mind, let’s explore the variation, consistencies, and underlying mechanisms that have caused spirits to play an important part in the daily life of people for at least the last 40,000 years. It is the insights of these intelligent, reverent, and ultimately successful people that will be the focus of the rest of this book. In the next chapter, we will outline the approaches anthropologists have used to study human interaction with spirits. These studies have tended to use functional approaches that examine the impact spirit practices have on social relationships and the practical aspects of living. We also outline our own analytical framework we use throughout the rest of our discussion. Chapters 3– 6 focus on spirits and their interaction with humans. Chapters 3 and 4 outline various kinds of spirits and the nature of spirit worlds commonly found around the world. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss the influence spirits can have on humans (and that humans can have on spirits). Chapter 7 shifts focus to consider the physical impacts of spirithuman interaction, especially in regards to the neurological and physiological structures of spiritual encounters. Our conclusions presented in Chap. 8 presents a model of the “spirits-eye view” of spirit human interaction and identify five crosscultural regularities governing spirits and their behavior and four semi-regularities that are common but not universal among spirits around the world. We then end by identifying a series of characteristics that show substantial cross-cultural variation that deserve additional analysis.

References Bader, Christopher D., F. Carson Mencken, and Joseph O. Baker. 2017. Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture. New York, NY: New York University Press. Ballard, Jamie. 2020. About Half of Americans Believe Ghosts and Demons Exist. YouGovAmerica. Philosophy and Religion Society. October 30, 2020. https://today.yougov. com/topics/philosophy/articles-reports/2020/10/30/ghosts-demons-exist-polldata. Last accessed July 29, 2021. Barile, Mary Collins. 2016. The Haunted Boonslick: Ghosts, Ghouls, and Monsters of Missouri’s Heartland. Charleston, SC: History Press. Bonvillain, Nancy. 2001. Native Nations: Culture and Histories of Native North Americans. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Dahlgreen, Will. 2016. British People More Likely to Believe in Ghosts than a Creator. YouGov in Lifestyle, Politics, and Current Affairs. March 26, 2016, 12:00 PM. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/ politics/articles-reports/2016/03/26/o-we-of-little-faith Dawkins, Richard. 2006. The God Delusion. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

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Evans, Susan Toby. 2004. Ancient Mexico and Central America: Archaeology and Culture History. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson. Gimmel, Millie. 2008. Reading Medicine in the Codex de la Cruz Badiano. Journal of the History of Ideas 69 (2): 169–192. Gross, Neil, and Solon Simmons. 2009. The Religiosity of American College and University Professors. Sociology of Religion 70 (2): 101–129. Harris, Marvin. 1968. The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture. New York, NY: Thomas Y. Cromwell Company. Kroeber, Alfred L., and Clyde Kluckhohn. 1952. Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. Papers. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University. Marcus, Joyce. 2019. Studying Figurines. Journal of Archaeological Research 27 (1): 1–47. Rhodes, Ron. 2006. The Truth Behind Ghosts, Mediums, and Psychic Phenomena. Eugene, OR: Harvest House. Tylor, Edward Burnett. 1871. Primitive Culture. London: John Murray. ———. 1891. Primitive Culture: Research into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom. Vols. 1–2. London: John Murray.

Chapter 2

Anthropology and the Science of the Supernatural: Souls, Ancestors, Ghosts, and Spirits

Abstract Here we provide an extended discussion of the core conceptual background and the methodological structure we employ in the subsequent chapters. We start with a brief discussion of anthropology as a discipline, and then outline a chronological summary of anthropological approaches that have been used to understand spirits. This discussion includes early researchers such as Sir Edward Tylor, Franz Boas, Bronislaw Malinoswski, Sir James Frazer as well as more recent approaches focused on the use of psychedelics, evaluations of the mental health of shamans and other spirit specialists, the prevalence and importance of spirit possession, and advances in brain neurology during the late-twentieth entury and earlytwenty-first century. We also introduce the hyperactive agent detection hypothesis that suggests humans believe in spirits/animistic agency because of an overly sensitive adaptive mechanism in our brains to identify predators. The topics presented in this summary will be touched on during the rest of the book (e.g., the concepts of animism, magic, and spirit possession). We then present our own theoretical and methodological approach for understanding spirits. Building from the work of Karl Hempel and other philosophers of science, we explain the underlying issue to the scientific study of spirits is focusing on them as unobservable entities and avoiding questions such as, “Are spirits real?”. We suggest in contrast that anthropologists study the empirically observable aspects of spirit-human interaction and use operational definitions of categories such as spirits, shamans, and related terms. Our approach allows anthropologists to step back from unanswerable questions related to belief and “the objective reality of spirits” and instead focus on what spirits do in specific cultural contexts. This will provide the empirical basis for scientific cross-cultural comparisons.

The Scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he is one who asks the right questions.—Anthropologist Claude Levi-Straus (1983: 7)

In this chapter, we provide a brief history of anthropological research about souls, ancestors, ghosts, or, simply put, the supernatural. The term “supernatural” is not without problems, given that many cultures consider spirits (including their many forms) as much a part of nature as the wind or rain. However, it is as good of a term © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. S. VanPool, T. L. VanPool, An Anthropological Study of Spirits, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25920-3_2

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as any given that alternatives are either too narrow (e.g., terms such as ghosts, ancestors, and deities) or too broad (e.g., “paranormal” includes interest in aliens and bigfoot that goes beyond our focus). As mentioned in Chap. 1, the study of spirits and other aspects of the supernatural has been central to anthropology from its very birth. Tylor (1891) found that, from ancient Greek writings to nineteenth century Native American oral traditions, people through time and around the world believed spirits impacted and at times controlled humans. Greek gods exploited humans and caused mischief. The Irish Banshee’s wailing announced an impending death (Tillesen 2010). Native American tricksters such as Coyote were sometimes mischievous but were also important helpers for their people (Bright 1987). Despite their ubiquity, anthropology has yet to create a unified methodology and theoretical structure to analyze spirits and other aspects of the supernatural. Part of the reason for this is that anthropology is primarily a social science, but like all sciences early in their formation, we do not always know the best questions to ask or the best way to answer them. We oscillate between questions and research domains, which in turn causes us to struggle with the appropriate terminology, analytical techniques and even the right scale to use when analyzing cultural traits related to spirits, religion, and the supernatural. Should anthropologists seek to explain why people believe in spirits? Or perhaps simply describe beliefs in spirits in individual cases? Or perhaps focus on the practical impacts of spiritual beliefs (e.g., food taboos or avoiding certain locations)? Or focus primarily on finding cross-cultural regularities in beliefs about spirits? Or maybe focus on how spiritual beliefs impact leadership and other aspects of society? Obviously, each of these research topics (and many others anthropologists have considered) are worthwhile, but they each will require somewhat different terminology, analytical frameworks, and types of information to address. While anthropologists have produced useful insights into each of these topics, they also have often talked past each other when trying to examine larger topics. Further, many anthropologists consider the supernatural a byproduct of other aspects of culture that are more interesting and therefore conclude the study of spirits is not in-and-of-itself useful (Sosis 2009). The result of these myriad questions and premises is that there is no general agreement about the way to analyze spirits and other aspects of the supernatural, or even an agreement that such analyses might answer useful questions. Although we feel the frustration of not having a widely accepted conceptual approach that everyone finds useful to use as the basis of our analysis, we agree with anthropologists such as Bonnie Glass-Coffin (2010), Michael Harner (1990), William Lyon (2012), and Edith Turner (2003) that spirits should be carefully considered, if for no other reason than they are so important to so many people. We also value our colleagues’ insights, and will start our own efforts by laying out the conceptual foundations that anthropologists have used to try to understand spirits and the humans that interact with them. After defining anthropology and presenting a brief history of the study of spirit, we then present our own theoretical and methodological structure for understanding spirits. Our goal is to develop an approach that allows us to step back from unanswerable questions such as, “Are spirits real?” and

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What Is Anthropology?

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instead focus on what spirits do in specific cultural contexts. Let’s start this discussion by clearly explaining what anthropology is.

2.1

What Is Anthropology?

Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder at that which one would not have been able to guess.—Anthropologist Margaret Mead (1977: ix)

Anthropology is simply the study of humans in all their wonderment, but there is nothing simple about studying the cultural diversity of the nearly eight billion people on this planet or their innumerable ancestors. To cope with this challenge, anthropology has developed four general approaches, called subfields: archaeology, cultural anthropology, bioanthropology, and linguistic anthropology. Archaeology studies human culture using the remains people leave behind. Houses, hearths, storage pots, altars, and even outhouses can tell us a lot about people and their behaviors. If you gave us permission to go through your home, documenting and studying each object we found, we suspect we would be able to tell a great deal about you. Dietary preferences, status, trade relationships, and wealth would be easy to determine; archaeologists are extremely good at studying these attributes. We are also quite good at studying ritual and religious activity (and even its absence). People’s expression of their religious devotion ranges from the 20,000-year-old images of shamans painted on the walls of Lascaux Cave, France, to the small devotional candles adorned with images of Catholic saints one can purchase at many grocery stores. Some spiritually important features are as obvious as the marble statues of deities used to adorn Greek temples, but they can be as subtle as a hidden turquoise offering placed below the floor of a pueblo in the arid American Southwest. Religion and spirits matter to people, and, in accordance with their culture, people express this importance using physical objects that archaeologists study. Cultural anthropology focuses on studying culture in modern groups. Cultural anthropologists can use methods ranging from participant observation, during which the anthropologist actively participates in a culture to understand it better, to distributing questionnaires and conducting interviews. Regardless of how the information is gathered, cultural anthropology has the benefit of allowing the anthropologist to directly observe and record people’s attitudes towards and explanations of their religious behavior and spiritual beliefs. This is both a strength and a weakness in that it can provide detailed information about spiritual beliefs, but it also can swamp us with so much detailed information that it can become hard to develop a general understanding of the ‘typical’ for a culture. People sometimes disagree with each other or have idiosyncratic perspectives that are not shared broadly. Would one get the same answer on almost any theological/spiritual question from a Roman Catholic cardinal, a Southern Baptist street preacher, a pair of Mormon missionaries, and the minister of a progressive nondenominational megachurch? Other cultures have equally stark variation in belief, often based on class or kin differences. By the

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same token, people will also often say, “This is just what we do”, when asked about even complex ritual activities or supernatural beliefs. (How many of us really know the origin of practices such as throwing salt over our shoulder or knocking on wood to keep away bad luck?) While unavoidable, the variation and ambiguity in beliefs can make it frustrating when trying to study broader patterns of belief and the interaction of variables within a culture. Linguistic anthropologists study the development of language (both the ability to speak and the development of specific languages like English or Hindi) and how humans use language in their cultural contexts. The development of language and the symbolic framework it entails is essential to spiritual beliefs; linguistic ability is directly tied to the use of metaphor, which is a crucial component in systems of spiritual belief. Linguistic anthropologists also note the special place religious vocabulary and sacred scripts play in society, from ecclesiastical Latin to the Trobriand Islander’s ‘magic speech’ used in ritual and magical settings (Greenwood 2009; Senft 2009). These anthropologists also study how languages change and spread through time and space, which in turn can tell us about the origin and spread of supernatural beliefs. It is no surprise that many Christian terms have their origin in ancient Hebrew. Likewise, the use of Christian words and concepts in many non-Western groups reflects the impact Christianity has had around the world. Linguistic analyses can thus help identify conceptual and practical connections among specific supernatural/religious concepts and activities. The final subfield, which has been made popular with TV shows such as Bones, is biological anthropology. Biological anthropologists study the workings of the human body, how the variation within the human species evolved through time, and how humans are similar and different from other hominids. They also analyze mortuary contexts, which often reflect religious practices and spiritual beliefs, especially as they relate to human souls (Carr 1995, 2021). For example, the mummification of ancient Egyptian pharaohs is tied to the preservation of the pharaohs’ souls in the afterlife (Ikram 2010). Similar logic linking the continuation of the physical body and the soul is reflected in the desecration of witches’ bodies in the historic and late prehistoric burials of New Mexico and Arizona; accused witches were apparently brutally executed to cleanse Puebloan communities of malicious spiritual influences and the bodies were buried face down and badly damaged to limit the potential power/influence of the witches’ tainted souls and to prevent them from reanimating their bodies after death (Darling 1998; Walker 2008). We use information from each of the subfields to illustrate the nature of spirits and their relationships with humanity. Key to our discussions is the “comparative method” that contrasts two or more cultures to discover similarities and differences. Knowing about one culture is nice but being able to identify the ways that many cultures are similar and different is an essential first step to explaining cross-cultural patterns, and differentiating among traits that reflect local cultural traditions and those that reflect our shared humanity. In doing so, we stress that human behavior is impacted by the natural and social environments, cultural background, and our genes, among other things (Kottak 2017). By extension, these same variables will

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Tylor and the Anthropology of Spirits

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necessarily impact spirit-human interaction too. To begin to examine this interaction, we turn to the “birth” of anthropology in the writings of Edward Tylor.

2.2

Tylor and the Anthropology of Spirits

Spiritual beings are held to affect or control the events of the material world, and man’s life here and hereafter. . .—Anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (1891: 426)

Tylor’s 1871 book Primitive Culture: Research into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom was a scholarly masterpiece. By illustrating the need for cross-cultural comparisons, it fundamentally transformed social sciences and fostered the creation of anthropology as an independent discipline. It was translated into French, German, Polish, and Russian, and influenced other thinkers including Charles Darwin (1809–1882), who quoted Tylor’s work in The Descent of Man to show that human cultures changed over time. Like Darwin’s book (1859), modern researchers continue to recognize Primitive Culture’s historical significance, even as they have grown far beyond its intellectual content. Many of the book’s inadequacies revolve around Tylor’s view of ancestry and culture. Tylor thought that there were “higher” and “lower” biological races, a supposition that research has demonstrated is false—all humans share the same suite of behavioral capacities, although individuals obviously differ in their personal abilities. Tylor also proposed a “unilineal” scheme of cultural development that posited that human culture evolved from a “primitive” society to the pinnacle of “civilized” life embodied by European societies in a specific sequence of cultural stages that were uniform around the world. He phrased this development using the stages of “savagery,” “barbarism,” and “civilizations,” with savagery characterizing “primitive” cultures such as the hunters and gatherers of Africa and Australia, which contrasted to the civilizations associated with the nation-states such as those of Europe. “Primitive” cultures remained primitive because of some racial or environmental inferiority, but cultures that were capable of advancing developed in the exact same way, going through the exact same sequence of cultural and technological development. Terms such as “savages” and his unilineal framework do not have any analytical meaning for us anymore. Cultures do indeed differ, but they differ based on their historical, environmental, and technological contexts, not because some are less “developed” than others. Every culture that survives for more than a few generations is “complete” in that it allows humans to fulfill the requirements needed to live. Differences in political or economic structures reflect various strategies (related especially to population size) as opposed to distinct stages or degrees of “development.” Anthropologists often divide societies into heuristic categories such as bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states that at first glance look somewhat like Tylor’s unilineal scheme of “savagery,” “barbarism,” and “civilizations” (Carneiro 2018[2003]; Sanderson 1990; Service 1962; Trigger 1998), but they also document how cultures

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differ from each other in ways that are large and small (e.g., not all band-level cultures are the same). These heuristic categories help describe how people organize their labor and political relationships, but they do not reflect a scale of “advancement” in which each society must go through the same sequence of development in the way Tylor suggested. Anthropological analysis has thus found the exact opposite of what Tylor proposed; whereas Tylor argued culture development was uniform but different races were unique, we have found that human nature crosscuts racial categories, but cultures are unique. Although wrong, Tylor’s ideas were not wholly unreasonable given his data. He was reading reports from around the globe provided by explorers, military leaders, missionaries, and priests. These individuals had widely diverse backgrounds and goals, and they focused on various aspects of life and technology. The data he was working with were incomplete, and certainly were not collected systematically enough to allow meaningful analysis. Yet Tylor did find some kernels of insight that remain useful to anthropologists, especially regarding spirituality and religion. For example, as he read various accounts it seemed clear to him that most if not all traditional groups believed in unseen forces and spirits. From Britain to Brazil to the West Indies, he provided examples of people not only seeing but speaking to ghosts; they even recognized a common “ghost-voice.” In his words: This defines the spirit-voice as being a low murmur, chirp, or whistle, as it were the ghost of a voice. The Algonkian Indians of North America could hear the shadow-souls of the dead chirp like crickets. The divine spirits of the New Zealand dead, coming to converse with the living, utter their words in whistling tones, and such utterances by a squeaking noise are mentioned elsewhere in Polynesia. The Zulu diviner’s familiar spirits are ancestral manes, who talk in a low whistling tone short of a full whistle, whence they have their name of “imilozi” or whistlers. (Tylor 1891: 452–453)

And similar sounds and experiences could be found in the parlors of Victorian England (Lehman 2002). Based on these types of accounts, Tylor claimed that all cultures believed that humans have souls, which were often manifested as apparitions or phantoms. Tylor compiled pages of accounts of apparitions as they were reported for various groups. In most of these, people reported that phantoms normally appeared in dreams or could only be seen by mediums except in rare circumstances. Over and over again, dreams and trances were central to perceiving and interacting with spirits, a fact that prompted Tylor to conclude that spirits were literally dreamed up, that is, that it was humans’ ability to dream that first gave rise to the notions of spirits. As humans dreamed, we envisioned other people’s inner essences/souls, and by extension, our own. Once humans had a concept of their own souls, they could dream up all kinds of spirits, ghosts, gods, and so on, until they literally populated their world with spirits in every babbling brook, cloud floating past in the sky, or hidden animals watching from the forest. Animism thus became the essence of religion (Larsen 2014: 23), and once dreamed up, spirits and religion were the basis for understanding the world in the absence of science. Spirits provided the will and volition required for the wind to blow, animals to run, trees to grow, and all other natural processes humans could see. Given the increased understanding of

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Boas, Malinowski, and the Critique of Tylor

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natural phenomena, Tylor suggested science would eventually replace all concepts of religion and magic, an idea that still lingers today even though it has been challenged by anthropologists such as Douglas (1970), Turner (1992; see also Turner 1969), and others. In fact, Tylor (1891: 112) thought lowly of Spiritualists who used trance and magic, which were “the most pernicious delusions that ever vexed mankind.” He went further and suggested that astrology, the Occult, Spiritualism, and witchcraft with their belief in magic were survivals of “early states of culture,” and thus people who practiced these had “primitive” thinking. In modern anthropology, scholars no longer suggest that people who practice trance are “primitive;” however, the notions of trance and magic being delusions still exist today and there is a lot of skepticism about trance being used to channel spirits. According to Tylor, once humans had the concept of spirits, they could start to categorize and rank them based on their origins, power, and roles. Some cultures like the Aztecs and the ancient Greeks created large pantheons, but others used more “primitive” frameworks in which anthropomorphic spirits were less central compared to animal and elemental spirits. As societies developed from what Tylor labeled as savagery (the earliest stage of cultural development) to civilization (the most advanced stage of evolution), the “primitive” nature spirits transformed into the anthropomorphic gods such as those of the ancient Europeans, and then to the monotheistic deity of the Judeo-Christian tradition associated with the most advanced, civilized societies. Again, we stress that Tylor’s terms do not fit our modern anthropological sensibility. Still, Tylor is correct that animism is reflected in religions around the world and remains central to many religions.

2.3

Boas, Malinowski, and the Critique of Tylor

The time when we could tolerate accounts presenting us the native as a distorted, childish caricature of a human being are gone. This picture is false, and like many other falsehoods, it has been killed by Science.—Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1922: 11)

Tylor’s ideas were undeniably influential, but many of them were questioned almost as soon as they were proposed. One of the earliest and most effective critics of Tylor’s ideas was the “Father of American Anthropology,” Franz Uri Boas (1858–1942). (The observant reader will note that Tylor is known as the Father of Cultural Anthropology whereas Boas is the Father of American Anthropology. Anthropology has a complicated paternity.) Boas spent the bulk of his career trying to destroy the notion of “primitive culture” as well as the notions of different races that were central to Tylor’s thinking. He demonstrated that the term “race” is not biologically plausible—there is too much overlap in physical traits across different groups. Yes, a researcher can determine a person’s ancestry from traits ranging from tooth shape to body proportions, but these do not create different groups of distinct characteristics that cluster as would be required for the concept of ‘race’ to be real. In fact, Boas’s (1940) analysis showed that all people were physically and mentally “advanced.” Although different groups had technology that was mechanically

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simpler in some regards, all groups of people were every bit as biologically and mentally capable as Europeans. Boas also stressed that each culture should be understood from its own developmental perspective. History was what made societies different, not human biology. As a result, Boas and his students were harsh in their evaluation of Tylor, accusing him of being an “armchair” theorist. They were, to a certain degree, correct; Tylor relied exclusively on the (often poor) accounts of others. Explorers often sought to make their descriptions of distant lands and people even more wonderous in order to justify their own prestige and encourage the patronage of their benefactors. Priests and missionaries tended to emphasize the moral depravity of other cultures, in order to justify and glorify their own work in the eyes of their church and their kings. Military leaders often sought to emphasize the wealth and fierceness of opposing people to further their status and achievements. These and other factors caused large and small errors to creep into the accounts Tylor used. Such exaggerations became blindingly obvious to later anthropologists that began to study people around the globe, but they were not obvious to Tylor. Despite his cleverness, it was undeniable that Tylor simply lacked the systematic data required for sound anthropological analysis. One contemporary of Boas who joined in challenging Tylor’s ideas including “primitive religion” was Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942). He developed “participant observation” as an analytical tool while he lived with the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea between 1915 and 1918. The firsthand knowledge he gained while working and living beside the Islanders caused Malinowski to join Boas in rejecting the idea that such people were biologically or cognitively primitive. Instead, he described clever people finding innovative and useful solutions to difficulties they faced. One of the ways they did this was using ritual-based magic that could influence the spirits controlling their lives. According to Malinowski (1979[1925]), spirits literally packed the Islanders’ landscape and surrounding ocean. Of particular significance, the Islanders were fishermen who relied on the dangerous and unpredictable sea for their living. Ocean fishing was a dangerous proposition, but one that could be made safer if the appropriate magical precautions were taken. Although their magic included religious overtones, it also provided practical benefits. Malinowski (1979[1925]) consequently argued the Trobriand Islanders’ magic was based at least in part on practical thinking and empirical knowledge of the world around them. To understand Malinowski’s argument, consider the old adage in our culture that, “It is bad luck to walk under ladders.” Although it is a superstition, it is also true— speaking from experience, walking under a ladder might lead to the bad luck of a bucket of paint or a metal tool falling on the fool walking below. (It is also bad luck to stand too close to the top of the walls of an archaeological excavation unit. The weight will cause the wall to collapse, destroying an otherwise beautiful excavation unit. We know of cases in which visitors have literally been banned for life from archaeological sites for this offense.) Malinowski found the Islander’s magic, which ostensibly focused on appeasing or controlling spirits, focused on mitigating this sort of misfortune even as it included religious embellishment that went beyond practical advice. The spirits controlled the chance misfortunes that could befall humans, so

2.3

Boas, Malinowski, and the Critique of Tylor

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working with them helped humans ensnare luck at multiple levels to deal with the otherwise uncontrollable world of chance (Malinowski 1979[1925]: 39). Put another way, magic was used when circumstances could not be controlled exclusively by planning and human skill. Malinowski (1979[1925]) thus rejected Tylor’s idea that spirits were derived from dreams, and instead suggested they were the literal embodiment of the dangers and tragedies (but also opportunities) built into human daily life. Human misfortune and disease were the original source for the belief in spirits, and magic was the way that humans could influence these threats. As personified dangers, the Islander spirits included malevolent spirits with their own agency. Islander boats for example were dangerous entities that wanted to eat the men when they were out at sea (Malinowski 1979[1922]: 246). Men counteracted this danger by constructing the boats using specific protocols (with practical benefits) and adorning them using human figures carved into the prow boards and on top of the ship’s mast. Even having sturdy boats could not guarantee their safety, though. Once they were out at sea, flying witches and other evil entities could cause poor weather or other misfortune. To protect themselves, men said long spells over ginger root before they set sail. They would then recite these same spells to counteract any bad luck they encountered, but only during the day; if they said them at night, the evil spirits would hear their spell and negate it. Magic thus provided practical and psychological benefits to the Islanders’ ability to ensnare good luck and overcome the perceived malevolent forces that threatened their safety. In Malinowski’s (1948: 90) words, Magic enables man to carry out with confidence his important tasks, to maintain his poise and his mental integrity in fits of anger, in the throes of hate, of unrequited love, of despair and anxiety. The function of magic is to ritualize man’s optimism, to enhance his faith in the victory of hope over fear. Magic expresses the greater value for man of confidence over doubt, of steadfastness over vacillation, of optimism over pessimism.

One who controls the spirits also controls luck, an essential tool for sailors at the whim of the mighty sea. Turning back to Boas (1938), he wrote little on religion, spirits, or magic (probably because he was too busy destroying the concepts of “race” and “primitive”). His lack of theoretical musing on religion somewhat surprised us given the effort he expended to record many Native American traditional stories and ceremonies. We even have pictures of him wearing traditional garb and reenacting dances and myths, but this interest was never fully realized in his anthropological analyses. However, he was largely responsible for training the first generation of the scholars who would receive PhDs in the newly formed field of anthropology. These anthropologists were instrumental in creating anthropology departments across the United States and set the tenor of the anthropological study of spirits and religion. This included an insistence that anthropological studies (including the study of the supernatural) included the sort of systematic analysis demonstrated in Malinowski’s work. Boas and his students were deeply skeptical of “armchair theorists” like Tylor, who were long on speculation but did not participate in actual field work themselves. They instead believed anthropologists should conduct detailed field work that

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included living with the people they studied. Only this sort of experience would give the anthropologist a basis for understanding a specific culture. As a result, Boas’s students did not emphasize the search for cultural universals like Tylor sought, but they did write extensively about the religions of the people they studied. The ethnographies of scholars such as Robert Lowie, Ruth Bunzel, and Elsie Clews Parsons revealed that many groups had traditional stories and beliefs with a strong animistic basis to them, a finding that supported Tylor’s work on at least this topic. Often the stories told of a time when animals and humans were able to talk to each other and explained how some of these animals (both in the past and today) have more spiritual power than others. They even included instructions regarding how humans and spirits should interact according to their relative power and obligations to each other. Such discoveries caused Boas (1938: 165) to write a short paragraph where he concurred with Tylor (1891) that animism was present everywhere, that belief in the supernatural was universal, and that “magic is ever present.” He also noted that many groups believed that spiritual forces were present in animals and in natural phenomena (wind, dust devils, etc.), and concluded that most Native Americans’ spirits had anthropomorphic (human and animal combinations) forms that were endowed with superhuman powers. Native Americans, according to Boas, also believed that objects could possess benevolent or malevolent qualities. In short, despite their profound intellectual differences, Boas and his students largely agreed with significant aspects of Tylor’s (1891) discussion of animism, even as they rejected his evolutionary scheme of the origin and stages of religious development.

2.4

The Golden Bough and the Anthropology of Magic

In primitive society the rules of ceremonial purity observed by divine kings, chiefs and priests agree in many respects with the rules observed by [murderers], mourners, women in childbed, girls at puberty, hunters and fishermen, and so on. To us, these various classes of persons appear to differ totally in character and condition; some of them we should call holy, others we might pronounce unclean and polluted. But the savages make no such moral distinction between them. . .To him the common feature of all these persons is that they are dangerous and in danger, and the danger in which they stand and to which they expose others is what we should call spiritual or ghostly, and therefore imaginary. The danger, however, is not less real because it is imaginary; imagination acts upon man as does gravitation, and may kill him as certainly as a dose of prussic acid.—Sir James G. Frazer (1963[1922]: 260)

The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, written by Scottish anthropologist and folklorist Sir James George Frazer (1963[1922]), was named by Time as one of the twentieth century’s most influential books. Perhaps surprisingly, we had not read this book until recently. It was not assigned in any of our undergraduate or graduate classes, it was not included as a significant citation in any of the research we regularly use, and often Frazer has been excluded or given only the briefest mention in textbooks focused on the history of anthropological theory or the anthropology of

2.4 The Golden Bough and the Anthropology of Magic

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religion (e.g., Harris 1968; Moro 2013). Noting the oddity of Frazer’s low standing in anthropology, Larsen (2014: 40) commented, “[Frazer’s] work is generally, if not universally, dismissed today by anthropologists, but they are nonetheless saddled with the reality that The Golden Bough is the most popular and influential book in the history of the discipline in terms of the wider cultural impacts.” Being ‘saddled’ with Frazer’s impact may not be what we wanted, but like Tylor (1891), there were some useful insights in Frazer’s work, if one can wade though the dated intellectual framework. The core of Frazer’s ideas was a unilineal scheme in which he joined Tylor in suggesting humans progressed through a series of stages that led to modern (European) civilization. Frazer’s scheme was an “Age of Magic,” a subsequent “Age of Religion,” and the culminating development of an “Age of Science,” which was just beginning. During the Age of Magic, “primitive” people depended on magic to control the forces of nature. Through time the magicians became ritual specialists that performed community rites. These specialists claimed they had extraordinary spiritual powers, and eventually became the divine rulers and priests during the Age of Religion. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, scientific thought started to supplant religion, which would eventually culminate in the Age of Science. Frazer’s scheme has been ignored by anthropologists since the mid-twentieth century, but not all of his ideas have been so systematically disregarded. For example, he coined the concept of sympathetic magic, the idea that one can use a proxy in ritual that resembles in some way the person or an event that the magician wishes to influence. One of the most straightforward and familiar examples of this would be the voodoo doll, in which a person is impacted by the treatment of a doll that superficially looks like him/her, but many examples have been found around the world. Aztec priests believed the tears of child sacrifices (and the tears of the children’s mothers) could summon the tears of Tlaloc (the rain god), which fell as rain (James 2002: 337; Sahagún 1950–1969: III 44). Similarly, the Tohono O’Odham of southern Arizona believed that drinking saguaro wine to the point of vomiting would likewise cause the clouds to vomit rain (Waddell 1976). In these cases, the underlying reasoning is similar—humans enacting the discharge of liquid from their bodies (as tears or vomit) would entice clouds to do the same. We will return to this topic in Chap. 6, but Frazer was right that magic and the manipulation of spirits/spiritual forces often relies on these types of associations. Frazer also differentiated between ‘unseen forces’ (associated with magic) and spirits and deities (codified in religions) (Frazer 1963: 477). Given his actual focus on magic (unseen forces), Frazer did not define terms such as spirits and ghosts with care, but he indicated that most cultures hold that spirits are found in nature (e.g., within trees or manifested as weather phenomena). Conceptually Frazer thought humans’ spirits were also called ghosts, but animals had ghosts (and therefore spirits) too. He associated unseen forces of magic with the Age of Magic and the named spirits/deities with his Age of Religion, but his own analysis demonstrated this association was heuristic at best. Several of the cultures he associated with the Age of Magic named specific forces (spirits) and treated them as individuals.

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Likewise, several examples of the Age of Religion also held there were more general, impersonal spiritual powers aside from (or in addition to) the named spirits/deities. However, the distinction between general, impersonal spiritual power and individualized spirits with their own agency is useful, and Frazer’s analysis in The Golden Bough does demonstrate the ubiquity of the belief in spirits/ghosts around the world.

2.5

Psychedelics, Insanity, and the Shaman in Mid-Twentieth Century Anthropology

Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience upon which primordial shamanism is based is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego. . .—Ethnobiologist Terence McKenna (1993: 252)

As scientific anthropology solidified as a discipline in the early twentieth century and anthropologists began to disperse around the globe to conduct intensive field work after World War I and especially after World War II, it became clear that speculative, perhaps even philosophical frameworks like those proposed by Tylor and Frazer were less useful compared to the detailed, culturally specific analysis typified by Malinowski’s work with the Trobriand Islanders. Boas’s emphasis on detailed study and description of specific cultures became the professional norm, and participant observation became typical. Yet even as Boas’s students molded a new generation of anthropologists focused on field work and empirical study, the analysis of religion including spirits and ghosts became less central to anthropology as a whole. This may in part be because of magic previous importance to discredited researchers like Tylor and Frazer. Anthropologists have certainly been happy to sometimes throw the baby out with the bathwater, and this seems to have happened here as they rejected useful concepts like animism out of hand simply because Tylor suggested them. Scholars dismiss animism because Tylor tied it to a “primitive mental” state (Tylor 1891: 285). Tylor’s dismissive attitude was galling to anthropologists and was inconsistent with the complexity of humans’ mental states and society. He was “patronizing of primitivism” (Stringer 1999: 541). Thus, “religion as survival makes religion a sheer relic” (Segal 2013: 54). As anthropologists shifted away from studying animism, they began to ask new types of questions that dealt with the ways specific people were able to make their living in an often-harsh world. These ‘functional’ approaches tended to focus on the environmental, ecological, and social importance of cultural traits including religion, as opposed to the more intangible aspects of culture such as the origins of spirits or the logic underlying the ways they could be invoked for good or ill. Within this functional framework, it was reasonable to ask how religions helped people socially organize themselves or how they contributed to people making a living, but it was wasteful to spend much time considering the specifics of the relationships humans had with dreams, ghosts, or vengeful spirits.

2.5

Psychedelics, Insanity, and the Shaman in Mid-Twentieth Century Anthropology

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While functional analysis became more common, some anthropologists continued to question the shaman’s mental health. Bodies covered in tattoos, the public display of ecstatic trances, colorful and theatrical regalia, and the other traits that made shamans respected and even feared in their own cultures raised misgivings and doubt in anthropologists. Their suspicion built on the previous impressions provided by the early explorers and missionaries in the Americas, who were shocked by indigenous practices that seemed irrational to Europeans. We suspect that most people have experienced “culture shock” at some point in their lives, but this experience can be especially pronounced when people from extremely different cultural backgrounds come into contact. Our colleague Napoleon Chagnon (1997) provides an honest and detailed account of his own culture shock when he first started working with the Yanomamö. He begins his book on the Yanomamö with a vignette that tells his readers that the first day of field work was the longest day of his life. His face and hands were swollen from the venomous biting gnats and his body and clothes were soaked in perspiration, but as he prepared to meet the Yanomamö for the first time, he hoped that they would like him, accept him, and hopefully even adopt him as a friend and fellow member in their village. His optimism shattered as he was swarmed by dozens of “burly, naked, sweaty, hideous men” growling and threatening him with barely contained animosity when he entered the village of Bisaasi-teri (Chagnon 1997: 11). These men had drawn their arrows, and “had immense wads of green tobacco” stuck in their lower teeth and lips. They had previously consumed epena, a psychotropic snuff administered through the nose, which caused dark-green slime to drip from their noses. Decaying vegetables littered across the village created a horrifying stench, according to Chagnon, that further exacerbated the emotional and sensory impact of this first meeting. In his own words, he felt “helpless and pathetic” (Chagnon 1997: 12), and experienced the most profound instance of culture shock he would have during his long and productive career. He wanted to flee immediately and even afterwards as he began the hard work of integrating into the village. His first 6 months of his 15-month stay in 1964 were incredibly lonely—he missed his family and seemed unable to adjust to village life or create friendships. In his view, the Yanomamö only tolerated him because of his resources: metal tools, crackers, and honey to name a few things. Fortunately, his perseverance and bravery paid off. Chagnon eventually gained many friends among the Yanomamö, and his collaboration with them provided some of the most significant anthropological insights of the twentieth century as a result of his field work. This includes insights into Yanomamö spirits and shamanism we will discuss in the next section, but the initial and profound cultural differences between the Yanomamö village and the “relatively antiseptic environment of the northern United States” of his home caused him to initially question both his own and the Yanomamö’s mental stability (Chagnon 1997: 14). Chagnon’s culture shock was certainly not unique. Early Catholic priests from Spain and France arriving in the New World in the mid-1500s questioned the spiritual and mental health of “ministers” that communed with evil spirits (e.g., Thévet 2001[1557]). As illustrated in articles such as “The Shaman Practices on the Verge of Insanity” (Czaplicka 2001[1914]), this attitude remained common even as

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anthropology formed as a discipline and continued until well after World War II (Narby and Huxley 2001). For example, George Devereux in 1956 wrote “The Shaman is Mentally Deranged,” and even at recent professional conferences we have heard fellow anthropologists allude to shamans as insane. This of course fits the perspective dominant in popular American culture today, in which people are still suspicious of the mental health of others who report seeing a spirit (Bader et al. 2017). Chagnon’s ability to deal with his ethnocentrism certainly is not universal among anthropologists, let alone social scientists in general. Thankfully, though, anthropologists like Chagnon helped us shift away from viewing people like the shamans he encountered as mentally ill (or charlatans) and instead focus on them as proto-doctors, psychologists, and priests who helped protect and heal their people. Cross-culturally, such shamans often used psychoactive plants (called entheogens), which played into a rapidly developing interest in psychoactive agents in American and European societies as recreational and medical use of psychoactive drugs became more common between the 1950s and 1970s. Peter Furst (1972), Weston La Barre (1972), Barbara Myerhoff (1974) and many others demonstrated shamans used hallucinogenic plants like “magic mushrooms” or peyote to see and talk to spirits, to transform into spirit beings themselves, and even to travel to a different, spirit world during a soul flight. Their experiences fit with the reported experiences of test subjects and recreational users of psychedelics. The link between traditional use of entheogens and the recreational use of psychoactive drugs was demonstrated by a widely read article published in Life magazine in 1957 by R. Gordon Wasson, a prominent banker. Wasson recounted his and his friend’s, Allan Richardson, experience with a Mazatec curandera (a traditional female healer). They took mushrooms under the direction of Eva Mendez and her daughter. Wasson (1957: 102, 109) recounted his vivid colored vision in which he said that, “Later it was as though the walls of our house had dissolved, and my spirit had flown forth, and I was suspended in mid-air viewing landscapes of mountains, with camel caravans advancing slowly across the slopes, the mountains rising tier above tier to the very heavens.” In his vision he interacted with a primordial woman in a manner very similar to many reported instances of shamanism. His experience perfectly encapsulated America’s growing interest in psychedelics. If Western, ‘normal’ people could have these experiences, perhaps the shamans were not crazy after all. Anthropologist Carlos Castaneda (1968) cashed in on the interest in entheogens to write a series of extremely popular books that eventually sold over 28 million copies. These purported to recount his experience as the pupal of a Yaqui shaman trained in the use of hallucinogenic plants, although these works are now regarded as largely or completely fictional (Fikes 1993). Castanda aside, scientists had a new theory, in fact a scientific theory based on brain chemistry and current (at that time) psychological analysis, to explain how people believed in, and interacted with, spirits and ghosts. Spirits were no longer the disembodied fears of Malinowski or the dreams of Tylor. Instead, psychoactive drugs were the gateway to, and perhaps even the origin of, religious experiences in many non-industrialized societies (La Barre 1972).

2.5

Psychedelics, Insanity, and the Shaman in Mid-Twentieth Century Anthropology

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The focus on the mental structure of shamanism further fit the growing field of psychoanalysis. The famous French Structuralist anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1968) suggested that shamans’ abilities to heal their patients was based on their use of myths and symbols. He provided an example in which the shaman asked a patient to visualize the necessary mythical symbols needed for healing, which in turn apparently improved the patient’s health (i.e., the patient’s ability to internally visualize what would help them, actually helped them). According to Lévi-Strauss, it was the shaman’s ability to vocalize mythic places and concepts that allowed the shaman to connect with his or her patients, and thereby encouraged healing. In one of our favorite articles, Lévi-Strauss (1968) analyzed the songs used by Guna shamans (historically known as the Cuna people of Panama and Columbia) during a difficult childbirth. The difficulties in the birthing process were attributed to the mother losing her purpa, that is, her spirit. The shaman used his tutelary spirits, nachu, to find and return the lost purpa, and to help the mother focus on giving birth once her spirit was back. The shaman called “by name the spirits of intoxicating drinks; of the winds, waters, and woods; and even—precious testimony to the plasticity of the myth—the spirit of the ‘silver streamer of the white man’” (LeviStrauss 1968: 322). As he sang and moved about, the shaman talked about these spirits and the sick mother. His songs and movement helped the mother focus on the myths and helped her see the spiritual battle taking place as she fought to stay conscious. In Levi-Strauss’s (1968: 324) terms, The shaman is the hero, for it is he who, at the head of a supernatural battalion of spirits, penetrates the endangered organs and frees the captive soul. In this way he, like the psychoanalyst, becomes the object of transference and through the representations induced in the patient’s mind, the real protagonists of the conflict which the latter experiences on the border between the physical world and the psychic world. The patient suffering from neurosis eliminates an individual myth by facing a “real” psychoanalyst; the native woman in childbed overcomes a true organic disorder by identifying with a ‘mythically transmuted’ shaman.

The idea of ‘shamans as psychoanalysts’ was debated in anthropology for a little while in the 1970s, but with shifts in psychology and improved medical understanding of mental health, anthropology also shifted away from this framework (Whitley 2009: 355). What did not change was that many anthropologists still focused on entheogens. Between the late 1950s and 1980s, hundreds (if not thousands) of articles and books were written on shamans and their use of these plants. Anthropologists documented the use of many different entheogens, as well as the different impacts these plants had on the shamans’ experiences. Wilbert (1987), for example, presented a thorough examination of the ethnobotany of three hundred shamanic groups in South America. Many of his groups used Nicotiana rustica, an extremely potent form of tobacco with a high nicotine content, to see spirits. Tobacco produced a fundamentally different trance experience than that associated with Psilocybe spp.(mushrooms) or other available entheogens. Instead of creating colorful visions and/or energetic movement, the tobacco created ghostly visions devoid of color and rendered the shaman catatonic. In fact, with extreme nicotine intoxication, the shamans’ heartbeats decreased so much that

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shamans appeared to be dead; in one case, Wilbert (1987) literally could not find a heartbeat of a shaman intoxicated by tobacco, although he later emerged from his trance just fine. During their apparent death, these tobacco shamans’ spirits were thought to literally leave their bodies to travel to the spirit world. While there (i.e., during their vision experience), they learned things from spirits and deities. The visions were without color and the shamans reported that spirit beings had a ghostlike appearance, which likely reflects in part nicotine’s suppression of the eye’s ability to perceive color. (In less extreme cases of nicotine intoxication, the shaman stays conscious, but sees humans as ghost-like because they have lost their color vision.) Shamanic assistants watched over the shamans, and knew when and how to help the shamans’ spirits return to their bodies. Tobacco was a two-phase drug that worked like a light switch; when too much was taken it caused the human to go catatonic, apparently “turning off” the human. When more was administered, it revived the human, switching them “back on.” The shaman helpers knew how long to let shamans remain catatonic before they blew more tobacco smoke into the shamans’ lungs to restart their hearts. After regaining consciousness, the shaman would appear to have returned from the dead to describe and interpret their visions. The tobacco shamanism Wilbert (1987) describes was in stark contrast with Peter Furst’s (1972) and Barbara Myerhoff’s (1970, 1974) reports of peyote use among the Huichols in Mexico. Unlike tobacco, peyote did not make the shaman lose consciousness or become catatonic. Instead, a fully conscious but not entirely coherent shaman would experience vivid, colorful hallucinations. Barbara Myerhoff (1970, 1976) discussed her own peyote visions in various publications, describing how the hallucinations fit into shamanic experiences and interpretations of the Huichols—participant observation was a common part of these types of studies. Anthropologists noted that most cultures typically limited the use of entheogens to shamans and only during special contexts (e.g., healing ceremonies). They were not to be taken as recreational drugs or by non-shamans, except as directed by a shaman during special circumstances. The plants were sacred, the experiences they created were revered, and the spirits involved were respected. Despite their interest in entheogens, anthropologists were also keenly aware that people experienced trances without ingesting entheogens such as tobacco, mushrooms, or peyote (Goodman 1988, 1990; Lyon 2012). Shamans might instead initiate trance by fasting for days, dancing for extended periods of time, rhythmically drumming, and/or adopting painful or unusual stances for long periods (Eliade 1964; Vitebsky 2001). Some Native American groups respected these methods more than the use of psychoactive plants, because they believed that self-sacrifice was necessary to convince spirits to reward or otherwise work with humans (Eliade 1964; Lyon 2012; Vitebsky 2001; VanPool 2009).

2.6

Spirit Possession During Late-Twentieth Century Anthropology

2.6

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Spirit Possession During Late-Twentieth Century Anthropology

If dissociation, then, has been understood by psychopathologists to imply among other things ‘loss of consciousness,’ the question that immediately presents itself. . .is: what exactly is being lost—in other words, what is meant by consciousness? It turns out that it is exceedingly difficult to find an answer to this question in the psychiatric literature despite the seeming centrality of the issue.—Anthropologist Morton Klass (2004: 80)

Even as our knowledge of psychoactive plants and their relationship to altered states of consciousness (ASC) associated with shamanic trance increased, many anthropologists were finding that psychoactive compounds only accounted for a portion of spiritual awareness (Bourguignon 1973; Goodman 1990). Shamanism could not be simplified to, “Take drugs and have a vision.” The consumption of psychoactive agents was just a part, and not even a necessary part, of the entire framework used to interact with the spirits. Anthropologists began to shift their attention from how psychoactive agents were used to create ASC to how ASC was used in traditional societies (Bourguignon 1973: 3). ASC was the metaphorical doorway to the spirit world, and it swung both ways. Shamans could use the door to see and even visit spirits in other worlds, but spirits could also use the door to visit ours. The most extreme version of this was spiritual possession during which one or more spirits control the shaman’s body (Goodman 1988: 2). Spirit possession was common among many cultures, and took many different forms based on culturally specific symbols and rituals (Bourguignon 1973: 3). Napoleon Chagnon documented this practice among the Yanomamö. When the senior author was an undergraduate in the late 1980s and early 1990s at Eastern New Mexico University, one of the first anthropology documentaries she watched was Chagnon’s “Magical Death.” The film is about a Yanomamö shaman and his colleagues waging a war against another village using their spirit familiars. As a young person she flinched and was ‘grossed out’ by the shamans’ appearances. The thick, green mucus that coated their faces was a product of blowing epena (hallucinogenic snuff) into each other’s noses using long tubes. Epena irritated the lining of the nasal cavity, causing snot to literally pour from their noses. (You can find clips of the film on YouTube if you wish to experience it for yourself.) The film focused on Dedeheiwa, a well-respected shaman, as he sought to protect his village and as he led other shamans to spiritually attack his village’s enemies. In it, Dedeheiwa snorted epena to become intoxicated to see the invisible hekura spirits making their way down from the sky. Like peyote, epena caused the trance’s vivid visions, but did not render people unconscious. In the ASC experience created by epena, which was further stimulated by singing and dancing, Dedeheiwa saw the hekura as glowing butterflies dancing down from above. Male hekura had fiery halos; female hekura had “brilliant wands coming out of their vaginas.” Dedeheiwa invited these spirits into him in order to fight the hekura spirits sent by his enemies to cause sickness in his own village and to send his own hekura against enemy villages. The hekura entered his feet, climbed his torso, and then traversed the “jungles of his body” to

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finally rest in the “great house” in his chest. Dedeheiwa (and other shamans) allowed their hekura allies to possess them, and in doing so, to use their bodies to interact with the physical world. In this form, they could strike the invisible hekura sent by enemy shamans to attack their village, and could attack the distant enemy village by acting out an attack in their own village. Being possessed by hekura, the shamans became spirit creatures themselves, and were simultaneously in their own village and in the enemy’s village. Chagnon (1977: 158) recounts his own account of being possessed by hekura: My arms seemed light and began moving almost of their own accord, rhythmically up and down at my sides, and I called to Ferefereriwä and Periboriwä, hot and meat hungry hekura and asked them to come into my chest and dwell within me. I felt great power and confidence, and sang louder and louder, and pranced and danced in ever more complex patterns. I took up. . . arrows, and manipulated them as I had seen. . . shaman manipulate them, striking out magical blows, searching the horizon for hekura, singing and singing and singing. Others joined me and still others hid the machetes and bows, for I announced that Rahakanariwä dwelled within my chest and directed my actions and all knew that he caused men to be violent. We pranced together and communed with the spirits. . .

By the 1970s and into the 1980s anthropologists were trying to understand the social causes and uses of spirit possession, especially in traditional societies (e.g., Bourguignon 1973; Goodman 1988; Kehoe and Gilette 1981; Lewis 1971). Some suggested nutritional/environmental factors were responsible. For example, Kehoe and Gilette (1981) noted that calcium or niacin deficiency caused tremors and ASC that might approximate the intense, kinetic trances of the possessed. Such factors might be at play in some circumstances, but they did not fit the world-wide evidence. The best and most influential studies instead focused on the social significance of the drama surrounding the possession. I.M. Lewis (1971), a British anthropologist, presented one of the first systematic syntheses of spirit possession in anthropology. His book on “ecstatic religion” is a classic and is full of amazing observations and ideas that were revolutionary in the early 1970s and continue to be relevant even today. He touched on topics such as gender, social class, and ethnicity about a decade before they became central to anthropological research. His analysis demonstrated that women were often the focus of spirit possession in ecstatic religions, especially in socially marginal immigrant populations from Third World countries. These women (but sometimes men) were mediums that invited spirits to take over their bodies to conduct religious (ritual) dramas. Lewis (1989: 15) argued that these dramas were “the seizure of man by divinity,” and served the purpose of giving people a way of transcending their boring, everyday experiences. Possession events were opportunities to renegotiate relationships and to verbalize underlying relationships or contradictions people might otherwise be reluctant to bring forward. While possessed, the women could identify, publicize, and challenge the inequities and social limitations that surrounded them. Lewis’s book is ultimately more about social renegotiations of marginal people, primarily women, than it is about possession or spirits. Greenbaum (1973) similarly determined that spirit possession, typically in trance states, allowed individuals in rigid societies including class-based societies with slavery to have the freedom to behave in nonstandard ways. A person could act

Brain Neurology during Late-Twentieth Century and Early Twenty-First. . .

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bizarrely because it was accepted that the spirits caused such behaviors. Put another way, spirits allowed people to speak and act in ways that transcended the limits typically placed on lower-class individuals, allowing them to explore and expose the limits and contradictions governing their daily lives.

2.7

Brain Neurology during Late-Twentieth Century and Early Twenty-First Century Anthropology

Every act of perception is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.—Neuroscientists Gerard Edelman and Guilio Tononi (2000: 101)

In addition to the intense ecstatic “seizures” associated with spirit possession, anthropologists had found many people in traditional societies could see or hear things in normal, waking consciousness that others did not, and might seek out a spirit specialist, like a shaman, to make sense of these experiences (Bourguignon 1973; Goodman 1988). Again, entheogens could not explain all the accounts of spirits that people reported. Anthropologists began looking at a number of physical ailments that might cause one to see spirits. Neurologist Oliver Sacks, a clinical professor and consulting neurologist who was a gifted and prolific writer, wrote many books on various mental diseases based on his and others’ case studies and narratives. He claimed that the brain is solely responsible for creating “illusions” that people claim are ghosts, angels, and other spiritual entities (Sacks 2012). Anthropologist Pascal Boyer (2003: 119) likewise relied on modern neurology when he stated that, “religious notions are products of the supernatural imagination.” He further argued these imaginary notions shared potential features that were found in dreams, fantasy, folktales, and legends. Although he used vastly different lines of evidence, he fundamentally reached the same conclusion Tylor made over 100 years ago—spirits are dreamed up! Ultimately, Boyer (2003: 123) suggested that people’s belief in or reporting of ghosts was an interpretation of their own internal mental state as opposed to objective reality. He did not specify the neurological processes that created visions, but rather acknowledged they happen frequently in trances, and concluded that religious thought was a byproduct of brain function. We will discuss neurological explanations of spirit perceptions in more detail in Chap. 7, but we note here that this is the dominant perspective adopted by anthropologists today (Blanc 2010; Boyer 2003; Flor-Henry et al. 2017; Sidky 2009; Winkleman 2010). This in turn has ushered in a fluorescence of papers using evolutionary approaches to explain the structure and neurological mechanisms underlying belief in the unseen. With this shift in focus, anthropologists are, as a whole, spending less ink reporting informants’ firsthand accounts of supernatural experiences, although there are exceptions (e.g., Turner 2005). They are instead relying on past case studies to create broad cultural comparisons. We suspect that Boas would look dimly on this change. Less this be interpreted as a critique, we note

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that we will likewise rely on case studies collected by others to provide a general framework. We are the last to criticize our colleagues for this strategy and offer only the defense that with so many individual case studies available, now is the time to start working on synthesizing our knowledge. Our base knowledge has grown so much that we can answer interesting questions, especially given that different case studies have generated both similarities and seeming contradictions in the ways humans perceive and interact with the supernatural. However, we approach the effort to synthesize this broad body of knowledge with as much caution as would any anthropologist studying seventeenth century Spanish priests’ accounts of the Aztecs—these writings must be evaluated by their cultural context, the nature of the informant, the writer’s background, and difficulties in translating dynamic experience into descriptive language. Perhaps the most common evolutionary explanation for the perception of spirits and spiritual forces is the suggestion that natural selection shaped humans to ascribe intent to even random events in order to protect us from potential danger. A belief in ‘bad luck’ might keep us from entering into dangerous situations. Even if we are wrong about the actual cause of a threat, focusing on potential danger might save us from real danger (Guthrie 1980). It is better to assume there is a malevolent spirit out there and take precautions against it than to become a lion’s dinner. In this context, it may not be necessary to understand the details of brain neurology to understand the real benefit of belief in spirits and conscious intention throughout our world. We believe that Malinowski would find a lot to like about this idea. The idea that our brains were shaped to see things around us that might not “be there” in an objective sense is known as the hyperactive agency detection device (Guthrie 1980). We jokingly refer to this as “the ghost principle,” but it is a key concept in the scientific study of religion. To explain it in further detail, Stewart Guthrie (1980) suggests that humans have the mental capacity to detect animals (agents) in their environment and have learned how to interact with them (e.g., play dead to a threatening bear, yell and raise one’s arms to intimidate a wild pig, or stare into the face of a mountain lion). The failure to accurately spot an agent could be tremendously detrimental, whereas mistakenly reacting to an agent may not be very costly (e.g., there is little harm in staring at a bush that might hide a Mountain Lion relative to the cost of turning one’s back to a bush in which one is hiding). Thus, over time natural selection created an adaptation in which people ‘saw’ lots of things that were not there, making false positive errors. As these false positive errors entered into human consciousness, they became unseen forces that were named over time and molded into supernatural concepts. Many cognitive scientists, therefore, think that hyperactive agent detection is the source of human belief in supernatural agents, and is an evolutionary byproduct of our agent detection. Underlying this hyperactive agent detection hypothesis is the assumption that spirits really are not there. Humans only see imaginary things because the brain plays a trick on us to keep us safe. Should it really surprise us that so many Americans are hesitant to talk about spirits, ghosts, and other unseen forces when the scientific community continually stresses that those things do not exist?

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Shifting our attention back to the issue of mental health for a moment, there are people in every culture that are unfortunately mentally ill. This is also addressed in recent neurological models of spirit perceptions. Medical doctors have demonstrated that mental issues such as schizophrenia can cause people to have disturbing hallucinations, and to see things or people that are not present in the room. But what about ‘rational’ and ‘healthy’ people that see things that are not ‘there’? Some scientists suggest this may be caused by a momentary brain trick associated with a temporary environmental or physiological issue (e.g., being excessively tired or hungry; a temporary nutritional/chemical imbalance). But this does not explain how groups of people report similar spiritual experiences that are often linked together. Of course, scientists have a rational explanation for these too, suggesting mass hysteria may be at play (Bartholomew et al. 2012; Small 2010; Wessely 1987). For example, Wessely (1987: 113–114) describes a case in which eight 16–17-yearold schoolgirls in a suburb of London experienced a “spiritual battle between God and the Devil” that caused them to suffer ‘drop attacks’ in which they fell to the ground without fully losing consciousness. Wessely (1987: 113) reports these attacks were associated with a preoccupation with issues of religion, love, sex, and death within their classroom following the death of a class member during childbirth.

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The ‘Social Ghost’ of Early Twenty-First Century Anthropology

The life of the dead is in the memory of the living.—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC; 2010[1855]: 138)

Again, there is no doubt that at least some ‘spiritual’ events can be ascribed to physiological or psychological issues, yet we wonder if these explanations are applicable in every case. We actually doubt they are, but we will leave that issue alone for the time being. Although a neurological model is the most common approach to looking for the cause of spiritual experiences in the abstract, it is not the perspective anthropologists typically use during their study of individual cultures. Instead, anthropologists tend to carefully respect people’s practices, and generally do not challenge the veracity of specific beliefs and experiences (Moro 2013). Field workers often adopt a more pragmatic framework that examines the social settings and relationships illustrated through people’s interaction with the supernatural. Eller (2013: 11) for example believes that, “The key for us is that religious being(s) and/or forces are almost universally ‘social’.” People have social relationships with spiritual beings that are sometimes quite intimate and personal, and that shape their lives in ways that may not be immediately apparent (Zedeño 2008). The Day of the Dead Celebrations in Mexico are one of the best-known traditions that shows the social relationship between the living and spirits. The celebration starts around October 28th (or 29th in some states like Oaxaca) and last until

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November 2. During this time, it is said that the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is thin enough to allow the deceased to return to their families. People in Mexico and elsewhere begin preparing for the dead to come back by cleaning the graves and making shrines in their homes and altars in cemeteries. Ofrendas (special dishes) are cooked and placed on the cemetery altars and in the special shrines made for the dead (Norget 2013: 355). While the dead cannot eat the food directly, they can consume its smell. Norget (2013: 358) in fact reports that this is the means by which the dead demonstrate their presence: One knows that the dead have come and sampled the ofrendas on the altar, I was told, because both smell and taste disappear from what has been left. Such material evidence for supernatural events is a characteristic of popular religion, which demands more than mere signs. Concrete manifestations are necessary and are apparent everywhere to those who know how and where to listen and look. Thus, some people I spoke to maintained that los muertos come back to earth “like the breeze,” odd noises, the barking of dogs, or a moment when a piece of fruit rolled off the altar. These are taken to be proof of the arrival of the dead.

Flowers and flower petals are used to make trails from the graveyard to the family’s home, so that the dead can find their way home; the dead can smell the flowers and follow them like a trail. Families visiting each other during this celebration leave chairs at the dining table open so that their spirit visitors can join them. As part of the celebration, the living pray frequently to the dead (as opposed to about the dead), often using phrases like “Mom, you are closer to God, could you please put in a good word for me?” Further, failure to maintain a good relationship with the dead can cause misfortune. Norget (2013: 355) recorded a man explaining that: Here it is thought that if you don’t put out an altar for the difuntos, they go off sad, nothing more. . .They don’t do anything, but they go off sad and something bad can happen to the person who didn’t make the altar, for example, an accident, she or he may trip or fall—that is the belief here.

In contrast, honoring the dead is seen as helping foster good family and community relations, and a way of bringing good luck. As a result, Day of the Dead celebrations, and by extension the cultural traditions they shape and embody are tied to family unity and modern Mexican national identity (Brandes 1998). Other groups from around the world use similar rituals to interact with their honored dead. Kan (1993) reports how the Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America feed the high-status dead during elaborate mourning ceremonies (called mourning potlatches by anthropologists). These ceremonies typically focus on highly revered, wealthy male elders. The potlatch itself lasts 4 days, although related activities might carry on for months. It begins after the kinsmen of the deceased send out delegates near and far with formal invitations to other highly ranked families. When the guests arrive, they and the hosts formally greet each other with songs and dances and re-enact mock battles. Formalities begin when the hosts cry and sing “heavy” songs to indicate their loss and grief. Guests offer condolence speeches, which are then followed by speeches of gratitude from the hosts. To change the tenor of the ritual, the guests then try to coax the mourners back to a happy state by telling jokes and singing “lighter” songs. The deceased’s

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body (and therefore spirit) is there to see and hear everything. He also must be catered to and is fed by burning food in a fireplace. Throughout North America Native Americans believe that the spirits consume tobacco smoke and the odors of food offerings. That is true for the Tlingit, but they also burn precious gifts in honor of the departed. The climax of the mourning potlatch is when the hosts transfer the titles and ceremonial objects of the deceased to his successor and to others in the maternal (mother’s kin) group. By the end of the potlatch, the bones and ghost of the honored dead go to the “village of the dead.” However, another spirit or ghost is believed to return to the living to be reincarnated as a matrilineal descendant of the deceased. As illustrated by the two examples presented above, ceremonies to honor the dead are common cross-culturally, including in Western cultures (another example is the common practice of “pouring one out,” in which a shot of alcohol is spilled on the ground for the dead). Ancestor worship of some form is present in nearly all human societies in one form or another (Clark and Coe 2021). Swanson (1960) in his classic work, The Birth of the Gods, defined four categories based on the nature of ancestors’ interests in the lives of their descendants: no interest; unspecified (general) interest; ancestors aid or punish descendants based on their behavior; and ancestors are invoked by the descendants to assist in earthly affairs (Swanson 1960: 210–11). Steadman et al. 1996 use Swanson’s (1960) categories and data to study the prevalence of ancestor worship including the belief that the spirits of ancestors care about and influence their descendants. They found that the idea that “ancestors influence the living and/or are influences by the living” in some way to be universal although each culture has its own way of ceremonially interacting with ancestors (Steadman et al. 1996: 72). Likewise, every culture has specific ways they treat the dead. Archaeologist Christopher Carr (1995) wanted to better understand ancient mortuary practices, so he examined how ethnographically documented traditional groups treated their deceased. His analysis focused on 31 non-state level societies, and included variables such as how the body was handled, when and where it was buried (if it was buried), how and with what it was buried, and so forth. Not surprisingly, he found a strong link between the way people handled the dead and their “philosophical-religious beliefs (P-R).” Religion and cosmology determined to a large degree how people were dealt with in death. People in non-industrialized societies typically had specific rituals to help souls of the dead cross over into the other world that reflected their continued existence and potential influence on living humans. In Carr’s (1995: 177) words, there is “unfinished business” between the survivors and the deceased. This relationship created a social-psychological explanation of mortuary practices according to Carr (1995), in which the emotional and economic bonds between the living and deceased must be gradually dismantled and replaced by new bonds among the living that reflect the lost ancestor. The Tlingit example above shows the negotiation of new relationships among the living even as the dead are honored and remembered. The relationship between the recently departed and the still living thus involves a liminal period during which their relationships are dismantled and transformed. Based on how this is done in each culture, there are P-R explanations/expectations

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for behaviors such as how long a person can mourn the deceased (e.g., a man will mourn a wife longer than a cousin) and the perceived association between the deceased’s soul and body (Do souls immediately departs? Do the ancestors depart after a set period of time? Or does the ancestor gradually depart as the body decays?). In cases where the soul and body remain linked for periods of time, the body may even be directly manipulated in order to influence the deceased’s soul (Carr 1995). An outgrowth of the focus on social relationships among the living and dead was the recognition that ancestral spirits are more frequently seen and honored among culturally disenfranchised groups. This remains true in modern, industrialized societies. Sociologists Joseph Baker and Christopher Bader (2014: 574–575) reported that Gallup polls find that African-Americans are more likely to hold ghost beliefs than Anglo-Americans. The link between class/ethnicity and the intensity of ancestor influence has spurred analyses based on Marxist approaches. Bader et al. (2017: 56) statement that, “Marx’s work and the concept of a locus of control led to a widespread belief among early sociologists that all forms of religious and paranormal beliefs and experiences would be most prevalent in the poor and oppressed” applies to anthropologists too. This is reflected in anthropologist Aihwa Ong’s (1988) analysis of spirit possession among women in Malaysia, which is one of the first articles we encountered discussing the marginalized concept. Ong does not cite Marx directly, but she relies on Michel Foucault, who began his career as a Marxist and arguably has Marxist underpinnings running throughout his work. Ong (1988) suggested that poor single females from rural areas that began working in an urban Malaysia factory found themselves in a new and strange multinational corporation under foreign male authority. Her analysis indicated that the long work hours, foreign (Japanese) influence and practices associated with factory work, and the supervision of non-related males created stress among the women that manifested as “spirit attacks” in which they were possessed by angry water spirits coming from a toilet. While possessed, the women had emotional outbursts including fits of yelling and crying. According to tradition, the afflicted needed to go home and be treated by a medicine man (bomoh) after such attacks, but the Japanese managers tended to rely on “modern medicine” to treat what they called a “hysteria attack” and discounted their claims. Workers with too many hysteria attacks were fired. Not surprisingly, Ong (1988: 39) reported that women did not want to talk about the spirit attacks, even long after they had happened. In many ways her article is a recrafting of the disenfranchised model that Lewis (1971) proposed.

2.9

Our Path Forward: The Construction of a Scientific Framework for the Anthropology of Spirits

It is simply ridiculous to suggest that “the force of the spirit” could be a plausible explanation for the broken vial [a ceremonial vial that was supposedly broken during a Muslim Sanghay ceremony because it contained the wrong perfume]. It would be equally

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reasonable to suggest that the vial had been broken by a belligerent leprechaun, unrequited incubus, inquisitive extraterrestrial, or disgruntled tooth fairy–and each of those suggestions would be equally well supported by the evidence. Had Stoller not abandoned verifiable and replicable epistemological procedures, he would have quickly discovered the simple truth of the matter: he was duped by a standard series of illusionist’s tricks that include misdirection, sleight of hand, and after-the-fact interpretation. What Stoller finds inexplicable is not at all obscure; it is, in fact, very common, ordinary, and familiar. . .No, reality is not relative to perception; no, the rules of science are not arbitrary; no, nonscientific approaches to reality are not as reliable as scientific approaches; no, the barriers to objective knowledge are not insuperable; and no, the difficulty of obtaining objective knowledge does not excuse us from the necessity of trying.—Anthropologist James Lett (1991: 319, 325) Being based on the scientific method, anthropology is not competent or able to investigate supernatural . . . questions that go beyond empirical data.—Anthropologists Raymond Scupin and Christopher Decorse (2001: 329) We argue that Kitcher (1982) provides a more productive view of the differences between science and non-science. He argues that the core distinction rests on the difference between knowledge systems that produce propositions that can be empirically evaluated and those that do not. Put another way, science is the systematic production of objective knowledge. In this context, objective does not signify free from cultural influences or value free as it is commonly defined, but instead means empirically testable. As Popper (1980: 31–32) states, the objectivity of scientific statements lies in the fact that they can be inter-subjectively tested.—Anthropologists Christine VanPool and Todd VanPool (2003: 74, emphasis in original)

Our quotes above show the current and past ambivalence that has surrounded the anthropological study of spirits and the supernatural. Lett (1991) reflects an extreme materialist position that acknowledges people might believe in spirits but holds that spirits and the supernatural should be excluded from scientific reasoning. Scupin and Decorse (2001) in contrast does not explicitly reject the existence of the supernatural but argues that science in general and anthropology specifically lacks useful tools for studying it. Both positions thus come to a similar conclusion, although they take very different approaches to get there. Here, we will build on the quote from our 2003 article presented above to argue that science is both sufficiently robust and sufficiently expansive to allow the study of spirits and other aspects of the supernatural. Making this argument requires us to delve into the philosophy of science to outline some potential challenges and their solutions. Let us start by considering some things we know about spirits. We know that intelligent, emotionally stable, and well-socialized people in every culture can believe in spirits and a spirit world. We also know that people from around the world and through time take spirits seriously. Spirits are the bringers of good luck but also tragedy. They can give or withhold essential resources. They can control or be controlled by humans. They are important, too important to ignore, but are so varied across cultures that they are difficult to characterize easily. We also know that each culture has its own religious specialists that moderate and facilitate interaction with the supernatural. Shamans have been the most common specialists worldwide before the rise of state-level societies. They continue to be important after the rise of states in many areas of the world, but priests and other specialists have become

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increasingly significant (we will discuss the difference between shamans and priests in the next chapter). We also know that most people within a culture might interact with the supernatural on occasion, but only the specialists are authorized (by both the spirit world and others in their culture) to do so on a regular basis. We further know that a great many, but not all, cultures use entheogens and other methods to initiate visions as a means of interacting with the supernatural. This may be less common in modern Western cultures, but even in these societies there are both indigenous and non-indigenous people that use peyote, magic mushrooms, datura, meditation, rhythmic dancing/chanting, and other methods to initiate visions. Anthropologists observe that the rituals used to interact with the supernatural have meaningful impacts on social relationships and organization, ranging from the communitas (the intense feeling of humble equality and togetherness) documented by Turner and Turner (1978) among Christian pilgrims to the demonstration of prestige and power associated with the transfer of authority among the Tlingit people during their mourning rituals (Kan 1993). Rituals have behavioral and material consequences, aspects of which will be visible to people within a community, and are often visible to archaeologists long after their creators have transitioned to their own version of death (Renfrew 1994). Finally, we can agree that all cultures have a concept of a soul, although the number and types of souls a human has differs around the world. Beyond these similarities, we are faced with a tremendous range of variation in concepts and practices. How do anthropologists as scientists approach such variation? As reflected earlier in this chapter and indeed throughout this book, approaches often focus on classifying religious specialists/practitioners into different “types,” commonly based on some derivation of shamans and priests (Moro 2013; Winkleman 1992), evaluating the social impact of the religious practices (Lewis 1989; Moro 2013; Ong 1988; Wallace 1966), and seeking to explain the underlying cause for the existence of religion (which is almost always based on the premise that spirits do not literally exist) (Boyer 2003; Lett 1991). In our view, these approaches leave a large hole in our current methodological and empirical perspectives in that none of them are focused on asking and answering questions related to the actual nature of spirits. Spirits themselves have been analytically ignored even as we have traced their presence in human society since at least the Upper Paleolithic 40,000 years ago. Yet spirits are active and at times unpredictable agents. They (are perceived to) compel behavior; serve as allies for troubled humans; force the sacrifice of time, resources, and sometimes life; and even cry out for vengeance. Their role in motivating and controlling behavior necessitates that they cannot be jettisoned as inconsequential fantasies or the musings of “primitive people,” especially given that spirits are as active in the modern Western world as they are in many other societies. Ignoring the spirit behind the ritual is therefore as significant of an issue as ignoring the proverbial human behind the artifact (Braidwood 1958: 734). One can learn a lot by looking at the social impact of spirit-focused behavior, but that does not take the place of directly examining the operation, motives, and structure of the spirits and their interaction with humans.

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Still, as reflected by the quotes from Lett (1991) and Scupin and Decorse (2001) at the start of this section, the primary reason anthropologists are reluctant to study spirit-human interaction in a synthetic manner is the idea that the supernatural cannot be a legitimate focus of scientific analysis (see also Baxstrom 2013). These anthropologists hold that the core, overriding issue of the anthropological analysis of spirits (and other aspects of the paranormal) is to evaluate the empirical validity of spirits. And once begun, most anthropologists (and other scientists) hold that the only “rational” position we can take is to reject their very existence. Scientists are ideally a skeptical lot, a group of people who embody the statement, “show, don’t tell.” We endorse this skepticism, but we disagree that (dis)proving the literal existence of spirits is a necessary or even useful starting point for an anthropology of spirits and the supernatural. To the contrary, we argue science will be quite useful in studying spirits, but only if we create a scientific framework that does not throw out the “spiritual baby” with the “subjective bathwater.” As indicated in our starting quote to this section, science is based on scientific objectivity, that is, the ability of different researchers to evaluate empirical statements (Kitcher 1982; Lastrucci 1967; Platt 1964; VanPool and VanPool 1999, 2003). Even though spiritual experiences often include emotional, subjective components that are limited only to the affected individual(s), there are also aspects of spirit-human interaction that can be empirically evaluated by others. The subjective and objective components of spirit-human interaction are both important, and an anthropology of spirits can include both kinds of experiences. Case studies discussed in the following chapters illustrate this point, but we have to be careful to distinguish between objective and subjective experiences. We must also carefully keep from loading up our scientific approaches with unnecessary limitations that may hamper research. Science is a powerful tool, but it is even more powerful when it is not hamstrung by well-meaning supporters. Unfortunately, scientists and philosophers of science sometimes create unnecessarily rigid barriers for what constitutes “good science.” For example, Sir Karl Popper (1980) argues the proper structure of science is an unyielding focus on falsification. Within his framework, scientists should create ‘risky tests’ designed to disprove their hypothesis, if they are wrong. Hypotheses that are not supported by the test results should be rejected, and scientists should then turn their attention to other hypotheses. Through this process, incorrect ideas can be quickly culled from scientific thought, leaving behind only those hypotheses that can withstand the most strenuous testing the scientists can provide. These strong hypotheses in turn ought to be the most useful (and the most likely to be correct). We are deeply appreciative of Popper’s clear thought. He presents an elegant argument, but even as Popper originally developed his ideas, others were noting they contained fatal flaws. The most notable is that hypotheses might not fit scientific data for several reasons. Perhaps the idea is indeed wrong, which is what Popper suggested. However, discrepancy between the test expectations and results might also reflect problems with the research design, measurement tools, or auxiliary assumptions that are built into the hypotheses’s evaluations, meaning that hypotheses often cannot be falsified with certainty. To illustrate this point, nineteenth

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century astronomers evaluating Newton’s theory of celestial mechanics noted there was a wobble (perturbation) in the orbit of Uranus that was inconsistent with Newton’s models. Applying Popper’s framework would have led them to reject Newton’s ideas, and work towards developing other frameworks. Instead of rejecting Newton’s celestial mechanics, they postulated that a gravitational pull of some other body might be causing the perturbations. In Popper’s terms, they created an ad hoc auxiliary hypothesis (the existence of another planet) to save their original hypothesis (Newtonian celestial mechanics) from falsification. Popper warns against these sorts of auxiliary hypotheses, arguing that scientists can “simply refuse to acknowledge any falsifying experience whatsoever” if they can just make up reasons why their data do not fit their expectations (Popper 1980: 42). In this case, though, the astronomers were right. The discovery of Neptune confirmed their auxiliary hypothesis (Putman 1974). To drive the point home, scientists saved Newtonian’s theory of celestial mechanics from falsification by looking for verification of an ad hoc auxiliary hypothesis. This is exactly what Popper (1980) suggested scientists should not do. Rigidly adhering to scientific falsification would have caused these astronomers to discard a useful framework and would have thus hampered scientific study. Science is replete with many other examples of “falsified” hypotheses later being “saved” and even “verified” when scientists changed their underlying assumptions, improved their measurement tools, and/or introduced new concepts (Feyerabend 1993). Further, pursuing research that helps support and expand the application of hypotheses (i.e., looking for cases when hypotheses might be supported as opposed to falsified) has led to the strengthening and refinement of many scientifically useful ideas (Hansson 2006; Kelley and Hanen 1988: 76–82; Kuhn 1970). Evaluation is important to science but following Popper (1980) too rigidly hampers scientific growth (Hansson 2006). This is why falsification has not been and is not now the typical approach used by scientists (Hansson 2006; Kuhn 1970; Mitra 2020). Many others such as Karl Hempel (1965), Ernest Nagel (1979), and Imre Lakatos (1999) have argued for other methodological frameworks that they believe provide order and certainty to scientific study. Again, we are appreciative of their efforts, but none of these methods have proven to be generally satisfactory. Like a mountain climber scrambling up the side of a cliff, science often advances by clinging precariously to the slender stem of a serendipitous insight, the fragile handhold of a theoretically derived expectation, or the apparently dead trunk of a hypothesis that seems to have been irretrievably refuted. No single model of “perfect science” can account for scientific growth. We are not trying here to justify “bad” or “sloppy” science. Quite to the contrary, we want “good science.” Our point simply is that the approaches that scientists have used to grow our knowledge—from Charles Darwin’s brilliant insights on the deck of the HMS Beagle to Gregor Mendel’s empirically based studies of genetic inheritance to Galileo’s formation of the concept of inertia to Francis Collin’s work in mapping the human genome—have taken a variety of forms that do not meaningfully fit into any single methodological system. Some scientific work is descriptive. Some focuses on hypothesis testing. And some is based on serendipity

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and luck. Therefore, over the years we have become increasingly appreciative of Feyerabend’s (1993: 21) statement that, “all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits.” The history of science indicates that so long as we remain committed to empirically evaluating our ideas using objective (independently verifiable) data, we will increase our knowledge and thereby better understand the world around us (see Kelley and Hanen 1988; Kitcher 1982). In our opinion, science is far more robust than it is commonly given credit for. Scientists should focus on expanding its application, as opposed to limiting its application by creating unnecessary requirements. With respect for our colleagues, we suggest here that those who place the anthropology of spirits outside of the purview of science are unnecessarily limiting scientific analysis. We can evaluate empirical questions, even those related to the supernatural. One of the critical stumbling blocks, though, is creating appropriate empirical questions, especially given the difficulty of defining spirits and related concepts (e.g., consciousness/ altered states of consciousness, trances, magic). Whatever else spirits may be, they cannot be measured in the same way that a person’s weight or height can be. How can one create empirical questions about them? Yet anthropology studies lots of things that cannot be directly, physically measured. Social class, status, ethnicity, artistic and symbolic expression, past evolutionary fitness, and a host of other factors cannot be directly measured, but we study them anyway. We may not be able to directly measure status, but we can recognize the empirical difference between the graves of Egyptian pharaohs and slaves, and tie these differences to past social structures using logically coherent frameworks. We likewise cannot directly measure past evolutionary fitness, but we can recognize changes in the frequency of specific traits that reflect the operation of natural selection. Studying “hidden” or “invisible” variables is easy for us, so long as we can link them to empirical information. The use of proxy variables is not inherently unscientific and is quite common among the social sciences. Heck, working from what can be seen to what cannot be seen is the central modus operandi of modern archaeology as a discipline—it is how we can infer past (unobservable) behavioral and cultural systems from artifacts (Currie 2018; Currie and Killin 2019; Schiffer 2016; also see Chap. 1). Paleontology, psychology, sociology, and political science use similar reasoning. We suspect that many anthropologists would grant that we can examine “hidden” variables using empirical data from proxy variables but would contend that the scientific analysis of spirits is uniquely impossible, because spirits simply do not exist. As hard as it might be to study non-empirical variables such as social status, class structures, and social complexity, these variables at least refer to something that is “real” in the sense that they are a result of human behavior. Critics might in contrast argue that trying to build a logical chain to study something that does not exist is an inherently doomed process. We disagree with such pessimism, in part because as Christians we are unwilling to reject the existence of spirits out of hand. Of greater significance, though, we contend that philosophers of science have already provided anthropologists with the analytic approaches required to study spirits, regardless of whether or not they exist.

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To be clear, we suggest that it is still possible to study spirits using a scientific framework even if one rejects the very possibility of the existence of spirits. A short justification of this is that human behavior is empirical, so we can still ask questions about spirits and their manifestation (even if they are completely imaginary) based on people’s responses to them. Anthropologists study human behavior, so we absolutely can study how people respond to and behave towards phenomena they consider spirits. Given that the resulting behavior can be studied scientifically, we can identify regularities and variation in the manifestations and structure of spirits within different cultural frameworks. A more complete and useful justification for our scientific approach will require us to present rather detailed arguments based on the philosophy of science. We again start from the difficulty of correlating empirical observations to unseen phenomena. One of the best discussions of this issue is provided by Karl Hempel, one of the most prominent philosophers of science to ever live. Hempel (1965: 173–226) describes the underlying tension between the observable and unobservable/unseen variables and structures in science as “The Theoreticians’ Dilemma.” He begins his analysis by differentiating between two types of “terms”: theoretical terms and observational terms. Theoretical terms (aka theoretical entities) are defined as “objects, events, and attributes which cannot be perceived or otherwise directly observed by us” (Hempel 1965: 177). Observational terms in contrast can be directly observed and are therefore directly measurable. Being unobservable, theoretical terms can be changed, invoked, and explained away with relative ease. This sometimes leads to their sloppy use. Examples of questionable theoretical terms used in anthropology include early concepts of race that were used to explain cultural differences before Boas’s forceful refutation (Boas 1938, 1940; see also Gould 1996). More recent examples of theoretical terms of questionable utility used in the social sciences include cultural resistance/resilience and political economy, which can be trotted out or put away as needed for any given explanation with little justification or support. In contrast, observational terms lead to objective data, that is, data that can be independently evaluated by different researchers. In this context, objective does not mean free from personal or conceptual bias. It instead means that different people can each measure the world in some way to evaluate the data’s accuracy and structure. The statement that it is 32 °F (0 ° C) in a room can be independently evaluated by others and is therefore an objective statement, even though it implies a scale of measurement and other culturally specific components (e.g., an accepted variety of thermometers). Observational terms can be measured, but theoretical terms include unobservable characteristics that go beyond what can be seen. To illustrate Hempel’s point, consider the work of Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin who each held there was some means of inheritance in organisms such that the offspring of an organism more closely resembles the parent than a randomly selected member of its species. Mendel used this to predict the colors of flowers and the morphology of peas whereas Darwin used it to describe the process of natural selection that produced the variation in finch beak shape. In each case, they focused their analyses on what they could directly observed (observational terms). They both

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argued that they could study the effects of inheritance in some way, but their arguments were restricted to the aspects of inheritance they could directly measure. They fortunately did not speculate about the hidden mechanisms of genetic inheritance to create theoretical terms. If they had, they would have almost certainly gotten it wrong. There is no reasonable way they could have correctly guessed the structure of cell replication and the nature of DNA. If they had created a theoretical term to account for inheritance, they might have even hampered their ability to correctly understand the observational terms they were using. Modern biologists can of course outline cell structure and DNA’s double helix in great detail, but that is because improved technology allows them to directly measure these details. Put another way, we understand DNA because we can measure it as an observational term, as opposed to speculate about its hidden nature as a theoretical term. Hempel’s Theoretician’s Dilemma emphasizes the difference in the information potential between observational and theoretical terms. Observational terms can be used to empirically study aspects of the world, but the theoretical entities remain hidden and are as likely to mislead as to illuminate our studies. Hempel (1965: 184) consequently argues that using theoretical entities is unwise and unnecessary, because it extends science onto a foothold that is precarious at best, and possibly counterproductive. At best, theoretical terms are reflected in and created only in response to the data derived using the observational terms. This means that theoretical terms can only be tied to the empirical world through interpretive sentences, which link them to observational terms. But this entire process cannot be empirically evaluated, and therefore holds the very real possibility of introducing errors in our scientific analyses. So why would scientists even bother with theoretical terms? The answer according to Hempel is, because they seem to be useful. For example, early anthropologists could explain differences in culture easily by attributing them to “race.” They could never quite figure out what race was or how to measure it, but it gave them an easy explanation for why different groups of people behaved differently. We now know that these explanations were uniformly wrong. The easy solution is not always the best solution. The dilemma in Hempel’s (1965: 185–187) Theoretician’s Dilemma is thus whether scientists should use theoretical terms that superficially (and seductively) seem helpful but they are also unnecessary. Theoretical entities seem useful because they appear to provide causal links and to fill in explanatory gaps; using theoretical entities, scientists can create and justify links between observational terms that would otherwise seem unjustified. However, this freedom to posit relationships outside of empirical constraints runs the danger of allowing scientists to justify their ideas by structuring the supposed theoretical entities to have whatever characteristics are necessary for their ideas to work. Theoretical entities can become a form of “magical thinking” in which aspects of empirical data are explained based on the unobservable nature of the underlying theoretical entity. Returning to the genetics example, some early biologists did posit theoretical entities to explain inheritance before the discovery of DNA. However, only some of these had any meaningful utility at all and none of them were entirely correct (Portin 2002). Relying on

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theoretical terms introduces the possibility of justifying nonexistent links between observational terms that are posited simply because the scientist finds them convenient. Instead of using theoretical terms, Hempel (1965: 187–191) recommends using operationally defined terms, that is, terms that are defined based on their measurement as opposed to their unobservable characteristics. Operationally defined terms do not require underlying theoretical entities, but instead link observation terms based on correspondence. Consider for example the variable “time,” which is core to many scientific analyses. What is time in a scientific framework? This is a deceptively difficult question to answer in a theoretical sense (Anderson 2017). Scientists and others have attempted to answer this using a variety of theoretical entities, none of which have proven to be generally satisfactory. The question is easily answered when it is treated as an operationally defined term, though: time is what we measure using a watch, a calendar, and similar tools. This might seem to be conceptually unsatisfactory—time must be “something” and it would be really interesting to say what that something is. However, simply being satisfied that we can measure time without focusing on trying to transform it into an unseen theoretical entity changes it to a much more secure observational term that is central to many scientific analyses. Is this emotionally satisfying? No, but it is satisfactory for scientific analysis. Perhaps a more intuitive example is weight, which is another common scientific measurement. A definition of weight as a theoretical term is “the measurement of gravitational force acting on an object.” An operational definition of weight instead might be “the result of the measurement of an object on a Newton spring scale”. Both definitions of weight are scientifically defensible, but they differ in many key regards. Defining weight based on gravity requires we posit a (well-known and widely accepted) theoretical term, but it also introduces potentially intervening issues that complicate the situation. Objects in freefall while orbiting the earth are “weightless” even though the gravitational pull from the earth is still present but being offset by other forces. Likewise, our understanding of gravity as a theoretical term has changed from Newton’s original formulation and is likely to change as we learn more about our world. In contrast, the operational definition of weight easily accounts for changing circumstances like freefall without making any assumptions about underlying factors like gravity. While concepts like gravity are arguably useful, Hempel (1965) suggests operational definitions based on observable terms are more scientifically defensible and ultimately more useful. There are no cases in which the theoretical definition can be applied when the operational definition cannot be, but the operational definition does not carry the added conceptual weight of positing poorly understood theoretical entities. According to Hempel (1965), scientists should generally eschew theoretical terms in favor of operationally defined terms. Thus, his answer to the “Theoretician’s Dilemma” is to simply stop playing the game. Do not use theoretical terms when operationally defined terms are more scientifically satisfactory (even if they are less emotionally satisfying). So, what is the “Theoretician’s Dilemma” in the context of the scientific study of spirits? Many of the obvious questions people ask about spirits are fundamentally

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about them as theoretical entities. Are ghosts real? If so, what are they? Are there demons? And if so, what are they? Is there a spirit world? If so, where is it? And so forth. We understand the appeal of these sorts of questions, but both the units of analysis (e.g., spirits) and the questions (e.g., what is the essence of a particular type of spirit?) are focused on theoretical terms. Science is ill-suited to understand and apply such terms, according to Hempel (1965). Following Hempel’s (1965) advice, then, it is more useful is to adopt an operational view of spirits, in which the analyst focuses on what can be directly measured, as opposed to speculating about their nature as theoretical terms. To illustrate the analytic inadequacy of treating spirits as theoretical terms, consider the issue of unwanted spirit possession, which we will cover in Chap. 6. It is a common cross-cultural pattern with recurring themes and behavioral components. Insisting that the first and primary questions to be answered when studying spirit possession is whether a spirit really is inhabiting the person, requires the anthropologist to postulate the nature and existence (or lack thereof) of theoretical entities that cannot be directly observed. It will be an impossible question to answer with certainty given our current understanding and measurement tools. We therefore agree with Lett (1991) and the other authors cited above that this would be an unsatisfying and ultimately pointless effort that will produce little if any anthropological insights. However, we disagree with their subsequent conclusion that the anthropological study of spirits is a waste of time. Only arguing about the literal existence of spirits is (currently) a waste of time. Many great insights may be possible if we define spirits as an operationally defined term. Treating unwanted possession as an observational term will allow us to measure similarities and differences in possession experiences cross-culturally, which we do in Chap. 6. This is more than simply looking at the social significance/use of possession episodes; it focuses analytical attention directly on the perceptions of the spirit (s) in possession, as opposed to the social byproducts/implications of the possession as a cultural phenomenon. Using observationally defined terms allows us to sidestep unhelpful debates and instead ask useful scientific questions. Another example using a less dramatic form of spirit-human interaction may help further illustrate our argument. Goodman (1990) describes over 70 ritual postures and assigns them to different categories (e.g., healing postures, divination postures). All these postures will reliably produce ASC among humans when accompanied with a drum or rattle played at 210 beats per minute. While in ASC, most people encounter what they consistently describe as spirits that are revealed as visual, auditory, sensory, and/or olfactory phenomena. Researchers such as Lett (1991) and Baxstrom (2013) would hold that our first task would be to empirically validate whether these spirits are real, even though they can only be directly encountered through trance states, which are inherently subjective experiences. Science cannot establish the validity of such theoretical entities, as Hempel (1965) observes. Applying an operational view, however, allows us to define “spirits” as “perceptions experienced in trance.” When defined this way, their presence/behavior can be measured using the experiences reported by the trance participants documented through journals, questionnaires, and interviews with participants after ASC.

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Anthropologists use these exact same methods for studying a host of variables and are quite good at it. Further, the physiological and psychological responses before, during, and after interactions with the spirits can be measured using a variety of techniques ranging from blood pressure monitors to EEGs. The speed and reliability with which spirits are encountered in ASC can be measured for different people and for the same person in different contexts to look for personal, social, and cultural factors that influence spiritual interaction. And so forth. All of this can allow us to scientifically study these spirits, without requiring us to argue about the literal existence of spirits as theoretical entities. The information gathered through any of the methods is as valid as most ethnographically collected data, meaning that the subsequent conclusions about the nature and variation of spirits encountered in Goodman’s ritual body postures can be as scientifically secure as the best ethnographic analyses. Carl Linnaeus, who was looking for God’s plan for creation, did not need to understand modern biology to classify and study the natural world (Raven et al. 1971: 1211). Being able to measure the morphological similarities of species was enough. Likewise, we do not need to be able demonstrate that spirits are real (as theoretical terms) to define them. Nor do we need to theoretically explain consciousness/altered states of consciousness, and so on in an absolute sense to be able to study them. We just need to be able to measure these variables in some meaningful way dictated by our analytical goals. And we can do that! The analysis of spirits is not beyond the capability of science. Instead, science is the ideal approach to create systematic knowledge about spirits and their impact on humans. We wish to further emphasize that what we are suggesting here is different from the “bracketed” approach in which scholars are purportedly agnostic about the actual existence of spirits as they look exclusively on the social aspects of spiritual experiences (see Northcote 2004). Instead of ignoring the issue, we are arguing that anthropologists interested in spirits should accept the analytical reality of spirits as operationally defined terms, that is, as tied to variables that can be directly measured. Finally, we also note that treating spirits as operationally defined terms is consistent with any definition of spirits as theoretical terms, ranging from “beings from a different reality” to “perceptions that are only the results of chemical processes in the human mind.” Scientists of any metaphysical stripe can use the operationally defined terms whether they are extreme atheistic materialists or steadfast religious believers, even though they have very different views of spirits as theoretical entities. The results of analyses based on this approach can even be independently evaluated by other researchers using other methodological approaches or social/cultural settings. We are going to spend the rest of this book treating spirits and related concepts as operationally defined terms. This will, we believe, provide the foundation to create anthropological insights into the cross-cultural importance and manifestation of spirits, information that will be useful to readers regardless of their view of spirits as theoretical entities (we leave that to each culture’s religious authorities to decide what they are). We also suspect that as anthropologists continue their analysis of spirits, they may be able to expand their ability to measure spirit-human interaction

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and thereby expand our ability to directly measure spirit-related phenomena (and thereby increase the extent of observational terms related to spirits). We suspect this will be especially common with physiological aspects of spirit-human interaction given our increasing technological ability to monitor and understand aspects of the body, including hormonal states and neurological activity (see Chap. 7).

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McKenna, Terence. 1993. True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author’s Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil’s Paradise. San Francisco, CA: Harper. Mead, Margaret. 1977. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Mitra, Suddhachit. 2020. An Analysis of the Falsification Criterion of Karl Popper: A Critical Review. Tattva Journal of Philosophy 12 (1): 1–18. Moro, Pamela A. 2013. Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion: A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion. 9th ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Myerhoff, Barbara G. 1970. The Deer-Maize-Peyote Symbol Complex Among the Huichol Indians of Mexico. Anthropological Quarterly 43 (2): 64–78. ———. 1974. Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians. New York, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 1976. Shamanic Equilibrium: Balance and Mediation in Known and Unknown Worlds. In American Folk Medicine, ed. Wayland D. Hand, 99–108. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Nagel, Ernst. 1979. The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Narby, Jeremy, and Francis Huxley, eds. 2001. Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge. New York, NY: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam. Norget, Kristin. 2013. Day of the Dead in Oaxaca. In Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion: A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, ed. Pamela Moro, 9th ed., 353–361. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Northcote, Jeremy. 2004. Objectivity and the Supernormal: The Limitations of Bracketing Approaches in Providing Neutral Accounts of Supernormal Claims. Journal of Contemporary Religion 19 (1): 85–98. Ong, Aihwa. 1988. The Production of Possession: Spirits and the Multinational Corporation in Malaysia. American Ethnologist 1: 28–42. Platt, John R. 1964. Strong Inference: Certain Systematic Methods of Scientific Thinking May Produce Much More Rapid Progress than Others. Science 164 (3642): 347–353. Popper, Karl R. 1980. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Routledge. Portin, Petter. 2002. Historical Development of the Concept of the Gene. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 27 (3): 257–286. Putman, Hilary. 1974. The ‘Corroboration’ of Theories. In The Philosophy of Karl Popper, ed. Paul S. Schilpp, 221–240. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Raven, Peter H., Brent Berlin, and Dennis E. Breedlove. 1971. The Origins of Taxonomy. Science 147 (4015): 1210–1213. Renfrew, Colin. 1994. The Archaeology of Religion. In The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology, ed. Colin Renfrew and Ezra B.W. Zubrow, 47–54. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Sacks, Oliver. 2012. Hallucinations. New York, NY: Knopf/Picador, A Division of Random House. Sanderson, Stephen K. 1990. Social Evolutionism: A Critical History. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. Schiffer, Michael B. 2016. Behavioral Archaeology: Principles and Practices. London, MA: Routledge. Scupin, Raymond, and Christopher R. Decorse. 2001. Anthropology: A Global Perspective. 4th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Prentice Hall. Segal, Robert A. 2013. Animism for Tylor. In The Handbook of Contemporary Animism, ed. Graham Harvey, 53–62. London: Routledge. Senft, Gunter. 2009. Trobriand Islanders’ Forms of Ritual Communication. In Ritual Communication, ed. Gunder Senft and Ellen B. Basso, 81–101. Wenner-Gren Foundation, Berg, Oxford. Service, Elman Rogers. 1962. Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective. New York, NY: Random House.

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Sidky, H. 2009. A Shaman’s Cure: The Relationship Between Altered States of Consciousness and Shamanic Healing. Anthropology of Consciousness 20 (2): 171–197. Small, Gary. 2010. Mass Hysteria Can Strike Anywhere, Anytime. Psychology Today. Posted September 28, 2010. Last accessed July 8, 2021. Sosis, Richard. 2009. The Adaptationist-Byproduct Debate on the Evolution of Religion: Five Misunderstandings of the Adaptationist Program. Journal of Cognition and Culture 9 (3–4): 315–332. Steadman, Lyle B., Craig T. Palmer, and Christopher F. Tilley. 1996. The Universality of Ancestor Worship. Ethnology 35 (1): 63–76. Stringer, Martin D. 1999. Rethinking Animism: Thoughts from the Infancy of our Discipline. The Journal of the Royal Institute 5 (4): 541–555. Swanson, Guy E. 1960. The Birth of the Gods: The Origin of Primitive Beliefs. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Thèvet, André. 2001[1551]. Ministers of the Devil Who Learns About the Secrets of Nature. In Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge, ed. Jeremy Narby and Francis Hukley, 13–15. New York, NY: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam. Tillesen, Brian. 2010. Fairy Forts and The Banshee in Modern Coastal Sligo, Ireland: An Ethnography of Local Beliefs and Interpretations of These Traditions. MA Thesis. Orlando, FL: Department of Anthropology, University of Central Florida. Trigger, Bruce G. 1998. Archaeology and Epistemology: Dialoguing Across the Darwinian Chasm. American Journal of Archaeology 102 (1): 1–34. Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine De Gruyter. Turner, Edith L. 1992. Experiencing Ritual: A New Interpretation of African Healing. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. ———. 2003. The Reality of Spirits. In Shamanism: A Reader, ed. Graham Harvey, 145–152. New York, NY: Routledge. ———. 2005. Among the Healers: Stories of Spiritual and Ritual Healing Around the World. New York, NY: Praeger. Turner, Victor, and Edith L.B. Turner. 1978. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Tylor, Edward Bernett. 1891. Primitive Culture: Research into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom. Vols. 1–2. London: John Murray. VanPool, Christine S. 2009. The Signs of the Sacred: Identifying Shamans Using Archaeological Evidence. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 28 (2): 177–190. VanPool, Christine, and Todd L. VanPool. 1999. The Scientific Nature of Post Processualism. American Antiquity 64 (1): 33–53. VanPool, Todd L., and Christine S. VanPool. 2003. Science and the Role of Evaluation in an Indigenous Archaeology. In Indigenous People and Archaeology: Proceedings of the 32nd Chacmool Conference, ed. Trevor Peck, Evelyn Siegfried, and Gerald A. Octelaar, 69–81. Alberta, CA: University of Calgary. Vitebsky, Piers. 2001. Shamanism. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Waddell, Jack O. 1976. The Place of the Cactus Wine Ritual in the Papago Indian Ecosystem. In In the Realm of the Extra Human: Ideas and Actions, ed. Agehananda Bharati, 213–228. The Hague, NL, Chicago, IL: Mouton, Aldine. Walker, William H. 2008. Witches, Practice, and Context. In Social Violence in the Prehispanic American Southwest, ed. Deborah L. Nichols and Patricia L. Crown, 143–183. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. Wallace, Anthony F.C. 1966. Religion: An Anthropological View. New York, NY: Random House. Wasson, R. Gordon. 1957. Secret of “Divine Mushrooms” Life Magazine May 13: 100–120. Wessely, Simon. 1987. Mass Hysteria: Two Syndromes? Psychological Medicine 17 (1): 109–120. Whitley, David S. 2009. Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit. Amherst: Prometheus Books.

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Chapter 3

An Observational Classification of Spirits

Abstract Here we build on the concepts presented in Chap. 2 to provide operationally derived definitions for key terms and to present a general analytic framework for studying the structure of spirits. We suggest that each culture has its own (more-orless) logically coherent framework that organizes and categorizes spirits and spiritrelated objects (e.g., charms) into the larger cultural framework (which we call local knowledge) that organizes its understanding of the world. Linguistic anthropologists developed a methodology called ethnosemantics for exploring such cultural precepts. Although originally applied to linguistic data, we suggest this approach can be used to reconstruct a culture’s conceptual organization and worldview using additional sources of information. Often spirits are central to a culture’s worldview and therefore this method is useful in understanding how people designate and define souls, ghosts, demons, ancestors, and so forth. Related to the classification of spirits is the classification of spirit specialists such as shamans, priests, and mediums. These and other specialists interact with spirits, but their relationships with the various types of spirits defined within a culture varies among and even with cultures. We illustrate both the utility of the ethnosemantics-inspired approach and provide examples of cultural variation. Cases studies include Napoleon Chagnon’s study of Yanomamö hekura spirits, A. Irving Hallowell’s analysis of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe), Matt Tomlinson’s analysis of Fijian veli and yalo, and Kirsten Endres’s analysis of the cooperation among Vietnamese mediums, priests, and soul callers. We end the chapter by emphasizing that the ethnosemantics approach is flexible enough to allow us to “embrace the ambiguity” inherent in the cultural variation in spirits while also providing the analytic framework to allow cross-cultural variation.

The thing I find really scary about ghosts and demons is that you don’t really know what they are or where they are. They’re not very well understood. You don’t know what they want from you.—Oren Peli (producer of the movie Paranormal in an interview with the New York Times; https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/what-scares-oren-peli/)

This opening quote shows the difficulty of treating spirits as theoretical terms. Here we sidestep this issue by creating operational definitions of key terms for our analysis of the anthropology of spirits as explained in the previous chapter. Our task is complicated by each culture having its own view (emic) regarding the nature © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. S. VanPool, T. L. VanPool, An Anthropological Study of Spirits, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25920-3_3

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of spirits and spiritual specialists, as well as aspects of religion, art, language, kinship, leadership, gender, and a host of other attributes that affect the relationships among humans and spirits. Definitions at two scales may consequently be useful: one set with general definitions for cross-cultural comparisons (etic analysis), and another that is appropriate for emic analyses of specific cultures. We will therefore divide our discussion into two components. The first focuses on creating operational definitions for some basic key terms based on universal cross-cultural patterns, while the second presents a methodology that can be applied to provide understandings of each culture. We will then end with a case study that shows how the two approaches can be blended to provide a useful framework for studying spirits and their relationships with humans.

3.1

Defining (Various Kinds of) Spirits

Human Universals—of which hundreds have been identified—consist of those features of culture, society, language, behavior, and mind that, so far as the record has been examined, are found among all peoples known to ethnography and history.–Anthropologist Donald Brown (2004:47)

Here we provide operational definitions of various kinds of spirits and the supernatural that reflect human universals, that is, that are applicable to studying spirits in every culture, even those cultures that have tried to eliminate religious belief by force (e.g., the Soviet Union; Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge). In Chap. 2, we provided examples of operationally defined terms such as “time is what is measured with a clock” and “gravity is what is measured with a Newtonian spring.” These are operational definitions in the sense that they are focused on measuring what is observed, as opposed to referencing theoretical terms. But they also reflect the utility of specific types of instrumentation that is not always applicable to anthropology and other behavioral sciences. In such cases, operational definitions are defined based on observable behavior. For example, a “laugh” in the context of psychological studies might be operationally defined as “a smile with a sound.” One could quibble with the specifics of this sort of definition (How broad of a smile? What sort of sound?) and psychologists often do (see Ribes-Iñesta 2003), but this definition also eliminates the need to refer to “a state of amusement” or other unobservable (theoretical) terms. Creating operational definitions of variables relevant to the anthropology of spirits likewise requires us to define variables based on verbal and physical behavior, as opposed to referencing theoretical terms like “belief.” We are not saying that people do not believe in spirits at all. To the contrary, we are very certain that some people believe in at least some spirits. We just do not have a reliable means of directly measuring such belief (Palmer et al. 2008; Palmer and Steadman 2004). What we can measure is behavior and behavioral correlates (e.g., artifact patterns). Did everyone who showed up for communion last Sunday, sacrificed a goat to Zeus, or drink ayahuasca with a South American shaman truly believe in the spirit(s) they invoke? Our presumption is no. Sometimes people do something because it is fun,

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socially useful, or even legally required. This is true for spiritual practices too. For instance, we suspect few Romans believed Caesar was divine, but the archaeology of the Roman World demonstrates that the Imperial Cult was an important part of Roman religion (McIntyre 2019). Even if we are wrong and most Romans actually believed Caesar was divine, we have no way to prove it. “Belief” and similar unobservable theoretical terms are a poor foundation for an anthropology of spirits (and religion in general). As a result, operational definitions of spirit-related analytical terms will necessarily focus on behavior, including spoken claims and ritual paraphernalia. In other words, the following definitions are not metaphysical statements that specify an individual’s actual beliefs and/or the literal existence and essential differences among various kinds of spirits, but are instead tied to specific cultural behaviors (claims that can be measured) related to the properties of the spirits. Here we present a base set of definitions that are intended to be analytically useful. They may or may not approximate common definitions, which almost always refer to theoretical terms. Soul refers to the active spirit of an object, especially a human, that is claimed to survive physical death. Not all spirits are souls. A tree, a cloud, or a pot may have a spirit, but it may not transcend the object/phenomenon itself (e.g., the spirit that animates a spring may not survive after the spring dries up). In contrast, souls transcend death for at least a period of time. Every culture holds that (at least some) humans are animated by souls, but the nature of the soul varies across cultures. The Hurons and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) speakers relate souls to bones and believe a person’s soul is released “by opening cavities into the bone marrow” (Hall 1997:30). Most Western views specify souls as strictly non-physical essences that reflect an individual’s personality at roughly the time of death that are released from the dying body. In stark contrast, the ancient Egyptians linked the survival of the soul to the survival of the human form (and hence the reason for mummification) (Ikram 2010). Even though the concept and number of souls can be different, “As far as anthropologists are aware, there are no cultures that do not have a soul-like concept and no cultures that do not believe that this soul survives the death of the body, at least for some period of time” (Stein and Stein 2017:175). Ghosts are defined as the essences or “body doubles” that closely resemble the human, animal, item, or place. They may or may not be related to souls, depending on the culture, but every culture has the concept of ghosts. These could be ghost ships that wander the oceans, ghost towns that appear in desert or tundra, ghost animals like dogs, and of course people. Stein and Stein (2017:185) suggests that cross-culturally ghosts are negative forces and can bring about misfortune. Ancestor spirits are defined as the spirits of genetic or fictive (non-genetically related) kin that have died. They may or may not be known individually, but every culture has the concept of ancestral spirits that exist in relationship to their living descendants. Ancestor worship is defined as the claim that dead ancestors influence and/or are influenced by their living descendants. This is again a human universal (Clark and Palmer 2016) and is reflected in modern practices such as the Catholic burning of candles and incense to Christian Saints, Japanese Shinto practices, and Dia de los Muertos celebrations.

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Terminological clarity is essential, but sometimes in science, the same term has two distinct meanings depending on the context. This is the case with spirits. First, spirits are defined as non-physical agents that have some form of consciousness and varying degrees of influence over the material world. Spirits may be tied to a physical essence, but they may exist independent of any physical body. The non-physical nature of spirits is even implied in the term itself; our English word “spirit” is derived from the Latin word for “breathe” or “breath”, reflecting its perceived invisible, vapor-like existence. Common subcategories of spirits include nature spirits, spirit guardians, and demons that lack any permanent physical vessel (Hicks 2010:45). Humans may also have spirits in addition to their souls. The second definition is a claimed metaphysical entity that possess some form of agency. The use of spirit as catchall category may have started with Tylor (1891) who clustered ghosts, souls, and other spirit beings in his discussion of animism. Context typically makes it easy to distinguish whether a researcher is using the term “spirit” to refer to a formless entity distinct from souls and ghosts or as a catchall term that would include souls and ghosts. Again, both types of spirits appear to be cultural universals. The supernatural is operationally defined as entities, forces, and places that transcend the physical expression typical of the world of the here-and-now. Like souls, the supernatural and the related concept of the spirit world are cross-culturally ubiquitous, even though they are conceptually organized in different ways across cultures. Even as we propose this definition, we add a note of caution. In some cultures, spirits (defined broadly) may be viewed as having a physical existence (Carr 2021). For example, Duncan MacDougall (1907), a Massachusetts physician, weighed people before, during, and after death, and suggested that the human soul weighed 21 grams based on weight differences. While this conclusion never became a common part of US culture, we have seen it referenced in American pop culture and our students continue to mention it in our classes from time to time. Likewise, A. Irving Hallowell (1960:28) criticized anthropologists that used the term supernatural, because the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people he studied did not have a clear distinction between spirits and the physical world. The Anishinaabe held that spirits underlie the physical world, were inseparable from the physical manifestations with which they were joined and were therefore physical in their own way (Hallowell 1960). Similar beliefs are still common in most Native American cultures across North and South America (Carr 2021). Even in these cases, though, spirits and other aspects of the supernatural are viewed as different from the other physical aspects of the world. One who accepts that a soul weights 21 g will still recognize that a scientist cannot grab hold of a soul in the same way one can capture gases and other forms of matter. Likewise, the Anishinaabe differentiate between physical objects that have spiritual essences and objects that do not (e.g., most rocks). While most physical objects might have latent agency that can be activated under the right circumstances, the spiritual potency of active persons (human and non-human) goes beyond their actual physical structure, and therefore transcends the mere physical in accordance to the definition presented above (i.e., the spiritual is more than just physical, even if it commonly has a physical expression). Further, every culture has some sort of concept of an afterlife and spirit world that is distinct from the world of

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the here-and-now (the Jewish Olam Ha-ba, the Christian and Muslim heaven, the Mesoamerican Flower World, the Greek Elysium Fields, the Hindi lokas, the Anishinaabe Gaagige Minawaanigozigiwining to name a few). Such realms are supernatural in the sense that they transcend the typical, physical structure of the here-and-now, and human souls may interact with this spirit realm during life and certainly after death. The creator deity (or deities, depending on the culture) likewise transcend the physical world in some way and is therefore “supernatural.” And so forth. Thus, every culture has a concept of the supernatural, even if spiritual energy and entities are linked to the physical world in some way. Spirit Specialist is a catchall term denoting an individual or group of people who are culturally recognized as having an atypically close relationship to spirits and/or the spirit world. This relationship may be voluntary or involuntary, and may reflect a conscious decision by the specialist, a special calling from the spirits, or some combination of the two. Their closeness further means spirit specialists are typically viewed as the conduit by which others in the culture interact with the supernatural. Every culture has spirit specialists, but their ritual practices and methods vary considerably, as do their stated motives and the specifics of their relationship with various kinds of spirits. We define several types of spirit specialists later in this chapter.

3.2

The Ethnosemantics of Spirits

All dogs go to heaven because, unlike people, dogs are naturally good and loyal and kind.— Whippet Angel (in the movie All Dogs go to Heaven)

Broadly defined operational terms are useful, but an anthropology of spirits needs a means of building an understanding of specific cultures. The terms defined above (and a host of others we could define such as spirit guardians and deities) will be useful for cross-cultural comparisons, but they will likely be of less utility for looking at the cohesive structure typical of most cultures’ views of spirits and the supernatural. Thus, we need a means of studying spirits within each culture as well as among cultures. Here we suggest ethnosemantics and the related concept of folk taxonomy are a powerful way to do this. Ethnosemantics is an approach developed by linguistic anthropologists that builds from people’s inherent tendency, perhaps even an unavoidable compulsion, to organize things (however defined) based on their characteristics (Atran 1998; Berlin et al. 1973; Hopkins 2006:616). In Western culture, fluffy, four-legged domesticated animals with paws tend to be grouped into the “pet” category, which is further divided into subcategories such as dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and so forth. Pets also include animals with wings, animals with scales, and even animals with hooves, although hooved animals are more commonly placed in the “animals to eat” category (except for horses in America). Individual categories of pets (dogs, cats, parrots) may correspond with scientific biological classifications, but our folk taxonomy is not derived from biological taxonomy. In fact, our folk

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taxonomies are often “wrong” from a scientific perspective. For example, raccoons and opossums are frequently linked together as nuisance animals in folk taxonomies, given that they are both comparatively small, nocturnal animals that are prone to disturbing trashcans and the open garages of unsuspecting homeowners. Hence, the ‘nuisance’ classification. But raccoons are placental mammals whereas opossums are marsupial mammals in biological classifications, meaning that raccoons are closer genetic relatives to dolphins than they are to opossums. Our folk taxonomy is not the same as (and should not necessarily be the same as) scientific classification. They serve different purposes. Modern biological classification measures morphological and genetic similarity whereas our folk taxonomies tend to measure attributes that humans find significant in their daily lives based on their culture and context (e.g., venomous snakes, game animals, biting insects, aquatic birds, and so forth). Returning to ‘pets’, biologists can tell us the differences between cats, dogs, and parrots in terms of biological species. Pet owners recognize these species too, but they also include personality types in their classifications. Dogs (and certain breeds of dogs) tend to be more attentive to humans, whereas cats tend to be more independent of their owners. No self-respecting cat would want to be seen on a leash whereas dogs often beg to be put on their leads. These traits are incidental to Linnaean biological classification but are tremendously important to human pet owners. Such differences serve as the basis of folk taxonomies, which typically provide useful knowledge to people navigating their lives. Folk taxonomies can also reflect aspects of ‘things’ that transcend the physical world. One’s ‘soulmate’ is different than a boyfriend/girlfriend and reflects a spiritual quality (at least to some people) that might even include concepts of predestination and fate. Turning to a more mundane example, should dogs be allowed in the kitchen? This might seem like a trivial question, but it illustrates how cultures see dogs differently. Many Americans have no problem with their dogs in the kitchen, but we found our Mexican colleagues were disturbed that we let our cute, fluffy American mutt in the kitchen when we worked in northern Mexico. They politely but firmly told us that allowing dogs near the food was wrong because of diseases and other health issues. To be blunt, having a dog in the kitchen grossed them out and was not much different in their view than letting a rat loose to bounce around. While conducting field work in Mexico, we had to keep our beloved pet outside in the extreme heat, much to our dismay. We have watched for this cultural pattern since then and find that it is quite consistent. Our Canadian and American acquaintances almost never have trouble with dogs in the kitchen (although specific dogs might be considered too disruptive during mealtimes) whereas Mexican acquaintances are less likely to have dogs in general and certainly do not allow them in the kitchen. The difference in American and Mexican tolerance of dogs in daily life is an example of the cultural relevance of folk taxonomies. People in both cultures agree on what a dog is, but they have different views of its role in society. For us in the 1990s (Before Children [B.C.]), our dog held a familial relationship; she was part of our family. Our Mexican colleagues and guests did not understand this, because dogs are dogs and are not human replacements in their culture. An interesting

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ontological question for many Americans is, “Do dogs go to heaven?” It was a question our boys asked us when our loved mutt, Dee, died on April 10, 2011. We doubt the average northern Mexican would ask such a question because they do not accord dogs with the same human-like soul traits that Americans often do. It is almost certainly not a question that people from Arab backgrounds would ask given dogs’ classification as unclean animals within Islam. Differences in the cultural perspective on dogs is one small example of the variation anthropologists have noted in how people define things and organize the world. Each group’s classification affects (and reflects) their perception of their world and is generally codified through local knowledge, that is, through culturally specific categories and causal relationships. Local knowledge gives us commonsense (the general cultural rules that govern human behavior on a daily basis) but also reflects the practical application of larger-scale social rules (e.g., rules related to letting your dog in the kitchen) and cosmological structures (our role in the universe and our relationships with various spirits). It lets us agree on accepted social behavior, organize our technology and economy, manage resources and time, and is even reflected in magic and other ritual systems. Local knowledge frames the cognitive structures underlying human action and behavior, how humans think about the landscape around them (both the natural and built environment), and how people conceptualize the metaphysical world in relationship to the material world (Atran 1998; Faunce 2000; Hunn 1982). As humans organize their world, their cultural perception literally shapes their views of everything with which they interact, including the spiritual world. Differences in folk taxonomies are reflected in and reinforced by linguistic differences (e.g., the shift of dogs from the conceptual category of “pets” in one culture to “unclean animals” in another). These linguistic differences can be mapped using ethnosemantics, which holds that conceptual categories reflect and create human perceptions of the world. It is commonly associated with linguistics, where it has its most ardent manifestation in the “New Anthropology” (Ottenheimer 2006) whose proponents hold that one can construct a "mental map" reflecting a culture’s conceptual organization and worldview. This is done by determining semantic domains and mapping how (linguistic) symbols relate to one another (Duranti 1997; Ottenheimer 2006:18). An ethnosemantics studying of English would be able to identify the term pet, and realize it generally applies to animals such as dogs and cats, less frequently applies to animals such as pigs and rabbits, and rarely applies to animals such as skunks and coyotes, despite the fact that skunks and coyotes superficially look like some types of pets. By studying the hierarchical associations between linguistic terms, an anthropologist can map out the conceptual categories humans use to organize their world, ranging from kinship (who is considered part of a family), to subsistence (what types of animals are considered appropriate to eat), to economic activity (which jobs are considered acceptable and which are undesirable or even illegal) (Berlin et al. 1973; Duranti 1997; Hopkins 2006; Ottenheimer 2006; Robb 1998; Stross 2006). Ethnosemantic categories will reflect a culture’s views of spirits and the supernatural too. We have already mentioned how ‘ghost,’ ‘demon,’ and ‘spirit’ are often

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viewed differently among people from different cultural/religious backgrounds, but ethnosemantics categories would also be reflected in Puebloan kachinas that dance to bring rain, the sacred saguaro wine that the Tohono O’odham drink to the point of vomiting, and the food that is left out for the dead during Dia de los Muertos celebrations in Mexico. Although we might not explicitly think about it, seemingly nonspiritual cultural categories such as ‘pet’ and ‘unclean animals’ correspond to views of spiritual qualities as well as illustrated above. An ethnosemantics analysis starts by identifying semantic domains using a list of useful words, building a taxonomy reflecting how these words relate to each other, and then performing an analysis to show how the words are associated within and between domains (e.g., dog is a subcategory under pet, which is a subcategory under animals, and so forth). When applied to subsistence practices, such an approach easily allows the identification of taxonomic groups such as game animals, non-game animals, predators, edible and inedible plants, pests, and so forth. It can even let us see idiosyncratic or abnormal associations (e.g., the disjuncture when someone keeps a tiger as a pet when it is normally considered a wild predator). For spirits, ethnosemantics analysis would likely pick up on categories such as human and non-human souls, sacred plants, deities, malevolent and benevolent spirits, ancestral spirits, and so forth. Consider for example Matt Tomlinson’s (2016) fascinating article on “little people” and ghosts of Fiji. Although he does not use an ethnosemantics approach per se to discuss spirit beings, he studies how people within this culture analytically categorized them, and how this reflects the culture’s view of the spirit realm. Fijians recognize veli, which are “elusive dwarf spirits,” and yalo, which are ghosts that have “concrete historical identities” (Tomlinson 2016:11). The veli are long-haired dwarf spirits that are quasi-human, are physically and magically powerful, and live in the forest or bush but can drag people to sea to drown them. Although they can be dangerous, they can also be helpful and are said to protect firewalkers by lying down on the burning coals so that humans can walk across the coals without injury. Tomlinson (2016) found that the veli often embody places of Fiji’s past, and, therefore, have become symbols of indigenous strength and pride. The landscape itself is inhabited with these entities who “serve as reminders to Christianized Fijians of their pre-Christian beliefs” (Tomlinson 2016:20). They are Fiji’s “own charming, powerful and entirely local figures” (Tomlinson 2016:17). In contrast, yalo are the ghosts of dead humans— “the dead who are not at rest” (Tomlinson 2016:20). The veli are alive, even though they are spirit creatures. The yalo are dead, even though they remain spiritually active. Tomlinson retells this story about a yalo: Other anthropologists have encountered Fijian ghosts firsthand. Geir Henning Presterudstuen (2014) begins a recent book chapter on Fijian ghosts with a personal story. He and a friend are visiting Levuka, Fiji’s old colonial capital, when they are awoken by someone banging on the door of their cabin. The friend, an Indo-Fijian man named Ajay, answers the door but soon calls to Presterudstuen for help. He sees a young indigenous Fijian girl with “sleepy eyes and slurred speech,” and he figures she might have had a bit too much to drink (Presterudstuen 2014:127). He speaks to her grumpily while she keeps insisting that

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she wants to see her cousin. She eventually leaves, but the encounter is not really over. As Presterudstuen is getting ready to go back to sleep, Ajay says it is good that his friend had not been kind to the girl because if you are too nice to a ghost “then you will never get rid of them” (Tomlinson 2016:21).

Further, there are different categories of yalo. Some yalo reflect ghosts of white men, who are by definition socially disconnected from Fijian kinship systems (Tomlinson 2016:20–21). These yalo demonstrate and at times reinforce concepts of racial boundaries and social norms; being visited by one is often seen as a mark that a Fijian is “violating indigenous Fijian protocol” (Tomlinson 2016:21). Another form of yalo is the kalou vu, which are ancestral founding spirits that tie Fijians to their land and reinforce their social identity (Tomlinson 2016:22). Thus, Fijian spirits can be divided into different categories and even subcategories, each with its own linguistic label, based on their origin and relationships to the land, people, and other spirits. Like the Fijians, each culture will have its own, unique conceptual system of spirits, which will include to varying degrees the origin of spirits, their relationship to humans, their role in human societies, and their potential to influence human action and relationships. Of course, there can be profound similarities among cultures, even if these similarities do not apply to all cultures anthropologists have studied. Many groups believe that spirits dwell in the forest or the bush, for example. This includes the Trobriand Islanders studied by Malinowski as discussed in Chap. 2 as well as the Fijians discussed here. Likewise, ethnosemantics studies might illustrate that the landscape (with its mountains, hills, rivers) is associated with potent spirits, whether these spirits exist independent of the landscape like the Fijian veli or are actually the spirit of the landscape itself. The Diné (Navajo) of the US Southwest for example recognize four sacred mountains: Mount Blanca to the east, Mount Taylor to the south, the San Francisco Peaks to the west, and Mount Hesperus to the north. Each of these places has its own spiritual identity and power tied directly to the landscape itself. The mountains are animated with their own spirits, as opposed to being places where spirit creatures happen to live. The nearby Ohkay Owingeh pueblo (previously known as San Juan Pueblo, the largest of the 6 Tewa speaking villages), is another indigenous group from the US Southwest that considers mountains to be sacred and spiritually powerful. A specific mountain named Cikumu (meaning "obsidian covered") is the most sacred to their village (Ortiz 1979:278). As a result of their spiritual power, the Diné and Puebloan people of the Southwest consider mountains safe places where humans are protected from warfare and other forms of interpersonal violence (Ortiz 1979:278). Furthermore, mountains with caves are spiritually powerful, because they are entrances into the Underworld and the places where water and wind originate (Bunzel 1992[1932]:487; Gossen 1979[1972]:136–137; Heyden 2005; Miller and Taube 1993:119–121; Tedlock 1979). The caves “gather in” blessings from the surrounding area and are so sacred that only the ‘Made People,’ people who are recognized as socially and spiritually powerful, can go there (Ortiz 1969:20–22). Each of these associations is recognized linguistically and can be mapped out with a careful consideration of hierarchical relationships (e.g.,

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sacred spaces include mountains, which include specific mountains of special significance, which includes caves in specific mountains of special significance, which includes shrines in caves in specific mountains of special significance, who can visit them, and so forth). The relationships in ethnosemantics frameworks often reflect analogical reasoning including cause-and-effect relationships in a group’s cultural and ecological settings. Humans have an amazing ability to find and give meaning to analogical relationships. Caves are alive and sentient because they “breathe” just like humans and animals. Their breath is felt as the wind generated in a cave’s opening, just as human breath can be felt at the entrance to the mouth and nose. Being a living being, the cave will also possess a spirit analogous to humans. The existence of the spirits of animals is an even more straightforward analogue given their additional similarities to humans (e.g., the ability to move and make sound) and the spirits of some animals are especially closely linked to humans because of even greater similarities. Bears (and the spirit ‘Bear’) are often viewed as especially closely affiliated with humans at least in part because they are both fearsome hunters that can stand on two legs (for at least a period of time) and have very similar hands (see Chap. 4 for a discussion of Bear’s importance). We propose that much of spirit-human understandings are based on such analogical (and hence logical) reasoning as it fits into the ethnosemantics framework of a particular culture. We further suggest that logical reasoning is commonly structured on three heuristically differentiated levels. First, there are aspects of ethnosemantics frameworks that are nearly or completely universal, such that each culture has its own take, but they reflect the structure of the human mind in some way. These include the concepts of souls and spirits, which are present in every culture and must reflect aspects of the cognitive structure through which humans view themselves and the world. Further, ancestors are important in human society, both as kin (human kinship is a universal) and as spirits (the reverence towards ancestor spirits is also universal, according to Steadman et al. [1996]). Second, some aspects of ethnosemantics frameworks are based on specific cases of analogical reasoning that may not be universal per se but are common when the conditions are correct. For example, the obvious analogy between humans and caves breathing is not universally recognized but is common enough that we are not surprised when we see it. Such analogical links are often reflected in the cause-and-effect relationships observed in the natural world, which we will illustrate with our example of salt in Chap. 6 (salt is an effective means of preventing rot [linked to spiritual corruption of food in many ethnosemantics frameworks], which in turn may explain why it is also often considered an effective way to prevent spiritual corruption in buildings and ceremonial contexts). One of the clearest illustrations of analogical reasoning is Frazer’s (1963 [1922]) definition of sympathetic magic that we will discuss in Chap. 5. Sympathetic magic fundamentally rests on the analogy that, “Like impacts Like.” For example, putting a needle in a doll that looks like someone will cause pain in the person (e.g., a Voodoo doll). Finally, there will be aspects of ethnosemantics frameworks that reflect idiosyncratic or historically unique factors. The link between horseshoes and good luck for example reflects cultural practices that predate Christianity in

Those Who Work with the Spirits: Shaman, Priest, or Something Else

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northern Europe and is not widely shared beyond the historically linked EuroAmerican cultures (Lawrence 1898). We consequently prose ethnosemantics relationships in general can be understood through an ethnosemantics analysis that carefully considers the hierarchical relations within a group’s taxonomy/classification system (which is reflected in data ranging from word etymology and philology to conceptual domains such as “unclean animals” that link otherwise unrelated things). The ethnosemantics frameworks related to spirits and cosmology in particular will include aspect that reflect human universals (e.g., souls and ancestors), analogical reasoning (one-to-one and multivalence relationships such as a link between voodoo dolls and a victim), and historically unique forms of spirits and cosmology based of differences in worldview. All societies have classification systems for spirit specialists too. These systems include how spirit specialists are trained, what their roles and relationship are with the spirits, and how the specialist should approach specific spirits. Some spirits might possess a familial relationship to humans (i.e., fit under the larger category of “human spirits” as “ancestors”), whereas other spirits might be independent (e.g., fit under categories such as “creator deities”). Within a group’s classification system there are protocols that dictate the types of rituals (e.g., songs, prayers, offerings, taboos, etc.) that need to be done correctly depending on the type of spirit the specialist is dealing with. Given both the variation in human views of the spirit world and the potential utility of ethnosemantics, we wish we could perform an ethnosemantics analysis of every (or at least many) different cultures in the rest of the book. Unfortunately, this would be an impossible task, given that the necessary data have not been collected for every culture and each culture would more-or-less need its own book to explore its categories related to humans and the spirit world. What we will do instead is spend the next several chapters exploring the cross-cultural variation in folk taxonomies and local knowledge related to spirits and religious practitioners in many cultures from around the world. Doing so will require us to move back and forth between the more general operationally defined terms like those reflecting the human universals presented at the start of this chapter and their culturally specific manifestation as reflected in ethnosemantics analysis. We will illustrate how this will be done below.

3.3

Those Who Work with the Spirits: Shaman, Priest, or Something Else

Shamans are essentially mediums, for they are the mouthpieces of spiritual beings. Priests are intermediaries between people and the spirits to whom they wish to address themselves.—Anthropologists William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt (1979:301–302)

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Although every culture has specialists that deal with the supernatural, these individuals differ between cultures in ways that are large and small. Spirit specialists in some cultures are fulltime professionals whereas in other cultures they may be parttime practitioners with an unrelated “day job.” Fulltime and parttime spirit specialists may even be in the same culture, depending on context, training, specialization, or authority. A particularly common distinction that anthropologists draw (but one that may not be recognized by people within individual cultures) is between shamans and priests (VanPool 2009). Other categories that may or may not be recognized by individual anthropologists and may or may not be present in each culture include mediums, witches, sorcerers, holy people, two-spirits, and healers. Each of these categories might be considered a distinct kind of spirit practitioner or it might be a subcategory of another, depending on the culture (e.g., many shamans are also healers; sorcerers and shamans may be identical with the exception that the sorcerers use their power to hurt others whereas the shamans use their power to help their group). They can also be blended so that the categories are not distinct (e.g., pre-contact Mesoamerican priests conducted many practices considered typical of shamans; see Freidel et al. 1993 and VanPool 2009). Let us start by providing some common labels used for spirit specialists and illustrate their use using two case studies from southeastern Asia. We emphasize that the presence of these types of specialists is not universal among all cultures, even though the presence of some sort of spirit specialist is. These labels consequently are different than those definitions presented earlier in the chapter in that they reflect heuristic archetypes as opposed to operational definitions of universal cultural features. Religious specialists in any given culture may not cleanly fit into these pigeonholes (see VanPool 2009). These labels often do fit well, but ethnosemantics will help identify when and in what ways a particular culture deviates from them. Shamans. Shamans are archetypically religious specialists that directly interact with spirits/the spirit world through altered states of consciousness. They are often parttime specialists and are especially common in pre-industrial societies, especially those with limited political complexity. Shamanic ASC can be intense (e.g., a catatonic state) or barely perceptible (e.g., mild intoxication or a day dream-like state). ASC may be initiated with or without the use of entheogens, but the use of entheogens has been documented in hundreds of cultures around the world (Schultes and Hofmann 1979). Healers (aka healing shaman and less commonly medicine men/women) are a common, perhaps even the best known, sub-category of shamans (Winkelmann 2020). They fight illness in many ways depending on the culture. Common practices include sucking out illness and malevolent spirits using tubes or similar tools, rubbing their patients to heal their bodies and spirits, blowing benevolent spirits into their patients’ bodies to fight bad spirits, or chasing and recovering lost/stolen souls so that they may return them to the sick patient. Shamans may be mediums that channel spirits so that they can interact with the living in some way. These categories are not mutually exclusive given that nearly all shamans work to heal physical, mental, and spiritual problems at least some of the time. Likewise, most shamanic traditions include some level of (typically voluntary) spirit possession as shamans are transformed from typical humans to partial spirit creatures.

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The concept of shamanism has a long and successful history in anthropology, but it has also been heavily critiqued on the basis of three related issues: the term is inconsistently defined, it obscures significant behavioral variation, and it is insensitive to peoples with culturally unique practices (e.g., Aldhouse-Green and AldhouseGreen 2005; Hays-Gilpin 2004:13, 89; Kehoe 1996, 2000; McCall 2007; Tedlock 2005). Each of these criticisms has some validity, but they ignore the practical analytical utility of the concept and, in our opinion, fall short of requiring anthropologists to discard the term (see also Whitley 2000; Womack 2001). For example, Kehoe (1996) argues that shamanism is so broad and inconsistently defined that it cannot refer to a meaningful behavioral pattern. Her criticism is correct, insofar as shamanism is not a cultural universal and takes many forms across cultures. As a result, it has been defined in culturally specific ways by many different anthropologists. Yet it can also be defined heuristically as we have done here with the foreknowledge that it will not apply perfectly to a great many cultures. As a result, we agree with critiques like that of McCall 2007 who warns that anthropologists should not simply add the term shaman and “stir” to come up with superficial interpretations that gloss over the very real differences among cultures. As with all anthropological interpretations, studies of shamanism (and religion in general) should be based on multiple lines of evidence and should take into consideration the structure of each culture’s local knowledge. However, the inconsistent definition of shamanism does not necessitate that the concept is inherently without practical usefulness in helping us compare cultures (see also Jones 2006; Kendall 2002; Womack 2001). To the contrary, having a heuristically defined category allows us to more easily describe the similarities and differences among culturally specific traditions. For example, Don José Campos (2011), a practicing ayahuasca shaman in South America, calls himself a vegetalista because his specializes in plant knowledge of Anadenanthera and Banisteriopsis; the spirits of these plants give him the knowledge needed to conduct curing rituals. While historically distinct, his practices are similar to other entheogen-based rituals found around the globe. Having the heuristic category of shamanism helps anthropologists talk about these similarities while also fostering a nuanced, culturally specific consideration of vegetalistas. As also reflected by Don José Campos (2011), the second criticism, that the term ‘shaman’ obscures cultural variation, is true in only a limited sense, given that the term is not intended to perfectly correspond to all cultures through time and around the world. Anthropologists acknowledge that every culture is unique in its history and specific cultural practices, but much knowledge has been generated through cross-cultural analysis (Brown 2004; Peregrine 2004; Womack 2001). Examining differences and similarities among cultures using shamanism as a heuristic classification has provided greater insight and a more intellectually robust anthropological study than simply describing each culture in isolation (Binford 2001; LewisWilliams and Dowson 1988; VanPool 2009; Winkelman 1992). The utility of the term helps refute the third objection, that ‘shaman’ is insensitive because it ignores the culturally specific name and frameworks for various religious practitioners in each culture (Kehoe 1996, 2000). Mapping the distinct structure of spirits and their relationship to spirit practitioners and other humans is a core task for

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the ethnosemantics framework as we use it here. Each culture has its own terms for its spirit specialists. We can simultaneously work to understand the curanderos of Peru and the chayanyi of the Keresan speakers in New Mexico while also comparing these traditions to broader cross-cultural shamanic patterns without creating any real or perceived disrespect. In fact, the term shaman is preferrable to suggested alternative terms such as brujo (Spanish for “witch”) and the overly ambiguous terms of seer, religious practitioners, sacred specialists, special men, or sacred personages (e.g., Mbiti 1970). Priests. Priests archetypically refer to religious specialists that are institutionally authorized to act as the representatives of spirits/spirit worlds and to lead others in sacred rituals and thereby mediate between their fellow humans and the supernatural. Priests are typically fulltime specialists and are most common in state-level societies. They typically have a canon of approved rituals and practices that is ordained by the supernatural in some way (e.g., provided by revelation; dictated by an oral or written holy tradition). They often wear distinct, standardized garb to reflect their unique status as envoys of the spirits/spirit world. Christine often comments to her classes that shamans work for people, whereas priests work for deities. What she means by this is that shamans act as the representatives of their people, whether it is an individual or a group, and directly harness spiritual power or aid using ASC to interact with deities, ancestors, spirits, and/or ghosts to produce some outcome (e.g., make it rain, help with a problematic pregnancy, devour the souls of enemies). In contrast, priests act as agents of the supernatural, instructing people in what the supernatural expects or needs. Priestly rituals often lack the clear outcome-based focus characteristic of shamanic rituals. A Catholic Mass for example is not a ceremony designed to produce rain, help with warfare, or heal the sick. Its focus is more general, and more ephemeral, in that the underlying goal is to help keep the Sabbath Day holy, to serve the Holy Eucharist, and to instruct and encourage the attendees to pursue a meaningful relationship with God. The irony of this is that shamans may work for people, but they intermingle with the supernatural; priests may work for the supernatural, but their focus is on people. Many priests will even actively work to limit direct manifestation of supernatural forces, considering such manifestations dangerous and outside of the approved religious framework. For example, speaking in tongues and other direct manifestations of the Holy Spirit are discouraged in many Christian denominations. Noting the generalized nature of priestly ritual, Humphrey and Laidlaw (1994) suggest this type of ritual activity is ‘non-intentional,’ in that it does not focus on fulfilling a specific goal or task. They are careful to distinguish this from unintentional actions; people obviously intend to complete the ritual, but rituals such as those completed by many priests are not designed to correspond to a specific, definable, and empirical outcome. The rituals are not dependent on the intentions of the actors (including the priests) but are instead externally defined; they are done the way they are because that is the way they are done (i.e., they are traditional). This creates a ritual consistency beautifully illustrated by the consistency in Jewish worship, which stands in stark contrast to the improvisation and individual flare typical of shamans. In our opinion (and in the opinion of others such as Endres

Ethnosemantics Case Study 1: Deifying the “Ten Girls” in Vietnam

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2008), there are limits to the utility of this idea. There are many examples of priestly rituals that are focused on obtaining specific goals (e.g., the rain ceremonies of the Puebloan priests of the American Southwest and the periodic fasts to end droughts that Todd remembers from growing up in a Christian church in a small farming community). Still, it is worth noting that even the most ardent Pentecostal would likely be taken aback by a pastor ingesting entheogens, calling down spirits from the sky, and behaving like Dedeheiwa does in Magical Death. But we must also be careful not to focus too heavily on liturgical-centered priestly systems such as those typical of Western religions. Many cultures do have more ‘performance-centered’ priests that perform many tasks. They may even collaborate with shamans and mediums as defined above. We explore this using two case studies.

3.4

Ethnosemantics Case Study 1: Deifying the “Ten Girls” in Vietnam

Endres (2008); Endres and Lauser 2012) discusses a series of priestly ceremonies in Vietnam designed to satiate and ultimately deify “the Ten Girls,” the ghosts of 10 young, reportedly virgin, female volunteers to the North Vietnamese Army that were killed during a US bombing raid of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Vietnamese religion has a complex structure based on the syncretism of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, ancestor worship, four Mother Goddesses, and ancestors in the form of “literal armies of legendary warriors and heroines” (Endres 2008:757). Different fates can befall human spirits after death, depending on how the person died. Of relevance here, people such as the Ten Girls killed violently have their souls trapped in the “memory of mortal agony,” which in turn causes them to become malevolent “hungry ghosts” (Endres 2008: 758). There are also several different types of culturally recognized religious practitioners including Buddhist priests, diviners (who can identify spirit problems and provide advice on how to deal with them), mediums (who can be possessed by non-human deities), and soul-callers (who can be possessed by the spirits of dead humans). The ceremonies Endres (2008) described was a collaboration among several of these different practitioners, who each interacted with spirits in different ways and filled different spiritual roles. Chi Thien, a female “Master Medium” in her fifties, initiated the process resulting in the ceremonies (Endres 2008:759). She wished to sponsor a rite, “to appease the lost souls [of the Ten Girls] and invoke all the Buddhas, Badhisattvas, and Saints to lead them onto the path of religion and facilitate their salvation” (Endres 2008:760). In her terms, The ritual [was] not only meant for the Ten Girls and war martyrs of Dong Loc Junction alone, but for the war dead of the entire nation. They all. . .cannot reach salvation because due to the war they died in the wilderness [away from home] and got stuck there. [In the ritual we] invite them to follow Buddhism so that they may reach salvation, this is the heart of the ritual (Endres 2008:760).

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Chi Thien worked with Thay Hien, a spirit priest (the local equivalent to a Buddhist priest) with whom she had previously collaborated, to organize the ritual for November 2006. Thay Hien and his apprentices decorated a war memorial commemorating the Ten Girls and other war dead and performed various rituals focused on chanting liturgical texts for several hours. Votive paper offerings were burned for the dead under the premise that the burned paper models would become real in the spirit world. The Ten Girls each had paper offerings representing houses, clothes, and other needs including a travel case in which to store clothing and other items burned for them. Votive paper offerings of 1,000 shirts with matching ties, 1,000 sets of pajamas typical of Vietnamese peasants, and 1,500 paper replicas of patterned fabric were burned for the other ‘hungry ghosts’ believed to be in the area. After the ceremony, Chi Thien traveled with another Master Medium to visit Co Hong, a 20to 30-year-old soul-caller who was regularly possessed by the spirits of the Ten Girls. Their goal was to ensure the ceremony was a success and that the girls’ spirits were satisfied. During the visit, Co Hong was possessed by the spirits of four of the Ten Girls, who thanked Chi Thien for organizing the ritual, and said, “they had all been very excited and happy to receive so much attention and such beautiful offerings” (Endres 2008:762). Chi Thien also requested and received permission from the spirits to organize a ritual to help transform the Ten Girls into benevolent deities serving one of the Mother Goddesses. Chi Thien and Thay Hien again collaborated for the rite, which was held several weeks later. During the ceremony, Thay Hien read the girls’ names and a petition to the gods to accept them. New paper votive offerings of colorful clothing including glamorous lingerie (which the spirits of the Ten Girls had requested through dreams to two of Chi Thien’s friends) were also burned. The ceremony included several hours of chanting. During a break in the ceremony, Co Quyen was again possessed by one of the spirits of the Ten Girls. This disrupted the ceremony, but the interruption ended when Chi Thien made an appointment with the spirit to possess Co Quyen at a later date so that they could talk further. The spirit was satisfied with this arrangement and agreed to relinquish Co Quyen so that the ceremony could continue. After the ceremony and at the agreed upon time, Chi Thien, Co Quyen and some close followers met again. Co Quyen was again possessed by the spirit of one of the Ten Girls. During the 90 minute or so meeting, the spirit thanked Chi Thien and all those who had been involved in the rituals, with the various parties emphasizing each other’s important roles in the entire process. They also talked about the other war dead and the need to care for them. It is worth noting that the ceremonies described here are not unique— Schlecker and Endres (2011) describe the somewhat common practice of families hiring soul-callers to talk with and help find the remains of those killed during the Vietnam War, and burning votive paper offerings is a common way to help the dead. The ceremonies Endres (2008) described demonstrates the potential of an ethnosemantic approach to map the complex structure that categories such as priests, spirits, and deities can have in many religious traditions. Spirit specialists in this context include priests, and shamans that were further divided into mediums (possessed by deities) and spirit-callers (possessed by the souls of dead humans). Thay

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Ethnosemantics Case Study 2: Religious Specialists in the. . .

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Hien and his apprentices fit closely with the standard definition of priests as illustrated through their liturgical chants and emphasis on ceremonially consistent rites. Chi Thien interacts with dieties and the spirit world, entering into a state of voluntary spirit possession (through ASC) as is typical for shamanic mediums. Co Quyen directly interacts with dead, also through ASC that may or may not be voluntary. Further, the souls of the dead are divided into different categories based on their location within the spirit world, which reflects their lives and the way they died. Different rituals in turn allow humans to productively interact with the different types of dead (e.g., burning offerings for the spirits that still wander the earth). Although the three spirit specialists used different strategies, their collaboration was necessary for the ceremony’s success, which illustrates that cultures may have multiple types of spiritual specialists and that these specialists can work with or against each other to varying degrees. Endres (2008) also noted that the participants in the rituals gained meaningful benefits from their actions. The collaboration among Chi Thien, Thay Hien, and Co Quyen helped bolster all of their reputations and establish them as leading religious specialists in the area. This in turn led to greater status, more followers and potentially greater financial opportunities for each of them. Further, the grateful spirits were expected to help ensure good fortune for all of those involved, especially those who led and organized the rituals.

3.5

Ethnosemantics Case Study 2: Religious Specialists in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Gellner’s (1994) analysis of the structure of spiritual authority, social acceptance, and spirit possession in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal provides another example of the culturally specific relationship among religious categories, spiritual authority/ power, gender, and status. He identifies four types of religious specialists (Table 3.1; Gellner 1994:33). The relationships among these various classes can be divided into heuristic oppositions that again reflects the potential of an ethnosematic analysis in defining and mapping the relationships among various spirit specialists and their relationships with the supernatural. Priests stand in contrast to healers/mediums/ witches, in that they are associated with the ‘pure’ or ‘structured’ religious systems of Buddhism or Hinduism. The remaining groups are less integrated into these religious traditions. Healers and mediums/witches contrast with each other in terms of gender and the presence of spirit possession (Table 3.1). Mediums and witches contrast with each other in terms of their benevolent or malicious intent. While priests and healers in this context correspond to the typical ‘priest’ category as defined above, mediums fit the structure of shamanism, although not exactly as it is outlined above. (Gellner [1994:30–31] notes that the people of the Kathmandu Valley know of shamans associated with other ethnic groups, but do not have them as part of their traditions.)

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Table 3.1 Categories of spiritual specialists in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal based on Gellner (1994) Specialist Priest

Status Central

Healer

Less Central

Medium

Peripheral to religious system (‘peripheral’ should not be confused with ‘not important’)

Witch

Completely peripheral. Totally outside of social norm

Description High status males. Associated with either Buddhist or Hindu religion. Males from various backgrounds, the “doctors of the poor.” Never possessed. Undergo apprenticeship to learn to use Ayuervedic medicine (traditional South Asian medicine that includes herbalism, yoga, and other methods), various rituals and astrology to help heal people. Often treat social or psychological issues as well as physical problems. Combat witchcraft. Typically females. Possessed by a tutelary deity of lower spiritual rank, typically Hariti, the Buddhist goddess of smallpox; the more powerful the deity, the more skeptically the medium is viewed. Treat the same sorts of health issues as healers, but do not use astronomy or the Ayuervedic healing techniques of the healers. While possessed, the medium is viewed as a goddess, and gives advice to the afflicted for treatment. Combat witchcraft, but sometimes equated with it. Always females. Can use poison to hurt people or spiritually possess others to cause harm. A victim of witch possession can ‘recover’ and become medium, if she chooses to be possessed by a benevolent deity instead of a witch.

A key point that Gellner (1994; working on ideas introduced by Lewis 1971) discusses is how ‘central’ or ‘peripheral’ each of the classes of spiritualists are to the culture (see Table 3.1). Peripheral in this context does not reflect their importance, but rather the social acceptability and role the specialist plays in the culture. Buddhist and Hindu priests are most central, meaning they are most socially recognized, most valued, and given the highest status. Healers are still quite central, meaning that they enjoy high status and social acceptance as a profession, but are seen as less spiritually pure compared to priests. Mediums are on the edge of social acceptance and have comparatively lower status as a group. They are sometimes equated with witches, so much so that Gellner (1994) suggests more people believe witches are real than believe mediums are actually possessed by a benevolent spirit. Witches are completely peripheral, even though most people claim to believe in them. They are outside the bounds of society, so much so that many people report it is improper to even speaking about them (Gellner 1994:34).

3.6

A Footnote on Embracing Ambiguity in Heuristic Definitions

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One of the primary roles of both healers and mediums is to find witches and cure their victims. This effort can be potentially life altering. Gellner (1994:35) notes that in the past women who were possessed by the spirit of witches would have their face marked by a red-hot spatula under the belief that the same mark would appear on the face of the witch. This and other practices were at times so severe that the Law Code of 1854 attempted to regulate them and made the healer or medium liable for heavy fines if they were unsuccessful in finding the witch. Gellner (1994:35–36) also recounts the following story: Near a female medium from Lalitpur lived a woman who did not get on with her mother-inlaw. All her children had died and she believed her mother-in-law was a witch and was killing them. She came to the medium who told her that her mother-in-law was indeed a witch and that as long as she was in the house she, the daughter-in-law, would never be able to have offspring who survived. If the mother-in-law died, on the other hand, the children would be saved. The woman went and confronted her mother-in-law. The local people decided that the senior people of the neighborhood should decide the case. In front of them all the mother-in-law declared that she was not a witch. ‘All right then,’ said her daughter-inlaw, ‘Let’s go and see the medium.’ They went there, but as they were coming into the room the medium cried out, ‘Don’t come in, you are a witch!’ “No, I’m not,’ she replied. The medium raised her hand and her Vajra [a Tantric Buddhist ritual implement] touched the temple of the witch. Even though it barely touched her, a great stream of blood flowed forth. The woman went to hospital. Later she took the case to court, saying that she had been accused unjustly of being a witch. The court called the medium who said: ‘I didn’t do it. She is a witch. If she is a witch, she will die in nine days. If not, she won’t.’ And the woman died within nine days. The case was dismissed and the medium became famous.

3.6

A Footnote on Embracing Ambiguity in Heuristic Definitions

The heuristic definitions of shamans, priests, and other spiritual specialists is disconcerting to many, given that they fail to correspond to universally recognizable, consistently structured, and distinct categories. Authors such as Winkleman (1992, 2020) have tried to create internally uniform, mutually exclusive groupings for religious practitioners that are applicable to all spiritual specialists in every culture. This is typically done using cluster analysis or some other form of numerical classification to try to cluster different types of practitioners (e.g., priests, shamans, witches) into non-overlapping groups based on some set of characteristics. For a few cultures, these rigidly defined classes seem to work, but they have not proven to be uniformly applicable—there is simply too much variation within and among cultures (VanPool 2009). In contrast to rigid structures, the framework outlined throughout this chapter provides a way to map the structure of specific cultural systems to identify the categories of spiritual specialists, to determine the rituals and methods they use to interact with the supernatural, and to describe their relationships with other sorts of spiritual specialists within their culture. We illustrate this using the case studies above and suggest that the flexibility provided by the universally applicable

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definitions of key terms paired with the ethnosemantics analysis of culturally specific, operationally-defined categories of spirits and spirit specialists will allow anthropologists to document both similarities and differences. Some cultures have religious specialists that closely fit the archetypical labels for shamans (e.g., the Yanomamö) and priests (e.g., the Orthodox Catholics), but a great many cultures have religious practitioners that are similar to priests but also perform aspects of shamanic rites, shamans who recite liturgies and are quite similar to priests in some contexts, and distinct shamans and priests who work together and/or compete with each other in some ways. Take for example the previously noted conceptual issues with the term “shaman,” and its closely related terms “sorcerer” or “witch.” Lamphere (1983:744) notes, “The power that a shaman acquires may be either positive or negative; it could be used to restore health or harm or bewitch a person.” Ethnosemantic cultural categories consequently often separate shamans from witches/sorcerers based on their helpfulness or harmfulness to their group. Shamans do “good” things for their group, whereas witches and sorcerers do “bad” things to their people (Moro 2013:285; Winkelman 1992). This division is based on benevolent versus malevolent behaviors; it is not a division based on the presence or absence of specific shamanic practice (ASC, the use of spiritual helpers, or the transformation into anthropomorphic spiritual beings) (Freidel et al. 1993; McCall 2007; VanPool and VanPool 2007; Whitley 2000; Winkelman 1992). In her classes, Christine stresses that often one group’s shaman is another’s sorcerer. There are hundreds of examples in the literature of shamans going into ASC to find sorcerers/witches and sometimes battling the spirits the sorcerer sent to make the people ill. If a shaman dies during ASC, it is often said that he or she died during such a battle. Further, one must know a great deal about witchcraft to cure a curse that is the source of disease and sickness, which in turn means that each shaman is at least potentially a witch or sorcerer. Gellner (1994:36–37) illustrates this when he notes that healers in the Kathmandu Valley are more likely to be suspected of being witches despite their comparatively high status than are mediums, who are more likely to simply be considered frauds. The spiritual potency of healers makes them dangerous, because they know how to use it against fellow humans in order to help their fellow humans. As Gellner (1994:37) notes, “Many say the knowledge of how to cause harm and that required to undo it are the same. When I asked if there could be male witches, one healer replied: ‘I’m a witch!’” (emphasis in original). Throughout this chapter we have outlined a methodology that relies on an analysis (and corresponding terms) defined at two scales. There are universals in some aspects of the anthropology of spirits, that is, catagories that are present in all societies. These lend themselves to universally applicable operational terms such as those we provide for ancestor worship and souls, and anthropologists can study universal characteristics of spirit-human interaction related to these universals, even as we study culturally distinct practices. In contrast, there are features that are not universal. Using ethnosemantics, these can be explored and operationally defined within an emic perspective. That is, we can determine what a particular culture might mean using a specific term such as yalo or vegetalista, and even differences in the

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use and social significance of these terms in different kin groups, social classes, religious contexts, and legal contexts. Yet these culturally unique practices often share similarities across some (but not all) cultures, which in turn allows some cultural practices to be clustered into larger groupings, as we recognize each practice is historically and conceptually unique. Once clustered, we can use operationally defined labels that more-or-less reflect the similarities within the groups, but as we do so, we understand that the labels will not perfectly correspond to each group in the same way. For example, we can recognize “shamans” in many cultures, and identify them as “religious practitioners who interact with the supernatural while in ASC”, while also knowing that: (1) shamans are not universal, (2) not all shamans engage in the same practices, and 3) there are possibly other religious practitioners that are similar to shamans. The point here is that the heuristic labels derived from such cross-cultural comparisons allow us to identify both similarities and differences in cultures that would be obscured if we consider them only in isolation.

References Aldhouse-Green, Miranda, and Stephen Aldhouse-Green. 2005. The Quest of the Shaman: ShapeShifters, Sorcerers, and Spirits. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson. Atran, Scott. 1998. Folk Biology and the Anthropology of Science: Cognitive Universals and Cultural Particulars. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (4): 547–609. Berlin, Brent, Dennis Breedlove, and Peter H. Raven. 1973. General Principles of Classification and Nomenclature in Folk Biology. American Anthropologist 75 (1): 214–242. Binford, Lewis. 2001. Constructing Frames of Reference: An Analytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using Hunter-Gatherer Environmental Sets. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Brown, Donald E. 2004. Human Universals, Human Nature, and Human Culture. Daedalus 133 (4): 47–54. Bunzel, Ruth L. 1992[1932]. In Zuni Ceremonialism: Three Case Studies, ed. Ruth L. Bunzel. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. Campos, Don José, translated by Alberto Roman, and complied by Geraldine Overton (2011). The Shaman and Ayahuasca. Divine Arts, Studio City, CA. Carr, Christopher. 2021. Being Scioto Hopewell: Ritual Drama and Personhood in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Cham, CH: Springer. Clark, Kyle J., and Craig T. Palmer. 2016. Ancestor Worship. In Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, ed. Todd K. Shackelford and A. Viviana. Weekes-Schakelford. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3085-1. Duranti, Alessandro. 1997. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Endres, Kirsten W. 2008. Engaging the Spirits of the Dead: Soul-calling Rituals and the Performative Construction of Efficacy. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14 (4): 755–773. Endres, Kristen W., and Andrea Lauser. 2012. Contests of Commemoration: Virgin War Martyrs, State Memorials, and the Invocation of the Spirit World in Contemporary Vietnam. In Engaging the Spirit World: Popular Beliefs and Practices in Modern Southeast Asia, ed. Kristen W. Endres and Andrea Lauser, 121–143. New York, NY: Berghahn Books. Faunce, Kenneth V. 2000. The Perception of Landscape in the Use and Settlement of the Tularosa Basin, New Mexico. Ph.D. Dissertation. Moscow: Department of History, University of Idaho. Frazer, James George. 1963[1922]. The Golden Bough. Paperback ed. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company.

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Freidel, David, Linda Schele, and Joy Parker. 1993. Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shamans Path. New York, NY: Quill. Gellner, David N. 1994. Priests, Healers, Mediums and Witches: The Context of Possession in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Man 29: 27–48. Gossen, Gary. 1979 [1972]. Temporal and Spatial Equivalents in Chamula Ritual Symbolism. In Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, ed. William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt, 116–128. New York, NY: Harper and Row. Hall, Robert L. 1997. An Archaeology of the Soul: North American Indian Belief and Ritual. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Hallowell, A. Irving. 1960. Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Hays-Gilpin, Kelley A. 2004. Ambiguous Images: Gender and Rock Art. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Heyden, Doris. 2005. Rites of Passage and Other Ceremonies in Caves. In In the Maw of the Earth Monster: Mesoamerican Ritual Cave Use, ed. James Brady and Keith Prufer, 22–28. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Hicks, David, ed. 2010. Ritual and Belief: Readings in the Anthropology of Religion. 3rd ed. Landham, MD: AltaMira Press. Hopkins, Nicholas A. 2006. The Place of Maize in Indigenous Mesoamerican Folk Taxonomies. In Histories of Maize: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Prehistory, Linguistics, Biogeography, Domestication, and Evolution of Maize, ed. John Staller, Robert Tykot, and Bruce Benz, 611–622. Burlington, MA: Academic Press. Humphrey, Caroline, and James Laidlaw. 1994. The Archetypal Actions of Ritual: A Theory of Ritual Illustrated by the Jain Rite of Worship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hunn, Eugene. 1982. The Utilitarian Factor in Folk Biological Classification. American Anthropologist 84 (4): 830–884. Ikram, Salima. 2010. Mummification. In UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, ed. Willeke Wendrich, Jacco Dieleman, Elizabeth Frood, and John Baines, 1–5. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA. Jones, Peter N. 2006. Shamanism: An Inquiry into the History of Scholarly Use of the Term in English-Speaking North America. Anthropology of Consciousness 17 (2): 4–32. Kehoe, Alice B. 1996. Eliade and Hultkrantz: The European Primitivism Tradition. American Indian Quarterly 20 (3/4): 377–392. ———. 2000. Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. London, UK: Waveland Press, Inc. Kendall, Laurel. 2002. Review of Kehoe (2000) Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. American Anthropologist 104 (1): 359–360. Lawrence, Robert M. 1898. The Magic of the Horseshoe. Boston, MA.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. Lessa, William A., and Evon Z. Vogt. 1979. The Purpose of Shamanism. In Reader in Comparative Religion, ed. William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt, 4th ed., 301–302. New York, NY: Harper Collin. Lewis, I.M. 1971. Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession. London, UK: Penguin Publishing. Lewis-Williams, J.D., and T.A. Dowson. 1988. The Signs of All Times. Current Anthropology 29 (2): 201–245. MacDougall, Duncan. 1907. Hypothesis Concerning Soul Substance Together with Experimental Evidence of Such Substance. American Medicine 13 (5): 240–243. Mbiti, John S. 1970. African Religions and Philosophies. Garden City, NJ: Anchor Books/Doubleday and Company Inc. McCall, Grant S. 2007. Add Shamans and stir? A Critical Review of the Shamanism Model of Forager Rock Art Production. Journal of Anthropology Archaeology 26 (2): 224–233. McIntyre, Gwynaeth. 2019. Imperial Cult. Brill Research Perspectives in Ancient History 2 (1): 1–88.

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Miller, Mary, and Karl Taube. 1993. An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson. Moro, Pamela A. 2013. Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion: A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion. 9th ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Ortiz, Alfonso. 1969. The Tewa World: The Tewa World: Space, Time, Being and Becoming in a Pueblo Society. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. ———. 1979. San Juan Pueblo. In Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 9, Southwest, ed. Alfonso Ortiz, 278–295. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, U.S. Government Printing Office. Ottenheimer, Harriet J. 2006. The Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Belmont, CA: Thomas/Wadsworth. Palmer, Craig T., Kathryn Coe, and Reed L. Wadley. 2008. In Belief We Trust: Why Anthropologists Abandon Skepticism When They Hear Claims about Supernatural Beliefs. Skeptic 14 (1): 60–66. Palmer, Craig T., and Lyle B. Steadman. 2004. With and Without Belief: A New Approach to the Definition and Explanation of Religion. Evolution and Cognition 10 (1): 138–147. Peregrine, Peter N. 2004. Cross-Cultural Approaches in Archaeology: Comparative Ethnology, Comparative Archaeology, and Archaoethnology. Journal of Archaeological Research 12 (3): 281–309. Presterudstuen, Geir Henning. 2014. Ghosts and the Everyday Politics of Race in Fiji. In Monster Anthropology in Australasia and Beyond, ed. Yasmine Musharbash and Geir H. Presterudstuen, 127–142. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Robb, John E. 1998. The Archaeology of Symbols. Annual Review of Anthropology 27: 329–346. Ribes-Iñesta, Emilia. 2003. What is Defined in Operational Definitions? The Case of Operant Psychology. Behavior and Philosophy 31: 111–126. Schlecker, Markus, and Kirsten W. Endres. 2011. Psychic Experience, Truth, and Visuality in PostWar Vietnam. Social Analysis 55 (1): 1–22. Schultes, Richard Evans, and Albert Hofmann. 1979. Plants of the Gods: Origins of Hallucinogenic Use. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Steadman, Lyle B., Craig T. Palmer, and Christopher F. Tilley. 1996. The Universality of Ancestor Worship. Ethnology 35 (1): 63–76. Stein, Rebecca L., and Philip L. Stein. 2017. The Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and Witchcraft. 4th ed. New York, NY: Routledge. Stross, Brian. 2006. Maize in Word and Image in Southeastern Mesoamerica. In Histories of Maize: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Prehistory, Linguistics, Biogeography, Domestication, and Evolution of Maize, ed. John Staller, Robert Tykot, and Bruce Benz, 578–599. Burlington, MA: Academic Press. Tedlock, Barbara. 2005. The Woman in the Shaman’s Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine. New York, NY: Bantam Bell, A Division of Random House, Inc. Tedlock, Dennis. 1979. Zuni Religion and World View. In Handbook of North American Indians: Volume 9 Southwest, ed. Alfonso Ortiz, 499–513. Washington. DC: Smithsonian Institution, U.S. Government Printing Office. Tomlinson, Matt. 2016. Little People, Ghosts and the Anthropology of the Good. The Journal of Polynesian Society 125 (1): 11–32. Tylor, Edward Burnett. 1891. Primitive Culture: Research into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom. Vol. 1–2. London: John Murray. VanPool, Christine S. 2009. The Signs of the Sacred: Identifying Shamans Using Archaeological Evidence. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 28 (2): 177–190. VanPool, Christine S., and Todd L. VanPool. 2007. Signs of the Casas Grandes Shamans. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press.

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Whitley, David S. 2000. The Art of the Shaman: Rock Art of California. Salt Lake City, UT: The University of Utah Press. Winkelman, Michael J. 1992. Shamans, Priests, and Witches: A Cross-Cultural Study of MagicoReligious Practitioners. Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University, Anthropological Papers No. 44. ———. 2020. A Cross-Cultural Study of the Elementary Forms of Religious Life: Shamanic Healers, Priests, and Witches. Religion, Brain, and Behavior 11 (1): 27–45. Womack, Mari. 2001. Emics, Etics, “Ethics” and Shamans. Anthropology News, March 7, 2001.

Chapter 4

Spirits in the World

Abstract Here we apply the ethnosemantics/folk taxonomy approach outlined in Chap. 3 to explore common cross-cultural frameworks organizing spirits within cosmological structures. We define and illustrate the concept of the three-tiered Shamanic Universe using detailed descriptions of Daniel Cooper’s analysis of the South American Akawaio culture and our own analysis of the Casas Grandes culture of the North American Southwest. We illustrate commonalities that are characteristic of shaman-based cosmologies world-wide, and the subsequent role spirits play in the structure of the universe in many cultures. We further illustrate the cross-cultural significance of axis mundi as a means and place of human-spirit interaction. We also demonstrate that many cultures maintain that spirits are part of the natural world and are manifested in and often control “natural” phenomena such as the weather and significant places of the landscape. We discuss some of the spirits found in whirlwinds, lightning, thunder, rain, and plants, as well as examples of spirits that reside in an Upper World or a Lower World. We also discuss special items that are considered living beings (e.g., medicine bundles and shamanic drums and rattles). Often these objects are used by spiritual specialists such as shamans, but they may also include objects used by general people (e.g., the Diné hogans). We end the chapter with a starting outline of a general ethnosemantics model that can be used as a basis for cross-cultural comparisons.

Spirit is more than consciousness, and because it is capable of causing things to happen in this world it is a form of power. Much of the shaman’s work consists of harnessing it.— Anthropologist Piers Vitebsky (2001:22)

Every culture has a spirit world that stands in some relationship with our world. They may be closely linked, can be more-or-less mirror images of each other, or might be so distinct that interaction between them is rare, dangerous and even impossible. In the last chapter we introduced the method of ethnosemantics and the concepts of folk taxonomies and local knowledge, which are the ways that people organize their world and apply culturally-specific meanings to different categories of people and things. Here, we are going to begin to explore common ways that cultures organize their spirit world(s) and the impacts/forms spirits can take in the physical world © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. S. VanPool, T. L. VanPool, An Anthropological Study of Spirits, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25920-3_4

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humans occupy. Our goals of this chapter are to: (1) identify cross-cultural patterns reflected in views of the spirit world (the shamanic universe, axis mundi); (2) illustrate how spirits fit within larger cosmological frameworks; (3) demonstrate the common relationship between spirits and phenomena such as weather events (e.g., lightning, whirlwinds), geographic locations (e.g., caves), living beings including animals and plants, and human-made artifacts including houses, ritual bundles, and religious gear such as shamanic drums. The role of spirits in this world (i.e., the physical world of the here-and-now) and the structure of the spirit world are related but not identical topics. Spirit worlds by definition transcend this world, but the physical world is often a spirit world in its own way. This was hinted at during our previous mention of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe), who do not make a ready distinction between the natural and supernatural worlds. Another example is a stone in the plaza of the Southwestern pueblo of Zia that is the home of Gacítiwa (Whiteman), who was given offerings of ground corn and could reward virtuous people (White 1962:114). While Gacítiwa is unique to the people of Zia, many cultures have similar spiritual entities that monitor, interact with, and potentially bless or punish people based on their behavior. In addition to spirits in the physical world, many cultures define uniquely spiritual cosmological zones such as the Upper World or Underworld that are populated by various forms of spirits. These distinctive realms are the conceptual foundations of the “shamanic universe”, which is ubiquitous among hunter and gatherer societies, early agriculturalists, and early state-level societies (Chang 1983; Eliade 1964; Freidel et al. 1993; Lamphere 1983; Pearson 2002; VanPool and VanPool 2007). It is even reflected in the religious structures of many state-level societies including the Christian views of heaven (classically depicted as an upper world) and hell (classically depicted as an underworld). The shamanic universe organizes spirits into different cosmological realms, but as we will see in the next section spirits can and do often move between the realms.

4.1

The Shamanic Universe

The dream or vision should be viewed within the context of the shamanic worldview, which consists of a layered universe, where there is an intimate connection and ultimate transformability of human beings and certain aspects of the natural environment; these aspects are charged with supernatural power and the shaman is the guardian of the equilibrium of supernatural forces.—Louise Lamphere (1983:745)

The “shamanic universe” consists of three broad cosmic zones that are interconnected by a center point or a central axis (Eliade 1964:259). The “Mundane World” of the physical world of the here-and-now is where people live (Myerhoff 1976:102). The sky, especially as personified by the stars and other heavenly bodies, is the Upper World, which is often the home of creator gods. The Underworld is typically underground and is often associated with environmental extremes such as fire or water, the home of the gods of death and potentially malevolent spirits, and

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The Shamanic Universe

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Table 4.1 Spirit Realms of the Akawaio Cosmos as Presented by Cooper (2015:80–94) World Above World

Middle World

Underworld

Associations and Manifestations Swallow-tailed kite (Elanoises forficatus; a white and black colored raptor) is the primary shamanic helper. Also inhabited by the harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja) and the moriche oriole (Icterus chrysocephalus). Whirlwinds can be portals to the Upper World and can in fact steal the spirits of the ill and spiritually weak. Jaguar (Panthera onca) and hummingbird (racket-tailed coquette, Discosura longicaudus) are paramount. Tobacco is the “head spirit” of all plants (Copper 2015:87). Energy from both the Above World and Underworld can collect here. It is also the home of the most dangerous spirit forces, while the forces from the other worlds are typically more helpful. The nightjar (Caprimulgus, a nocturnal grey/brown colored bird) is the primary bird. Other animals are the bird-eating Goliath tarantula (Theraphosa blondi) and the poison dart frog (Dendrobates leucomelas). Caves and whirlpools can be portals to the Lower World.

misshapen humans/spirit creatures such as hunchbacks, reptile or snake people, and dwarfs (Bean 1975:25–26; Furst 1973-1974; Pearson 2002:69–70; Whitley 2000). Eliade (1964) determined in the 1940s that most animistic (and many other) cultures have this general framework, although there are often substantial elaborations unique to each culture. The complexity and culturally distinct elaboration of a specific shamanic universe is illustrated in the spirit world of the Akawaio, an Amerindian group indigenous to Guyana in South America, as it is described by Cooper (2015; Table 4.1). The “Place in the Sky” is the upper, celestial world (Cooper 2015:84). It is associated with men, the colors of white and yellow, heat, spicy and bitter flavors, and the daytime. It is further divided into two partitions: Penaro’kon, which is the home of the Sun Father who energizes and rejuvenates life on Earth; and the Above World, which is the home of the dead who lived good lives and can be summoned during shamanic rituals for help and guidance. The Middle World (World of the Mundane) is the domain of humans, plants, animals, and all of the other aspects of the world of the here-and-now. It is also where the spirits of bad people wander. The “Place under the Earth” or Underworld is associated with darkness, cold, shadow, night, and women. It “comes out” during the night. Thus, both the Upper World (day) and the Underworld (night) are at times in the sky, even though the Above World is most closely associated with it. The Underworld is also divided into two parts: the “Shallow Underworld,” which represented empty darkness that is devoid of anything; and the “Deep Underworld,” which is full of spiritual energy including the spirits of good people who drowned. It is also the source of creativity, of “new things that are coming into being such as new ideas, visions, and dreams. . .” (Cooper 2015:84–85). The three planes are connected by “the Tree of Life,” which is a culturally specific representation of a common cross-cultural theme called the axis mundi. We will return to this concept in a moment, but shamans use the axis mundi to send their spirits, which can be distinct from their souls, to travel through each of the three worlds (see also Vitebsky 2001:14).

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Among the Akawaio, all three of the realms are reflected in human bodies and therefore in human souls. The Above World is reflected in the human head, in intelligence, and as strength and vitality (Cooper 2015:89). The power of the Underworld is reflected in the human body through the creation of something new and transformative (Cooper 2015:89–90). For example, it is associated with the abdomen, which processes food and where fetuses develop during pregnancy. Certain animals also reflect both the Above World and the Underworld. The Jaguar is a nocturnal hunter with yellow coloration reminiscent of the bright sun as well as spots like the stars in the night sky. By combining aspects of the Above World and the Underworld, it becomes a metaphor for shamans who are “fierce, transcendent, and nocturnal hunters” that also combine both worlds (Cooper 2015:94). The hummingbird has iridescent plumage causing its coloration to appear to change, and it moves quickly and quietly in any direction including backwards. This is seen as a metaphor for shamans who can travel across domains in shifting forms (Cooper 2015:103). Likewise, the Underworld is associated with fertile land and plentiful crops (again reflecting the idea of something new originating from what was there previously), although the Above World provides the energy and life force to enable life in the form of seeds. The Underworld is also where sorcerers and those who wish to misuse spiritual forces get their strength and power (Cooper 2015:93). In contrast, “wisdom possessors” (good shamans) focus more heavily on the “radiant light energy” of the Above World (Cooper 2015:94), although benevolent shamans also draw power from the Underworld for various charms, especially those related to fertility. Another example of a culture’s take on the shamanic universe comes from our own research into the Medio Period (AD 1200 to 1450) occupation of the Casas Grandes region of northern Mexico (VanPool and VanPool 2007). The religious system was focused on a settlement called Paquimé, which was the largest ceremonial center and habitation settlement in the region. Paquimé was a ‘Center Place’ of the ancient Southwestern world. It structured the landscape, the people, and even the spirit world around it. As a result, it was a focal point in the connections among the Upper World, the Middle World, and the Underworld. Its religious elites served thousands of people who lived in the community, and thousands more who lived in surrounding settlements but visited Paquimé during pilgrimages (VanPool and VanPool 2018, 2020). Like many of the other shamanic traditions we have discussed, the Casas Grandes shamans used entheogens to enter ASC. In their case, they used tobacco, although datura and other entheogens may have been used too. They also danced and presumably chanted, fasted, and used the other methods shamans use worldwide to initiate ASC. While in ASC, the shamans transformed into macaw-headed figures that communed with various supernatural beings. This sequence is illustrated in Fig. 4.1, which presents images from Casas Grandes pottery. Fig. 4.1a is an effigy of a male smoking a pipe that is similar to actual stone pipes recovered from Paquimé. This figure also wears ceremonial gear, including a type of sandal depicted only on these individuals (VanPool et al. 2017). The second image (Fig. 4.1b) is a painted image of a man dancing. Notice the pound signs (#) on both the smoker effigy

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The Shamanic Universe

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d c c b

b a Fig. 4.1 Casas Grandes Transforming Shamans as Indicated by the Pound Sign. 4.1a Casas Grandes Smoker Effigy Jar (Courtesy of the Amerind Foundation). 4.1b Casas Grandes Dancers with Headdress (Courtesy of the Centennial Museum at the University of Texas, El Paso). 4.1c Metamorphizing Shaman with Headdress Off (Courtesy of the Casas Grandes Museum of the Northern Cultures). 4.1d. Shaman in Flight with Tutelary Bird. (From Di Peso 1974b v.2:272.)

Fig. 4.2 Casas Grandes Shamans in the Spirit World Interacting with Tutelary Birds, HornedPlumed Serpents, and Double-Headed Macaw Diamond Motifs

(Fig. 4.1a) and this figure. These designs are represented on only a limited number of almost exclusively male figures who are all associated with ritual paraphernalia (VanPool et al. 2017). (The exception of which we are aware is an effigy of a possibly pregnant female that has the pound sign on her vulva, perhaps indicating something about the child she carries or the nature of her pregnancy.) The painted figure wears a headdress shaped as a horned-plumed serpent. In the next image (Fig. 4.1c), the headdress is beside the man, who is now transforming into what he had previously only represented. Again, we see the pound sign on the figure. The final images (Fig. 4.1d, e) show the transformed shaman as a macaw-headed anthropomorph interacting with the horned-plumed serpent (Fig. 4.2), which is the local version of a class of feathered serpent deities found across the New World.

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There are also images we call the Double-Headed Macaw Diamond, which has two macaw heads protruding from a diamond-shaped body. Although speculation, we suspect this represented a sun spirit, given the close association between macaws and the sun across the Southwest and Mesoamerica (Thompson and Brown 2006). A bird image is also depicted that is found associated only with the shamanic imagery. In Fig. 4.1d, this bird rides on the lower leg of the transformed shaman, who is positioned as if he is flying/swimming. In Fig. 4.2, it is with the transformed shaman and the deities. The Casas Grandes people depicted many different birds and other animals on their pottery with enough detail to indicate specific biological genus and (sometimes) species. This including several types of owls (Tytonidae spp. [barn owls] and Strigidae spp. [horned owls]), the killdeer (Charadrius vociferus), and macaws (Ara macao [scarlet macaw] and Ara militaris [military macaw]); various snakes including rattlesnakes (Crotalus spp.), western coral snakes (Micruroides spp.), and the Sonoran mountain kingsnake/New Mexico milksnake (Lampropeltis spp.); and even other animals such as turtles (Terrapene spp.) and mountain sheep (Ovis canadensis spp.). The Casas Grandes artists took effort to generally distinguish between physical creatures that could be found in the physical world and spiritual entities. Each of the above-mentioned animals was depicted as an effigy (VanPool and VanPool 2007). Humans (both males and females) were also depicted in effigy. However, obvious spirit beings including the transformed shamans and horned-plumed serpents are depicted as painted images (e.g., Figs. 4.1b–d and 4.2), never as effigies. The bird traveling with the shaman is distinctive but does not correspond to any species in the Casas Grandes region and is only depicted as a painted image (Fig. 4.1d). This suggests it was a spirit creature without a physical counterpart, just like the horned-plumed serpent has no physical counterpart. Taken together, the Casas Grandes imagery reflects a shamanic universe similar to the Akawaio’s described by Cooper (2015), but there are meaningful differences. In the Medio period case, it is males, not females, who are associated with the Underworld and its creatures and spirits such as snakes, horned-plumed serpents, and nocturnal birds such as owls (VanPool and VanPool 2009). Several lines of evidence reflect these associations. For example, male effigies are far more commonly decorated with horned-plumed serpent and snake imagery than are females (VanPool and VanPool 2007). Further, a walk-in well deep in the heart of Paquimé likely served as a portal (axis mundi) into the Underworld (VanPool 2003). To enter the well, one had to step over a human skull placed at the entry way (Di Peso et al. 1974b:4:372–381). One then descended a flight of stairs extending over seven meters down to the water table. Likely votive offerings of broken ceramic and stone effigies and other valuables were scattered down the stairs leading to the water. Dead animals including bison and some human bones and other offerings were placed in the well itself, necessitating that the water was not potable; this well absolutely could not have been used as the primary water source for the city. A barren room was off to the side midway down the stairs to the water (Di Peso 1974a:356; Di Peso et al. 1974b:4:375). Although the room had a vent leading to the surface, it would have quickly become unpleasant if a fire was kept burning for long.

4.2

Climbing the World Tree using the Axis Mundi

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The room would have thus been a dark cave-like enclosure ideal for shamanic ASC experiences. The Upper World was associated with women, macaws, the doubleheaded macaw diamonds, and the sun. Again, several lines of evidence reflect these associations. Macaws, the “Sunbirds of the Southwest” (Thompson and Brown 2006), were raised and ritually sacrificed by the hundreds at Paquimé. Macaw imagery is more common on female effigies than male effigies, which follows a broader pattern across the Southwest of women handling and caring for the birds (Crown 2016; Munson 2000). The Walk-in Well was likely the primary entryway into the Under World for the Casas Grandes people and the central focus of private shamanic activity. Casas Grandes shamans also likely performed public ceremonies for clients away from the Walk-in Well. We suspect that the primary entryway into the Upper World was the Mound of the Cross, a cross-shaped masonry mound aligned with the cardinal directions with smaller, circular mounds positioned off each arm. Di Peso (1974b), the original excavator of Paquimé, concluded that the mound was used to trace the movement of the sun across the sky, and perhaps other astronomical events. With its entryway into both the Lower and Upper Worlds, Paquimé provided its shamans with the access required for them to travel between the worlds, across space, and through time. The general shamanic universe described here for Paquimé is further shared, although with regional differences, across the North American Southwest (Lamphere 1983; VanPool and VanPool 2007). Casas Grandes shamans also share affinities with worldwide shamanic practices. We find that shamans throughout the world are assisted by tutelary spirit animals and a special class of powerful spirits that Whitley (2001) calls liminal creatures that help shamans with their work. These spirits have characteristics that enable them to travel among all three realms and help the shamans with their journeys to provide healings, rain, finding lost objects and so on. In the New World the most powerful liminal spirit creatures are frequently the feathered serpents formed through the union of a snake (denizen of the Underworld) and a bird (denizen of the Upper World) (Fig. 4.2). As a snake this creature can slither under the ground and swim through the watery Underworld, but its bird feathers allow it to fly to the Upper World. Shamans are likewise liminal creatures, because they travel between the realms.

4.2

Climbing the World Tree using the Axis Mundi

Among the Yucatec Maya, the central tree was the yaxché (Ceiba spp.), the national tree of modern Guatemala. With its roots in the Underworld and its branches in the heavens, this great tree connected the planes of Sky, Earth, and Underworld.—Art Historian and Anthropologist Mary Miller and Karl Taube (1993:186)

We mentioned the term axis mundi during our discussion of the shamanic universe. Eliade (1964:259) argued that the “Three Cosmic Realms of the Upper World, the Middle World, and the Lower World” were always connected through a center place,

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an axis mundi, generally recognized as a World Pillar, a World Tree, a Cosmic Mountain, or a central axis. For example, Cooper (2015) noted that the three layers of the shamanic universe of the Akawaio were connected by ‘the Tree of Life’. This imagery is an extremely common theme around the world (Eliade 1964; Miller and Taube 1993:186; Sullivan 1987; Vitebsky 2001). Shamans can move to and through the various worlds using this metaphorical tree. Some other cultures phrase this same metaphor as a Cosmic Mountain. In both cases, the roots of the tree or mountain extend deep into the ground (that is, the Underworld) while the tree’s boughs or the mountain’s peek extends into the sky (the Upper World) (Pearson 2002:70). This reach allows the shaman to travel among the worlds by climbing or descending the mountain or tree. These World Trees and Cosmic Mountains are axis mundi, the “central pole” that acts as “a vertical bridge” between the various layers of the cosmos (Lamphere 1983:755). The axis mundi is consequently the center of the world within a shamanic worldview, the point from which ‘up’ and ‘down’ are measured for the Upper World and Underworld, and from which the cardinal directions flow (Pearson 2002:69). The axis mundi can be anywhere/everywhere, but it is often associated with a specific feature or location. As illustrated by the Walk-in Well at Paquimé, New World societies often constructed an axis mundi within their communities, thereby making (transforming) their community into the center of existence and creating portals that allow interaction with the supernatural. However, sometimes axis mundi can be fixed landmarks of the landscape. As previously mentioned, caves are often seen as portals between worlds, and are therefore axis mundi in some cultures. The Hopi of Arizona have an axis mundi called Sipapu, which is the ancestral place of emergence though which people entered this world according to Hopi oral tradition. It is in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, west of the Hopi villages (Lamphere 1983:755). Symbolic representations of Sipapu are made in Hopi kivas (religious structures) as shallow holes or openings into the ground, but these ‘sipapus’ just reflect the real Sipapu. Many communities around the world use plazas or open areas within communities as axis mundi (Ruscavage-Barz and Bagwell 2006). In these cases, the entire community might be organized using cardinal directions as a reflection of the centrality of the axis mundi. In Heyden’s (1981:6) words: The Sky and Earth are said to be square and arranged in folds or tiers. This cosmic shape had four corners and a center that joined the above and the below. The corners were the four directions of the world [north, south, east, and west], and the center was often a cave or a tree. The four-quartered arrangement with the pivot or focal point determined the arrangement of settlements, which were based upon the numinous [mystical] plan.”

In contrast, many other groups used a literal pole stuck in the ground to represent the axis mundi. The Omaha of the US Midwest pointed their poles straight at Polaris, the North Star (Hall 1997). Among the Omaha (and many other native groups living in on the Plains and the US Southeast), the circumpolar region of the night sky was seen as the point around which the heavens moved. It was therefore the top of the World Tree and the doorway through which the Upper World could be accessed. The

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pole represented the axis mundi by connecting this doorway to the world of the hereand-now, and by extension to the Underworld. The Milky Way was often seen as a road that souls, including human souls, followed to reach the Upper World that was centered in the circumpolar region (Eliade 1964:260–263; Lankford 2004). Belief in the World Tree/Cosmic Mountain as an axis mundi is not limited to New World groups. South Korean shamans view their nation as the axis mundi for the world, a concept that is tied to a national identity (Kim 2002). The Norse and other Eurasian groups used the concept of the World Tree (known as Yggdrasil among the Norse) as an axis mundi that was central to social and spiritual transformation, and that organized the physical and spirit worlds (Eson 2010). Eliade (1964) provides other examples. As these cases illustrate, both the shamanic universe and the World Tree/Cosmic Mountain continue to influence spiritual views, even among groups that are not exclusively shamanic.

4.3

The Spirits of Nature

For the ancients, however, this universe, with all its spirits and other mystical creatures, was entirely natural. The mysterious or magical was just another element that was part of the environment....In this landscape the shamans were pivotal, and for them the connection between power and the cosmos was entirely obvious—all power was rooted in the natural order.— Archaeologist James L. Pearson (2002:70)

Wind, rain, mountains, springs, jungles, deserts, animals, and plants are part of the Middle World, the Mundane World of the here-and-now where people live their lives. As discussed at length in Chap. 2, traditional, non-Western societies tend to be more animistic than Western societies. There typically is little distinction between the natural and supernatural in daily life, and it is common for plants, animals, landscape features, and weather phenomena to be considered more spiritual than physical (VanPool and Newsome 2012); the spiritual essence is what is real (Harner 1972:134), whereas the physical appearance is simply “clothing,” which in some cases can change day to day or according to context (Viveiros de Castro 1998). These spiritual essences can be individualist and conscious, producing a spirit with ‘personhood’ like the Fiji veli discussed in Chap. 3. They can also be general, not reflecting anything resembling a conscious person with intent. In these cases, which are called animatism as opposed to animism, the spirit may be harnessed for specific purposes, but it does not have intention or personhood. For example, Taylor (1987:241) reports that the Sioux believe in a general, universal power that is reflected throughout nature: They perceived an all-pervading force wakan—the power of the universe—which to them was manifested in the blue of the sky or as Sioux informants told Mooney, in the brilliant colours of the rainbow. There was recognition of the life-giving energy of the mellowed earth with that of the sun and its consort the moon: then there was the terrifying crash and reverberation of the thunder and associated destructive power of the lightning: these together with the wind and hail to name but a few were all viewed as a potential source of power which, if symbolically harnessed, could be used to personal best effect.

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With so many groups around the world with their unique languages and beliefs, we simply cannot create a comprehensive list of nature spirits, but we touch on some common, overarching themes here.

4.3.1

Whirlwinds

When we see a whirlwind coming down the road, raising a vortex of dust, we [Arapaho] get out of the way—it is a dead man’s spirit. If I do not get out of the way, it will take my life.— Army Major General Hugh Lenox Scott (1907:559) in American Anthropologist

Whirlwinds (aka dust devils in the parts of the US where we grew up) are one of the most common spiritually potent manifestations. Christine experienced this firsthand while working northwest of Gallup, New Mexico near Navajo Nation. The Diné (Navajo) recognize dust devils as malevolent ghosts call Chindi (Kluckhon and Leighton 1962:185). When a Diné sees a whirlwind, it is automatically associated with the malevolent aspect of a dead person and the Diné avoid it as best they can. Harm can come to anyone overtaken by it. Here is Christine’s encounter with one of these entities. It was cold, bone chillin’ cold, in northwestern New Mexico in early November 1993. I was working for an archaeological firm that was excavating a Pueblo III site northwest of Gallup. I was paired with a 6’ tall Zuni man who towered over me. He had a wonderful gift of casual conversation and humor. Despite the cold, we shared a lively and jovial conversation during the hard days. Our boss was trying a new excavation approach and needed us to dig in 5 cm levels as opposed to the more typical 10 cm interval. This proved to be impossible for me because the ground was clay saturated in water that was frozen solid. Every morning we would pick and shovel to find that the earth would only come up in 7 cm dirt clods. We were also digging a somewhat deep kiva, a round subterranean pithouse used for religious ceremonies. Getting in and out of the structure was hard, because it was so deep. I would heave my buckets up over my head and dump out the dirt on the ground surface beside the kiva so that it would thaw out in the sun. That was the only way I could get the clay through the screen and find small artifacts. Leaving the bucket on the ground above my head also allowed me to collect several buckets of dirt before my partner or I had to climb up and out of the pit to screen the dirt. That cold day in November started differently than the previous ones that week. It wasn’t blowing a light snow or sleet. It never snowed enough to stop us, only enough to make us wish it had so that we could go back into town and warm up over coffee. I guess because it wasn’t windy or snowy that morning, my partner and I were having a lot more fun than normal. We were joking about a prank we had done a few days earlier. He and some Diné excavators on the site had a great sense of humor. It was a good time despite the difficulties of hacking away at the frozen ground. As we were digging, pieces of small bone keep coming up. Such bones can indicate a burial is nearby but can also reflect refuse that was dumped in the pit after it was abandoned. The bone fragments were too small to tell if they were human or deer. Among some Southwestern groups, especially the Apache and Diné, spirits are believed to remain linked to bones, causing many to avoid the dead out of concern that the spirits might seek the living to join them.

4.3

The Spirits of Nature At some point I look up and there was a dust devil coming over a small hill and heading straight for us. Weird, I thought; dust devils are common in the summertime when it is over eighty degrees, but I’d never seen one on a cold morning. My clipboard with our notes and forms was on the ground beside the buckets outside of the kiva and well beyond arms’ reach. As I attempted to climb up a bucket and out of the pit to grab the paperwork, I fell and sent the bucket flying. I yelled for help, but my partner didn’t react. I looked up to see the dust devil pick up my clipboard a few feet off the ground and slam it down. Luckily, I had an industrial-sized rubber band around the board to hold our notes in place and to keep its fliptop closed. I scrambled to get the bucket back into place as a step stool. The dust devil picked up the clipboard again and this time the clipboard went higher, about 5 feet into the air, and then it slammed down again a few feet to the left of where it had been picked up. “Good! The paperwork is still intact,” I thought to myself. The dust devil retreated a few feet and then came back for the clipboard. I was almost out of the darn hole, but the dust devil took it even higher this time and then slammed the board along the kiva’s rim a few more feet to the left. The dust devil danced back a few feet from the clipboard as I finally scrambled out of the pit. As I gained my feet the dust devil circled forward again and picked up the clipboard for a fourth and final time. This time it carried the clipboard up 20 feet into the air and then smashed it to the ground. It seemed to me that the board was falling faster than gravity would allow. The rubber clipboard bowed like it was hit with a fist as it landed even further to left, just off the rim of the pit. The pages were ripped from it and spun upwards into the funnel. I could not get a hold of a single sheet, but the clipboard remained on the ground. I just stood there watching the dust devil take the papers with him; the papers went so high in the sky that they look like tiny white birds fluttering and flickering as they headed east towards Albuquerque. When I finally turned around to go back to work, I saw that my partner was white with a blank facial expression. I knew that the Diné believed that whirlwinds were Chindi, the malevolent spirits of the dead that wander around looking for their lost loved ones, but I didn’t realize that perhaps the Zunis believed this too. This was not in the ethnographies I’ve read. [I have since learned that the Zuni believe whirlwinds can cause sickness.] I asked my partner if he was ok. He said nothing. I let it go. He left for an early lunch (ca. 10:00 am); it was the last time I ever saw him or the Diné excavators. It was terribly lonely working in that pit the next few days, but I cannot blame them for not coming back. That night after the dust devil hit I worked frantically trying to recreate the paperwork that was lost, but all I could think about was how the dust devil seem to move back and forth to the clipboard and how it became continually more aggressive until with its final assault, the fourth hit, it took our papers. For most Native Americans four is their sacred number. Things always happen on the fourth time. The dust devil had even managed to take our notes from the interior of the clipboard. He seemed to be alive and taunting us as he danced counterclockwise around the kiva. His actions were almost like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Then I thought about all the bones we were picking up. Our field director thought that we were coming down on a burial. The thought of a Chindi coming up as we are going down on a burial gave me a deep chill that night. I wondered if we were going to find something we shouldn’t. We were only able to work for a few more days before a real snowstorm came and stopped the project for a few weeks. During that time, I had another job offer that paid less money, but it was closer to home. I was more than happy to take that job because I felt I had been warned by something that I did not understand. How was that the dust devil seemed so alive? My mind kept thinking it acted both rationally towards a goal (taking the paperwork) but was irrationally aggressive--almost like a person picking up a clipboard and throwing it down for show. As it would turn out this event was an “a-ha” moment. I realized I did not really understand that natural environment as well as I thought. The look on my partner’s face indicated that there was so much at work that I did not understand. My scientific perspective was seriously missing something!

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Years later I heard over drinks at a Society for American Archaeology meeting that the crew came down on a deer burial in that kiva. I also found out from my previous boss that the Diné would not work on her projects for years afterward, despite her efforts to recruit them. She didn’t understand why, until she heard my story.

The quick departure of Zuni and Diné archaeologists is consistent with various ethnographies on the Diné and Apaches (linguistically related groups) that indicate whirlwinds are spiritually powerful and malevolent, so much so that they are dangerous and can cause sickness, perhaps even death (Kluckhohn and Leighton 1962). Christine’s partner’s expression was unlike any she had ever seen before or after. American psychologists note that fear can create anxiety that causes one’s face to go white, “as if you’ve seen a ghost.” He was pale as the blood was shunted away from his face, his expression was hollow as if his face was frozen without wrinkles, and his eyes seemed to be extraordinarily large--like dark mirrors reflecting a storm. Without a doubt he was under duress. He left quickly, quietly, and softly stated he was going to lunch. Christine has often thought he and the Diné archaeologists went immediately to a medicine man/woman for healing from this spirit that invaded their personal space. Based on ethnographic accounts, she suspects that they used tobacco and/or sage smoke to protect and purify them; they also likely fasted and sat in a sweat lodge for a long time while praying. They may have had other rituals conducted over them, such as the sand paintings that both the Zuni and the Diné healers use to guide helpful spirits into the patient. In many modern Western perspectives, a whirlwind is simply a natural event created by differential air temperatures that produce a swirling wind. Of course, Diné and Zuni, like all people, are highly intelligent and we doubt any of them would dismiss differential temperatures as a secondary explanation for whirlwinds, but that is not the point. An ethnosemantics approach allows for the fact there are physical phenomena underlying a whirlwind, but it also includes its spiritual nature within a particular cultural context. Whirlwinds have a physical reality, but the role and associations they have differ based on a culture’s local knowledge. The discomfort in the eyes of Christine’s partner revealed that he and the other Native Americans on the site took this event as something that had to be quickly delt with in accordance with the ethnosemantics frameworks of their cultures. Cross-culturally, their view is quite typical. For example, the Kalmyk of the Kalmykia Republic (previously part of the Soviet Union on the southeastern edge of Europe) recognize whirlwinds have “an old evil spirit sitting in the middle of it” (Terbish 2019). Spitting three times and throwing a sharp object into the whirlwind can let one strike and injure this spirit. The Shoshone of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, the Arapaho and Cheyenne of Colorado and Wyoming, and the Comanche of the Great Plains (e.g., Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas) also identify whirlwinds as dangerous apparitions of dead people (Guiley 2000; Jones 1972; Scott 1907). Jones (1972:71) suggests that the Comanche may have gotten their belief that whirlwinds cause ghost sickness from the Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache who believe it as well. It is worth noting that not all Native Americans believe that whirlwinds are malevolent ghosts. Some of the Plains tribes like the Arikara consider the whirlwind to be a powerful, feminine storm spirit that is dangerous, but not inherently evil

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(Parks 1996). She often brings spiritual gifts and visions to people she considers worthy. Wissler (1905:206) recorded a Blackfoot story in which a woman sees a small boy within a whirlwind. He speaks to her, telling her that while she has had trouble conceiving a child, this will change, and he will soon become her son. She soon finds herself pregnant and does indeed give birth to a boy. A different take comes from the Book of Job in the Ketuvim selection of the Hebrew scripture and the first poetic book in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Here God directly questions Job out of a whirlwind, asking him a series of questions that reinforce the Creator’s power and sovereignty over humanity. The Irish call dust devils “fairy winds”, and although we cannot find an authoritative etymological analysis of the term “dust devil,” the inclusion of “devil” speaks to at least a metaphorical spiritual association in English. Again, a powerful “natural” phenomenon is seen as much more than swirling winds that are created from differential air temperatures. We are not exaggerating when we say we could fill a standalone book with other examples and discussions of the spiritual nature of whirlwinds.

4.3.2

Water, Lightning, Thunder, and Rain

When izulu wishes to have a human, then he (iNkosi Yezulu, the Lord-of-the-Sky) calls his servant. It is the bird. He says to it: ‘Today you are to go to such-and-such a place and fetch so-and-so for me, taking that person from that place and bringing him here.’ So the bird prepares to go from the sky to that place and fetch whomever the iNkosi wants to come there. The bird itself is fearful to see. It cannot be seen lest the one who sees it dies, or has medicines so that he is strong. So the bird hides in the great clouds that are known as the clouds of thunder. When we see these clouds, the ones that are filled with power and come as if they were aiming at a certain place, then we say in our hearts: ‘Who can it be this time? O, that it not be somebody just here nearby!’ We prepare very thoroughly, doing everything so that the bird does not see the place or feel attracted to us. We say in our hearts: ‘Nkulunkulu, let it be somebody other than us whom the sky wants!’ We say this to the shades. We trust them that they will help us in this danger. We say it not knowing what will happen. To be fetched is a fearful thing. We try to prevent this thing happening by doing all those things that we are told must be done. It is a fearful encounter to come before the Lord there in the sky.—Axel-Ivar Berglund (1976) quoting a Zulu (South Africa) elder Ah God, father, take this tobacco. I have paid thee ransom father. Come to earth gently, do not come with fury to thy grass [the thatched roof]. Come gently to thy grass. No one disputes with thee. It is thy universe. It is thy will, thine alone.—A Nuer (northern Africa) prayer recorded by E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1956:53–54) to help prevent lightning and violent storms from killing people

As Zeus, Jupiter, Indra, and Thor can attest, powerful elemental entities such as lightning and its associated thunder, and torrential rains with flash flooding were associated with deities across the world. One such deity is the horned-plumed serpent of the Puebloan American Southwest. The Tewa speaking Pueblo groups call the plumed serpent Awanyu, whereas the Zuni people call him Ko’loowisi. These deities create lightning, can be felt as earthquakes, and can be seen as massive flashfloods in arroyos. (Arroyos are intermittent entrenched streams that are typically

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dry, but are filled with fast-moving streams after heavy rains.) During the summer of 2018 a good friend of ours sent a video of flash flooding of the Arroyo Chamiso near Santa Fe, New Mexico. On July 23 the area had received 3 inches of rain in 45 minutes causing the arroyo to fill with fast moving water. It formed a current that resembled the concertina motion of a snake as it surged down the drainage with the snake’s body moving up and down making large humps of fast-moving water. The video can be found on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5JJCf3 680Q. Like the whirlwind, the undulating water in the arroyo is considered as much spiritual as it is physical in Puebloan cultures. It is both the result of weather and a spiritual essence. Lighting in particular is often associated with punishment from spirit creatures. Awanyu, Ko’loowisi. and the other Southwestern serpent deities often use it to strike down people who have committed spiritual/moral wrongs. It could also cause a field to go barren, thereby punishing the entire community. The San hunters and gatherers of South Africa likewise view lightning as a potent means of punishment. According to Lebzelter and Neuse (1934:100), “The rain obeys the great captain. In a storm the great captain knocks over the trees. If a person says something bad about him, however, punishment is not long in coming. X’u says to the rain: ‘You must now go and kill him.’ And the rain goes and kills the man with lightning.” The Aztec and Maya associated lighting with life-giving rain, and it was often personified as a fire serpent and was typically associated with fertility deities such as Tlaloc (the Aztec rain deity). The Mesoamerican people viewed it as a symbol of fertility and the giver of maize, which was central to life in Ancient Mesoamerica (Miller and Taube 1993:106–107). But its danger could not be denied, and it could strike a person dead. As fearsome as storms are, they are not the only manifestation of water nor the only place where spirits dwell. Among many groups, springs are both the product of and the home to powerful entities. For example, the Lepcha, a tribal people of India, believe there is a class of semi-divine spirit creatures called Lungzee that live in springs, as well as in caves, clusters of trees, or other natural objects (Foning 1987:56). These spirits are considered benevolent neighbors who “give us a sort of motherly protection” (Foning 1987:56). In turn, people treat them with respect, ideally refusing to defecate or engage in sexual activity near the spring or site. Too much human interference and especially human disrespect will cause the Lungzee to leave a place, which in turn may cause that location to be destroyed by an event such as a landslide. Returning to the American Southwest, the Hopi used springs as shrines and openings to the watery underworld. They would deposit rain and fertility offerings in the primary spring used by a village as well as other springs across the landscape (Bradfield 1973:172–73). Sometimes, though, the spring itself was viewed as the spirit. Beaglehole and Beaglehole (1937:29–31) describe the process by which an important spring was cleaned and maintained annually during a village-wide ceremony by one of the Hopi villages. Around 7:00 AM of the appointed day, a village crier went through the village rousing everyone and urging the women and girls to begin to prepare food. At 11:00 AM, the men gathered at the spring. Village elders and members of the Water clan, who have a special relationship and responsibility

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for water and rain, smoked tobacco and prayed over offerings that were to be given to the spring. While they were doing this, able young men dug out the mud that accumulated in the spring over the past year. Left unchecked, the muck would eventually fill the spring. They formed a line passing pots filled with mud to deposit it some distance away from the spring. Once the spring was cleaned, the head of the Water clan put two prayer sticks (ritual offerings made of wood, bird feathers, and other materials) on the spring’s north wall. He and others then recited prayers for rain and the health of the spring. Offerings were then placed at the bottom of the spring in pots to help strengthen it. Additional prayer sticks and ground corn meal were spread to the north and east of the spring, and the men returned to the village. There they purified themselves using a smoking sprig of juniper, and then joined with the women in a community-wide feast. As this example illustrates, it is not really possible to distinguish between the spring as a natural phenomenon and as a spirit phenomenon, and its spiritual potency is contingent on the support of and interaction with other spiritual entities including humans, who have a symbiotic relationship with it.

4.3.3

Caves

Finally, the soul of the novice priest-shaman reaches the abode of the Mother of the Forest. He beholds an enormous petrified tree trunk, its left side covered with thorns and its right with leaves. There is an entrance to a cave that leads into the mountain, but [to enter it] he has to step through a rapidly opening and shutting door. Jumping through, he finds himself inside a cavern and in the presence of an enormous anaconda with four multi-colored horns on its head. At their bases these horns are blue; the tips of the right pair are red and those of the left yellow. The horns are bent forward and threaten the soul of the young man, who beholds a fiery-red, luminous ball on the tip of the reptile's tongue that moves in and out of the mouth to the rhythm of the opening and shutting doors at the entrance to the cave.— Anthropologist Johannes Wilbert (1975:171) recounting the path Warao (from Venezuela) novices take to become Priest-Shamans

Anyone who has read a Hardy Boys novel or visited an impressive landmark like Carlsbad Caverns (a US National Park in New Mexico that is one of the world’s most extraordinary show caves) will attest to the wonder and mystery of caves. In many ways, caves are of singular importance to the study of spirits. They are the archetypical place of transformation, both between the Middle World and Underworld but also in terms of psychological transformations of the living and the transition from life to death. Some of the earliest indisputable examples of religious behavior archaeologists have discovered are derived from Upper Paleolithic occupations of caves such as Lascaux, France (Clottes et al. 1998). There, shamanic imagery dating from 17,000 years ago or so was painted on walls deep within the cave system and far beyond the area that humans could reasonably and comfortably use in daily life; there is no natural lighting, and poor ventilation would have made burning a fire or lamp continuously deep in these chambers impractical.

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As has been noted in several previous examples, caves are often locations of special spiritual significance. They may be the homes of spiritually powerful entities. Arnakapfaaluk (Sea Goddess/The Big Bad Woman), who is the chief deity of the Inuit of Alaska, lives in a cave at the bottom of the sea (Damas 1972:39; Rasmussen 1979[1929]). She controls sea mammals and the sea, and influences Hila Inua, which is the deity that controls the air. Improper behavior that angers Arnakapfaaluk (including cooking land mammals and sea mammals in the same pot at the same time) will cause her to withhold her creatures from the hunter and/or to convince Hila Inua to send harsh weather that can hamper hunting and otherwise hurt people. Knud Rasmussen (1979), the “father of Eskimology,” recorded an account of a shaman’s journey to the cave of Takánakapsâluk (another name for Arnakapfaaluk). During trance, the shaman and his helper spirits glided down a tube to the bottom of the sea. Once there, the shaman went between three large stones that could crush him if he was careless. After passing through them, he found himself at the entrance of Takánakapsâluk’s inner chamber. Once he entered, he found that she was “dirty with mankind’s impurities” (Rasmussen 1979[1929]:310). According to Rasmussen (1979:310), . . . he must grasp Takánakapsâluk’s shoulder and turn her face towards the lamp and towards the animals, and stroke her hair, the hair she has been unable to comb out herself, because she has no fingers; and he must smooth it and comb it. . .

By combing her hair, the shaman calmed her and was able to learn what sins of humans had made her angry and dirty. He helped her clean herself, he appeased her anger, and when she was content, she released the animal spirits again. Once released the animal spirits rose in a whirlpool to the surface. With their release, there would again be plentiful game animals (see also Benedict 1923:18). The shaman’s spirit then returned to the surface, where the shaman subsequently conducted rituals calling out those that had broken taboos that had offended Takánakapsâluk. Through the course of the ritual all the sins were forgiven (Rasmussen 1979[1929]). Shifting from the Arctic, caves throughout North America and Mesoamerica can also act as axis mundi. In the North American Southwest, they are often the places where humans entered the Mundane World from the Underworld. We previously mentioned Sipapu of Hopi, but the Zuni of New Mexico likewise connect caves with human emergence from the underworld. Bunzel (1992[1932):478) reports that, “Within the earth are the four enclosed caves which the people occupied before coming out into this world—the four wombs of earth mother.” Caves continue to be the homes of “yellow, blue, red, and white Ko’loowisi four giant feathered serpents that are capable of causing world floods” as well as gentle rains (Tedlock 1979:478; see also Bunzel 1992; Cushing 1883). These serpents control the flow of water in the form of springs, rivers, clouds, and rain, and travel through underground passages of seeps, springs, and ponds that connect the surface to the water of the Underworld (Cushing 1883:17; Tedlock 1979:499). The Popol Vuh (the Maya sacred text) described caves as portals to the Underworld through which people can access the beings who live there (Tedlock

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1996:106–108). Both the Aztec and Maya of Mesoamerica believed that water, even in the form of rain, came from the Underworld through caves, which are symbolically related to the womb of the earth mother (Aguilar et al. 2005:69; Heyden 1981, 2005). For example, Tlaloc, the previously mentioned Aztec deity of rain and lightning, resides in watery caves within high mountains (Heyden 2005). Heyden (2005:22; citing Gossen 1979[1972]:136–137) also reports, “Caves are important in Chamula cosmovision; the earth is laced with caves that eventually reach its edges, and the earth lords live in mountain caves, where they control ‘all forms of precipitation, including accompanying clouds, lightning and thunder’.” Likewise, caves are represented as opened-mouthed serpents during the Postclassic period in Central Mexico, and the convoluted passageways are perceived as the entrails of the snake (Miller and Taube 1993:56). The modern Maya people continue to think of the earth as an animated being typically personified as “Earth Lord” or, in their language, Tzuultaq’a (Brady and Ashmore 1999:126; Prufer 2002:88). Maya people consider caves to have their own spirits (personhood); they are very much sentient beings (Prufer 2002). As axis mundi, cave symbolism is used to signify and empower shamans who can use them to access the underworld and the water and spirits contained therein. Caves are also frequently the abode of both the physical remains and spirit of the dead, especially honored ancestors. For example, among the Shona, an agricultural people of southern Africa, mountains are symbols of God’s power and permanence (Aschwanden and Cooper 1987:251). They are therefore closer to God than other parts of the earth. The Shona also view caves as uteruses although caves are also associated with males because they provide protection and safety to people in the same way that men are supposed to protect their families. Burial places within caves play off of and add to this symbolism. The grave itself becomes a second uterus, further emphasizing the cave’s role as a uterus and allowing the dead to be ‘reborn’ as active ancestor spirits. These ancestoral spirits become permanent and protective in the same way that the mountain and cave themselves are. From the cave, these ancestors can then watch over the living to provide protection and aid. Ultimately, then, caves are considered a spiritual phenomenon with complex layers of meanings. They may be used for shelter and even habitation locations, but they are often the focus of ritual completed by trained ritual specialists who can go to these places to interact with powerful entities to request blessings, rains, or even to call upon the malevolent aspects of lightning (Heyden 2005; Ortiz 1969).

4.3.4

Plant Spirits

Munro states that Shiramba Kamui is the god of vegetation and that all vegetation derives ramat (spirit or soul) from him. Trees have ramat, thus wood also has ramat. Some kinds of wood have more spiritual power than others, hence are more sacred, and are especially valuable for certain purposes. . .According to Mr. Watanabe, the sacred objects made of vegetable matter derive their virtue from the spirit of the individual plant from which they

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are made, not from Shiramba Kamui.—Neil Munro et al. (1963: xvi) discussing the beliefs of the Ainu, a hunting and gathering group from Japan

Throughout indigenous North America and Eurasia, “animals are believed to have essentially the same sort of animating agency [i.e., spirit] which man possesses. They have a language of their own, can understand what human beings say and do, have forms of social or tribal organization, and live a life which is parallel in other respects to that of human societies” (Hallowell 1926:7). Goodman (1990) found that animal spirits often appear in ecstatic trances, and frequently serve as shamans’ helper spirits. Bear for example is considered one of the most powerful animal spirits in many traditional societies and could be called to help in healing rituals (Hallowell 1926; Parsons 1996; Rasmussen 1979). Plant spirits are likewise important, especially when they were associated with entheogens or medicinal plants. We are going to hold off on talking about animal spirits until Chap. 5, where we discuss their importance as healing spirits, but we will briefly explore the role plant spirits play in traditional societies. Our previous discussions of entheogens have already covered much of the spiritual significance of plants, but we want to take a moment to consider plants, themselves, as spirit entities. Plant spirits are often linked to teaching and healing/ sickness. They can transform the human, both spiritually and physically. Plants as entheogens obviously have a strong association with shamans, with some shamans identifying themselves specifically as plant specialists. Plants are teachers that guide Peruvian vegetalistas to identify diseases and deal with other spirits (Campos 2011). The vegetalistas are famous for their use of ayahuasca, which is a tea brewed from two plants (Banisteriopsis spp. and Anadenanthera spp.). Ayahuasca produces vivid, brightly colored hallucinations with complex designs. Often during ayahuasca visions, the plant spirit itself became visible to instruct and communicate with the shaman, who often transforms into a puma-based anthropomorph in the vision (Campos 2011). Ayahuasca is sometime called the Plant Mother. She can be seen as a large, green vined wrapped woman. However, not all of the spirits associated with entheogens are considered particularly benign or uniformly helpful. For example, while datura is a common entheogen used by many groups around the world, it has a dubious reputation. Every part of the plant from the seed pods to the roots contains a powerful, extremely dangerous mix of alkaloids (including scopolamine, hyoscyamine, and andatropine) that cause hallucinations when consumed in small quantities and permanent brain damage and potentially death if consumed in larger quantities (Bye 1986; Claus et al. 1970). Like tobacco and peyote, datura has been used to initiate shamanic visions, but these visions are often violent or otherwise disturbing (Boyd 2003; Claus et al. 1970:232, 235, 239; Huckell and VanPool 2006; Schultes et al. 2001). The frightening visions and its intense physiological impact cause those who ingest datura to be, “Hot as a hare, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, red as a beet, and mad as a hatter” (Clancy and Klein-Schwartz 2001:911). As a result, it is typically used under strictly controlled circumstances. Examples of its use include the Historic Zuni, Hopi, and Diné who used it for divination (Schultes et al. 2001:110; Schultes and von Thenen

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de Jaramillo-Arango 1998:110; Yarnell 1959). The Canelos of the Andes likewise use it for divination and viewed its spirit as “a little white man in black clothes, who arrives to cure the evils he has inflicted ‘smoking a big cigar’” (Karsten 1935:391). Canelos and other South American witches also invoked its power (Karsten 1935). Among the Mapuche of the central Andes, mild datura mixtures might be given to disobedient children “to mildly narcotize them, in which state they were lectured” (translated from Spanish from Gusinde 1936:855). Perhaps because of its memory loss and analgesic effects, it is also commonly used for surgeries and difficult deliveries (e.g., the historic Zuni of the American Southwest used it to render women unconscious for surgeries [Stevenson 1985:41]; the historic Alepúe of the Andes used it to reduce labor pains [Hilger 1957:14]). No doubt some plants, especially ones with psychoactive alkaloids like ayahuasca and datura, lend themselves to the notion of having spiritual essences, but many people across the globe report that non-psychoactive plants also have spirits. One such example comes from the Americas in which maize (corn) is considered a significant spiritual entity. Throughout Mesoamerica and North America, maize symbolizes life and productivity. Before European contact, many agricultural groups believed that maize was a gift from the gods with a close metaphorical relationship with humans (Evans 2004); maize was to the plant world what humans were to the animal world and both were linked to each other such that in a meaningful sense maize was human and humans were a form of maize. During the late Classic period in the Maya region, we find murals (e.g., those from Cacaxtala and Tlaxala) that show human heads sprouting from corn stalks as if they were corncobs. The Hopi of Arizona likewise view themselves as linked, “to corn both materially and spiritually. Materially, the Hopi perceive their bodies to be like stalks of corn, ephemeral and transitory. Indeed, the Hopi word qatangwu refers to both a human corpse and a harvested corn plant. That which endures is the spiritual substance (breath, moisture) that constitutes all life and all forms and hence unifies all of creation” (Loftin 2003:31). Among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), maize is one third of the Three Sisters (maize, beans, and squash) that were the central crops that people traditionally ate. These three plants are considered spirit persons that exists in the Sky World (the Haudenosaunee Upper World) and in this world. Each sister has its own distinct personality (Blanchard 1982:220). Tobacco (Nicotiana spp.) I know a story that relates to Waunaboozhoo [the first man] and when in the beginning the Creator told Waynaboozhoo that we wouldn’t be able to communicate directly with the Creator. And so he gave Waynaboozhoo a seed to plant the kinnikinnick [a form of tobacco], which is the red willow. And he said to go and tell the Anishinabe people to plant the seed and that is where they would get the kinnikinnick. Then that is the way we would talk to the Creator. That is the way we communicate with him by smoking our pipes and whatever message we had to convey to the Creator, that the smoke would relay that message. . .Also, the Creator said that when we come into this world we have nothing. We come naked and we have nothing to offer. So that is why he gave Waynaboozhoo that seed to give to the Anishinabe people for that offering.—An Anishinabe (Ojibwe) elder quoted in Struthers and Hodge (2004:215)

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Tobacco (Nicotiana spp.) was, and still is, one of the most important entheogens found in the Americas. Most Native North Americans, however, do not use it for its psychotropic properties (Lyon 2012; Winter 2000a). Tobacco is given as a sacrifice, as a prayer, as a thanksgiving, as a good-will offering, and consumed as a sacrament. Historically North American Indians smoked it in pipes to forge friendships, at the start of war, and to seal peace treaties. Throughout the Americas tobacco is central to the spiritual relationships between humans and deities, ancestors, and other spirits. It continues to be used even in groups that use other entheogens such as ayahuasca (e.g., Karsten 1935). von Gernet (1995:74) notes that, “Like many other plants, tobacco was believed to be an animate leaf having a soul.” As such, its own unique spirit is powerful, and can be accessed by consuming tobacco using various methods. Smoking is the most common, and, as von Gernet (1995:74) observes, inhaling the smoke “may have been perceived as the ingestion of a metaphysical rather than physical substance.” We discuss this further in Chap. 6, but tobacco is frequently used to protect and purify people, plants, animals, places, and objects by warding off dangerous spirits and witches, as well as physical threats such as insects (Blanton 2015; Brown 1997:474; Paper 1988; Robicsek 1978; VanPool 2003; von Gernet 2000; Whitley 2001:133; Wilbert 1987; Wilson and Restoule 2010; Winter 2000c:308). As reflected in the opening quote above, it also has a special role as “the primary means of communicating with the spirit world” in many ethnosemantics frameworks (emphasis in original, Blanton 2015:15; see also Paper 1988:3, 54; Robicsek 1978; VanPool 2003; Von Gernet 2000:72-74; Whitley 2001:133; Wilbert 1987; Wilson and Restoule 2010; Winter 2000c:308). It is consequently critically integrated to so many Native American ceremonies that it is said, “Tobacco is the only thing that even the spirits are addicted too” (Phillips 2016:208). The significance of tobacco makes its animacy complicated and powerful. As a tool for healing, protection, offerings, and ceremonial performance, its meaning has been contingent on what it does in a particular context. Thus, spiritual specialists and others may use tobacco to purify and unify themselves (e.g., ritual purification before spiritual activities), to attract spirits and mark the beginning of spirit-human interactions (e.g., at the start of ceremonial activities), to purify patients or others that need spiritual aid, to bless and purify a location, and as a gift of thanksgiving to the spirits. As a result, anthropologists and others have tended to think of tobacco as a ritual tool, which it is (Lyon 2012). However, it is also a spiritual entity itself. For example, our colleague Joseph Winter worked extensively with Native Americans and tobacco as the director of the Native American Plant Cooperative, which helped Native Americans obtain tobacco seeds. In the preface of his book Tobacco Use by Native North Americans: Sacred Smoke and Silent Killer, he recounts a discussion he had with a Diné friend while walking a dusty trail in Chaco Wash, northwestern New Mexico. When they came across 40 to 50 plants of mountain tobacco (Nicotiana attenuata), his friend told him: Every year they reappear from new seeds, to give me power. They are diyin—holy people— holy spirits, like ye’ii, with great medicine. And they are very dangerous. You have to use them with respect, as prayers and offerings, so they’ll reward you (Winter 2000a:xv).

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In many New World ethnosemantics frameworks, tobacco is one of the first things created, at least from the viewpoint of humans, and is generally given as a special gift to humans by the Creator or another powerful deity. This is reflected in the story quoted above, in which Waunaboozhoo (the first man of the Anishinabe) is given tobacco from the Creator. The Kickappo (Great Lakes Region of North America) recount that tobacco started as a piece of Kitzihiat’s (the Creator’s) heart (Winter 2000b:19). Lowie (1963[1935]:274) recorded the following Absaroka (Crow of Montana and Wyoming) origin story about of tobacco: In the Medicine-crow’s version of the Creation story, the Creator, or Transformer, walks about the newly-shaped earth with his companions and catches sight of a person. “Look, yonder. . .That is one of the Stars above. He is down here now and standing on the ground. Come on, let us look at him.” As they approach, the being has transformed himself into a plant, the Tobacco; “no other plant was growing yet.”

The Crow are not the only ones that associated the origins of tobacco with the stars. According to Mendieta, the Aztecs considered tobacco to be the embodiment of Cihuacoatl, an aspect of Ilamatecuhtlim, the great goddess of the Milky Way. In the early 17th c. treatise of Ruíz de Alarcón, tobacco was said to have been born of the Star-Skirted One, that is, the Milky Way (Miller and Taube 1993:169).

Its potency as an entheogen and central role in many Native American ritual systems caused the Spanish and other colonial powers to be suspicious of tobacco, even as they began to cultivate and use it themselves. Narby and Huxley (2001:11) report that during the early 16th century, the Spanish navigator and historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo described the practice of “old men using tobacco to communicate with spirits” among the indigenous inhabitants of Haiti and the Dominican Republic as “Devil Worship.” It seems to us that this negative association and distrust of tobacco has continued into the present day, and is reflected in the heavy regulation of tobacco (e.g., it is no accident that tobacco was singled out as a particularly dangerous threat and was consequently heavily regulated by state and local laws prior to and during the early history of the United States even as its economic importance as a cash crop grew) as well the continual fight many Native American nations have had to retain legal access to the native tobaccos central to their ceremonial structures.

4.4

The Spirit of Things

Most animals, plants, and minerals belong in this class of latent object-persons where their animacy depends on their mutable relationships with humans or other persons. In Algonquian ontology, natural objects may or may not have the will to manifest themselves as persons; this uncertainty has profound effects upon people’s behavior toward nature and ability to move about the landscape freely (Black 1977). A bird, a piece of obsidian, or the branch of a willow tree, for example, are resources that have the potential for fulfilling various roles and affecting surrounding objects and people in different ways once they are “awakened” by paint, songs, or prayers, which bring forth their latent animacy. The act of awakening or transferring power by association with certain objects is often overlooked in

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conventional interpretations of archaeological assemblages.—Anthropologist María Zedeño (2008:375)

As archaeologists, we can attest to the fact that humans everywhere make lots of things. We can call these things “artifacts” and “features,” or perhaps talk about “the built environment” such as our modern houses arranged in towns and cities. In the modern world, the “things” humans build are often more significant to their daily lives than are external environmental factors including the surrounding weather, topography, and ecology. The hottest days can be made bearable with air conditioning. The most inhospitable landscapes can be crossed using cars running on welldeveloped roads. And most of us can still get fresh fruit even in the dead of winter. Our buildings, roads, and electrical grides not only alter the natural environment, they shield us from it. In contrast, many cultures around the world and certainly all past cultures had closer relationships with the changing seasons, the daily fluctuations of weather, the ways that rivers or ridges can form nearly impossible obstacles for travel, and even the beauty of the cloudless night skies. In these societies objects made by the hands of humans or in some instances the gods animated and impacted people’s lives. Here we explore the spiritual importance and use of such items.

4.4.1

Noisemakers

As soon as [the Altai shaman] hit [the drum] with a forceful blow into the middle [it became alive]. . . Indeed, the drum symbolized the animal whose skin had been used [in its construction], and who became the permanent animal the shaman rode [during trance]. — Ethnographer Leonid P. Potapov (1999:28) I saw the rattle in my hand turn into a hard-working plump middle-aged lady, busily bending up and down, “doing her thing,” her short skirt flying. It was such a curious experience, I mentioned at breakfast afterward that the rattle had turned into “my aunt,” and “aunt” it remained from then on, everybody referring to it that way. —Anthropologist Felicitas D. Goodman (1990:44) describing how she witnessed her rattle transforming into a person

Sound is often central to religious activity. The deep tones of pipe organs in Catholic cathedrals, the rattling of shell tinklers attached to the feet of dancing kachina in pueblos in the American Southwest, and the ritual crying of Dani women in Papua New Guinea are only a few examples. Yet in many cultures the instrument itself can be animated by important spirits that partner with the religious specialist. One of the most important items many shamans own is a drum, a rattle, and/or other “noisemakers” that are often used as “sonic drivers” to induce ASC (Harner 1990:67). Potapov (1999) discusses the Altai drums that were made by hunter and gatherers in the Altai Mountains of Russia. This is one of Christine’s students’ favorite articles, because they find the role of the drum as a portable church fascinating. According to Potapov (1999), the drum is central to the shamans’ work. Its use begins with the shaman finding the drum’s unique animating spirit. Initially, a senior shaman makes a drum for a novice shaman with the help of other spirits using animal skin, wood,

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and metal. After the drum is constructed, the novice shaman will then “find” the soul of the drum as he strikes the drum’s center. Once the drum is animated, it can gather and house the spirit helpers of the shaman, providing these spirits with shelter and giving the shaman ready access to them as needed. The drum also contains the shaman’s spirit double that is the part of him that travels through the cosmos during trance (Potapov 1999:25). During the shaman’s spirit journeys, he collects lost souls and places them in the drum. After returning to this world, he returns the lost souls to their rightful owners. The drum also protects the shaman; the metal inside the drum is not physically touched but during ASC it transforms into a bow string that can be used to shoot at dangerous spirits. Historically the drums were painted with an Altai’s version of the shamanic universe complete with the Upper World, Middle World, and Underworld. Each realm was depicted with defining characteristics to create a map of sorts (e.g., the Upper World was depicted with stars in their proper placement relative to each other). These designs formed a map to help the shaman navigate these realms, allowing the drum to carry the shaman and the other spirits through the cosmos. Thus, Altai drums were living beings that housed spirits and functioned simultaneously as protector (e.g., as a bow), as a church (a location that called to and housed spirits), and like “Google maps” in that it actively helped navigate the complex spirit world (as opposed to a map that just passively shows the layout of features relative to each other). Shamans’ rattles are often living beings too. Goodman’s (1990) experience with her “aunt” described above is but one example of a larger pattern. For example, the Warao shamans of Venezuela rely on their rattles as spirit helpers. The making of their rattles was a deeply sacred process (Halifax 1979:28). First the shaman would carefully select a gourd that would become the main part of the rattle. He would cut four mouth slits into the gourd, and sometimes the mouths were notched to look like teeth. “Then small quartz crystals, each one an ancestral spirit, are consecrated and, one by one, placed inside the belly of the gourd. The shaman refers to these tiny crystals as his family, for they will assist him in his ministration of the sick” (Halifax 1979:28). The spirit of the rattle was essential to the shaman’s success. Similarly animated noisemakers are common for shamans around the world, but are seemingly quite rare among priests. Although there are exceptions, in cases in which noisemakers have spiritual power for priests they rarely are seen as having spirits themselves. They are instead the instrument(s) that focus spirit power derived elsewhere (e.g., the trumpets that brought down the walls of Jericho during the Israelites’ conquest of the Holy Land). An exception is the conch shell trumpets used by Hopi and Zuni priests to represent the voice of horned-plumed serpents. In these cases, “The Great Shell is a spirit being who becomes animated once the shell is blown” (Mills and Ferguson 2008:343). Such cases of animated instruments among priestly religions are rare compared to the nearly universal trend of considering noisemakers used in shamanic ceremonies as having animating (individual) spirits.

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4.4.2

Spirits in the World

Bundles

[The Sacred Bundle] is a bundle containing one or more charms, amulets or fetishes, often a collection, embracing objects of all these classes, together with paints, offerings and ceremonial paraphernalia. Many of these bundles, regarded with the greatest respect and even fear, are thought to have a consciousness of their own, to understand what is said to them, and to enjoy offerings. In such cases, we have a collection of various kinds of ‘powerful’ objects regarded, in its entirety, as a fetish. This is almost invariably the case with the important bundles connected with the religious rites of the influential societies, the clans or the whole tribe; the war bundles and others of general public interest. In a lesser degree, the same idea appears regarding some of the bundles of more or less personal use, such as those for hunting, love, friendship, healing the sick, preserving the health, athletic sports, gambling and witchcraft, and the general bundles, combining two or more of these functions. . .While frequently held by shamans, this was not the invariable rule, for a very large number of these bundles were in the hands of private individuals.—Anthropologist Mark Harrington (1914:128) in discussion of Fox bundles

Sometimes the sum is greater than the parts. That is certainly true of sacred bundles, a collection of ritually powerful objects that gain even greater potency when placed together. Their partnership produces something new—a sacred bundle that can be used in a variety of contexts and has power beyond just that latent in the individual objects themselves. María Nieves Zedeño, a professor at the University of Arizona, is one of the best academic anthropologists working on animate objects and ritual bundles. She has published extensively on the Plains Indians of North America, who frequently use bundles. Zedeño (2008) calls these ritual bundles “object-persons,” which, like humans, are individuals with all their uniqueness and individual volition. According to Zedeño (2008:367), “Humans engage the cosmos through visions and dreams in order to tap into the power inherent to object-persons and acquire vital knowledge that will open up the possibility of a higher plane of existence.” Her meaning rests on the realization that even within an animistic framework like that of most Plains groups, not every rock or plant has a strong spiritual essence. Sometimes a rock is just a rock. However, humans can enliven and heighten an object’s spiritual potency through songs and other activities. Once the object is awake, it, along with other objects in a bundle, can be used for appropriate rituals. The objects in the bundle work together as a collective, although each item has its own role. Red paint enlivens the spirit of the bundle and is used for healing and protection. Sacred tobacco mediates between humans, object-persons, and spirits (Zedeño 2008: 372). Other animate objects can reflect their natural, inherent qualities, sometimes embodying their geographic origins, their natural associations with other plants or animals, or some aspect of their tribal people. For example, each stone pipe within Blackfoot sacred bundles has its own story and biography, which gives them their own personalities and association, although Zedeño (2008:372) notes with perhaps some wry humor, “but they are all the same—a riddle.”

4.4

The Spirit of Things

4.4.3

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The Spirit of the House

[Our] hogans serve as homes for human beings as well as beneficent spirits. . .Some make analogies that their Hogan is like the womb of a mother. It is within this womb of Mother Earth that Navajo women create a nurturing environment for the upbringing of children. The roundness of the Hogan is likened to the protruding tummy of an expectant woman. The circularity of the Hogan is congruous with the soft lines of the woman. The parallel logs are like intertwined fingers protecting and encircling a nurturing space within the universe.” — Diné writer Lillie Lane (1999:42)

One of the questions that Roy asked so long ago when we first started watching paranormal shows on television was, “How could a house be ‘alive’ and why would it want to hurt the people living there?” Christine told him that a lot of groups around the world considered their homes to be living beings, and often take special steps to bring them to life and keep them happy. Parsons (1996[139]:198), for example, in her expansive examination of Puebloan religions noted that houses “are alive and sentient” among the Pueblos. Beaglehole and Beaglehole (1937:58; see also Mindeleff 1891:100–103) recounted that the Hopi of Arizona performed various dedicatory rites and rituals during and after the construction of the house to ensure that its spirit will guard against evil. These rituals included blessing the foundation of a house under construction by walking around it counterclockwise while spreading crumbled wafer bread, tobacco, and cornmeal, and burying a prayer stick and piece of cactus at the four corners of the house. The male head of the family then offered a prayer to the sun at the first corner counterclockwise from the door, a prayer for corn and agricultural fertility at the second corner, a prayer for rain at the third, and a prayer for those who will live in the home at the fourth. These prayers were designed to ensure that the house has “roots so that it will stand solid and strong,” and make the occupants fertile and happy (Beaglehole and Beaglehole 1937:58). The house’s spirit then was renewed by placing new prayer sticks in the house’s rafters during each winter solstice. The Hopi and other Pueblos are not the only ones who have sentient houses in the US Southwest. The Diné hooghan (a.k.a. hogan) are semi-subterranean structures that are considered “other-than-human persons” created during the Blessingway ceremony. With the active participation of Diné deities and other spirits, hooghans mediate the social relationships among humans and directly reflect the structure of the Diné universe (which is itself conceived of as a giant hooghan), and share “blessings and a reciprocal relationship with the Diné who share his/her space” (Webster 2010:9). As such, they “have rational faculties, will, voice, desires, and needs held in common with human persons” (Webster 2010:126). The internal features of the hooghans are directly formed to reflect star alignments and important deities (e.g., Corn Plant Woman, Mountain Woman). The creation, use, and maintenance of these features of the living hooghan are one of the primary means through which humans enter into “intentional, interpersonal, and interdependent” relations with these beings (Webster 2010:142–43). Although hooghans are a useful house form in the Southwestern environment, their social significance can only be understood based on their spiritual essence and role. As ‘house-persons,’ they are at the

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center of human action, which is why Diné communities continue to include hooghans even when Western-style houses are also used. Diné that care for their hooghans (and the social relationships of those that lived within it) will typically be protected by and rewarded by the house, but if a hooghan becomes unhappy because of neglect and wrongdoing, it might punish the people who live there. The loss of the hooghan in some contexts (e.g., off-reservation residence) is even conceptually linked to increased social discord and a loss of a spiritual connection with Diné religion and spirits (Webster 2010). As both the Puebloan and Diné examples show, the importance of the house and other structures in people’s daily lives make their spirits one of the most significant in a group’s local knowledge. The above Southwestern examples stand in contrast to ‘the haunted house’ familiar to Western audiences. Haunted houses are typically haunted by an attached spirit, whether it be a ghost, demon, or something else, as opposed to the house having a spirit itself. Put another way, the concept of the haunted house effectively treats the house as an empty vessel that is filled with one or more spirits in addition to humans; ghosts are what cause the floors to creak, poltergeists cause the pictures to fall, or demons cause the chandeliers to swing. In the cases above, though, the house itself has a spirit, such that humans are actively living within a larger spiritual vessel that can help protect them or, if mistreated, retaliate against them.

4.4.4

Miscellaneous Objects

The belief that animal spirits or natural phenomenon are sources of shamanic powers is widespread through North America. Among the Salish tribes of interior British Columbia only a few shamans inherit their relative’s guardian spirits. Almost all animals can become spirits, so can a large number of objects—anything that has any relation to death (e.g., graves, bones, teeth, etc.) and any natural phenomenon (blue sky, east, west, etc.). But here, as in many cases, we touch upon a magico-religious experience that extends beyond the sphere of shamanism; for warriors too, have their guardian spirits, in their armor and in wild beasts, hunters collect guardian spirts from the water, the mountians, the animals they hunt and so on.—Historian of Religion Mircea Eliade (1964:104)

The idea that certain objects have special spiritual associations is universal. From the holy relics common in state-level religions (e.g., the Arc of the Covenant of the ancient Hebrews) to ceremonially significant paraphernalia (e.g., holy water/oil in many Christian sects) to folk magic charms like the rabbit’s foot and horseshoes hung over entryways, these sorts of objects are well known and often quite common in most cultures. The Nunamuit in the Arctic for example view nearly every object as having its own independent spirit that gives it its power and significance, and that, “without a spirit, an object might still occupy space and have weight, but it would have no meaning and no real existence” (Vitebsky 2001:18). Such perspectives are especially common in the animistic frameworks of most Native Americans groups, who often hold that an object’s spirit is more central to its use and importance than its physical characteristics (Freidel et al. 1993:247; Hallowell 1960; Zedeño 2008). These essences may even be intentionally activated by human action (as seen above

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with living houses) (VanPool and VanPool 2021; Zedeño 2008). In these cases, the spirit and the object are one and the same, that is, they become inseparable. For example, there is a complex relationship among humans, clay, and pottery that results in the creation of new, spirit beings during the creation of pottery in some New World cultures. Rina Swentzell (1997:203), of the Tewa pueblo Kha'po Owingeh (previously called Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico), writes that clay is so much a part of the Tewa that the Tewa word nung is “used for both earth (clay) and us (people).” Swentzell (1997:203) further equates her famous artist daughter, Roxanne Swentzell, with the pottery vessels that Roxanne makes, stating "I have a daughter who is a clay person out of whom other clay people emerge." The metaphorical and spiritual link indicated by the Tewa speakers using the same word for clay, people, and pots reflects that all three are considered “persons” (i.e., they have spirits) and that the potter, the clay, and the pot are linked within the same semantics and epistemological category (i.e., they are linked in an ethnosemantics framework based on their shared spirits). From start to finish Pueblo pottery making is as much a spiritual activity as it is a physical one. Pottery starts as clay, which is a gift from Mother Earth, and like all of her gifts, is sacred. Even the simple act of collecting clay is imbued with sacred and ritual knowledge that occurs between the potter and the earth, both of which are animated by spirits. Traditional potters pray before collecting the clay from the clay source. As part of this process, they make an offering of cornmeal, one of the most spiritually significant gifts Pueblo people possess (Silko 1996:265). They then ask permission from Mother Earth to take part of her body to use for pottery to support themselves and their children (Trimble 2004:10). The potter acknowledges the Mother's spirit, thanking her for the gift of her skin (Trimble 2004:10). Clay by its nature is difficult to shape. When making a pot, Pueblo potters have to work closely with clay because it has its own will (Trimble 2004). Rose Naranjo says, “The clay is very selfish. It will form itself to what the clay wants to be. The clay says, 'I want to be this, not what you want me to be.' The clay forms itself, but if the potter has 'a good intention', is 'one with the clay,' the pot will please both the clay and the shaper. It will be an extension of the potter's spirit” (Trimble 2004:13). Thus, the potter must actively work with the spirit of the clay to form the unfired vessel. Even before a Puebloan vessel is fired, a formed pot is considered a new “person” with its own spirit (Houlihan 1980:3), but firing it alters the pot's spirit further, making it a fully formed Made Being. According to Rina Swentzell, these pots are alive, “because they breathe the breath of the universe” (Brody and Swentzell 1996:20). Breath is “the creative life force that expresses itself in humans, plants, wind, and water” (Brody and Swentzell 1996:20). A pot gains its “voice” during firing. Cushing (1886:510) reports that the noise made by a vessel when struck or when simmering on the fire is its own, personal voice. The clang of a pot when it breaks or suddenly cracks from thermal stress is the cry of this spirit as it separates from the vessel. Evidence that the spirit has left comes from the fact that the vessel does not produce the clear, crisp ‘ringing’ sound when tapped as it did before it cracked. Pottery thus lives and dies like people. As a result, breaking a pot is more

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than rendering it unusable. It is instead the death of a Made Being, whose spirit begins returning to the spiritual breath of the universe. As a living Made Being, Pueblo pottery impacts and interacts with humans. Dextra Quotskuyva, a Hopi potter, “hopes people are able to touch it [the pottery]” and “have the feeling that there's something there” instead of just looking at the pot as a passive, beautiful object (Trimble 2004:29). She and others hope that the following experience is typical of those who interact with their pots: An Albuquerque psychiatrist tells his patients to buy Pueblo pottery and feel it. He doesn't know why, but it makes them (and him, when he feels his own Pueblo pottery) feel better when they do. Santa Clara potter Jody Folwell suggests why: “There is so much incredible goodness that comes out of the pueblos and out of the people. It exists a hundred times more so than in any other community. Anything that comes out of those villages has that particular power—spiritual power” (Trimble 2004:29).

Most American hold a Cartesian perspective that considers a pot to be a passive, inanimate tool that is spiritually inert. From a Puebloan perspective, pottery is a spiritually powerful entity formed through the collaboration between the potter’s spirit and the inherent spirits of clay and fire. This newly-made spirit can affect a pot’s buyer in a positive way (Trimble 2004). Among the Tewa speakers, prayer sticks, houses, and many other human-made objects in addition to pottery are considered sentient beings and are also valued as a person. Understanding these relationships aids anthropologists in understanding local knowledge and ethnosemantics. Living objects can have many different relationships with humans. Bunzel (1992:490) reports that the Zuni consider black pots, knives and arrow points made of obsidian, thunder stones (igneous stones 5 to 12 cm in diameter used in rainmaking ceremonies), and Olivella shell rattles to be spiritually active “society members.” These society members were “the ones that were at the first beginning” (Bunzel 1992:490) and were brought up by the Zuni from the lowest of the four worlds as they emerged into this one. Bunzel (1992:490) explains, “They are kept in sealed jars in houses where they are believed to have rested since the settlement of the village. They are ‘fed’ regularly at each meal by some woman of the house...and are removed only for the retreats held in their honor.” Their very treatment shows their social and sentient impact on the world around them. Objects can also protect humans from physical and spiritual harm. Living nearly a hundred years ago the famous anthropologist Ruth Benedict (1923) wrote about the guardian spirits of North America. Humans sought to attract these spirits to help enrich and extend their lives. These spirits could take a variety of forms and were manifested in many different contexts, but they almost always had physical manifestations. Benedict (1923:11) reports that, “The animals and things which might become guardian spirits were almost limitless, including the weather, dwarfs, the nipple of a gun, horseflies, kettles, and objects referring to death.” Guardian spirits were sometimes linked to specific human-made objects designed specifically for that purpose. To illustrate, the Illini were a confederation of 13 Native American tribes that lived in the Mississippi River Valley in what is now Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. They created Manitou, which were

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simultaneously active spirit guardians and (typically) anthropomorphic statuary made of wood, pottery, stone, or other materials (Dye 2020). The Manitou spirits transcended the figurines, but the Manitou figurines gave the guardian spirits homes they could use when engaging with human. Humans in turn could use the figurines to invoke and influence the spirits, which was often done by making them “dance” like puppets during Doll Dancing ceremonies. The dancing certainly emphasized the active nature of the Manitou spirits (Dye 2020), and the use of the same terms for the spirits and figurines reflects their ethnosemantics link. The idea of specific figurines/statuary being associated with certain spirits is not unique to New World groups. An example is the use of statuary of Greek and Roman deities in the Old World. The statues had spiritual potency in-and-of-themselves but could be further animated by the spirits of actual deities, which existed independent of any specific statue (Chaniotis 2017). The statues could thus serve as the focus of divine interaction between the gods and humans and could even be used by the gods to achieve their goals. According to a poem included in Theocritus’ Idylls (Idyll XXIII—The Lover), the god Eros animated one of his statues to cause it to fall and crush a young man who had rejected a potential lover and thereby driven him to suicide. Eros and the other gods would only animate their statues as needed and from time to time. As a result, humans would actively seek to attract the gods’ attention through “acoustic signals” such as songs and prayers, “visual signals” such as bright clothes and altars, and “olfactory signals” such as wine and incense (Chaniotis 2017:100–101). Such examples show how spirits can come into linked objects through a form of sympathetic magic (e.g., the Greek gods inhabit their statues because they are shaped to represent them). Sometimes, though, the linkage between spirit and object can be based on other types of associations. “Haunted” objects are of course the mainstay of most of the paranormal shows and books in the United States, in which we typically think about objects as being bewitched by a person (e.g., a love charm) or possessed by a spirit placed within it. These spirits may even be able to project from that object to influence the surrounding environment. Professor Felicitas Goodman (1990:40) reports she had this happen to her in the early 1980s. She had been staying with a family in Japan and formed a close friendship with her host family’s grandfather, Ojiisan. Ojiisan passed away while she was still there. As is customary in Japan, the family kept the ashes on the altar in his home for forty days before his burial. Bowing before his altar, Goodman burned incense and said prayers to wish her friend a good journey to the other side. As she prepared to return to the United States, her host family gave her a beautiful box containing bean confections tied with yellow and black strings, which symbolized mourning. She was told to eat the confections alone. Not long after she returned to her home in Columbus, Ohio, with the box she had a “series of strange accidents.” I stumbled painfully, a burning piece of wood unaccountably jumped out of my stove and burned a hole in my cherished Chinese rug, a wine glass fell out of the cupboard and shattered on the floor, and there were others. I finally decided that Ojiisan had possibly hitched a ride on the bean confection. Even cherished friends can cause harm once they become restless ghosts. So regretfully I placed the pretty box in the fire and burn it. That

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night I had a vision. Ojiisan appeared, but he wore a mask, a white hood with holes for his eyes. Reproachfully he said that he enjoyed being with me, and that it made him sad that I was ordering him away. Then he disappeared. There were no more accidents, but sometime when I think of him, I feel a twinge of remorse (Goodman 1990:40).

In contrast to an animistic framework, the spirit in haunted objects are not inherent in the object itself, but are instead extraneous to it, having been brought to it via some accidental or intentional happenstance. This view is illustrated in Paranormal Survivor, Season 1, Episode 1 “Haunted Objects” (Jan. 17, 2015) in which an old photograph, a motorbike, and a vintage car are each said to be possessed by a previous owner. Such cultural frameworks have a long history in American pop culture. Growing up in the 1970s, we remember hearing that Raggedy Ann dolls could somehow be haunted. Christine has no idea where she got this notion, but it definitely permeated the small town she grew up in New Mexico and is long-lived enough that one of our students have mentioned it to us unprompted during class. We suspect this idea of the haunted Raggedy Ann originated with Ed and Lorraine Warren’s investigations into the paranormal, even though we did not learn this story until much later in life. The Warrens investigated a Raggedy Ann doll named Annabelle in the 1970s (Wicks et al. 2012). The doll was a gift to a nursing student, Donna, from her mom. Donna and her roommate, Angie, would frequently come home to find that the doll had changed position and moved around while they were out of their apartment. For example, they would leave the doll on the couch, but when they got home it was on a bed with the door closed. It was also able to write “help Us” and “help Lou” on mysteriously appearing parchment paper. The apparent creation of parchment paper out of thin air and the movement of the doll confused the women. After eliminating the possibility that someone was gaining entrance into their apartment while they were gone, the two ladies contacted a medium who reported that a deceased young girl by the name of Annabelle Higgins haunted the doll. According to the medium, Annabelle only wanted to stay with Donna and Angie and be loved by them, yet this loving façade seemed to drop away as the spirit began violently attacking Donna’s friend, Lou. Donna knew she needed help so she contacted an Episcopalian priest, Father Hegan. He reached out to another priest and contacted the Warrens, who were well-known exorcists (Sarchie and Cool 2001). The Warrens visited the apartment and determined that Annabelle was not the spirit of a little girl but was instead a demonic spirit that had attached itself to the doll. They took the doll from the residence and kept it in a special case in their home museum. Versions of this story have appeared in a variety of films from The Conjuring (2013) to Annabelle Comes Home (2019). We saw these films as a family and enjoyed them, even if the films are no more plausible then the Child’s Play films that feature Chucky as a possessed killer doll. We want to take a moment to note that there has been considerable debate about the veracity of the stories related to the Warrens and many other paranormal investigators in Western nations. There are often legitimate questions regarding whether many such stories are true in an objective sense or even supposed to be something other than fiction in many contexts. This uncertainty is an issue if our

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focus is on establishing the objective existence of spirits. However, as outlined in the previous chapters, our focus is much more modest, in that we are studying spirits as operationally-defined terms in culturally specific ethnosemantics frameworks. Stories (even ghost stories) reflect ethnosemantics domains and are used as a central means of communicating the “cognitive order” of daily life and social/ideological systems (Coe et al. 2005:1; see also Coe et al. 2006). Even the classic “ghost story around the campfire” has been shown to have specific, measurable impacts of human cognition, information transmission, and social learning and cohesion (Wiessner 2014). The upshot is that an account does not have to be literally true to reflect ethnosemantics categories and underlying cultural systems, and we can still learn about Western views of the supernatural when examining specific stories that have acknowledged cultural relevance. And in our own experience reading spirit-related accounts, talking informally with Americans from the western, midwestern, and southern regions of the nation, and interacting with ghost-hunters and other selfproclaimed supernatural sleuths, we can attest that the idea of haunted objects is a central theme in their spirit-related ethnosemantic categories. We in fact have a Diné woven rug hanging near our offices that a local paranormal investigator identified as being haunted. Whether not it is does not change the conceptual expectation that some objects are linked to possessing spirits within the broader culture. Further, the idea of spirits living inside objects is common around the world, not just the US. Sometimes these spirits can be benevolent, but they are often dangerous and even downright malevolent. Sometimes these spirits can be ‘bargained with’ or placated to make them less dangerous. Other times, a ritual specialist might be able to ‘exorcise’ the spirit, thereby divorcing the object and the attached spirit (and by extension making the spirit less of a threat). People often think about their loved ones being attached to an object or heirloom that was special to the deceased. This can be good, giving the bereaved person the feeling that their deceased loved one continues to watch over and support them (directly or indirectly). These spirits can be dangerous, though, if the object is not treated according to the wishes of the deceased family member. Cindy Parmiter (2017) recounts a story about a broach in her book on the paranormal. According to Parmiter, Kim Sanders’s paternal grandmother left the family specific instruction about her possessions before she passed away. One of her prized and most valuable objects was a broach, which she wanted to give to her favorite granddaughter, Hanna. This caused a lot of tension with the other 7 grandchildren, who wanted to sell the broach and divide the money. Hanna wanted to keep the broach and was working to pay her cousins for it. The family decided it would be best that the broach stay with a neutral party until everyone was satisfied. The family chose Hanna’s uncle, Bob. Bob took it home. Shortly after bringing the broach into the house, Bob’s home started manifesting problems it did not have before. Doors slammed shut, and he thought he could hear someone walking in the halls when no one was there. In one instance, he put his eyeglasses on his nightstand, and the next morning they were gone. Bob of course was suspicious that someone was playing tricks on him, so he changed the locks on his front door. One day he came home to find that his new key would not move the

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tumbler. Even the locksmith was baffled when he tried to figure out why the key and lock were not working (Parmiter 2017:330). Another day he came home to find that his refrigerator door was wide open, and his food ruined. Bob decided to put a video camera in his living room to catch the troublemaker. He and his daughter, Kim (the woman who told Permiter this story), viewed the videos. All they could see was a dark shadow moving around, which they suspect was his mother. Brenda, one of Kim’s and Hanna’s cousins, was getting married, and wanted to wear the broach as “something old” during the wedding. Hanna and the family approved of her borrowing the broach, but poor Brenda started having troubles as soon as she brought the broach home. Doors started slamming shut and she reported hearing a humming sound in her bedroom that was driving her crazy. To make matters worse her new wedding gown developed a horrific stench similar to cat urine, but Brenda did not own any animals. She could not return the dress to her dismay. Brenda told Kim what has been happening in her home, and Kim told her what happened at her father’s home and how it stopped once the broach left his house. Kim told Brenda she needed to get rid of the broach. “As soon as Hanna had the broach it was though a cloud had lifted” from Brenda’s home (Primeter 2017:333). The odor left the dress and the noises in Brenda’s home ceased. The cousins got together and agreed they had been acting like spoilt children and decided that the broach should go to Hanna without financial compensation. Hanna wore the broach to the wedding, and everything was fine. The grandmother ultimately got her wish and stopped pestering her family when the broach was given to its rightful owner. Such stories are common throughout Western religious and folklore traditions, and, again, make excellent television shows and movie plots. But they also fit well within cross-cultural spirit stories.

4.5

Building Ethnosemantics

Building on Chap. 3, we have outlined building blocks that we anticipate will be part of each society’s ethnosematics framework—most, perhaps all, societies have concepts of animated objects, guardian spirits, animated and sacred locations, animal and plant spirits, spirit-derived weather phenomena, and other categories discussed above. Despite their general ubiquity, these categories will be arranged in different ways in each culture and will be organized to reflect and fit into the spirit world and cosmology of that culture. In most cases, this will follow the tri-partied divisions characteristic of the Shamanic Universe, complete with Upper Worlds and Underworlds in addition to the world of the here-and-now, to some extent. In shamanicbased spirit systems, the axis mundi is the key to interacting across the boundaries of the spirit worlds by providing the location for movement, but their importance decreases in state-level societies focused on priesthood as humans are no longer seen interacting directly with spirits from other realms (e.g., Muslims and Roman Catholics do not typically employ the concept of an axis mundi). Based on our

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discussion in this chapter, we propose a general, common ethnosemantics structure, although there will be variation among (and within some) cultures: 1. The spirit world will typically include at least three divisions that will include an Upper World, Underworld, and the Middle World of the here-and-now. a. Movement across these worlds will be associated with axis mundi, which will often be focused on a particular location or object. b. Different spirits, including human souls, will inhabit these worlds, with human souls often being sorted based on the person’s behavior during life and/or manner of death. Any portion of a human’s soul that remains in the Middle World will likely be malevolent in some way. This is congruent with Stein and Stein’s (2017) finding that human ghosts tend to be malevolent. 2. There is an asymmetry in that spirits of the Upper World and Underworld are often able to influence this world in ways that this world cannot influence the other worlds (e.g., deities send lightning as punishment that humans may not be able to mitigate). Having said this, spirits from this world can influence spirits in the other realms directly (e.g., shamanic journeys, immoral behavior such as violating taboos that transcends this world and encourage punishments) or indirectly (e.g., prayers, performing certain rites). 3. Spirits often manifest themselves in the Middle World using transitional zones (e.g., caves that transition between the Middle world and the Underworld; mountain peaks that transition between the Middle World and Upper World) and/or impermanent and potentially dangerous phenomena (e.g., lightning, and violent storms, whirlwinds, unnatural fires). In the next chapter we will discuss the roles spirit specialists play within ethnosemantics structures. The cosmological framework of the spirit world largely dictates the obligations and authority of each culture’s spirit specialists. Within an ethnosemantics framework then, human souls will typically be divided across the spirit realms, often gaining new status (e.g., ancestor spirits, damned souls) based on location and relationships with the living. These categories will be arranged with other spirits within each of these realms, and may be reflected in objects or places in the Middle World. Within this world, spirits will be divided into categories based on which of the three spirit realms with which they are typically associated, and further divided according to their placement (or lack thereof) with the landscape. We suggest that this general framework is reflected to a greater or lesser degree in each of the examples presented in Chaps. 3 and 4, and indeed throughout the rest of this book. In the next two chapters we will build on the frameworks outline here to further look at commonalities and differences among shamanic religions (Chap. 5) and the ways that people engage spirits for protection and healing (Chap. 6).

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———. 1960. Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Harner, Michael J. 1972. The Jívaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Harner, Michael J. 1990[1980]. The Way of the Shaman. London, UK: Harper Collins. Harrington, Mark Raymond. 1914. Sacred Bundles of the Sac and Fox Indians. Vol. Number 4. Philadelphia, PA: University Pennsylvania Anthropological Publications. Heyden, Doris. 1981. Caves, Gods, and Myths: World-View and Planning in Teotihuacan. In Mesoamerican Sites and World-Views, ed. Elizabeth P. Benson, 1–35. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks. ———. 2005. Rites of Passage and Other Ceremonies in Caves. In In the Maw of the Earth Monster: Mesoamerican Ritual Cave Use, ed. James Brady and Keith Prufer, 22–28. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Hilger, M. Inez. 1957. Araycanian Child Life and Its Cultural Background. Washington, DC.: Smithsonian Institution, U.S. Government Printing Office. Houlihan, Patrick T. 1980. Introduction. In Generations in Clay: Pueblo Pottery of the American Southwest, by Alfred E. Dittert, and Fred Plog, 1–3. Flagstaff, AZ: Northland Publishing in Cooperation with the American Federations of Arts. Huckell, Lisa W., and Christine S. VanPool. 2006. Toloatzin and Shamanic Journeys: Exploring the Ritual Role of Sacred Datura in the Prehistoric Southwest. In Religion in the Prehispanic Southwest, ed. Christine S. VanPool, Todd L. VanPool, and David A. Phillips Jr., 147–163. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Jones, David E. 1972. Sanapia Comanche Medicine Woman. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Karsten, Rafael. 1935. The Head-hunters of Western Amazonas: The Life and Culture of the Jibaro Indians of Eastern Ecuador and Peru. In Societas Sdentiarum Fennica: Commentationers Humanarum Litterarum Vol. VII, No. 1. FL: Helsingfors. Kim, Young-ho. 2002. The Nation (Korea) as the Axis Mundi or Center of the World to be —A Common Perspective of Korean Shamanistic Practitioners and Religions. Ritual Studies 16 (1): 112–128. Kluckhohn, Clyde, and Dorothea C. Leighton. 1962. The Navaho. Garden City, NY: Natural History Library. Lamphere, Louise. 1983. Southwest Ceremonial. In Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 10, Southwest, ed. Alfonso Ortiz, 743–763. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, U.S. Government Printing Office. Lane, Lillie. 1999. Practical and Religious Meanings of the Navajo Hogan. In Ethnoecology: Situated Knowledge/Local Lives, ed. Virginia D. Nazarea, 37–44. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. Lankford, George E. 2004. The Path of Souls Some Death Imagery in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. In Ancient Objects and Scared Realms: Interpretations of Mississippian Iconography, ed. F. Kent Reilly III and James F. Garber, 174–213. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Lebzelter, Viktor, and Richard Neuse. 1934. Native Cultures in Southwest and South Africa, Volume 2. Leipzig: Karl W. Hiersemann. Loftin, John D. 2003. Religion and Hopi Life. 2nd ed. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Lowie, Robert H. 1935. The Crow Indians. New York, NY: Farrar and Rinehart. ———. 1963. The Crow Indians. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Lyon, Williams S. 2012. Spirit Talkers: North American Indian Medicine Powers. Kansas City, MO: Prayer Efficacy Publishing. Miller, Mary, and Karl Taube. 1993. An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson.

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Chapter 5

Spirits and Their Helpers

Abstract Here we discuss the relationship between spirits and shamanism, which has been the most common structure of spirit-human interaction through time and across cultures until the development of states and formal priesthoods. The chapter starts by considering the reason for the antiquity of shaman-based religion, which started in the Upper Paleolithic. We suggest that Upper Paleolithic peoples would have likely faced periodic nutritional and physiological stress that would have produced altered states of consciousness (ASC). In these states, they would have had shamanic experiences including the perception of spirits and the shamanic universe. These experiences are reflected in Upper Paleolithic rock art from around the world, and structured spirit-human interaction for millennia including in the modern world. We then take a life-history approach outlined the roles spirits play in: (1) calling people to be shamans, (2) initiating/reforming these individuals to be shamans, and (3) working with the practicing shamans to perform tasks including healing and divination. Examples are drawn from around the world. We end the chapter by considering examples where spirit specialists involved in priestly systems have similar spirit experiences. Case studies include Hindu-based transcendental meditation and St. Hildegard of Bingen (AD 1098–1179), a Medieval nun who had visionary experiences. We illustrate how her visions are strikingly similar to Mesoamerican and South American shamans, suggesting this reflects aspects of how the human brain is wired (a theme we return to in Chap. 7). The chapter concludes with the addition of spirit specialists to the general ethnosemantics model presented in Chap. 4.

In many native traditions of Siberia, shamans appeared as travelers guided by spirits, people who could reach other places and other worlds, and so connect the known with the unknown—Anthropologist Silvia Tomášková (2013, p. 2)

Chapter 4 outlines the basis of a general cognitive (ethnosemantics) scheme that provides a model for the anthropology of spirits. As a model, it is not intended to perfectly fit any given society, but instead is a framework for comparisons. By comparing actual cases to the model, we can see how cultures vary from it and, by extension, from each other. Here we refine the model by focusing on spirits and those © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. S. VanPool, T. L. VanPool, An Anthropological Study of Spirits, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25920-3_5

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who specialize in interact with them. We begin with shamans, who are the primary spirit spiritualists in most pre-industrial societies but also consider priests that are typical of state-level societies. Shamanism is one of the most heavily researched topics in the anthropology of religion. There are literally thousands of publications dealing with the topic. Given this deep knowledge base and the presence of many book-length treatments that focus narrowly on shamanism (e.g., Clottes et al. 1998; Eliade 1964; Halifax 1982; Harner 1990; Lewis-Williams 2002; Lyon 2012; Vitebsky 2001; Whitley 2009; Wilbert 1987; Winkelman 2010), we will not provide a comprehensive overview. Instead, we focus on the contexts and methods that governed the spirits’ interactions with shamans, and by doing so we wish to add to the anthropological understanding of what shamans are and their relationships to spirits. We will start our discussion with the deep history of shamanism that extends back to at least the Upper Paleolithic. We also investigate the roles spirits have in selecting and training potential shamans. Spirit training provides key insights into the collaboration/interaction among spirits, shamans and to a lesser degree other humans. Towards the end of the chapter, we demonstrate how spirits also reach out to priests and other religious practitioners (e.g., monks and nuns). Ultimately, we conclude that spirit/human interactions are so strikingly similar that science should be able to explain how spirits the world over and through time behave in predictable ways.

5.1

The Deep, Deep Origins of Shamanism

Shamanism is not simply a component of society: on the contrary, shamanism, together with its tiered cosmos, can be said to be the overall framework of society―Archaeologist J. David Lewis-Williams (2002:177).

Shamans are arguably the earliest occupational specialists in human history. Upper Paleolithic cave paintings and portable art (typically made of stone, bone, or antler) dating from ~50,000 to ~12,000 years ago indicate that the earliest human religions were likely shamanic, with clear manifestations dating to around 35,000 years ago (Clottes et al. 1998; La Barre 1972; Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1988; Wallis 2019). Burials indicate that shamans had high social status and were central to Pleistocene social organization (Mykhailova 2019). The earliest evidence of religion in the Western Hemisphere, which takes the form of pecked or painted rock art (dating from 10,000 to 3000 years ago), is also shamanic (e.g., Boyd 1996; Turpin 2001). Shamanism appears to be the underlying base of, and a continuing theme in, early spirit-human interaction. Perhaps most telling, there is no clear evidence of non-shamanic religion during these early occupations of both the Old and New Worlds, and shamanism was often integrated into new religious systems even as they developed (Boyd 1996; Carrasco 1990; Freidel et al. 1993; Gutiérrez and Pye 2010; Whitley 2001). But why did people come to accept shamanic religion in the first place?

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The Deep, Deep Origins of Shamanism

113

Here we suggest that the first evidence of shamanism and by extension spirithuman interaction reflects human need, especially malnutrition and hunger, but not in the way that might seem most obvious. Humans did not initially turn to spirits to alleviate their needs, we suspect. Instead during their times of hunger and tribulation, the spirits came to them. Once contact was initiated, though, humans sought spirit interactions, likely developing methods including entheogens to interact with spirits and using some of the most impressive art ever created to memorialize their experiences. Arguments for shamanic-based cave art during the European Upper Paleolithic (50,000–12,000 years ago) are generally based on ethnographic analogy with modern shamans, especially the South African shamans who use rock faces and caves as part of their shamanic rituals, and on Lewis-Williams and Dowson’s (1988) neuropsychological model that describes the human brain’s ability to enter trance/ASC (Clottes et al. 1998; Lewis-Williams 2020). Although Upper Paleolithic artists almost certainly used a variety of media, the portion of their work that has survived is generally limited to cave paintings in protected locations and portable stone art; this is the type of art that can last for tens of thousands of years. The painted images included entoptic phenomena (e.g., grids, nets, dots, spirals that are perceived in the mind), tutelary creatures (animals such as birds that help guide transformed shamans through the spirit world), liminal creatures (which are “unreal” creatures that can span the physical and spiritual realms like a “bird-snake” that can go underground or fly in the sky) (Whitley 2001:134), and anthropomorphic figures (representing the metamorphized shamans) (Fig. 4.2), all of which are indicative of shamanism in ethnographic contexts (Al-Issa 1995; Clottes et al. 1998; Lewis-Williams and David 2005). Aldhouse-Green and Aldhouse-Green (2005) provide additional evidence regarding Paleolithic shamanism using mortuary evidence (see also Mykhailova 2019). They identify probable shamanic burials from the Upper Paleolithic during the last Ice-Age through the Bronze Age occupation of Europe. Based on ethnographic and archaeological evidence, they propose that shamans are often “called by the gods” because of some physical ailment/deformity that makes them more prone to entering trance states than the average person. (We will return to this point in the next section.) Shamans are also associated with artifacts that are useful in initiating ASC, such as drums and rattles (used to make repetitive noise) and carved fetishes of tutelary animals (see also VanPool 2009). Thus, Aldhouse-Green and AldhouseGreen (2005) identified shamanic burials using the association of shamanic tools, “rich grave goods” that suggest the individual was revered, and signs of chronic, painful physiological problems, which would have made the individual more likely to enter ASC. Using these criteria to identify possible Upper Paleolithic shamans, several burials, particularly from the Gravettian period (33,000 to 21,000 years ago), qualify. In fact, a large proportion of relatively complete burials from the Gravettian show health or developmental issues with pathologies of some form represented in 21% of complete burials from this period (Trinkaus and Buzhilova 2012). Among these, Aldhouse-Green and Aldhouse-Green (2005:34–35) identify Brno 2 as the best example of a possible shaman burial. Brno 2 is a mature adult male from the Czech Republic that had an extreme case of periostitis (inflammation of the

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connective tissue that surrounds bone). He was buried with mammoth tusks, ribs of rhinoceros or mammoth, ochre-stained horse teeth, two large slate disks, 14 small hematite disks, a mammoth molar, a reindeer antler, animal figurines, and a piece of ivory carved into a human figure, which is the only known human figurine found in a Gravettian burial. The antler had a polished end suggestive of a drumstick, a tool that could have been used in shamanic drumming and chanting. Another Gravettian shamanic burial found in Russia contains the remains of two late juvenile/early adolescent individuals (Sunghir 2 and Sunghir 3). This burial has been called the most elaborate human burial of the Pleistocene (Guatelli-Steinberg et al. 2013). Both individuals show extensive signs of malnutrition and other physiological stress during development, including lines of arrested growth on the long bones and dental enamel hypoplasia (both of which are commonly associated with malnutrition) (Buzhilova Alexandra 2000; Guatelli-Steinberg et al. 2013). Sunghir 3 displays abnormally bowed right and left femora (the upper leg bone that connects the knee and the pelvis), which were likely birth defects related to maternal diabetes (Formicola and Buzhilova 2004). In addition, these burials were covered with abundant red ochre, and contained ~5000 mammoth ivory beads, ~250 fox teeth, mobile art, mammoth tusk spears, and the femoral shaft of a third adult individual (Sunghir 4), which was stuffed with red ochre (Formicola 2007; White 1999). While the examples from Sunghir and Brno are perhaps the most notable, numerous other examples of pathological burials exist from this period, likely representing individuals who lived with discomfort and higher than average levels of physiological stress. These and other Upper Paleolithic burials with various pathologies would have been ‘natural shamans,’ in the sense that they likely would have been particularly capable of (or susceptible to) entering ASC. However, people lacking substantial pathologies can also enter ASC under the right circumstances. Periods of intentional fasting, a common feature of religion, are central to many shaman-based religions (Benedict 1922; Venegas-Borsellino et al. 2018; Vitebsky 2001:42, 70). Ethnographically and historically documented shamans often deprive themselves of food to prime themselves for their visions (Benedict 1922; Vitebsky 2001:42, 70). Unintentional/undesired periods of fasting or malnutrition associated with famine or limited food choice with poor nutritional coverage will also cause humans to experience ASC. For example, individuals who have a deficiency in cobalamin (vitamin B12) will hallucinate (Beck 2008). Foragers such as those living during the Upper Paleolithic typically gain cobalamin by eating a diet rich in meat (especially liver), fish and shellfish, but these resources are not always available. Likewise, nutrition deficiencies, in combination with high activity and low body-fat levels, result in significant seasonal fluctuations in body weight (Jenike 2001). Such seasonal nutritional stress would impact most individuals and would necessarily affect their perception of reality in certain circumstances. These effects could vary from feeling dazed and lightheaded to having visual and auditory hallucinations. Available fossil evidence suggests that the health of Upper Paleolithic people was similar to that of other hunting and gathering groups (Brennan 1991; Buzhilova Alexandra 2000; Trinkaus et al. 2005; Teschler-Nicola et al. 2006). Most people, but

Spirits Transform the Shaman

5.2

115

especially hunters and gatherers such as Upper Paleolithic foragers, suffered from at least seasonal nutritional stress throughout most of human history including the modern world in some places (Cohen 1989; Speth 1990). For example, enamel hypoplasias at Dolní Vĕstonice and Pavlov, which date to the Gravettian period (33,000 to 21,000 years ago) and are in the same general area of Brno 2, indicate that all individuals represented by more than one tooth showing enamel defects, and 30.8% of all isolated teeth have them (Trinkaus et al. 2005). These frequencies of enamel defects are consistent with those reported for more recent foraging populations (Guatelli-Steinberg et al. 2004) and suggest that people at these two sites had frequent periods of nutritional stress. Seasonal shortages of food availability appear to be as pervasive of a problem for Upper Paleolithic foragers as they were for foragers since the end of the Pleistocene. The period between the end of a brief warming interval with temperature cooling substantially around 38,000 years ago and the end of the Pleistocene around 12,000 years ago may have been particularly hard for many Upper Paleolithic populations as they had to adjust to advancing glaciers and cooling temperatures (Formicola and Giannecchini 1999; Johnson et al. 2020; Maier and Zimmermann 2017). Thus, Upper Paleolithic human populations likely experienced diet-induced ASC on a somewhat regular basis, although health status likely varied across this time period (Formicola and Giannecchini 1999; Holt and Formicola 2008). Physiological stress and the accompanying visions in turn created a social setting in which people: (1) predictably perceived that there was a hidden, nonphysical world that was sometimes visible; (2) came to believe that humans could interact with entities that were typically invisible; and (3) accepted that some individuals could experience this hidden world more rapidly/with greater predictability than others. These were the fundamental premises of shamanic religion. They would, of course, be filtered through the specific cultural tradition of the people involved, creating culturally-specific shamanic traditions, although these traditions would be expected to share certain commonalities (such as the previously discussed shamanic universe). Thus, shamanism and the associated shamanic practices and themes were a reliably expected and completely understandable religious view in contexts such as those of the Upper Paleolithic foragers. Images in the mind’s eye (visual hallucinations) and other spirit perceptions (e.g., auditory and olfactory hallucinations, feeling wind that is not present) associated with shamanic ritual would be consistent with the individual experiences of most people within these societies. Certain individuals who were more prone to undergoing ASC might have been blessed with the “gift” of shamanism, but virtually everyone would have some personal experience lending validity to the perception that there was a hidden spirit world.

5.2

Spirits Transform the Shaman

The shaman is chosen by the spirits, and in the central experience of initiation is often symbolically killed by the spirits and reborn. . . For a prospective shaman the initial

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approach by the spirits must be followed up by a period of instruction. Illness becomes a means of learning and understanding, as the future shaman is introduced to helper spirits, shown around the realm of the spirits where he or she will have to operate so decisively, warned of possible enemies and shown the true nature of diseases and misfortune to be combated.—Anthropologist Piers Vitebsky (2001:52, 59). Shamans were divinely elected. It was not a privilege but a burden. One could not become a shaman by study, training or application; one had to be ‘called.’ Usually, a person became conscious of the fact that he had been called after an exceptional, often traumatic, experience, most often after a severe illness. Once elected to this status, which set him apart from the rest of his compatriots, the shaman acquired supernatural helpers—Anthropologist Lydia Black (1973:55) in her discussion of the Niykh people of the far eastern coast of Russia.

Shamans are spirit creatures but becoming such a creature is not an easy process. In 2010, Christine created a class called the Anthropology of Shamanism. As she was preparing the class, she reread much of the primary ethnographies on shamanism. Again, there was an astonishing amount of literature on this subject in anthropology, and even more in other disciplines! One of the things she noticed that she had previously missed was how often ethnographers reported that shamans went through extreme emotional and physical pain on their way to becoming a practicing shaman (Table 5.1). In some cultures, people chose to become shamans to serve their people or possibly for status or financial benefit, but in many more societies, those who became shamans struggled to avoid this calling, and only accept it when they believed they had no other choice. As Karsten (1955:64) noted, in such societies, “It is not given to man to become a shaman of his own free will. . .quite the contrary, it comes to one against one’s own desire, and the high gift is accepted as a heavy burden which man takes up as inevitable.” Simply put, Christine was stunned by how physically and spiritually torturous the process of becoming a shaman often was. Just the initial experience of being called to be a shaman could include “acute disease, followed by hysterical fits, fainting, hallucinations, etc., which sometimes torture him for weeks” (Karsten 1955:64; see also Eliade 1964). For instance, Yuki shaman initiates reportedly were called by being directly confronted by Taikomol (their chief deity) or another deity, which often caused the chosen person to bleed from “his body openings” (Miller 1979:24; see also Eliade 1964). Often the only escape from such pain and physical ailments was to acknowledge the spirits and let them guide the afflicted through the transformation process to become a shaman (Eliade 1964; Karsten 1955:64; Vitebsky 2001; Whitley 2009). Yet even after initiation, shamans often still had bouts of pain, especially if they did not obey the spirits (Whitley 2009:222). The spirits were harsh and demanding masters. Eliade (1964) was one of the first to examine the process of spirits calling shamans in his analysis of “arctic hysteria,” the idea that shamanism in the Arctic was associated with mental health problems. His analysis revealed that shamans from around the world were typically called by the spirits in a variety of ways. Some had dreams in which the spirits instructed the person to become a shaman. Other times the spirits made a person chronically sick to compel their submission to become a shaman. Incipient shamans among the Wixárika (Huichol) of West

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Table 5.1 List of spiritual traits and behaviors of shamanic initiations and shamanic trance Eliade (1964) Medical crisis (sickness) Agitation Hallucinations (visual and auditory) Soul travels to Upper and Lower Worlds Spirits can create a sense of torture and pain Appears to be Artic Hysteria, but it is not Hallucinations of being physically destroyed and put back together in a new form Shamanic sickness can last over a year Depression Euphoria Social withdrawal

Vitebsky (2001) Medical crisis (sickness) Agitation Hallucinations (visual and auditory) Visions of dark and terrible places Spirits can create a sense of torture and pain Appears to be hysterical Hallucinations of being physically destroyed and put back together in a new form Shaman illness can be a life-long battle Depression Euphoria Social withdrawal

Whitley (2009) Medical crisis (sickness) Extreme Agitation Hallucinations (visual— Entoptic phenomenon and strange creatures—And auditory) Spirits can create a sense of torture and pain Hysteria

Shamanic sickness can last over a year Depression Manic Sexual promiscuity Suicidal Unusual sleep patterns

Fear of dying during trance Strange or unnatural voices and languages are heard Superhuman strength

While in Trance/ASC Trembling, shuddering, gooseflesh, swooning, falling to the ground, yawning, lethargy, convulsions, foaming at the mouth, protruding eyes, insensitivity to heat, cold and pain, tics, loud breathing, a glassy stare. . .” (p. 64) Fear of dying when battling spirits in trance Strange or unnatural voices and languages are heard Superhuman strength

There are too many works to possibly cite them all. Eliade (1964), Vitebsky (2001), and Whitley (2009) have greatly summarized the ethnographies. These are not absolute traits but often occur with the “shamanic calling” and subsequent ASC

Mexico for example were selected by ‘Urukáme, a benevolent deity that helped with hunting, curing, fertility, and other beneficial aspects of human efforts (Furst 1967:101). When ‘Urukáme selected a man, he became ill until his illness was recognized as a shamanic call and an experienced shaman performed the correct ritual to begin the process of transitioning the afflicted person to a novice shaman. The healing required the new shaman to “journey to the Otherworld” (Furst

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1967:101). Quoting personal communication from Johannes Wilbert, Furst (1967:102) suggested that the illness caused by ‘Urukáme was not a malicious act, but was instead better understood conceptually as a result of the recipient not yet having “transcended his physical limitations, i.e., [he] has not achieved that breakthrough in plane which is essential to shamanism and which manifests itself in the classic shamanic phenomena of initiatory ecstasy, sickness, death and rebirth.” In other words, ‘Urukáme provided the incipient shaman with spiritual power his body and soul were not yet able to contain. Only by transformation into a shaman could the afflicted person gain the capability of dealing with the gifted spiritual power he or she was now incapable of discarding. Refusing to accept the spirits’ invitation would lead to greater sickness and ultimately death (Eliade 1964; Halifax 1982:14; Van Deusen 2004:32–33; Vitebsky 2001). Yet not all shamans are called by the spirits in this way—some inherit the role from a parent, grandparent, or an uncle, or might in fact chose it to gain status and even money (e.g., see Force 1960:57 for a brief mention of likely status-driven, opportunistic shamans among the Palau people who lived on the Palau Island of Micronesia). Even then, though, periods of illness might be manifested. For instance, among the Tlingit of southeast Alaska, new shamans were a close relative, typically a nephew, of a deceased shaman, but the new shaman was still selected by the spirits from the available candidates (Jonaitis 1986:52). The nephews of recently deceased shamans would sit in the house or near the grave of the deceased and wait for either a dream or a period of illness to indicate who was selected. Once selected, the incipient shaman, “had no say in the matter, for if he refused to start practicing shamanism, the spirits would ‘follow him about and disturb him in whatever he was doing’ until he submitted to them” (Jonaitis 1986:52). While there are exceptions, spirits tend to choose the shaman, not the other way around. Regardless of whether the shaman initiate starts the process willingly or through coercion, the shaman typically goes through an initiatory sickness (Eliade 1964). This can be part of the illness that originally calls the shaman, or it can be a separate phase that begins during the shaman’s initiation process. Eliade (1964) claims that the initiatory sickness is the aspect of shamanism that gives rise to the idea of ‘arctic hysteria.’ While there is a recognized culturally bound mental health issue called pibloktoq, which is typically called arctic hysteria, this is distinct from shamanism. Its likely physiological cause is an excess of Vitamin A associated with eating animal livers, and it produces bouts of unusual and potentially dangerous behaviors including potential self-harm (e.g., stripping naked in the cold, eating feces) and violence against others (Landy 1985; O’Donnell 2004). However, it is not associated with unseen spirits, soul flight, and other attributes of shamanism. Shamanic practices in general but especially during the initiatory illness may mimic mental illness in many regards, but they are NOT mental illness for the simple reason that the symptoms are manifested only at certain times and in certain ways during shamanic training (see also Halifax 1982). True mental illness typically does not “turn on” or “turn off” based on distinct patterns of manifestation and termination. Initially the novice is prone to fainting spells, seizures, fits of hysteria, and so forth, but these symptoms cease as the novice gains experience. Once the person gains the ability to

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heal from the spirits or learns how to control the pain and suffering the spirits bring, the shaman shows no sign of continued mental illness. In Eliade’s (1964:31) words, “. . .if [shamans] have cured themselves [they are] able to cure others. . .because they know the mechanism, or rather, the theory of illness (emphasis in original).” Eliade goes further to explain that this “theory” has to do with the acknowledgement of the relationships between the gods/spirits and illness, and how these spirits work with the shamans to cure them and others. We will return to this topic later in this chapter, but the point here is that shamans gain much of their prestige and authority in many cultures by healing themselves of the shamanic sickness. Anyone might be able to pretend to be a shaman, but only a real shaman could cure themselves of such a profound illness. In many ways a shaman lives two lives (Eliade 1964; Vitebsky 2001:91): one life is that of a sick person and the second life is that of a metamorphized person that incorporates both human and spirit traits, which enable him or her to perform various roles as a shaman. It is only by embracing and encouraging the second life that the shaman can mitigate the first life. So, what is initiatory sickness? Based on the various accounts collected by Eliade (1964) and others who have been willing to share their experiences (e.g., Bend and Wiger 1988), it was sometimes an actual sickness that nearly kills an incipient shaman, but it often came during trances of some sort. During this event, the budding shaman underwent a terrifying and painful transformation that often took the form of a metaphorical death and then rebirth as a new, spirit being. Visions of spiritual dismemberment were particularly common. For example, a Teleut woman (of the Russian Turkic people) became a shaman after she had a vision in which unknown men chopped her into pieces and then cooked her in a pot. “According to the Altaian shamans, the spirits of their ancestors eat their flesh, drink their blood, open their bellies, and so on” (Eliade 1964:44). Another example Eliade (1964:43) discussed was Mikhail Stepanov, a Butyat shaman. This shaman said that he was sick for a long time when the souls of his shaman ancestors surrounded him, beat him, and then cut his body with knives as they performed an operation that turned him into a shaman. Another Siberian shaman said, “I have five spirits in heaven who cut me with forty knives, pricked me with forty nails, and so forth” (Eliade 1964:44). Other shamans reported that they were cut open while in trance and had their organs replaced with magical stones or had their bodies opened so that snakes or other creatures could live in them. Australian medicine men go through shamanic initiation rites in which, “The spirit of the deceased would visit him, seize him by the throat, and open him, take out his bowels, which he replaced, and the wound closed up” (Eliade 1964:45). Likewise, Eliade (1964:44–45) reports: The ecstatic experience of dismemberment of the body followed by the renewal of the organs is also known to the Eskimo. They speak of an animal (bear, walrus, etc.) that wounds the candidate, tears him to pieces or devours him; then new flesh grows around his bones. Sometimes the animal that tortures him becomes the future shaman’s helping spirit. Usually, these cases of spontaneous vocation are manifested, if not by a sickness, at least by an unusual accident (fight with a sea beast, fall under ice, etc.) that seriously injures the future shaman. But the majority of Eskimo shamans themselves seek out ecstatic initiation and in the course of it undergo many ordeals, sometimes very close to the Siberian and Central Asian shaman’s dismemberment.

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Bend and Wiger (1988) in their book Birth of a Modern Shaman discussed Tayja Wiger’s journey to become a shaman. Wiger, a member of the Sioux nation, freely recounted the tortures of her body, soul, and mind in her initiatory sickness. Her experience was so extreme that even her Sioux clansmen thought she was mentally ill. Eventually though Tayja gained control over what appeared to be schizophrenia and epilepsy. Her journey is well worth reading, if you are interested. It also corroborates Eliade’s (1964) previous discussion of shamanic initiations. Bend and Wiger (1988:72) further noted that Tayja’s experience was much like Korean shamans. As Korean shamanism perceives it, the shaman’s personality must become fractured to permit guiding spirits to enter. Through this fracture, hurtful spirits or energies may also enter, and it is the presence of these dark energies that is known the world over as shamanic illness. Only through dedicated work can the shaman complete initiation and gain control of these energies. Then he or she is ready to fulfill life’s mission.

After the initiatory sickness the shaman is no longer a human; he or she is reformed into a hybrid of human and other (spirit) beings/things. Even when the trance state has ended, most shamans maintain the feeling that their bodies are different and continue to feel other sources of power within them. In other words, the shaman has been permanently transformed into a new being with bits and pieces of other beings mixed within him or her (shamans frequently have third or fourth genders; they can be both male and female [VanPool and VanPool 2006]). The spirits in the above examples are quite harsh, perhaps even bordering on sadistic, but it is worth noting that they also help shamans through these difficult transitions. Pain is also a cultural phenomenon, and it is something modern American culture avoids. However, many ethnosemantics frameworks consider pain a good thing that shows the spirits that the human is willing to give of themselves. Vitebsky (2001) reports that Sora women of India are accompanied by spirits during their trance states that take them to the underworld. It is a frightening place, “but the spirits are kind and reassuring” (Vitebsky 2001:57). The shamanic illness is the basis of spirit sponsorship, and well-known shamans repeatedly state they had to go through these sicknesses to learn to heal, that one must go through the darkness to get to the light, the good energy (Bend and Wiger 1988). Table 5.1 provides a list of some of the ways in which shamans are treated by the spirits.

5.3

Spirits Initiate the Shaman

I saw on the horizon, what looked like a giant red ball, so red it was almost hard to see. The ball rolled toward me and I reached out, wanting to play with it. It rolled past me and I was sad. Then, a brighter red ball came by and I reached for it. It rolled on, followed by an orange ball, a yellow, a green, a dark blue, and a violet one. I couldn’t catch a single ball. They all rolled past and I was sad; then I looked behind me. The balls were all in line.

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I reached out, touched the violet ball, and the others began to roll around me. They rolled faster and faster, until they finally blended; they formed a rainbow sphere around me. It was so beautiful, I didn’t want to move. Outside the sphere, I saw a brilliant light, brighter even than Father Sun. Through the light, an animal walked toward me; it seemed very large, and bright as the holy light. As the animal came closer, I saw it was a bear, a large black bear surrounded by the rainbow of color. The bear, walked once around the sphere, then stopped in the west and sat and looked at me. I stared back at the bear and, after a while, it stood on its hind legs, put its paw through the sphere and touched me gently on the hand. Then I woke up. I saw my mother bending over me, looking worried. “It is alright, mother,” I told her. “I can come back now. I’ll be staying with you.” It was a very powerful thing which had happened to me, this vision, although I didn’t know it at the time. I was four years old. I did have diphtheria. I had gone through some convulsion, and the Great Spirit let me live. From time to time now, I can return to the power place of that vision.—The dream through which Sun Bear, an Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) shaman, was healed and called to be a shaman (Bear et al. 1983:36).

The initiation and training of shamans takes many forms around the world. Sometimes it begins in childhood, while in other cultures it may be restricted only to adults. In some cases, the transformation to shaman may take a short time. Sun Bear obviously learned a great deal about being a shaman as he grew up, but according to him the fundamental transformation into a shaman was completed when the spirit bear touched his hand. In other cases, becoming a shaman may require extensive and even painful work. The severity of the process can help explain the reluctance documented in many cultures in which people only grudgingly become a shaman. Balzer (1996:307) recounts the story of Vaily Kudrin, a man who rejected the offer to be trained by Gul’aev, a well-known Siberian shaman who died in 1965. Towards the end of his life Gul’aev was searching for an apprentice. He approached Kudrin, who at that time was a minor official in the Communist party. Kudrin refused in part because of his fear of Soviet repression of shamanism, but more so because of his fear of the initiation/training process, which could last up to 9 years and included intense pain and other types of trials that “involved a complex tempering of various kinds of souls” (Balzer 1996:307–308). In some cases, becoming a shaman may even require a ‘certification’ of some sort from one or more elder shamans. For example, novice shamans among the Mapuche of Peru would spend 2–4 years training with a senior shaman. Their apprenticeship ended when they were judged by other shamans during a public ceremony called machiwullun, during which they exhibited their skill working with plants and other shamanic paraphernalia (Nakashima Degarrod 2009:9). The input and evaluation of senior shamans may be important, but spirits are central to the shaman’s initiation and training. Returning to the Tlingit example mentioned above, once the shaman initiate was selected from the group of nephews (or other close relatives), he would go on a vision quest (Jonaitis 1986:52). An assistant accompanied him during an eight-day period of isolation in the wilderness or along a deserted beach. The initiate would not eat anything during this period and

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could only drink sea water. A series of animals would eventually approach him, extend their tongues, and die at his feet. In the specific case Jonaitis (1986:53) used to illustrate this process, the first animal that came to the novice shaman was a land otter, which was a “powerful supernatural being. . .[that] contains in its tongue ‘the whole secret of shamanism’.” Jonaitis (1986:53) quoted the following passage from Veniaminoff’s (1840:8) journal in which the case was recorded: It is the land otter itself which comes out to meet the shaman, he only stops it, does not let it go any further, and then he kills it with either one word or with the sound: O! repeated in various intonations four times. When an otter hears this terrible incantation it goes into a spin and dies while sticking out its tongue.

According to Jonaitis (1986:53), “The novice then tears out this tongue, skins the animal, retaining the pelt and burying the flesh.” Animal tongues contained spirit helpers called yek. These spirits would become the source of the shaman’s spiritual power, but any non-shaman who interacted with the “yek-tongues” of the sea otter or other animals “would lose his mind.” Consequently, Tlingit shamans kept their cache of yek-tongues hidden (Jonaitis 1986:53). The more yek-tongues the shaman possessed, the more yek he could work with and the more powerful he was. Again, the Tlingit shamans obviously learn more as their experience grew, but their fundamental power was based on their relationship with the yek, as opposed to their own training. A long period of apprenticeship was not essential to becoming a shaman once the shaman was called. In contrast to the relatively short initiation period of the Tlingit, each incipient shaman among the Maya of Guatemala was the responsibility of the shaman who cured his shamanic illness (Wagley 1941:17). The novice was required to undertake years of training to, “know the appropriate prayers, the shrines at which to pray, and the ritual for each occasion. He must learn to divine both by casting beans and by interpreting the twitching of his calf muscles. He must know which of the various supernaturals to appeal to for every specific need: the curing of sickness, a successful trading trip, a good harvest of maize, the successful birth of a child” (Wagley 1941:17). The Aztec of Mexico followed a remarkably similar pattern in which novice shamans began training after being miraculously cured of a chronic illness and/or being called in a dream that a shaman interpreted as a calling. The novice then trained with an established shaman for 6–7 years to learn the required songs, rituals, and spiritual knowledge (Sandstrom 1991:233–234). Even in cases of years-long training periods, not all shamanic traditions required direct apprenticeship with a specific teacher, though. The previously mentioned Wixárika of West Mexico used an extensive form of self-training (Schaefer and Furst 1996:19). As discussed in the preceding section, the Wixárika recognize that an individual (male or female) has been called to be a shaman by an illness that can only be cured through agreeing to become a shaman. Once a Wixárika had accepted the call, the novice shaman began to attend rituals performed by other shamans, sometimes as a helper who sang or drummed in support of the other shamans and sometimes merely as a spectator. Through this process, the shaman learned the needed ritual components and songs. This experience was further enriched through

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repeated peyote pilgrimages in which the spirits themselves helped the shaman learn the required skills and knowledge. The period of self-training took between 5 and 10 years. During this period, the shaman learned, “innumerable chants of sometimes staggering length” and undertook “a minimum of five, or, preferably, ten or more [peyote-based spiritual journeys]” (Schaefer and Furst 1996:20). Goodman (1988):4) further noted that shamans and mediums know there are different kinds of spirits, some of which are (or at least can be) benevolent and others that are malevolent. Shamans and mediums from around the world consequently learn how to attract the desired spirits and repel the others. Many shamanic groups worldwide have cleansing ceremonies to help purge negative spirits and thoughts from the shaman and their clients. In North America, such rituals for purging dangerous spirits included the sweat lodge, smudging with sweetgrass and/or sage, smoking tobacco, fasting, and saying prayers. Cleansing rituals help lessen the likelihood of negative spirits entering the shaman and his or her patient. Of course, “the shaman has a double nature as both human and divine because he or she incarnates the spirits in his or her own body” (Vitebsky 2001:91). The medium healers among the Brazilian Umbanda sought possessing spirits that could help with “white magic,” to counter the “black magic” based on the spirits of dead people who were “wicked” in life (Goodman 1988:43). The healers that conducted “white magic” imbued their rituals with light, positive energy, “benefiting clients positively and sometimes even the possessing spirit” (Goodman 1988:43). As was discussed in the previous chapter, a shaman may strike his or her drum to call helping spirits when healing (Potapov 1999). His drum during trance could become the spirit of a horse, a boat, and/or a portable cathedral that also held helper and protector spirits (Potapov 1999). The various tools that shamans use including his/her drums, rattles, rocks, crystals, sticks, and the other equipment are as much spirit as they are objects, and are chosen because of their utility to fight troubling spirits (Vitebsky 2001).

5.4

Spirits and the Working Shaman

Spirits of course were a central component in shamanism. In the last half century we have somewhat neglected this fact, instead emphasizing the centrality of altered states of consciousness—best seen in the influence of Eliade’s confused definition of shamanism as an ‘archaic technique of ecstasy.’ Earlier anthropologists, in contrast, defined shamans as ‘masters of the spirit’, not of trance. Their emphasis is closer to the mark. It provides a better perspective for understanding shamanism. . .—Archaeologist David S. Whitley (2009:254). With the aid of his spiritual tutelaries [an Obijwa shaman] is able to secure news about people who are hundreds of miles away, or learn of events that are taking place in another part of the country. He can discover what is going to happen in the future and he can find out a great deal about the past lives of his fellows. As occasion demands he may recover lost or stolen articles for their owners or discover the hidden cause of some puzzling malady. On the other hand, with malevolent ends in view, he can abduct the souls of human beings, causing sickness, mental disorder or even death, if this vital animating agency is not returned to them.—Anthropologist Alfred Irving “Pete” Hallowell (1942:11).

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Shamans have much to say about spirits, ghosts, demons, and so on. They are, after all, eyewitnesses who interact with these entities and are the “mouthpiece of the spirits” (Lessa and Vogt 1979:301–302). Our interpretation from Eliade’s (1964) work and many other publications (Bend and Wiger 1988; Halifax 1979, 1982; Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1988; Narby and Huxley 2001; Vitebsky 2001) is that the spirits are typically bothersome at best, but at times they can be downright dreadful. The ethnographies rarely discuss happy, uplifting spirits interacting with shamans in a joyous manner. (This is probably because when the spirits appear during a ceremony, they “unnerve” the nonbelieving ethnographer [Lyon 2012:348]). To the contrary, the spirits generally come in dark times of illness, transform the shamans through spiritual and often physical pain, and help the shaman use his or her pain to transform the pain of others into healing. This is in contrast with many priestly groups such as the Puebloan Kachina religion where spirits may be consistently benevolent and even playful. Even in joyous ceremonies such as puberty rites, it is often the shaman’s role to deal with darkness and danger created by spiritual transformations. Given their focus on pain, especially pain caused by spirits, one of the central tasks for shamans worldwide is healing.

5.4.1

Spirits as Healers

There was a maiden who became a Bear and she walked and wandered far. The young woman who became a Bear set fire to the mountains. The maiden who became a Bear sought the gods and found them.—The first lines of different stanzas of the Diné Mountain Chant quoted by Vera Laski (1958:112, 118, 123). Keresan doctors draw on their bear paws, Bear comes into them, and they become bears, with the curing power of Bear—Anthropologist Elsie Clews Parsons (1996[1939]:170).

Throughout history, humans have attributed illness to spiritual causes. This has placed religious practitioners, especially shamans, at the forefront of medicine in most cultures. The knowledge and the ability to heal is often granted during initiation rites and/or as neophytes struggle with shamanic illnesses. Helper spirits often become attached to, perhaps even part of, the shaman during these events. These spirits provide the shaman with specialized knowledge about how to heal specific diseases (as well as perhaps other topics such as how to hunt a particular animal). Part of the reason why the shaman can be so effective is that the same spirits that help the shaman are also powerful enough to cause sickness and death and may even be the source of the patient’s illness. The role of shamans in treating illness is reflected in Carl Lumholtz’s (1902) Unknown Mexico: Exploration and Adventures among the Tarahumare, Tepehuane, Cora, Huichol, Tarasco and Aztec Indians, one of our favorite ethnographies. Lumholtz (1902) provides detailed information about the native people living in northwestern and western Mexico. The groups have strong shamanic traditions in which shamans use plants and rituals to prevent and heal illness. For example, Lumholtz [1902] 1973:311) tells us that,

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Without his shaman the Tarahumare would feel lost, both in this life and after death. The shaman is his priest and physician. He performs all the ceremonies and conducts all the dances and feast by which the gods are propitiated and evil is averted, doing all the singing, praying, and sacrificing. . . He is also on the alert to keep those under his care from sorcery, illness, and other evil that might befall them. . .Though real illness is the exception with him, the Tarahumare believes that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of a cure, and for this reason he keeps his doctor busy curing him, not only to make his body strong to resist illness, but chiefly to ward off sorcery, the main source of trouble in the Indian’s life.

Today the Tarahumare go by their traditional name, the Rarámuri, but they still hold that sorcery is a common cause of illnesses (Irigoyen-Rascón and Paredes 2015). Irigoyen-Rascón and Paredes (2015:117) provide an illustrative example of a modern curandero (plant-based healing shaman) who was able to heal a patient when Westernized doctors could not: It affected an eight-year old girl, a student in the boarding school at Norogachi. The girl had joined other children in a picnic by the riverside when she fell into the water. She was able to reach the shore but once out of the water she developed a fever and her state of consciousness became progressively obtunded, reaching a comatose state. A team of American physicians, who happened to be visiting the mission clinic, examined the girl and diagnosed the problem as pneumonia. However, in spite of aggressive treatment, including antibiotics, the state of the girl continued to deteriorate. A Tarahumara aide in the clinic suggested contacting an owirúame, or shaman to “bring the girl’s soul back.” Reluctantly, but seeing the girl’s quickly approaching death, the nurses went along with the idea. Shortly after being taken to the shaman, the girl began to improve and soon she recovered fully.

Irigoyen-Rascón and Paredes (2015) do not explicitly tell us what steps the owirúame took to cure the girl. Based on the rest of their discussion, we can surmise that he ‘dreamed’ (likely by using peyote to enter into a dreamlike-state) to find the girl’s lost soul. “It is thought that the shaman is able to abduct the soul of the subject while dreaming. . . In a similar way, the owirúame or healer, may choose through dreams the remedies to be used for an ill person” (Irigoyen-Rascón and Paredes 2015:118). In their book on Rarámuri traditional medicine, Irigoyen-Rascón and Paredes (2015:201) provide an extensive list of the plant remedies that Rarámari use, including both Jíkuri (peyote, Lophophora williamsii) and Wipá or Wipáka (tobacco, Nicotiana rustica). Often, the spirits of powerful predators are used by shamans to heal their patients. In North America one of the most powerful and dangerous animals to humans is the bear. The average grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) in Yellowstone, Montana, weighs over 400 pounds (Blanchard 1987) and bears such as the grizzly bear and the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) remain one of the few animals that will hunt and kill humans; between 1960 and 1998, 42 humans were killed or seriously injured by bears in Alberta, Canada, alone (Herrero and Higgins 2003). The bear’s spiritual power is frequently considered even more dangerous than its physical power (Hallowell 1926). A human inadvertently stepping in bear tracks without knowing it can become infected with its spiritual residue, which creates a chronic illness that can last for years, for example. Given the source of the spiritual illness, Bear (the spirit architype underlying all bears) is also the ideal spirit to help a stricken patient recover. Bear could use its power to mitigate and even cure other illnesses too and

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was therefore central to many shamanic healing rituals in the New World (Lyon 2012:310). For example, the Anishinaabe of the North American Eastern Woodlands have a legend describing Bear as the spirit that helped the Sun bring medicine to humans. When there were people he [Dzhe Man’idō, the supreme being] placed them upon the earth, but he soon observed that they were subject to sickness, misery, and death, and that unless he provided them with the Sacred Medicine they would soon become extinct. . .[During a morning ceremony for a dead boy], the family and friends went into this lodge and seated themselves around the corpse. When they had all been sitting quietly for some time, they saw through the doorway the approach of a bear which gradually came towards the wig’iwam, entered it, and placed itself before the dead body and said hŭ, hŭ, when he passed around it towards the left side, with a trembling motion, and as he did so, the body began quivering, and the quivering increased as the bear continued until he had passed around four times, when the body came to life again and stood up. . .(Hoffman 1891:172).

Given stories such as this, bear paws are one of the most powerful components of medicine bundles among the Anishinaabe (Ritzenthaler 1953:184). Likewise, Elsie Clews Parsons (1996), an early anthropologist that wrote extensively about Puebloan religions, reported that the Keresan speakers of New Mexico would heal patients by tapping into the spirit power of Bear and other animals. In her words, “The foundation of Keresan doctoring or shamanism is belief that the doctors are possessed of the powers of animals associated with disease, and that doctors, having the powers of witches can overcome witches. Witches can transform into animals, so can doctors” (Parsons 1996:62–63). While in the (spiritual) form of a bear, the shamans could cure illness. She reports, “Animals cause sickness as well as cure it. They frighten people, and fright is a cause of sickness. When a bear doctor slaps with his bear paw, it is to cure a person from fear of bear” (Parsons 1996:191). Laski (1958:113–115) also recorded bear medicine at the Keresan speaking pueblo of Katishtya (San Felipe Pueblo) (Laski 1958:113–115). There, particularly serious illnesses were treated by teams of bear shamans working together. Shamans held the ceremony at the patient’s house, which was prepared by replacing the furniture in one room with sheepskins. The bear shamans were nearly naked. They created a ceremonial ‘corn painting’ using colored sand that surrounded a bowl of holy water. Other ritual paraphernalia including eagle feathers and stone fetishes were placed nearby. Each shaman had a bear paw placed between them and the sand painting. The ceremony began with each man unwrapping a “perfect ear of white corn” that represented Cornmother (Laski 1958:114). The shamans gave the observers a blessing, and then smoked tobacco to purify themselves. They also ingested, “certain herbs which, in the opinion of some Indians, might help to bring about the forthcoming trance” (Laski 1958:114). The shamans sang and went into trance. As they did so, they put on the glove affixed to their bear paw, roared, and touched all within reach to further help them transform into bears. Once all the shamans completed their transformation, they danced the Bear dance. After completing the dance, they looked deep into a metaphorical “lake” of Medicine Water created in the bowl placed in the sand painting. There they saw the witches that they needed to fight in order to heal their patient. They touched the white Cornmother

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effigies to gain power, and then they began a sucking ceremony to remove the evil from the patient’s body. During this, they produced rocks, fibers, and rags that represented the evil that they removed from their patient. These items were thrown into the household urinal. Two of the Bear shamans left the house “to fight the witches in the dark and to catch the witch which has caused the illness” (Laski 1958:115). Later they returned with a rag doll representing the witch. It was torn apart and thrown into the urinal. The urinal was then broken, and all of its contents were placed into a bag. The bag was then carried out by two Bear shamans and was thrown into a canyon. The ceremony ended when they returned, and the Bear shamans broke their trance. They washed their hands with the Medicine water and gave the patient a stone fetish. Such fetishes were typically shaped like a bear. The patient returned the fetish to the lead shaman after 4 days. Bear shamans also performed similar rituals for house blessings and communal curing ceremonies (Laski 1958:116–117). Archaeological evidence suggests that the idea of shamans transforming into bears has a deep history. For example, the Wray Figurine (aka the Hopewell Shaman of Newark) is a small stone sculpture showing a “shaman” wearing bear regalia, complete with a bear’s head and paws (Dragoo and Wray 1964). The figuring was found in 1881 at the base of the largest of the burial mounds at Newark Earthworks, Ohio, a Hopewell settlement dating between 100 BC and AD 400. The shaman’s left hand is holding the bear’s head in a posture suggesting it is about to be lowered over the human’s face so as to complete the transformation into a bear spirit. A similar figure was recorded by Nicholas Cresswell on September 1, 1775 among the Delaware people. Cresswell (2007:109) does not provide detailed information but an “Indian Conjuror” participating in a larger dance was “dressed in a Coat of Bearskin with a Visor mask made of wood, frightful enough to scare the Devil.” Bears were not the only animals in North America ethnosemantics frameworks with spiritual power and authority. Large predatory animals such as mountain lions, wildcats, jaguars, and wolves were desired protector spirits for various Native American groups from South America to North America. Some coastal groups even tied dolphins to causing and curing spiritual and physical harm (Karsten 1935:415). Their physical power corresponded to great spiritual power too, and they could protect people from dangerous spirits (including their own malign influence). Guardian sprits were often carved onto altars and other objects (e.g., a fetish to be carried in a medicine pouch) to protect a family or a person (Parsons 1996:189). As illustrated by these examples, healing shamans have medicine kits with important tools for collaborating with spirits. These kits often include medicinal plants, entheogens, sucking tubes, crystals, and musical instruments (primarily rattles and/or drums) (VanPool 2009; Vitebsky 2001; Whitley 2001). Potentially powerful predator spirits do not necessarily need to be associated with living animals. For example, the Kapauku Papuans are an agricultural people focused primarily on sweet potato cultivation in New Guinea. Their shamans use dangerous and typically malevolent spirits to counteract other malevolent spirits. According to Pospisil (1978:79–80),

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It is believed that a shaman must possess several supernatural helpers in order to manipulate the various evil spirits and counteract the spells of sorcerers. . .A Kapauku shaman usually has several souls and tene, the departed shadows of his dead ancestors, as helpers. In addition to these he must acquire at least one evil spirit as a personal guardian. Of the various evil spirits, those who are favored for this task are Tege, the chief demon and the horrible spirit of the woods; Ukwania, his wife; Madou, the powerful water spirit; and Makiutija, the vicious ghost of the earth. These spirits are believed to be able to rout other evil spirits. Obviously, if a man is stricken by a sickness that is diagnosed as the work of a particular spirit, he can be easily helped by the particular shaman who controls the spirit by having him as his guardian.

So, can shamans heal their patients? Anthropologists have found that shamans are surprisingly effective in doing so (Kleinman 1980; McClenon 2001; Winkelman 2010). As illustrated by Irigoyen-Rascón and Paredes’ (2015) account of the Rarámuri shaman healing the girl that fell into the creek, shamans may even succeed when Western medicine based on germ theory and other scientific frameworks and tools has failed. This surprising result has engendered many debates about why this would be (Winkelman 2010). Some claim that shamans produce a placebo effect in their patients (Lévi-Strauss 1968; Winkelman 2010:208). Because their patients believe the ceremony will work, they get better, just like a patient who takes sugar pills does. Of course, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and many shamans are especially focused on helping to prevent spiritual illness if they can. This is especially true given that they themselves can inadvertently cause illness even as they undertake other aspects of their duties. Anthropologist John T. Hitchcock (1918–2001) was one of the first ethnographers who conducted research in Nepal, and one of the first to write about his own personal experiences with shamanism (e.g., Hitchcock 1967). Hitchcock (2001:203) described a shamanic ceremony performed by a shaman named Sakrante in which great care was taken to help prevent spiritual contamination: In the earlier portion of the séance the dramatic theme most heavily stressed is danger from the other world—though at the same time that the danger is being made more real, so is Sakrante’s power, for he is showing also how he can control it. Drumming and singing and calling out names of many spirits, as Sakrante does during a séance, is like opening a door to the other world. The first to come is the tutelary deity, followed by other spirits Sakrante calls. But at the same time uncalled spirits may crowd in. Some of them are not associated with any particular place in the vicinity, but others are known to live nearby, in a waterfall, a spring, a rock, or a part of a forest. All are potentially dangerous and can “strike” the shaman, his client, and the audience. One of the methods used for “striking” is a magic arrow that pierces the skin and leaves a festering head like the one Sekrante removed from my shoulder. . .To enable himself to see the witch, as well as any spirits who may have wormed their way into the enclosure, Sakrante says a spell over some pieces of charcoal as he crumbles them in his hand. Using the dust he smears his eyelids. In the near darkness this makes his eye sockets seem even deeper set and his dark eyes still more dark and large. By doing this Sakrante now can see, even though his audience can’t, any witch that may be present or any lurking spirits.

Furthermore, Sakante marks his client and his audience with charcoal to protect them from being struck by lurking spirits. According to Hitchcock (2001:204),

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His song, to which he drums rhythmically and with constantly varying dynamics, stress further the theme of protection. For what he sings is a spell to make helpless any fearsome spirits. In the song they are named one by one and by magic means are “tied up” —though the word here means more like what we mean when we say “tie up in knots.” The song is long, the names many, and for the audience the recital brings to mind the hosts of dangerous beings that are hoovering all about. . . .

The psychological power of the shaman’s healing is often one of the most compelling themes of shamanic ritual. Hitchcock (2001:201) explains how Sakrante cured a terrible shoulder pain that was ascribed as a spiritual thorn: When Sakrante stared at me at the close of his all-night séance I felt a twinge of genuine apprehension. How possible it then seemed that something was in my shoulder and how real its ugliness and danger! And how confidently relaxed I had felt when he finished treating me, for it was easy that night to accept his power to cleanse and to heal.

Others working on this issue are finding that shamanic-based healing impacts the human psyche, body, and brain in numerous and complex ways that promotes healing (Hashmi 2018; Itzak 2015; Lee et al. 2010; Winkelman 2010). We will return to this topic in Chap. 7 when we consider the relationships among spirits, shamans, and human physiology.

5.4.2

Spirits and Divination

Divination. . .is also practiced by means of a plant which is described as a narcotic. The plant, bador, little children, the only plant of the kind in town, grows in the yard of a family who sells its leaves or seeds to curanderos to administer to patients. After drinking the infusion, the patient, who must be alone with the curer if not in a solitary place. . .falls into a sleep during which the two little ones, male and female, the plant children (bador), come and talk. The plant spirits will also give information about lost objects. Don Félix Quero had a herder called José María. He lost two cows, and Félix charges him with stealing them. That grieved José María, so he went to a curandera who gave him the bador drink and told him not to be afraid, no matter what came to him, that midnight. The little plant boy came and took him by the hand, saying, ‘one of the cows is already meat, the other is about to be killed. Come with me!—Anthropologists Elsie Clews Parsons (1970:312–313) recounting divination among the Rarámuri (Tarahumara) of West Mexico.

Another way spirits help shamans is divination. Part of this has been touched on previously in various accounts of spirits guiding shamans to detect and counter witches and sorcerers who cause illnesses. An example of such divination is provided by Sandstrom’s (1991:235–236) discussion of the Aztecs in central Mexico. They use several methods including crystal gazing and casting corn kernels. When using crystal gazing, the spirits communicate with them via faint patterns within the quartz crystal. Casting corn kernels is completed at the shaman’s house altar. The shaman lays out a cloth with coins, crystals, prehistoric copper axes, and other small objects with ritual importance. He then takes 14 maize kernels, chants to the spirits, and casts the grains onto the cloth. The resulting pattern reflects answers to specific questions (see Sandstrom 1991:237). A circular pattern might reflect that

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a disease originated from a spring, whereas a U-shape might reflect it originated from an arroyo (an intermittent stream). Kernels near the coins suggest sorcery is involved, whereas kernels near the copper axes indicate someone is trying to kill the client. And so forth. Like other divination methods, the interpretation is based on the question asked by the shaman and the answer provided by the spirits. The Rarámuri of West Mexico have a similar practice of casting maize kernels that they use for diagnosing illness, but also for telling the future or answering specific questions. Parsons (1970:309, 311–312) recounts a series of corn castings a shaman provided during the Fiesta of San Pablo, an annual religious celebration held on June 29. During this event, the shaman sought information from the spirits to help: a widow determining how to deal with cattle rustlers, a young father asking about the origin of an illness afflicting his wife, a father seeking advice dealing with his son and, especially, his daughter-in-law, and predicting an upcoming death that could be avoided with adequate contributions to the Catholic Church. As reflected in the opening quote to this section, the Rarámuri shamans also interpret the spirit encounters clients have after ingesting entheogens (Parsons 1970:313). We will close this discussion with one final example. Among the Tohono O’odham of southern Arizona (United States) and northern Sonora (Mexico), there was a special class of shamans focused on divination called ‘Owl Meeters’ (Underhill 1939:132). The Tohono O’odham were historically involved in a vicious cycle of raiding with the Apache, another Native American group in the region. Raiding was a constant threat. The duty of the Owl Meeters was to use owls as their guardian spirits to help them determine the location and threat of the enemy. In this case, the owls were transformed dead warriors who continued to haunt the enemy country (Underhill 1939:132). By collaborating with these nocturnal predators, the shaman could learn the whereabouts of enemy soldiers and encampments, and plot effective tactics to defeat them.

5.5

Vision Quests

Medicine power was essential for success in life. Such power transcended ordinary human ability and reflected the inherent but hidden presence of the many spirit beings. . .In the vision quest the supplicant fasted and offered a finger joint or strips of flesh to induce a spirit being to adopt him as a son and to give him rights to a medicine song, body painting, and various power objects to be kept in a medicine bundle. The visionary addressed the spirit as ‘father,’ assimilating the relationship into the general structure of Crow kinship.—Anthropologist Fred Voget (2001:706) discussing vision quests among the Crow, a Plains Indian group from the United States.

Spirits work with shamans, but they often work with others. Many groups in fact require males (and sometimes females) to undertake a Vision Quest (the typical term used in New World contexts) or a Walkabout (the translated Australian aboriginal term). In vision quests, the initiate contacts the spirits and finds one or more of them to serve as his or her spirit protector/guardian (Benedict 1922; Pearson 2002;

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Vitebsky 2001; Whitley 2000). During vision quests, the participants go through periods of intentional fasting, extreme pain, and other deprivation. These experiences ensure that many, perhaps even all, of the group’s members had a personal affirmation of the reality of the spirits and shamanic experience as a religious system, even though there are shamans who interact more intensively with spirits than the typical individual. The Absaroka (Crow) of the American Plains, for example, gain ‘medicine fathers’ during vision quests that serve as guardian spirits throughout the individual’s life (Frey 2014:6). Medicine fathers often take the form of an eagle, buffalo, or other large animal. The medicine father will give the adopted person baaxpee, a spiritual power represented by a medicine bundle that can be used when the individual is sick or otherwise troubled. Medicine fathers can come spontaneously or during periods of intense stress or pain, but often come during a formal vision quest (Lowie 1922:324–325). These vision quests typically involved hardship and sometimes great pain. In some cases, people would sacrifice one or more fingers, fast for days, and seek solitude to initiate a vision (Lowie 1922:324). The pain and sacrifice could initiate a feeling of sympathy and cooperation with the spirits. In other cases, visions might be solicited through a Sun Dance, during which the participant dances for 3 days while depriving themselves of food and water (Frey 2014:6). Sometimes, a leather strap or stick would be threaded through cuts in the skin of the breast or on the back near the shoulder blades. A rope tied to a pole planted in the ground might be attached to the stick or straps. The participant would then run around the post all day until he (or less frequently she) would rip or cut the skin holding the sticks or straps to break free (Lowie 1922:324, 333). The participant would then sleep on the mountain for up to 4 days to invite the vision. Regardless of how a vision was initiated, the responding spirit(s) would frequently appear initially as a man and would then transform into the animal that would serve as the Absaroka ‘s guardian (Lowie 1922:333). However, the presence of a vision did not necessarily ensure its validity. False visions were possible, and it was impossible to distinguish which visions were genuine at the time they were granted. Their validity could only be known after the fact based on whether the spirit guardian upheld its obligations. In one case, Bald Eagle’s promise that a particular man would be a successful war captain against the Dakota tribe was determined to be true after he successfully led many attacks against them (Lowie 1922:335). In another case a man received a similar promise, but was killed shortly thereafter in battle, demonstrating that the vision was false (Lowie 1922:333). Similar practices based on sacrifice and intense perseverance in the face of tremendous pain or hardships are found in Native American groups across the Great Plains and indeed in cultures from around the world.

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Spirits and Priests

The discernment of spirits is far more than just an educated guess, and is not to be confused with “intuition.” Instead, according to Sicilian exorcist Father Matteo La Grua [Roman Catholic Priest], discernment is one of the gifts that God gives to the faithful. It is like a “holy light” that comes from God and that allows those who receive it “to see how God is present in things. . .And while it may sound simple, it’s not, because in their cunning, demons often disguise their attacks, sometimes even appearing as “angels of light.”—Reporter and author Matt Baglio (2010:110).

Spirits interact directly with shamans, but they can also directly influence priests. An example of this is illustrated by Nne Uko Uma Awa, a dike nwami (“Brave Woman”) of the Ohafia people in Nigeria (McCall 1996). A dike nwami is a special third gender category in which a biological female adopts many aspects of masculine behavior but retains certain ritual and social authority and obligations of women. In Nne Uko’s case, she married two women, joined various men’s societies including the prestigious Ekpe (leopard) society, fathered children (with her brother serving as the biological father), earned the right to perform the Ohafia warrior’s dance, and otherwise gained high status performing both masculine and feminine tasks. Towards the end of her life, she lived a primarily feminine life (e.g., living in a typical woman’s hut) but she had adopted masculine behavior and social categories through most of her life (McCall 1996). Nne Uko’s journey as a dike nwami began when a priestess for Kalu Akanu (the force of thunder and lightning) had a prophetic dream that girls undergoing their coming-of-age rites were to hunt their own sacrifice (a small antelope) that was part of the ceremony (McCall 1996:129). This task was typically completed by young men in the community, and required the hunters to run down and capture the animal alive. Dreams were the typical means of communication between the spirits and priests/priestesses, so this dream could not be ignored even though it required a temporary break from tradition. Nne Uko dressed as a man and led the group in capturing the sacrifice. Her success at this and other masculine activities was viewed as a divine blessing/call for Nne Uko to serve as dike nwami. In Nne Uko’s case, the contact between the priestess and the spirits was accomplished through dreams, which is relatively common worldwide. It is also comparatively less dramatic than is spirit possession, ecstatic trance, and the vision quests of shamans, although shamans can also interact with spirits while dreaming. Likewise, priests themselves may have a spiritual event that spurs them to become priests, but this rarely takes the form of the extreme periods of illness and distress characteristic of shamans. Direct interaction with spirits in the manner characteristic of shamans may even be discouraged for priests and lay people alike in many traditions. For example, the Jewish Holy Scriptures warns against spell casters, mediums and other spiritualists in many verses, such as Isaiah 8:19, which reads “When they say to you, “Consult the mediums and the spirits who whisper and mutter, should not a people consult their God instead of consulting the dead on behalf of the living?” While prophets and even on occasion Jewish priests and lay people might interact with direct manifestations of God (e.g., Moses and the Burning Bush) and even various

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spiritual entities including angels, nearly all orthodox Jews (past and present) are expected to rely on Holy Scripture and Talmudic Law to regulate their interaction with the supernatural. Despite such differences, priests often fulfill the same types of roles shamans do, even if they generally do so in a more institutional manner. Healing can be accomplished through the laying on of hands or the preparation of healing charms. Houses, boats, people, and even agricultural fields and animals can be blessed to help ensure good fortune and faithful service. And, importantly, priests can also serve as a means of protecting people from the negative spiritual influences as they perform exorcisms and purification rites. Further, some religious traditions such as the Puebloan kachina tradition allow priests to interact with spirits in a personal, direct manner (see Lyon 2012 for additional examples). As noted earlier, the distinction between shamans and priests is largely heuristic, and many aspects of shamanic thought and practice continue to be present in religions that are no longer centered on shamanism per se (VanPool 2009). Throughout the ages and in a wide variety of religious traditions, monks, nuns, mystics, and priests have seen and communicated with spirits. While communing with God’s Holy Spirit is a standard part of Christianity, Christian monks and nuns have, for example, described mystical experiences that are atypically acute. Hildegard of Bingen (AD 1098–1179), a Medieval nun beatified by the Roman Catholic Church in AD 1326 and one of 36 saints given the title of Doctor of the Church (she was given this title on October 7, 2012) in honor of her contributions to the study of theology, is a compelling example (Ferzoco 2013:305; Hart and Bishop 1990). She provides vivid descriptions including detailed sketches of visions she had that included seeing fiery lights, kaleidoscopes of colors, and visitations from otherworldly beings such as angels, Jesus, or anthropomorphized beings (Bynum 1990; Hart and Bishop 1990). From the age of 3, Hildegard had seen visions of light, but at the age of 42, something changed, and she reported that, “Heaven opened and a fiery light of exceeding brilliance” permeated her brain (Hart and Bishop 1990:95). This exceeding brilliance would come again and provide her with more visions that she described and explained in Scivias (a manuscript of 10 medieval parchments completed ca. 1152 that detailed 26 of her visions). Color reproductions of her images included in newer publications of the manuscript are widely available, and are billed to be “faithful” copies of her black and white sketches, but we doubt that they capture Hildegard’s real experience. To Hildegard, these images would have been flowing and transitioning in a three-dimensional framework, just as shamanic visions do. In fact, it is impossible to miss the strong similarities between shamanic visions and Hildegard’s experiences. For example, in Vision Two, The Trinity, Hildegard reports: Then I saw a bright light, and in this light the figure of a man the color of a sapphire, which was all blazing with a gentle glowing fire. And that bright light bathed the whole of the glowing fire, and the glowing fire bathed the bright light; and the bright light and the glowing fire poured over the whole human figure, so that the three were one light in one power of potential (Hart and Bishop 1990:161).

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This description would have obviously been a pale imitation of the original vibrancy of the colors, just as a written description of the colorful shorts in Disney’s Fantasia would never communicate the vibrancy of this animated work for someone who never experienced the colors and sounds of modern animation and orchestral music. We suspect that few modern readers including us can fully empathize with Hildegard’s experience, even given our modern sensibility based on constant exposure to bright colors, powerful sounds/instrumentation, and viewing images of impossible transformations and events. Yet Hildegard’s visions do have striking similarities to the visions of brilliant lights and gently glowing colors many modern shamans have reported when using a variety of entheogens. Peyote and ayahuasca induced trance can cause one to see brilliant lights and glowing images. Ayahuasca shaman, Pablo Amaringo, frequently saw “lights of transformation.” He reported seeing brightly colored geometrics and patterns (characteristics of the first stage of ASC) and then purple and blue spirit people among other figures and images (characteristic of later stages of ASC) (Charing et al. 2011). Many of these bluecolored people were identified by Amaringo as ancient ones or the dead that still live in the spirit world (Charing et al. 2011:42, 160). It is curious that both Hildegard and Amaringo saw brilliant lights and blue men. Hildegard was certain she saw the Son of God several times and she heard God’s voice. Amaringo (in Charing et al. 2011:28) saw several spirit teachers including Christ and Confucius in his trances. Some authors have suggested that Hildegard might have consumed entheogens such as ergot (Claviceps purpurea) or fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) (Keizer 2013). Keizer (2013) correctly notes that in Physica (Hildegard’s book of medicine), Hildegard shows that she knew a great deal about medicinal plants. This includes mandrake, datura, fly agaric, and other entheogens, although Hildegard stresses in Scivias that she did not take medicines to induce her visions. The very fact she notes this demonstrates her knowledge of their hallucinogenic effects. Some researchers have questioned the sincerity of Hildegard’s claims suggesting that she knew a great deal about psychotropic plants and likely consumed them (Keizer 2013). To be clear, though, there is no historical evidence Hildegard or other nuns in her convent participated in this practice. Others have suggested that she might have had migraines, which could account for her visions (Sacks 1970). We do not question the authenticity of her visions or make an argument about the specific physiological mechanisms that produced them, but it is interesting that her perceptions of the divine include many of the same ASC-related visual phenomena reported worldwide. Bottom line, even though it is rare, her experiences demonstrate that Catholic saints can experience the Divine directly through ASC. To explore the relationship between ASC and Hildegard’s experiences a bit more, three major hallmarks of ASC experiences are included in her accounts. First, flashes of lights seen in trance are frequently interpreted to be stars, starbursts, or flutter (Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1988; Siegel and West 1975). Most of Hildegard’s sketches (originally done with wax tablets) show stars (e.g., the Body and Soul, The Redeemer). Flutters are typically interpreted as birds or birdwings or winged creatures, which could correspond to the angels she frequently reported. Second, many of Hildegard’s visions show concentric circles (circles within circles) that generally

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have an orb or tunnel at the center (e.g., Choirs of Angels, The Redeemer, The Trinity and the Unity, The One Sitting Upon the Throne, Mother Church). One of Hildegard’s images that Christine first saw nearly 20 years ago is the “Choir of Angels,” which consists of concentric rings of angels, and Cherubim with wings that have eyes (Hart and Bishop 1990:137–142). Christine thought the multiple layers of complex patterns are somewhat like peyote-inspired art that often has multiple layers of rings of images (Furst 2003:57, 62, 71, 73); there is something about the human mind that causes it to organize images into concentric rings in certain types of ASC. Third, Hildegard may have even experienced the sensation of heat and wind, which is often part of shamanic ASC. Her third vision “The Universe and Its Symbolism” provides such an example: After this I saw a vast instrument, round and shadowed, in the shape of an egg, small at the top, large in the middle and narrow at the bottom; outside of it, surrounding its circumference, there was bright fire with, as it were, a shadow zone under it. And in that fire there was a globe of sparkling flame so great that the whole instrument was illuminated by it, over which three little torches were arranged in such a way that by their fire they held up the globe lest it fall. And that globe at times raised itself up, so that much fire flew to it and thereby its flames lasted longer; and sometimes sank downward and great cold came to it, so that its flames were more quickly subdued. But from the fire that surrounded the instrument issued a blast with whirlwinds, and from the zone beneath it rushed forth another blast with its own whirlwinds, which diffused themselves hither and thither throughout the instrument.

Thus, even though Hildegard’s text focuses primarily on the vision’s Biblical meaning, her perceptions of whirlwinds, heat, and cold were intense enough that she included them in her descriptions. Despite the many similarities, there is at least one notable difference between Hildegard’s visions and typical shamanic visions. As discussed above, shamans worldwide often report spiritually traveling to and through the Under World and Upper World (Vitebsky 2001:14). In contrast, Hildegard describes herself as viewing as opposed to “travelling” during her visions. Her view was often expansive enough that she could see “The Universe” through spheres, complete with the sun and stars, whirlwinds, watery air, and lightning, but she stresses that God, by His grace, provided her with visions. In her words, “But the vision I saw I did not perceive in dreams, or sleep, or delirium, or by the eyes of the body, or by the ears of the outer self, or in hidden place; but I received them while awake and seeing with a pure mind and the eyes and ears of the inner self, in open places, as God willed it” (Hart and Bishop 1990:60). There is no hint of soul flight or a perception of a literal spiritual reality within the visions. To the contrary, the visions she reports are God-given experiences that enabled Hildegard to see and hear His will, but they do not correspond to any hidden, literal reality.

5.7

The Ethnosemantics of Spirit Specialists

On the Road to Damascus, Saul and his companions were struck down by a blinding light. Saul heard a voice say, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?...Saul got up from the ground,

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but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. They led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. . .But the Lord said to Anania, ‘Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.’ Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again.—Acts 9:3–18.

Case studies such as Gellner’s (1994) analysis of spirit specialists in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal and Endres’s (2008) discussion of Vietnamese religion demonstrate that each culture has its own nomenclature and types of spirit specialists. Our discussion here provides a general framework for expanding our ethnosemantics approach to evaluate variation in these structures. One of the central points of variation among cultures is how people are selected to be spirit specialists. There is variation, but the spirits typically select those that serve them, not the other way around. Their call can be as subtle as the healing dream of Sun Bear or as forceful as Paul’s conversion on the Road to Damascus. Regardless, the calling often comes with a period of physical and/or mental pain during which the spirits break the human to recraft them into a form that is more useful for the spirits. Sometimes the pain and deprivations are initiated by the humans themselves, as is the case for the Sun Dance on the Plains of North America or the Walkabout of the Aboriginal Australians. Other times, humans may try to avoid the spirits’ calls to the best of their ability, accepting them only when they literally have no other option. The use of coercion by spirits when calling shamans is so common that it has even been given the moniker of “arctic madness” and has been the basis of linking shamanism with mental heal issues (Eliade 1964; Whitley 2009). However, more recent research has demonstrated that: (1) not all shamanic traditions have a period of shamanic illness, (2) priests, nuns, and monks may undergo similar mental and physical trauma, although it is less common, and (3) when present, shamanic illness does not correspond with or follow the general patterns of recognized mental health disorders. As the spirits reassemble those they call, the specialist becomes a new being who can see, hear, feel, smell, sense, and understand spirits and their world(s) in ways that non-initiates cannot. Shamans become spirits themselves—they interact with spirits on this plane, but they may also travel to the Under World and Upperworld during dreams and/or soul flights. The power and knowledge given by spirits can be used to help their people, but those who are selfish may use it for their own purposes. Thus, shamans are at least potential witches, and must understand the methods and power of sorcery well enough to combat it. Spirit training is an ancient craft that has been with humans since we began painting cave walls during the Upper Paleolithic. Evidence for this training is seen by painted hybrid people in the forms of bird-headed and buffalo-headed humans. Upper Paleolithic burials indicate that spirit training was likely aided by periods of nutritional stress, which would have allowed the hidden world to be more clearly seen. Many shamans and other religious partitioners today use fasting to both cleanse the body and open the mind to peer into the spirit world. From the vast

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numbers of ethnographies and personal memoirs it appears spirits are there waiting to engage with humans.

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Chapter 6

Defense Against the Dark

Abstract Here we demonstrate that spirits are treated as active agents that can help or hurt humans in most cultures. We discuss prayers, magic, talismans, salt, and smudging as forms of spiritual protection. We also consider how various cultures maintain that unwanted spirit possession by the dead and/or demons is an empirical reality with direct physical manifestations (e.g., often indicated by a horrible odor, unusual speech including knowledge of foreign languages, foaming at the mouth, unpredictable rages, and even superhuman strength). As part of this discussion, we compare voluntary spirit possession (e.g., mediums, Pentecostal possession by the Holy Spirit), which is often associated with beneficial outcomes for those involved, and involuntary possession, which is generally associated with negative outcomes including social isolation and self-harm. The discussion includes analyses of the specific social and behavioral contexts of each type of possession. Case studies include Felicitas D. Goodman’s ethnographic work among the Pentecostals in Mexico, who are possessed in public rituals by the Holy Spirit, and I. M. Lewis’s discussion of spirit possession, especially among women, as a means of social resistance. Along with our anthropological examples we present a few American case studies presented by the late Roman Catholic priest, Malachi Martin, and the late psychiatrist M. Scott Peck. We compare and contrast these with case studies from Brazil, several Muslim nations/cultures, and elsewhere around the world. We discuss the common perception among Western researchers that spirit possession appears to be a human pathology associated with dissociative states, but note that voluntary possession by shamans and mediums is not associated with mental health issues. We also note that some psychiatrists argue that exorcisms can correspond to positive outcomes for their patients and even accept the possibility of legitimate spirit components in possession events. We conclude the chapter by further expanding the comparative model to include magical defense against bad luck, as well as the importance of the motives of spirits on their influences on humans.

The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible. Your

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. S. VanPool, T. L. VanPool, An Anthropological Study of Spirits, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25920-3_6

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defenses must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the Arts you seek to undo.—Severus Snape in Chapter 9 of The Half Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling (2005)

A reoccurring theme across cultures is that spirits are active. They can hurt or heal. They can teach or confuse. They can punish or reward. They can stand in moral judgement or intercede on people’s behalf. Some may be by nature benevolent while others may be innately malicious. What spirits do is based on context, culture, and their inherent nature. However, they are dynamic and often quite powerful. And they care about humans to some degree. Now presumably there are spirits that may not care about humans in many cultures, but if so, humans tend not to care about them either. As a race of pragmatists, humans have consistently focused on the spirits that can impact their lives, fortunes, and families. As a part of this, every culture has the concept of negative spiritual influence. For every superstition that is designed to bring good luck (carrying a rabbit’s foot), there are just as many that are said to bring bad luck (breaking a mirror). Illness, misfortune, social disorder, and loss are all associated with the negative aspects of spirits. Protecting ourselves from the evil, the unlucky, and the destructive has consequently been a central focus of spirit-human interaction. Here we consider the threat that spirits can pose, and the ways that humans protect themselves. We will also provide case studies of how spirits act as protectors (e.g., the creation of animated houses to protect the human occupants) along with case studies that highlight involuntary spirit-humans interactions (e.g., a person possessed by an unwanted spirit). We will also expand on our ethnosemantics approach by focusing on analogical reasoning, ecological relationships, and behavioral/physiological properties.

6.1

A Starting Caveat

Acknowledging that [anthropological researchers] are involved in philosophical inquiry means acknowledging different possibilities concerning what knowledge is considered to be; how it is obtained, recognized and related to ‘truth’; and the extent to which ‘truth’ reflects ‘reality’. In other words, it raises specific questions about whether qualitative interview data can reveal ‘truth’. It also means that the question of what counts as ‘truth’ or ‘lies’—for researchers, informants, readers—can rarely be answered simply or easily.—Educator Pat Sikes (2000:258)

Ghost stories, hauntings, and boogeymen are a human universal. Tales about spirits are told for a variety of reasons, including entertainment, to help encourage good behavior, to explain or legitimize specific social relationships and historical associations, and to reflect views related to cosmology and relationships to the dead. Exactly what constitutes a ‘true’ ghost story is consequently not a particularly easy thing to define. Sometimes a story may be considered true without necessarily being considered a literal account of the past; dreams are often viewed this way. Likewise, anthropologists have long realized that their cultural contacts can lie, and thereby either hide or embellish ‘the truth.’ As undergraduate students in the late 1980s, we had an Algonkian professor, William “Bill” Hawk, who warned us that Native

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Americans like to “pull our legs.” Sometimes they “lie” because anthropologists are asking for information that only people within the community should know. A lie in this context prompts the nosey anthropologist to stop asking a question that the informant simply will not answer. Other times people might lie because it is funny; anyone who has spent time in the Southwest knows that the Native Americans in the region have a wonderful, dry sense of humor, and many of them take great delight in preying on the incredulous. Todd remembers one absolutely wonderful evening on the Zuni reservation in which one of our Zuni colleagues discussed the tribe’s oral traditions about the dinosaurs that walked the land. The story was conveyed with such conviction, solemnness, and detail, that it was quite convincing. By Todd’s estimation, most of the undergraduates with him bought the story lock, stock, and barrel until our colleague started teasing them by dropping Flintstone (cartoon) references into the account (e.g., the War Chief ‘Bam Bam’ was known for his strength). People from around the world likewise enjoy spinning a good yarn. Professor Hawk therefore cautioned us to keep a skeptical eye open when reading ethnographies (see also Sikes 2000). As anthropologists, we look for broader patterns to help sort out some of the misrepresentations or confusions contained in our ethnographic work. If certain cultural stories are continually repeated (e.g., Zuni accounts that stinkbugs are ancestors), it is likely that it is a cultural truth. Although we have not brought it up before, we have applied this approach throughout this book. Most of the case studies we report are examples of broader patterns that have been documented by several researchers and repeated by multiple informants, typically at multiple research locations (e.g., different villages, at different times). We must always remain cautious, but the experience of anthropologists for the last 150 years demonstrates that anthropologists can use cultural knowledge to recognize “real” stories, identify the “truth” for that culture, and rule out the occasional fib or exaggeration. In other words, not all is lost even when considering ghost stories that are told for different reasons and that necessarily include a supernatural component. Like all cultural phenomena, there are patterns to be found in tales of spirits, and these patterns can help us identify and map the underlying cultural structure (i.e., ethnosemantics frameworks). A key to finding these patterns, however, is not to become too obsessed regarding whether a single event occurred as an informant reported. Was the young Fijian girl that knocked on Geir Henning Presterudstuen’s door really a ghost, a yalo (see Chap. 3)? Did the otter really die in front of the Tlingit shaman as recounted by Jonaitis (1986) (see Chap. 5)? It may be impossible to verify different aspects of a particular story or belief, especially if they occurred long ago. Further, people remember the same event differently, and their perspectives may be so different in their interpretation of its significance that what the anthropologist would perceive as the literal truth or falseness is incidental in the actual cultural construct we are considering. Is it really necessary (or even possible) to empirically evaluate whether humanoid ‘snake people’ live underground as spirit creatures in order to understand and appreciate the importance of the Underworld in the Akawaio’s view of the shamanic universe (see Chap. 4)? We do not think so.

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Our goal throughout this book but especially in this chapter therefore is not to determine which (if any) of the following stories is perfectly true and therefore demonstrates “real ghosts” and “the existence of life after death” or some other metaphysical claim. We continue to employ our operationally defined observational terms. Our focus is therefore to illustrate the ethnosemantics framework that can be used to study the structure and linkages among negative spirit interactions and malevolent/protective spirits to help establish an understanding of the behaviors of spirits and their relationships with their human counterparts.

6.2

Magic-Based Spirit Protection

He leads the fixed singing and ensures that songs are rendered “correctly.” Should this not be done, the Holy People [spirits] who attend the ceremony would be angry, and the patient and others in the hogan would be harmed. According to Ladd's informant, Bidaga: “If the singing is really doing well the Holy People will sure be happy. They listen to the song and they enjoy the song, and they listen outside. They stay outside all night till morning. Then they go away. The Holy People say, “it's really good singing, and let's go back home”—so they go back home. If the singing is not very good, he always missing the song, missing the words, the Holy People will not listen and also will not be happy. Oh so too bad for the singing—if he miss the words while singing. So the Holy People they outside, they listen. If this singing is going pretty good, when the patient goes out [after the completion of the Hogan Songs]—they feel happy. If the Singer not doing well, the Holy People will say: It's too bad for all the people what's in there in the hogan. Not just for the patient but for all the people in there. . .The Holy People is, they say—any person make fun of the song, make laughing at the song. The man who does it that way to the Blessing Way song, that person is not going to live very long.”—Anthropology Charlotte Frisbie (1967:381)

As we discussed in Chap. 3, it seems to us that magic (and other aspects) of spiritrelated ethnosemantics frameworks often is structured at three levels. First, there are aspects that are universal or near universal, such that each ethnosemantics framework has its own take, but these are often more similar than they are different, sharing some underlying structure that is cross-culturally typical. These include the concepts of souls and spirits or how ancestors are always important in human society. Second, some aspects are based on analogical reasoning. Within analogical reasoning there are cause-and-effect relationships observed in the natural world that lend themselves to spirit associations as we will illustrate with our example of salt. Sometimes the cause-and effect relationships are hidden, and it is the hidden quality that is labeled spirit, force, or essence. This is illustrated with Frazer’s (1963) sympathetic magic, which he based on the logical premise that “Like impacts Like” as we will explore below. Along with analogical relationships, there are also logical relationships, which may be more easily seen through ecological models (e.g., breathing caves from Chap. 3), animal and plant physiology and behavior (e.g., bears from Chap. 4). And finally, there are those aspects of ethnosemantics frameworks that are unique to that culture. Why the spirits take the form they do in these cases may appear to be historical accidents or chance associations to ethnographers, but frequently the relationship between spirit and human is stipulated by a group’s

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myth and cosmology. We will illustrate all three of these structures in our discussion of magic. We start off with a universal: malevolent spirits (defined broadly as spirits that harm humans in at least some circumstances) are a cultural universal and are a concern for some spirit specialists in every culture. Spirit specialists often say prayers or sing songs for protection. These can be quite complex; the songs and prayers can be long and may require exact wording and specific talismans that must be arranged into ritual sequences that take hours or even days to perform (Goodman 1988; Parsons 1996). If properly completed, these rituals will call in benevolent spirits to ward against malevolent influence, bad luck, or other spiritual dangers. For example, the Diné Blessing Way ceremonies mentioned in the opening quote of this section typically takes several days and is paired with other ceremonial events in order to be effective. Further, if prayers are done out of order or without the proper reverence and skill, otherwise benevolent spirits might become angry, disruptive, or harmful. Protective ceremonies, activities, and charms used to protect people from malevolent spirits are often called “magic” (Frazer 1963; Lee 1987; Malinowski 1979 [1925]; Moro 2013; Parsons 1996 [1939]). This concept of magic is probably familiar to most people; one of the definitions for “magic” provided by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is “the use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural powers over natural forces.” Likewise, anthropologists Stein and Stein (2017:229) define magic as “ways in which a person can compel the supernatural to behave in certain ways.” When dealing with the spirits, magic acts are often the means by which spirits and the physical world engage with each other. Recall from Chap. 2 that Bronislaw Malinowski (1979 [1925]) talked about the Trobriand Islander’s system of magic focused on appeasing or controlling spiritual power. Magic could focus good and bad luck, and ritual magic when properly done could help humans “ensnare luck” in an otherwise uncontrollable world of chance (Malinowski 1979 [1925]:28). Spirits and their power are linked to the physical world within ethnosemantics frameworks using naturalistic logic in complex ways. One of the most common ways spirits and spiritual power can be invoked is sympathetic magic, a term first coined by James George Frazer (1889). Sympathetic magic is often based on the concept that “like produces like” (an analogous relationship), that is, that “the magician infers that he can produce any effect he desires by imitating it” (Frazer 1963[1889]:12). An example discussed by Frazer is derived from the Anishinaabe people of Canada and the northern Midwestern United States. An Anishinaabe person might shoot a wooden image of his enemy with an arrow so that his enemy will be seized with a corresponding sharp pain in his body. If he intends to kill the person, he might burn the wooden figure (Frazer 1963:15). Likewise, Malay charms can be made from nail parings, hairs, eyebrows, and other bodily items that are mixed with an abandoned bee comb and then shaped loosely like the intended victim. The bee comb allows the magician to slowly burn the effigy “over a lamp every night for seven nights, and say, ‘It is not wax that I am scorching. It is the liver, heart, and spleen of So-and-so that I scorch’” (Frazer 1963:15). The intended victim

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is expected to die after the seventh night. These examples are strikingly similar to Voodoo dolls that are common in Euro-American stories of malicious spiritual practices. Magic can be used to cause harm as in the above examples, but it can also be used to protect and strengthen people. Frazer (1963:45) provides an example based on humans magically creating a reciprocal relationship with mice and rats to strengthen their teeth: . . .in Germany it is said to be an almost universal maxim among the people that when you have had a tooth taken out you should insert it in a mouse’s hole. To do so with a child’s milk-tooth which has fallen out will prevent the child from having toothaches. Or you should go behind the stove and throw your tooth backwards over your head, saying “Mouse, give me your iron tooth; I will give you my bone tooth.”

Among the Raratona of the Pacific Islands, the following prayer was said when a child’s tooth was extracted: Big rat! “Little rat! Here is my old tooth Pray give me a new one”—Frazer 1963:45)

Frazer (1963) defined another conceptually structure underlying some magical practices that he called contagion magic. Like sympathetic magic, contagion magic focuses on creating a spiritual link between aspects of the physical world to establish a reciprocal relationship. Touching a holy relic or an item used by a powerful or successful person might magically transmit some aspect of the original owner’s power and abilities, for example. The magical connection between a source and a target allows the transmission of some essence or quality (which can be positive or negative) between the two entities (whether they are humans, objects, or some combination thereof). These examples of magic follow a coherent conceptual structure. Giving human teeth to rats and mice will result in rats and mice giving stronger teeth to humans. An injury to a doll with the characteristics of an individual will cause harm to that individual. Drawing a picture of a successful hunt will help bring it into reality. And so forth. Not all examples of magic are as conceptually straightforward as most of Frazer’s examples, but Elsie Clews Parsons (1996 [1939]) notes that rituals always have their own internal logic, that is, they make sense in terms of basic cultural relationships. In her words, In logical order we may consider the ritual of making offerings or giving pay to the Spirits; the fetishes and representations of the Spirits; those images or effigies which the Spirit invest when properly invoked, and which convey power or title, the assemblage of fetishes and other sacrosanct things to form an altar; mimetic weather or crop ritual, including running and dancing and throwing gifts, rites which express with peculiar vividness the feeling or ideation of mimetic magic [a synonym for sympathetic magic], of performing in little or representatively as a form of compulsive magic what is desired on a large scale; and finally purificatory ritual to prepare for or to conclude ceremonial, cleansing for or after contact with sacrosanct and dangerous things.—(Parsons 1996 [1939]:269).

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Spirits lie at the heart of the naturalistic logic humans use to protect what they value. Preventing harm is typically contingent on the cooperation of spirits whether they be clearly defined (e.g., offerings given to Poseidon to ensure safe passage when sailing) or amorphous (the gambler’s luck). However, the types of spirits and the ways they are manifested may take many forms that follow distinct logical structures, which in turn will be reflected in an ethnosemantics framework. We explore this below. The final level is the culturally unique (or at least unusual) associations characteristic of an individualized logical framework. For example, Todd’s father was a retired officer in the United States Navy. Before he was commissioned, he was trained to be a salvage diver. As a young, enlisted sailor, Todd’s father made a deal with King Neptune: he would not eat King Neptune’s fish if Neptune’s fish did not eat him. Although Todd’s father retired from the military more than 30 years before his death, Todd never saw his father eat fish, shrimp, or any other water life, out of respect for the deal he had made. This spiritual pact, however, was limited only to Todd’s father, and is not generally applicable to sailors or even members of the US Navy. Ethnosemantics frameworks will include spirits and spirit human relationships that reflect all three sources. Here we explore how these frameworks structure the magical defense against malicious spirits.

6.2.1

Protecting the Self

Some of the ornaments are undoubtedly supposed to act as charms, amulets, or talismans, as they are worn chiefly by the women and children, who are especially exposed to the malicious influence of evil spirits. In fact the different works of art and modes of decoration, including ornaments, paint, mutilation, scarification, tattoo, etc., seem to have had originally a religious and magical significance rather than a desire to embellish the appearance. Red and black paint is still regarded a prophylactic against disease.—Anthropologist Eduard Conzemius (1932:134).

The quote above reflects how the Miskito and Sumu Indians of Honduras and Nicaragua, especially those who are perceived as vulnerable, wear items to protect themselves from evil spirits. Similar practices probably date back to at least the Upper Paleolithic (if not earlier) with the use of portable art, and they remain common throughout the world. The use of spirit charms is likely a universal feature of ethnosemantics frameworks. A quick search for the use of magical “charms” in the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), which is large database of anthropological materials that allows researchers to conduct cross-cultural comparisons, reveals they are a worldwide phenomenon; their use is documented in 55 cultures from Africa, 50 cultures in Asia, 54 cultures in North America, and so forth for a total of 239 cultures worldwide (2/3rds of the 361 recognized cultures). And that is just looking for that specific word. There are more instances of the use of totems, amulets, relics, and so forth for spiritual protection than our superficial search indicates.

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Yet each ethnosemantics framework has its own unique structure for charms. They are often directly tied to specific animating spirits that activate them in many cases and can be found in the stories told by a group. For example, Karsten (1935:436) recounts how a Jibaro woman (a Native American tribe from eastern Ecuador and Peru) was given the first nantára, a sacred charm made of red stone. After drinking an intoxicating mixture similar to ayahuasca made from Banisteria caapi, the woman encountered her grandmother who seize her arms and spit tobacco juice on them. The grandmother then said, “You will not die soon, you will have a long life and have much to eat. The stone which you wear in the hand will affect this” (Karsten 1935:436). At the same time, a voice that came like “a flash of lightning from the heaven” said to her, “I am your ancestral mother (apachiru), I will give you this stone in order that you shall have long life” (Karsten 1935:436). As the vision passed, the woman had a nantára stone charm in her hand. Since then, Jibaro women use nantára to ensure long life and success in domestic tasks including farming. Charms are often stone but almost anything can be made into a protective charm, amulet, or a talisman. In modern American society people know that carrying a lucky coin, eating a particular meal (e.g., black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day), or wearing a particular uniform may be a vehicle for protection, luck, and social cohesion (Burger and Lynn 2005; Malefyt and Johnson 2020). Benedict (1923) likewise describes the Thompson people of British Columbia, Canada, using virtually any object, from water kettles to horseflies, as magical protectors. Guardian charms could be idiosyncratic for individuals but were also shared among people based on context or profession such that, “Shamans, warriors, fishermen, hunters, and gamblers had each their recognizable guardians” (Benedict 1923:11). Even weather phenomena could be guardians in a manner somewhat analogous to Western cliches such as “Rainbow at night, Sailor’s delight.” (This cliché is an ecological observation in which the appearance of the rainbow indicates the storm has passed, and when present late in the afternoon or at dusk it indicates that it will most likely be a calm night, which must have been a delight on a ship.) Raymond Lee (1987) encountered the use of blessed water (air jampi) and a knotted amulet as protective charms during his study of Malay spirit possession in the summer of 1977. Lee had previously faulted anthropologists for only focusing on the empirical experience and social (functional) significance of magic because this approach ignores the emotional and culturally embedded view of magical experiences (Lee 1987). Trying to transcend this disciplinary focus led him to pursue an insider’s perspective. He approached two male Malay sociology graduate students that he had known for several years. Although they were scientists, they were also members of tarekat (an Islamic Sufi mystical order) that were studying the mystical and magical aspects of Islam. They were learning the “arcane techniques for manipulating lifeforces from their guru” (Lee 1987:71). Once these young men knew that Lee was not a skeptic but wanted to learn about the magic, they started teaching him several practices for “entering another dimension of consciousness”— primarily how to have out-of-body experiences at will (Lee 1987:71). The men further claimed that other abilities could be mastered including healing headaches, protecting oneself from malevolent spirits, and appearing as a spirit to others

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independent of one’s own body. Lee was eager to study this magical art and started practicing methods for shifting his consciousness to another dimension. Lee (1987:72) found the process scary with his emotions fluctuating between excitement and a fear of the unknown. His emotional instability led him to turn to his graduate friends for help. “Many of us were like you," he [Lee’s friend] emphasized. "When we were beginners, we were overcome with awe and joy. Then we became afraid of the unseen powers. But we had our guru to help us." He disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a glass of plain water. He handed me the glass and instructed me to drink the water quickly. No sooner had I drunk it than I felt a strong force penetrate my palate and in seconds reached my head. A strange warmth spread over me. I was stupefied and wondered aloud whether there was something in the drink. "There's nothing harmful in the water," Yusoff [pseudonym] reassured me. "I didn't put anything in it. All I did was say a short prayer." I had heard of charmed water— what the Malays called air jampi—but until that night, its meaning had no empirical impact” (Lee 1987:72).

Lee and the young men talked for a while about religion and magic. His friends stressed the importance of Islam, how it was vital for mental health, and how it could be used to establish psychological parameters and help control his fear of the unknown. They invited Lee to become a Muslim, but he was not ready to make that commitment. Yusoff then gave me a bottle of air jampi and instructed me to sprinkle the water around my bedroom for protection during sleep. He also handed me a circular, metal amulet, which contained Islamic inscriptions. The amulet was attached to a black string with an intricate knot. "Before you sleep, undo the knot and tie the amulet around your neck. It will protect you throughout the night." With those final instructions, Yusoff and Hassan bade me goodnight (Lee 1987:72–73).

Lee (1987:73) reported a strong emotional reaction to his experience such that: At home, I felt like a scientist stripped naked of his objectivity and exposed to the powers of his subjects. I did exactly what Yusoff had told me. . .Troubled by the events of the past weeks, I broke out in a sweat. I could not sleep. It was past midnight when I heard a highpitched sound, like a distant police whistle. I tossed and turned, but I could not shake off the sound. Then I realized that it was coming from the amulet, which was also emitting heat. Unlike the air jampi that I had drunk, this warmth did not spread over my body but was localized to the amulet. If the sound and the heat of the amulet were indicative of certain powers, what were they and where did they come from? I had no answers. Nor do I have now. In the early hours, I finally fell asleep. When I awoke, I removed the amulet, placed it on a table, and went into the bathroom. When I returned, I picked up the amulet and was astonished to discover a large knot on the black string. It was the same intricate knot that I had undone last night. When I left the room, the amulet was lying with its inscribed side faced upward and the black string bunched around it. As the black string was made of smooth material, it did not get entangled. When I returned from the bathroom, the position of the amulet and string had not changed. But how did the knot get there?

Modern chemists recognize water as being the universal solvent because more substances are dissolved in water than any other chemical. Of course water does not dissolve everything as pipes clogged with fats and hair demonstrate, but it can be used to wash such things away. Humans all over the planet and through time intrinsically understood water as life giving and cleansing. We are not surprised

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then that our ethnographic readings indicate that water is also nearly universally used to spiritually cleanse and protect people, places, and things. Carr (2021) found that most Eastern North American tribes believe that spirits could not cross over water. As reflected in the story of the headless horseman, Euro-American traditions have a similar view. In Lee’s case study, prayers were said over water to create air jampi, which was then sprinkled around Lee’s bed for protection. The relationship between water and spirits is based on the sound physical properties of water, and it is illustrated in this case study. Lee’s own personal encounters with other dimensions, spirits, amulets, and charms are similar to the experiences of other anthropologists, most notably Felicitas Goodman (1990), Michael Harner (1990), and William Lyon (2012) who reported similarly intense experiences including spiritually powerful interactions with objects (e.g., Goodman’s rattle transforming in her “aunt”) as well as soul flight that included traveling to different dimensions and visiting with spirits. Similar accounts have been documented across the world.

6.2.2

Protecting the Home

The door is always open The neighbors pay a call And Father John before he’s gone Will bless the house and all —Lyrics to the Christmas Carol “Christmas in Killarney”

Homes are the center of family life in most cultures, and, of course, the family is the fundamental building block of every society. Spirits are often central to houses and other aspects of the built environment. As a result, people in many cultures focused on managing spirits within the household with the same diligence with which they maintain the physical structure itself. We touch on this in our discussion of “the spirit of the house” in Chap. 4. We add to that discussion here by focusing on magical efforts to protect the home from harmful spiritual influences. Such practices can range from the informal blessing offered by Father John in the above quote to extended ceremonies focused on smudging and ritually cleansing houses. Parsons (1996 [1939]:464) recounts how Southwestern Pueblo people use ashes to stop bad spirits from harming homes and the people in them: Doctors engaged in witch pursuit are rubbed with ashes, as are patients afflicted by witches. Women have demonstrated to me how they would cast a pinch of ashes against the window of their house or drop ashes at the threshold whenever they feared a lurking witch (Paguate, Isleta). In Tewa tales ashes are thrown into a boiling piñon gum to make the jars crack and spit out the bad medicine the witches are making.

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Many groups around the world also use ashes to ward off malevolent spirits, but other substances can be used to provide a protective boundary and drive evil spirits from a home. These often reflect a rather straightforward naturalistic logic. For example, many Native American groups provide tobacco offerings to attract benevolent spirits, cleanse and purify a person or space from evil spirits, and ensure positive interactions with powerful deities (Parsons 1996; Whitley 2001; Wilbert 1987). Good spirits breathe in the tobacco smoke much like we taste food, but malevolent spirits are repelled by it. Tobacco is also a natural pesticide, and Whitley (2001) observes that this ability to kill pests is in part why many Native American groups believe it can also cleanse a person or place of spiritual pests. Native American cultures often also burn sage and sweetgrass for spiritual cleansing (Stokes 2001). Again, the use of these sorts of plants for ritual smudging is common worldwide (Nautiyal et al. 2007). Smudging is common in modern Euro-American society. White sage (Salvia apiana) seems to have been adopted in the ritual practices of Wiccans and Neo-shamans (Aldred 2000) and is used as a folk means of spiritual cleansing across the United States. For the past several years, we have come across social media posts extolling the use of sage smudging for spiritually and physically cleansing houses. These posts often have startling claims such as, “white sage kills 94% of airborne bacteria.” We have tried to track down the original scientific studies for this assertion and have found only one reference (Nautiyal et al. 2007) cited to support this claim. However, Nautiyal et al. (2007) does not discuss white sage or any other North American plants and products. Building from the use of medicinal smoke discussed in early Indian writings (Sushruta 800–600 BC), they made robust mixtures using leaves, roots, seeds, and/or gum of over 50 plants that were native to India as well as other materials (e.g., clarified butter) that they used to fumigate small, enclosed rooms. These smoke mixtures: completely eliminate human pathogenic bacteria Corynebacterium urealyticum causing urinary tract infection (Nebreda-Moyoral et al. 1994), Kocuria rosea causing catheter related bacteremia (Altuntas et al. 2004), Staphylococcus lentus causing splenic abscess (Karachalios et al. 2006), Staphylococcus xylosus causing acute polynephritis (Angelina et al. 1982 [Tselenis-Kotosowilis et al. 1982]), Tsukamurella inchonensis causing acute myelogenous leukemia (Yassin et al. 1995), Enterobacter aerogenes (Klebsiella mobilis) causing nosocomial infections (Peres-Bota et al. 2003), Sphingobacterium spiritovorum causing extrinsic allergic alveolitis (Sato and Jiang 1996) and Sphingomonas sanguinis causing nosocomial non-life-threatening infections (Li et al. 2004) (Nautiyal et al. 2007:449).

In unrelated research, Mahdavi et al. (2018) reports that the smoke of Etlingera brevilabrum, a flowering plant found in southern Asia and across the Pacific Islands, also inhibited the growth of many bacteria and fungi. It therefore seems likely that medicinal smokes using other plants from around the world (likely including white sage and tobacco) can kill harmful bacteria and parasites that contributed to illness, even though scientific studies have yet to demonstrate this. Given the close link in most traditional societies between spirits and illness, this means that smudging is also an excellent means of spiritual purification—anything that helps prevent or treat illness also helps cleanse the spirit and vice versa.

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Salt’s utility in preventing rot and preserving food may likewise contribute to the naturalistic logic that ascribed it magical qualities of spirit protection in many ethnosemantics frameworks. Salt’s ability to absorb water allows it to destroy many bacteria, making salt one of the most effective and widely used preservatives across the world. Native Hawaiians add salt and turmeric root to water that is sprinkled throughout a house to rid it of evil spirits (Handy et al. 1972:145). Traditional Japanese place small mounds of salt outside of gates and near entrances to houses and stores because “evil forces are repelled by it; ghosts and monsters crave sweet things, such as rice buns filled with sweet bean paste, yet they abhor the sight of salt” (Tamaş 2012:97). Tribal people in Morocco and elsewhere in northern Africa wear pendants of salt around their necks to protect them against malevolent spirits (Lawrence 1898). Modern Wiccans and other groups use a combination of ashes, soda ash (sodium carbonate), and salt (sodium chloride) to draw protection circles around themselves or to create barriers at the entrance to a room to stop bad spirits from entering (Dunwich 1991). This practice likely reflects ancient European practices that have continued into the present. In The Magic of the Horseshoe (1898), Robert Means Lawrence summarizes some of these practices. During the twelfth century a German monk wrote that “evil spirits cannot bear salt” (Lawrence 1898:159). Historically peasants throughout Europe also believed that salt protected one from witches and their spells. People of Normandy and the Hartz Mountain region of Germany were known to put a little salt in their milk to protect their cows and milk from witchcraft. Likewise, the people in Aberdeen County of Scotland put salt on the lid of a churn when they were making butter to protect it from witchcraft. A final form of magical protection common throughout the world is the personal control and choice to maintain the appropriate attitude that fosters beneficial spiritual interactions. This is reflected in Frisbie’s (1967:381) discussion cited above about the importance of the proper reverence and attitude required for the Diné Blessing Way to be effective, but the influence of a proper mental attitude may be more subtle as well. Fiore (1987), a psychologist we will discuss extensively in this chapter, reiterates a common (in our experience) Western belief that negative emotions and conflict can make spirits stronger, perhaps even allowing them to become attached to a person or house. In her words, “Some spirits feed on the energy from fights and hostility. Bursts of energy from these explosions provide a banquet for energyweakened entities” (Fiore 1987:151–52). Avoiding these negative emotions will keep a place free from malevolent spiritual influence, even outside of a ritual structure like the Blessing Way. As a result, Fiore (1987) suggests people can continually protect themselves and their homes from harmful spirits by imaging every room filled with white light, keeping the home filled with love, maintaining a positive attitude, saying prayers, asking for spiritual help from professionals, and abstaining from drugs and alcohol, which seem to make people and their homes more susceptible to negative spiritual influences. Of course, maintaining a positive attitude and thinking about “white light” and other manifestations of spiritual and mental health might have a direct, practical benefit for those who are fighting

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depression or having negative feelings. Thus, like smudging, there may be practical benefits from such practices.

6.3

Protecting Against Malicious Spirits

In other words, the world of sereware (now) is a very dangerous place with diverse and mysterious forces lurking in deep pools, rocks, trees, mountaintops and all around us that are capable of shapeshifting and inclined toward the predation of humans who break their taboos.—Anthropologist Daniel Cooper (2015:97) in his analysis of the Akawaio of South America

Magic can help humans influence spirits, but often the spirits have their own volition and agency. Their wants and desires may be independent of any charms or other magical rituals humans commonly use, and, when their intentions are malevolent, may pose a dire threat to humans. Malicious spirits can of course take a variety of forms, ranging from corrupted humans such as malignant witches to unwanted ghosts and malevolent demons. An example of malignant witches that can harm humans are the Diné skinwalkers—witches who use ‘the Witchery Way’ to take advantage of the vulnerable and unwitting. These individuals, more properly called Yenaldlooshi (he who runs around on all fours with it), wear the skins of coyotes or other animals and travel at night to steal other people’s property and to cause illness and death (Kluckhohn 1944:26). They may also practice cannibalism and necrophilia (Kluckhohn 1944:27, 85, 134, 138). Yenaldlooshi are such a common figure for the Diné that it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between tales that are simply meant to be stories and those that are purported to reflect real events. Brady (1980:160) for example presents an analysis of 100 Yenaldlooshi tails told to her by children. Many of these are entertaining yarns not meant to be taken literally, but there are several cases recorded of specific events that are explicitly reported to be actual cases of Yenaldlooshi. Toulouse (1982:85–86) reports two of these. In the first, sheep were stolen at night from a Diné woman, but there was no sign of predators, no noise indicative of rustling, and no prints other than the hoof prints of the sheep. The woman visited other sheep herders in the region looking for the person who was stealing from her. She found sheep with her brand in her niece’s pen. When she confronted her niece, the niece admitted she stole the sheep by transforming into a sheep as a Yenaldlooshi and going into the pen. When leaving, one or two of the other sheep would follow her, allowing her to abduct them silently and add them to her own flock. The reason for the theft was the niece’s hard feelings about what she believed to be an unfair inheritance settlement from a mutual relative. In the second case, a young man driving on the Navajo reservation recognized a classmate hitchhiking on the side of the road. He stopped to give her a ride, but when the classmate approached the truck, the driver saw that her face was painted white, and she wore a wolf skin around her shoulders. Recognizing her as a Yenaldlooshi, the young man began to drive away. The young woman chased after him. He accelerated, but his classmate kept up with the vehicle for about a mile. The man

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was visited by relatives of his classmate later that day that asked him to remain quite about what he saw, because “the girl would die if others found out what she was” (Toulouse 1982:86). The young man was concerned about his own safety, so he decided instead to tell his family about the incident. The young woman’s status as Yenaldlooshi was soon widely known in the nearby households. She became ill and was hospitalized at the Public Health Service on the Navajo reservation and then moved to a hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She eventually died despite the best efforts of the doctors there. Kluckhohn (1944:15) describes the Yenaldlooshi as part of the Witchery Way, a Diné ceremonial complex focused on harming and cursing others. Although poorly documented, largely because the Diné are reluctant to talk about it, the Witchery Way stands in direct contrast to the better documented and more respected Blessingway, which is used to restore and protect and is a central feature in Diné ceremonial practice. What anthropologists do know is that the Diné hold the Witchery Way is real, and Yenaldlooshi are required to commit a great sin to be initiated into it, generally killing a close relative such as a sibling. Yenaldlooshi can be either male or female and are typically taught their craft by another close relative (spouse, parent, grandparent) (Kluckhohn 1944:15). The Yenaldlooshi are especially associated with “corpse poison” made using human bones, preferably of twin children. The bones and other unspecified ingredients are ground to a fine powder that “looks like pollen” (Kluckhohn 1944:15). It then can be dropped through a hogan’s smokehole (hogans are the typical traditional single-room dwellings of the Diné; see Chap. 4) or blown into the face of the desired victim. It can even be used to lace a cigarette. Symptoms of ingesting this poison include lockjaw, fainting, a swollen and discolored tongue, or a more subtle wasting disease. Once infected, the Yenaldlooshi may let the victim die, or can make a profit (e.g., one Yenaldlooshi infects the victim while a partner cures the patient; the Yenaldlooshi causes and then cures the disease after being recommended to the victim by a third party). Combating the Yenaldlooshi can best be done by finding them while they are in human form and the punishment can include death (Kluckhohn 1944:15). Their tracks can be followed back to their house, if available. Kluckhohn (1944:53) notes that as tempting as it might be to simply ascribe all Yenaldlooshi stories to the realm of fantasy, it is undeniable that the Diné take countermeasures to protect themselves from the potential danger these creatures represented. In other words, the Diné treated them as dangerous and behave towards them as real, actual threats, as opposed to simple, fun stories told around a campfire. In contrast to the Yenaldlooshi, some unwanted spirits are strictly noncorporeal. Ghost stories are common in many complex societies and there are numerous “factual” books on this subject, many of which we have been slowly collecting over the years. As we discussed in Chap. 3, many societies have living houses with their own animating spirits within them, but the idea of haunted houses is different, in that an independent spiritual entity lives in the house, along with, and often in opposition to, humans. Like our youngest son, Christine has always been fascinated by ghost stories. She grew up in Ruidoso, New Mexico, and as a kid, she would go to a Girl Scout summer

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camp near Mayhill, New Mexico. She loved hearing the ghost stories that the councilors or other girls would tell around the campfire. The girls would scare themselves silly but nothing supernatural ever happened at camp. No ghosts of ill-fated campers roamed the surrounding woods, and phantom cowboys never galloped through camp. Later when Christine was older, she went ghost hunting in cemeteries near Ruidoso, New Mexico. For a week straight in 1988, she and a friend went every night to a cemetery in Angus, New Mexico, which was supposed to be haunted. They never experienced anything, so they shifted to Ruidoso’s cemetery and other surrounding graveyards. Again, they never found anything amiss, but Christine still occasionally buys ghost story books dealing with New Mexico. Two of Christine’s favorite authors are Dan Terry and Antonio R. Garcez. Both do a great job discussing hauntings. Terry is a retired police officer who has written a lot about haunted places, especially in Missouri. His books are as much history as they are accounts of his personal investigations of haunted locations (Terry 2011, 2016). Garcez does an amazing job reporting his informants’ ghost encounters. These stories, as is typical of such accounts, provide a discussion of the haunting itself and the person’s emotional and physical response (which typically includes being shocked and/or frightened). The stories, however, do not provide a personal background for the informants’ previous mental states before seeing an apparition; we do not know whether they were happy-go-lucky before they experienced a haunting or if they were suffering from depression, other mental/emotional issues, and/or brain trauma. In contrast, ghost television shows (e.g., Paranormal Survivor) sometimes provide the background of the people and the story, including how the person and/or family come to realize they are experiencing supernatural events. Despite or perhaps because of their entertainment value, American ghost stories (perhaps especially those on TV) can and often do contain embellishments and even fictional accounts told for profit or fun. Like ethnographies, though, repeated patterns reflect the underlying cultural constructions of spirits and their world. Garcez in his book Adobe Angels (1996) reports an interesting ghost story from Roswell, New Mexico, which is not far from where Christine grew up. When Christine was a senior in high school in 1987, she found her prom dress in a store on Roswell’s Main Street. Roswell is now well known for the 1947 “UFO crash,” but it was not until the late 1990s that interests in UFOs and aliens spurred Roswell to commercialize the crash landing for tourism. Instead, Roswell was better known for its hauntings during Christine’s childhood. Not surprisingly Garcez (1996) published a case from this town. This tale features a curandera, a shaman and traditional faith healer. Curandera are common throughout northern Mexico and southern New Mexico in our experience, and indeed throughout Latin America according to our Mexican friends. They are hired for a variety of spiritual purposes, especially curing and divination (see Hoskins and Padrón 2018) and even have their own dedicated listing in the (actual and online) phonebooks for El Paso, Texas, and many other Southwestern towns. Agustin Nevarez’s account begins with his family buying a house in Roswell. He was 20 years old and the oldest son in the family. Soon after moving into their home, Agustin’s younger brother kept falling asleep in his elementary school class. One

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morning his mother asked her young son why he was tired all the time. He hesitated then nervously answered that, “a scary man had been visiting him at night” (Garcez 1996:113). Surprised Agustin’s mother questioned him by asking, “What man are you talking about?” Her son responded, “I don’t know who he is, he just comes into my room and hangs around. . . and doesn’t let me sleep” (Garcez 1996:114). Agustin’s mother tried to soothe her son by telling him that she would stay with him that night in his room. Agustin states his mother was not planning on staying the entire night; she was only going to comfort her son until he fell asleep. While stroking his hair after he fell asleep, the mother thought about leaving to go to her own room. Suddenly a movement by the bedroom door caught her attention: A shadowy silhouette of a man slowly appeared in the doorway. She was terrified! This ghostly figure took a few steps towards the bed. My mother lay motionless. The figure moved closer, and just before it got within arms’ length of the bed, she whispered, ‘I don’t know who you are, but leave my baby alone, and get out of my house!’ The figure slowly backed away, and then disappeared (Garcez 1996:114).

Not wanting to terrify her children the mother kept her experience to herself until she had time to tell a good friend about the ghost. Her friend advised her to get help from a priest. After talking to her husband and discussing the matter more with her friend, she visited a local church. The parish priest agreed to bless her house. After the blessing, the house seemed to be at peace. “My brother did not experience any more visits from the ‘visitor’” (Garcez 1996:114). The “visitor,” however, was not done with the family. A couple of days later, Agustin’s uncle and his wife came over for dinner and to play a game of poker in the kitchen. During the game, there was a knock at the kitchen door. Agustin’s uncle who was closest to the door answered it, but no one was there. Agustin’s father suggested it was a neighborhood kid playing a prank. They went back to the card game but were again interrupted by a knock at the door. Again, no one was there when they opened the door. Becoming irritated, my father called me into the kitchen and instructed me on a plan to catch the mischievous kid. I was to go to the back yard and climb onto the roof of the house. He thought the reason they had not seen anyone at the door was the mischievous child doing the prank must be on the roof, knocking at the door below with an extended arm. I took a flashlight, shined it all over the roof, and found no one. When I got back to my father with this information, they told me while I was on the roof, there was another knock at the door, and they asked if I had seen the kid. I told them I searched all over the roof, and I had seen no one. They seemed puzzled (Garcez 1996:115).

Intrigued, Agustin’s uncle wanted to catch the prankster, so he cracked the door so it appeared closed but without letting the latch fully catch so he could immediately open the door without twisting the knob or other delay. When a series of three knocks came again, the door was yanked opened but again no one was there. “We looked at each other in amazement and disbelief! It was knocking by itself!” (Garcez 1996:116). Agustin’s parents decided the knocking must be supernatural, and the next day the father called a curandera that lived in El Paso, Texas. The curandera agreed to visit the family.

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From Garcez’s (1996) account, it sounds like most of Agustin’s family, especially the younger children, did not know all the details of the haunting. One evening before the curandera came to bless the house, Agustin and his parents went grocery shopping. His seventeen-year-old sister stayed home to take care of the younger siblings. When they got home a couple of hours later, the house was dark, which Agustin found odd. It was early in the evening, and everyone would have normally been watching television. The doors were locked, and no one answered his father’s yell to open the front door. Agustin crawled through a kitchen window so he could open the door from the inside. He and his parents turned on the lights and found the living room in total disarray. They worked their way through the house, and when Agustin got to his parents’ bedroom, he could not open the door because it was blocked by the dresser. Alarmed, the three adults pushed open the door. There they found Agustin’s sister and the other children, who were highly agitated. “After realizing who we were, the children began to calm down, while my older sister told my parents what happened” (Garcez 1996:116). Agustin’s sister said that a rocking chair in the living room began rocking itself, and then soon after a 5-footlong love seat with her and her three siblings began to move. The sofa was on top of a rug and both were pulled across the living room by an invisible force. “When the love seat came to stop, they heard a man’s wicked laughter” (Garcez 1996:116). Agustin’s oldest sister barricaded everyone in her parent’s room and prayed their parents would quickly get home. The curandera and her apprentice showed up the next day and were able to find the source of the haunting. She sensed that a bad spirit was lingering between the ceiling and roof, so Agustin was ordered to search the crawl space above the ceiling. During his search he found a cardboard box full of sexually explicit photographs. Based on the kitchen tile in the background of several pictures, it appeared that the some of the photographs of a woman were taken in the home, presumably by a previous homeowner. The photos were kept from the other siblings as the curandera dowsed the photographs with gasoline and burned them in the yard. About a week later Agustin’s mom found out from one of their neighbors that the previous owner of the house was a photographer and that he had been murdered in the living room. The murder was verified by a member of law enforcement. Agustin’s family reasoned the haunting spirit belonged to the murdered man. The haunting Agustin describes is structurally identical to other hauntings documented worldwide. Gates (1983:69) for example documents a similar haunting among the Hokkien of Taiwan in which the ghost of a woman who committed suicide forced her family from their ancestral land. In ethnosemantics structures such as these, the spirit might linger between the world of the living and the spirit world because they do not realize they are dead, or because they have “unfinished business” of some sort (Fiore 1987; Sarchie and Cool 2001; Wicks et al. 2012). They may even be trapped in a specific location or associated with a specific person. Regardless of the details of specific hauntings, they tend to frighten the living, and are beyond the control of the typical human. Dealing with troublesome spirits may require the help of priests, shamans, curanderos, or other religious specialists as defined in a culture’s ethnosemantic

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structure. Bargaining to appease a malevolent spirit is another strategy that is often used cross-culturally. Famous “Ghost Hunters” Ed and Lorraine Warren provide an example. The Warrens are among the most famous paranormal specialists in the United States and have written extensively on their experiences with demons and other malevolent spirits. (We previously mentioned the Warrens in our discussion of Annabelle, the haunted Raggedy Ann doll.) Ed was a demonologist and Lorraine a psychic. They are well-known through their links to famous hauntings, some of which have been turned into movies (complete with the traditional narrative liberty Hollywood uses to make exciting movies “based on actual events.”) One of the most famous of these was the 1976 Amityville case in New York, which served as the inspiration for the Amityville Horror movies and books (e.g., Anson 1977). According to the story, a young couple, George and Kathy Lutz, believed that their home was haunted by a violent, demonic presence. Skeptics have challenged the Warrens’ account and indeed the entire Amityville haunting, suggesting it was fanciful and likely made up for fame and wealth (e.g., Kaplan and Kaplan 1995; Nickell 2003). Wicks et al. (2012) counter that the fact that the Lutzes fled from the home without taking their possessions, and then allowed the bank to repossess their home and destroy their credit demonstrates the haunting was real. We will not dwell on the Amityville Horror movies or the Conjuring Cinematic Universe, which is also derived from the Warrens’ accounts. We will instead focus on the Warrens’ account of a “Water Poltergeist,” which is an elemental spirit. These sorts of spirits are not particularly common in Euro-America accounts of spirit interactions but are found in other cultures around the world. As such, their account provides an interesting comparative case. Cheryl A. Wicks with Ed and Lorraine Warren (2012) report this case, in which an extended family lived in a series of nearby houses so that an elderly man could get help from his children and grandson. Grape-sized ‘water bombs’ would form inside the elderly man’s house and cause water damage in the living areas; the kitchen and dining room floors and ceilings showed signs of major water damage, but the attic was dry indicating that the water originated inside the house as opposed to from a leaking roof or similar cause. The older gentleman moved out of his house into his kids’ home, but the water phenomenon followed him there. None of the plumbers and construction specialists the family hired to look at their water lines and other aspects of the houses could determine what caused the water bombs. For a little while the family thought the teenage grandson might have been playing a prank on his grandfather and his family, but eventually the family ruled that out. The water bombs primarily attacked the elderly man and his grandson. However, everyone in the family got soaked at times. Locals suggested to the family that they might have a water elemental bothering them, so they contacted a local Christian (presumably Catholic) priest. His house blessings, unfortunately, made the activities increase, and the water outbursts became violent, shattering windows, and knocking a cup of tea out of the grandson’s hand. Sometimes a gush of water or dry air would hit the grandfather in the back of the head (Wicks et al. 2012:107). Lorraine determined the water elemental was a Native American spirit that was causing the outburst of water because he was upset about some trees being

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previously cut down. She suggested that the spirit would leave the family alone if they replanted trees to replace the ones they chopped down. The story ends there so it is unknown if the water bombs ceased after that, but this story illustrates that “Native American spirits” or other ghosts often want something in return to stop their hauntings. This reciprocal nature between humans and spirits are found in many cultures—despite the cultural and technological divisions around the world, spirits consistently insist on quid pro quo relationships with humans, and are willing to use coercion to compel human acquiescence to their desires.

6.3.1

The Special Case of Demons

Unlike witches and ghosts that arise directly from the human community, and unlike the various nasty beings and states within the Wheel of Life that again derive from human beings (through bad reincarnations), the demons existed prior to and independent of humanity, a completely separate order of beings. Further, though they bother humans, they do not bother any particular group (except perhaps the religious specialists, because they want to undermine the religion that wages war on them). But, as exorcism texts show, demons are often considered along with problematic humans; the two categories are frequently jumbled together, and destructive magic is directed rather indiscriminately against both: Let us all, yogins and our retinue, avert the vindictive enemies of the past, the barbarous enemies of the present, the foreign enemies mobilized against us, . . . avert the 80,000 hindering demons. I pray you avert them all, every one: . . . the demons who follow behind, the demons who bring shame to a mother and her son, vindictive enemies and hurtful hindering demons. . .—Ortner (1978:195) discussing the conceptual link between malevolent humans and demons among the Sherpa of South Asia

Malevolent spirits are universal in the cultures we have examined ethnographically and for which good archaeological evidence is available. However, not all malevolent spirits are uniformly malicious. Sometimes a spirit may be sent by one person or group to attack another person or group. Such a spirit is thus a protector (or at least a temporary associate) to some and a malevolent spirit to others, depending on which side of the divide one is on. By the same token, deities such as the many forms of horned-plumed serpents common in Native American cultures may provide gentle, life-giving rain or torrential floods and destructive earthquakes, depending on the season, the diligence with which important ceremonies are completed, and even their own impulsive moods. The Greek and Roman gods are examples of capricious deities with mercurial moods than can help or hinder humans on whims. However, most cultures have a class of spirits that are inherently antagonistic towards at least some humans and therefore are prone to cause harm when given the opportunity. These spirits are malicious by nature, helping people only when compelled to or in the furtherance of greater harm. Each ethnosemantics framework has its own name

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for these spirits, and there is considerable cross-cultural variation in their abilities and intentions. We use the term “demon” to refer to them here and define them operationally as nonhuman (i.e., never were human) spirits that are by their very nature generally antagonist towards human (see also Goodman 1988). An example of such entities is reflected in the quote above. Among the Sherpa, demons are “intrinsically evil” displaying continual aggression towards humanity but especially religious specialists (Ortner 1978:137). They are driven by a desire for violence and by greed, especially for food (including the flesh and blood of dead humans) and for any form of material wealth, but unlike creatures such as the succubus of Western demonology not sex/sexual impropriety (Ortner 1978:100, 104). They are a continual threat, and “Every Sherpa can recount tales of the struggles of gods and the great lamas to subdue the demons and hence defend the [Buddhist] faith” (Ortner 1978:137). Yet the demons of the Sherpa cannot be killed or permanently driven away from humanity, only temporarily defeated. The most common strategy for laypeople to deal with them is to simply feed them, bribe them, and otherwise give them what they want, with the hope the demon will eventually move elsewhere. Lamas, benevolent deities, and other spiritually powerful entities can drive them away using various rites and exorcisms (Jerstad 1969). In Christian traditions, demons are viewed as fallen angles that have rebelled against God and are therefore intrinsically antagonistic towards humans (Young 2016). An example of a malicious Christian-based demon is provided by Ralph Sarchie (Sarchie and Cool 2001), a retired New York police sergeant who became a Roman Catholic demonologist. Sarchie took classes with the Warrens and worked with Father Malachi Martin, who we will discuss in the next section. In one of the cases Sarchie and Cool (2001) report, a new renter, Angelo, was scared because he believed his apartment was haunted. According to Angelo, the haunting started subtly. The night I moved in, I was woken up by scratching noises. It sounded like it was coming from the ceiling over my bed. I figured it was mice, maybe even rats. I didn’t think it was a big deal until I saw how my kitten, Snowball, was reacting. All the hair on her back and tail stood straight on end, and she started hissing. Next, she began to move sideways, in an eerielooking, unnatural dance. It was the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen (Sarchie and Cool 2001:63–64).

The same sounds and event happened several nights in a row at 3:00 am. Angelo, although scared, would get up with a baseball bat and investigate, but he never found anything. A few nights later he heard heavy footsteps along with the scratching that caused him to think he heard a male walking up to his window. Again, he grabbed his baseball bat and investigated the sounds. When Angelo went outside, he did not find footprints in the fresh snow outside his bedroom window as he expected. When he went back inside, he heard someone walking around upstairs, but the upstairs apartments were vacant. Yet he continued hearing someone running back and forth. The next night he heard loud tapping sounds coming from his hallway. He did not bother checking it this time because he knew he would not find anything. Things got more intense, though, with “thunderous” poundings in his apartment (Sarchie and Cool 2001:64). With bat in hand Angelo turned on all the lights and found nothing

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again. Later other people in apartments adjacent to Angelo’s apartment began to hear things and started having weird experiences. One of Angelo’s neighbors had a young son who began talking in his bedroom to an invisible friend that the boy’s mother believed was the typical imaginary friend common with youth. One day her mind was completely changed when her young son was playing in a large scooter car that he could push/ride around the snowy yard. The car came to a stop and her son got out. The car’s door then shut by itself and began to move around the yard to the boy’s excitement. When he saw his mother standing there in shock, he echoed what she had previously told him: “It’s only make-believe, Mommy” (Sarchie and Cool 2001:74). The mother told her husband about the incident, but his response was to suggest potential explanations of how the car moved on its own (e.g., wind or some sort of vibrations from heavy machinery working nearby). The mother was sure that the wind was not blowing and believed she would have heard machinery working close enough to move the car by shaking the ground. She was frightened and told her son he could no longer talk to his imaginary friend. Sarchie, like other Christian-based demonologists, believes demonic activity is the primary cause of hauntings. Within this framework, Angelo and others in the apartment complex were dealing with the first stages of demonic activity: infestation. It starts “with small, malicious acts designed to create doubt and fear, an emotion [from which] dark forces draw energy” (Sarchie and Cool 2001:69). With infestations, areas of a home might develop cold spots, and nothing can get rid of them. People might hear footsteps, furniture being dragged around, or knocking sounds in empty parts of the house that cannot be explained after thorough investigations. Frequently people report seeing shadows or dark figures out of the corners of their eyes, but they disappear as soon as people turn their heads to focus on them. People might feel like they are being watched, causing the hackles on the back of their neck to rise or otherwise feel uncomfortable and afraid. Sarchie and his police partner, Mark Stabinski, contacted Brother Andrew, “an extremely gifted psychic who belongs to the St. Paul Society, a [Catholic] religious order in Staten Island” and arranged for him to do a “psychic scan” of the apartment complex (Sarchie and Cool 2001:68). Brother Andrew could not see the entity, but he felt its evil presence, which validated what Sarchie already believed—a demonic entity was responsible for all the activity around the apartment complex. Brother Andrew, Sarchie and their crew performed a cleansing and an exorcism to cast out the demon. Most aspects of the accounts in Sarchie and Cool’s book are comparable to other Christian accounts of demons, with the most common element being a profound hatred of humans, especially the religious and vulnerable. Similar traditions are present in other ethnosemantics frameworks, as illustrated among the Serpa (for another example, see Gates’ [1983] account of hauntings among the Hokkien of Taiwan).

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The Unwanted Possession

When [Jesus] came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed met Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way. And they cried out, saying, “What business do we have with each other, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” Now there was a herd of many swine feeding at a distance from them. The Demons began to entreat Him, saying, “If You are going to cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.” And he said to them, “Go!” And they came out and went into the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the waters. The herdsmen ran away, and went to the city and reported everything, including what had happened to the demoniacs. And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw Him, they implored Him to leave their region.—Matthew 8:28–34, New American Standard Bible Anthony Scalia (AS): [Leans in, stage-whispers] I even believe in the Devil. Jennifer Senior (JS): You do? AS: Of course! Yeah, he’s a real person. Hey, c’mon, that’s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that. JS: Every Catholic believes this? There’s a wide variety of Catholics out there. AS: If you are faithful to Catholic dogma, that is certainly a large part of it. . . .JS: Isn’t it terribly frightening to believe in the Devil? AS: You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.—Justice Anthony Scalia, a member of the US Supreme Court, in an interview conducted by Jennifer Senior for the New York Magazine (published October 4, 2013)

As noted in several previous chapters, shamans, mediums, masked dancers (e.g., the Puebloan kachina), and other spiritual specialists are willingly possessed by spirits and deities often after complex ceremonies designed to call possessing spirits to them (Goodman 1988; F. Smith 2006). These spirits might be benevolent, but they can also be potentially malevolent and/or dangerous. Regardless they are welcomed by the individual. In contrast, most cultures have a tradition of unwanted possession, in which a malevolent spirit to some degree controls the body and possibly even the soul of an unwilling victim. Unwanted spirit possession is one of the most feared types of interaction between humans and spirits, especially among people from religious traditions with well-developed demonic lore. Cross-cultural accounts of being possessed by demons or other malevolent spirits indicate it is a truly frightful experience. All around the world there are reports of people being afflicted and assaulted by unseen forces in the presumed safety of their own home, even when surrounded by their loved ones trying to protect them. It is perhaps this characteristic, in which people are exposed as vulnerable where they should be safest and most secure, that makes unwanted possession so discomforting for so many (including us; while Christine went looking for a haunted cemetery for fun, she and her friends were terrified of the very idea of being possessed). Many spiritual specialists express the greatest discomfort regarding this topic. We could

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have perhaps even skipped over it here given that most scholars note instances of this type of possession are rare compared to voluntary possession (Bourguignon 1976; Fiore 1987: Goodman 1988; Martin 1992 [1976]; Peck 2005; F. Smith 2006). However, unwanted spirit possession has been reported since the very beginning of written records and remains present in many modern cultures (Bourguignon 1976; Goodman 1988). Exorcisms were recorded among the ancient Babylonians, Sumerians, and South Asian people (Leick 2003:117; F. Smith 2006). Christianity has a long tradition of both accepting spiritual possession and performing exorcisms that extends back to the life of Jesus Christ (Oesterreich 1974; Young 2016). In the folk Muhammadan tradition of Iran, exorcisms “to drive out the spell of the evil eye, and jinn” are completed by reading from the Koran and using a square talisman made of sixteen smaller, numbered squares arranged so that their sums reflected significant values in Iranian numerology (Donaldson 1938:201). These traditions can be traced to practices that predate Muhammad (Philips 1993; Werth 2012). Traditional Hawaiians use Ti (Cordyline fruticosa) leaves to guard against evil and to exorcise unwanted spirits that cause sickness (Handy et al. 1972:223). Anishinaabe shamans use sucking tubes to remove unwanted spirits from their patients (Hoffman 1891:157–158). Similar traditions are found across the world and through time.

6.4.1

Types of Possession

The dominant Western medical perspective on possession is that it involves pathology, evidence of a psychological disorder. The specific diagnosis has generally followed the vogue psychiatric trends—hysteria of the nineteenth century was replaced with diagnoses of neurosis and dissociation. A diagnosis currently in vogue for explaining possession is multiple personality disorder (MPD) or its more recent designation, dissociative identity disorder (DID). . .In contrast, there is abundant evidence that shamans are not pathological from their own culture’s point of view, nor from the perspective of descriptive clinical diagnostic criteria.—Anthropologist Michael Winkelman (2010:170–171) . . .the vast majority of readers of this journal think that ‘spirits,’ at least the kind that oppress or possess us, are not real. Indeed the very raising of the question, Do evil spirits molest us? Seems to most of us like a return to the Dark Ages and might be greeted with derision. . .Yet there is mounting evidence today that evil spirits do oppress and occasionally even possess the unwary, the weak, the unprepared, the unlucky, or the targeted.—Religious Scholar Stafford Betty (2005:15)

Despite its pervasive cross-cultural presence, the public appears more interested in the topic of unwanted spirit possession than social scientists, perhaps because people just love scaring themselves. It is rarely the topic of peer-reviewed journal articles and there are few academically rigorous books published by university presses dealing specifically with involuntary possession (although see Felicitas D. Goodman’s [1988] How about Demons? and Frederick Smith’s [2006] The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilization). Anthropologists addressing the topic tend to look for underlying cultural implications or social functions for the phenomenon of possession. We mentioned for

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example I.M. Lewis in Chap. 2. Lewis (1989) was a British anthropologist who wrote the first systematic book on spirit possession in anthropology, in which he argued involuntary spiritual possession helped marginalized women in Third World cultures. Lewis (1989:25) suggested that spirit possession often takes place within a distinct religious/social setting (a cult in his terms) that is separate from the larger religious and cultural system. Based on the comparative approach, Lewis found that marginalized women were more likely than men to engage in ecstatic religions to form these cults. He concluded that, “women possession cults are thinly disguised protest movements directed against the dominant sex” (Lewis 1989:25). The woman herself is not responsible for what a spirit says while she is in trance, and therefore cannot be punished for any offense the spirit gives. From this protected vantage, the possessed women can challenge the larger social system (see also Lerch 1982). However, this framework takes as a starting assumption a certain level of willingness and duplicity among the women. In Lewis’s (1989:26) words, “what men consider a demoniacal sickness, women convert into a clandestine ecstasy.” As such, it is unclear if the possession is truly “unwanted.” In contrast, many other cases of involuntary possession can be socially isolating and may in fact prevent the victim from participating in religious and community traditions that are available. Csordas (2020:523–524) for example recounts a case of Christian-based demonic possession in which the victim was unable to take communion or be around priests holding crosses and other religious implements, and in fact prayed, “Lord [Jesus], if you are watching me and everything that happens to me, turn away from me Your merciful gaze.” The victim’s isolation was profound and impacted her relationships with her family and with the Catholic Church and its representatives. This isolation is not consistent with the communal cult institutions that Lewis (1989) describes, and instead demonstrates that unwanted (especially demonic) possession often has very different social implications compared to either willing possession (e.g., shamans and mediums who seek out a relationship with spirits) or the ‘reluctant’ possession Lewis discusses. The exact spirit involved in involuntary spirit possession changes according to the ethnosemantics structure of a culture, but it is most commonly one of three possibilities: another human, the spirit of a deceased human, or a type of demon. (A less common form of possession was animal possession. Foxes, for example, were able to possess people in Japan [Oesterreich 1974; Miyamoto 2006].) Although broadly similar, the processes and events of possession differs from culture to culture and in terms of their severity. Ralph Allison (2000), a psychiatrist trained at the Stanford Medical Center who specializes in treating dissociative identity disorder (DID), reports Christian-based exorcism is an effective treatment for his patients that otherwise do not respond to treatment. Although he considers spirit possession in his patients at least in certain cases a reflection of DID, he explicitly accepts the possibility of literal spirit possession and even developed a general taxonomy for categorizing different types of possession based on his experience (Allison 1980:1). In his words, In the world of psychological sciences, it is considered a mark of progress to have passed beyond belief in witchcraft and spirit possession as a cause of illness. . .This seems to contrast, however, with the common, lay opinion of many cultures that black magic and

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evil spirits are more acceptable explanations for certain odd behaviors than dissociated parts of one person’s mind alternatively taking over that person’s body. . .I would like to propose that this problem is not an ‘either/or’ situation, but that all of these current and ancient ideas have merit. I would like to suggest that the concept of a possession syndrome, whereby a person’s mind is controlled by an agency acting contrary to his own best interests, can be viewed as a spectrum.

Allison and Schwarz (1999:179) divided this spectrum into five categories, which we illustrate using examples consistent with the case studies introduced throughout this book: Grade I Possession: An obsessive-compulsive neurosis in which the possessed individual has a strong compulsion or addiction that does not negate the person’s basic identity but does result in the possessing spirit controlling aspects of a person’s behavior (e.g., an obsession with alcohol or sex; an intense fear of being unclean in some way or of natural phenomena like thunder). These obsessions can lead to severe harm, including death.

Allison’s illustrative example is a patient whose hand-washing compulsion was so severe that she could not socialize or maintain employment. Grade II Possession: Negative influence from an alter personality. Allison holds this is simply a physiological/psychological issue related to DID as opposed to a case of spirit possession, but such alter personalities have been viewed as spirits in many societies.

Krippner (1987:292), for example, reports Brazilian spiritualists typically consider these alter personalities to be “possession by one or more of an individual’s past-life personalities.” Interestingly, these personalities are often reported to be able to speak languages and know details that the person who is being possessed should not know (Krippner 1987:281). Grade III Possession: The controlling influence seems to be the mind of another human.

This is typically attributed to the work of a sorcerer or witch as illustrated in Gellner’s (1994) discussion of spirit possession in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. Grade IV Possession: The controlling influence is the spirit of a deceased human. These ‘earth-bound spirits’ are typically reluctant to shift to a higher spiritual realm.

Such spirits are illustrated by the spirits of the ‘Ten Girls” and the other Vietnamese war dead discussed in Chap. 3 (see also Fiore 1987). Grade V Possession: The controlling influence is a non-human, evil spirit.

The exact nature and characteristics of such spirits differ, depending on the culture, but we will discuss examples below. Allison and Schwarz’s (1999) categories are best considered heuristic, but the patterns they identified among their patients do match the general cross-cultural patterns of unwanted possession described throughout this book, especially Grades III through V. What is missing from this taxonomy is any consideration of invited possessions (e.g., Pentecostal possession by the Holy Spirit [Goodman 1988]; deity possession in India [F. Smith 2006]). As previously discussed in Chap. 5, many shamans have spirits that reside in them permanently. This is indeed a real form of possession, and these helper spirits become part of the shaman, so much so that it

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may be impossible to distinguish between the spirits of the helper and the shaman. Other cases involve temporary possession of a person achieved through “possession trance,” a form of ASC associated with mediums and other religious practitioners (e.g., Chagnon’s dance to call down the Yanomamo hekura to inhabit his body; Chap. 2). Erika Bourguignon (1973, 1976) was one of the first American-trained anthropologists to systematically study spirit possession and possession trance as a form of ASC. She studied Haitian Vodou, which includes the practice of inviting a spirit to temporarily take over the practitioner’s body during trance (Bourguignon 1976:26). Unlike the spirits that merge with some shamans, these spirits leave the body when the trance ends. In these cases, “Possession trance is a state of relatively brief duration, from a few minutes to a few days at the most” (Bourguignon 1976:46). In contrast to both types of possession, the unwilling possession of a person achieved without trance is an affliction generally thought to be sent by witches or sorcerers or derived from volition and power of the possessing entity itself. Thus, it is important to keep in mind that Allison and Schwarz’s (1999) framework is not (and was not meant to be) all encompassing. Also please note that Allison and Schwarz’s (1999) taxonomy is not the same as the 4-tier grade system that many Christian demonologists use to measure the progression of demonic influence on a person despite some superficial similarities (see Peck 2005:120–121). Bourguignon’s research cited above was further developed by one of her PhD students, Felicitas D. Goodman. Goodman (1988) was a linguistic anthropologist interested in glossolalia (speaking in tongues), who worked in Germany, Latin America, and elsewhere around the globe. In particular, she studied Pentecostal groups that speak in tongues while temporarily possessed by the Holy Spirit. Glossolalia might initially sound like gibberish, but Goodman found it had definable patterns regardless of one’s language. These patterns included the spoken words/ sounds (order of consonants followed by a vowel) as well as shared rhythms and poetry. Goodman (1988:6) noted that, “Features such as accent, rhythm, and intonation are called suprasegmental elements in linguistics, because they float, one might say, above the syllables, the segments.” The uniformity of the suprasegmental traits of glossolalia could best be explained, according to Goodman (1988:7), by the fact that, “we are dealing with a neurological change,” that is, a type of possession trance that creates universal similarities in trance behavior. Goodman (2005[1981], 1988) also wrote about demonic possession and exorcism, which is distinct from the possession trance of glossolalia, according to her analysis. Goodman (1988) notes that the experience of unwanted spirits possession can be horrifying. Goodman (1981, 1988) provides numerous case studies demonstrating her point, including the demonic possession of Anneliese Michel, a German woman who underwent Catholic exorcisms that culminated in her death in 1976; Anneliese had voluntarily stopped eating and died of malnutrition and dehydration after 67 exorcism sessions conducted over a 10-month period. The two attending Catholic priests and her parents were found guilty of negligent homicide for failure to obtain proper medical attention for Anneliese. This was the only case that Goodman (1981, 1988) heard of that resulted in death during Catholic exorcism. Goodman was able to obtain all 800 pages of court documents related to the trial of

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Anneliese’s parents and the priests. She also conducted her own interviews and corresponded with Anneliese’s family and friends and the priests involved in her case. Goodman’s painstaking analysis resulted in a German and an English (1981) publication about Anneliese. Her 1981 English version The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel was republished in 2005 and served as the inspiration for the 2005 movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose. We have the 2005 edition in our library, and Christine found it be the most heart wrenching book she has ever read. Wikipedia and YouTube videos have factual mistakes that do a disservice to Anneliese and her family. The autopsy of Anneliese’s brain revealed that it was healthy; she did not have epilepsy (Goodman 2005:178), so this cannot be used to explain why she had seizures and hallucinations. Furthermore, despite taking anticonvulsant medications for the last six or so years of her life, Anneliese continued to have seizures. We invite you to read Goodman to fully appreciate the complexity of this case. Goodman (1988) provides a cross-cultural discussion of spirit and demonic possession based on numerous case studies (Table 6.1). Academic discussions of unwanted possession tend to be dismissive of the ‘spirit’ component of spirit possession, and instead focus on underlying medical or psychological issues including schizophrenia, excessive stress, traumatic events, nutrient deficiencies, and/or DID (e.g., Kehoe and Giletti 1981; Raybeck et al. 1989; Van Duijl et al. 2010; Winkelman 2010:175–177). Within these frameworks, spirit possession is not viewed as a spiritual event but is instead a physiological event caused by some underlying medical or psychological issue of the victim. No single physiological or psychological cause is universally accepted as the origin of unwanted possession, not that one would necessarily expect a single cause to explain every case in every culture even if the entire process of unwanted possession is purely physiological. The closest to a generally accepted explanation is DID, but its general acceptance is seemingly hampered by continued debate in psychology and related fields about DID’s validity as a legitimate psychological diagnosis and its frequency (see Tyrer 2019 for a current summary of these issues). Most anthropologists are likewise skeptical of spirits as an explanation and consider possession as a culturally bounded phenomenon in which each culture defines what “possession” is and determines how it is manifested. However, many who have studied and, in some cases, participated in exorcism hold that there is an underlying spiritual component that cannot simply be attributed to medical or cultural issues alone (e.g., Allison 2000; Peck 2005; Goodman 1988).

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Van Dusen, in his practice of clinical psychology, discovered that he could communicate with this client’s apparent hallucinations by accepting them as objective realities. Most of these entities stated they were attempting to ‘possess’ the client so that they could live through the client in whatever way they pleased. But Van Dusen also encountered ‘higher’ entities that respected the client’s right to self-determination and attempted to be of assistance.—Psychologist Stanley Krippner (1987:290)

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Table 6.1 Traits revealing spirit possession by scholars. Normal text indicates the traits that were specifically mentioned as revealing possession. Italics indicate traits that we noticed from the case studies but were not stressed as a primary sign of demonic possession by the researchers during their summary of possession Martin (1992 [1976]) Demonic possession Insomnia

M. Scott Peck (2005) Demonic Possession Severe difficulty sleeping

Fever Agitation

Agitation

Agitation

Roaming Compulsive eating of strange or repulsive substances Anorexia Repulsive stench

Anorexia Inexplicable stench

Anorexia Stench

Copious foaming salvia Trembling to convulsion

“Foaming of the mouth” Rack and tremble

Tremble

Rigidity of muscles to a catatonia-like state

“Possessed gravity” (the person becomes physically immovable, or those around the possessed are weighted down with a suffocating pressure)

Felicitas Goodman (1988) Demonic Possession Insomnia

Severe abdominal pains Screaming fits Coprolalia (uttering strings of insults and obscenities) (Sometimes called naughty language) Grinding of teeth Uncontrollable weeping

Edith Fiore (1987) Spirit Possession only Insomnia

Screaming fits Insults and obscenities

Screaming fits Insults and obscenities

“Paroxysm of weeping”

Uncontrollable weeping

Philips (1993) Jinn Possession Insomnia, nightmares Agitation; uncontrolled laughter or crying Prefers solitude

Foul odor, especially of palms

Epileptic convulsions; Rapid eye movements Partial paralysis

(continued)

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Table 6.1 (continued) Felicitas Goodman (1988) Demonic Possession Superhuman strength

Edith Fiore (1987) Spirit Possession only

Near-total change in facial features

Aggression (numerous types especially toward associates and autoaggression, including suicide) Demon speaks with rasping, low voice unlike the natural voice of the person Rapid body movement (e.g., standing to kneeling)

Suicidal thoughts

Aggression, especially autoaggression— the demons cause them to hurt themselves Low growls, demonic babble

M. Scott Peck (2005) Demonic Possession Superhuman strength Facial skin tightens and is smooth— extraordinarily so. One patient’s face looked like a snake Aggression, self -mutilation, suicidal tendencies

Demonic gibberish

Rapid body movement

Rapid talking with sentences becoming a long word Rhythmic pulse to syllables and body movement *Visions/Hallucinations similar to epileptic or schizophrenic hallucinations Low energy level to burst of high energy

Martin (1992 [1976]) Demonic possession It takes many men to hold down an anorexic woman Distortion of the face or other physical transformations, smoothed stretched skin

Syllables and words are all strung together into long sentences Rhythmic motions takes over body and lips Visions/ hallucinations

Low energy level

Philips (1993) Jinn Possession Preternatural Strength Contortion of face

Suicidal thoughts

Changed voice; weird laugh; whispering Unnatural movement; uncontrolled, violent movement

Similarity to schizophrenic psychosis, but it is not schizophrenia Low energy to burst of high energy (continued)

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Table 6.1 (continued) Felicitas Goodman (1988) Demonic Possession Mood swings

Part of “agitation” can result in impulsive behavior Memory problems

Edith Fiore (1987) Spirit Possession only Mood swings

Martin (1992 [1976]) Demonic possession

Inner voice speaking to oneself

Voice speaking inside of the exorcist’s head during an exorcism Abuse of drugs

Abuse of drugs Impulse behavior Memory problems Poor concentration Sudden onset of anxiety or depression Sudden onset of physical problems with no obvious cause

Memory problems

M. Scott Peck (2005) Demonic Possession Mood swings

Memory problems Clouding of Consciousness Depression

Sudden onset of fear Physical problems

Physical problems

Anesthesia to pain

Loss of human quality, he calls “humanness, such as eating, sleeping, thinking, laughing, walking etc. Freezing temperatures Telepathic powers about religions and moral matters Levitation (person or objects)

Philips (1993) Jinn Possession Rapid mood shifts; uncontrolled laughter or crying

Psychosomatic pains, especially migraine headaches Anesthesia to pain from being struck

Knowing things without using normal senses

Preternatural knowledge

(continued)

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Table 6.1 (continued) Felicitas Goodman (1988) Demonic Possession Aggression is not towards objects; aggression is towards people Confusion

Edith Fiore (1987) Spirit Possession only

Martin (1992 [1976]) Demonic possession Violent smashing of furniture

M. Scott Peck (2005) Demonic Possession

Confusion

Confusion

Confusion

Constant opening and slamming of doors Tearing of fabric near the possessed individual Suddenly able to speak previously unknown languages (e.g., Latin, Hebrew, etc.)

Suddenly able to speak unknown languages

Philips (1993) Jinn Possession

Clouding of consciousness

Cotton cloth shrinks when worn by individual Ability to speak unknown languages

Strong negative reaction to Quranic recitation and oil blessed by Quaranic recitation Demonic personalities appear too quickly to be created by the patient on demand *Visions or hallucination whether they be visual, auditory, tactile, and/or olfactory is the most common indicator given by most researchers dealing with demonic possession, even though they do not explicitly state it as a particularly significant, key trait.

Ibn Taymiyyah expressed the position of a majority of Muslim scholars, stating, ‘The existence of the jinn is an established fact according to the Book (i.e., the Quran), the Sunnah and the agreement of the early scholars. Likewise, the penetration of a jinnī into a human body is also an established fact by the agreement of the leading Sunnite scholars. And it is a fact which has been witnessed and experienced by anyone who reflects on it. It enters the one seized by fits and he speaks incomprehensible words, unknown to himself; if he is struck a blow sufficient to kill a camel, the one seized by fits does not feel it’. . .Prophet Muhammad addressed real entities which he commanded to leave from the possessed people brought to him, and so did Jesus Christ. Consequently, from the Islamic perspective there is

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no room for doubt about the occurrence of demonic possession.—Islamic Scholar Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips (1993:76, 202)

Cultures from around the world have found ways to exorcise unwanted spirits, but the strategies differ somewhat based on the type of spirit at play. An example of humans possessing humans that has already been mentioned is Gellner’s (1994) discussion of spirit possession in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. There, witches can facilitate the unwanted possession of an individual by a harmful entity. Within this ethnosemantics structure, the best way to combat this is for the victim to willingly let themselves be possessed by a benevolent entity/deity, who by its very presence will drive out and protect against the harmful spirit(s). A similar method had been documented in India (F. Smith 2006). As a result, we focus our discussion here on possession by the dead and demonic possession.

Possession by the Dead Communicating with these spirits through hypnotized patients, I have learned that some people were so convinced, during their own lifetimes, that there was nothing after death, they simply refused to see the family members or spirit guides who came for them. Instead, they drifted aimlessly in a state of confusion and ignorance that often lasted years.— Psychologist Edith Fiore (1987:28)

The ethnosemantics framework of many cultures specifies that the soul of the dead can remain active in the physical world (i.e., as ghosts) and can in many cases take control of the bodies or souls of the weak and vulnerable. Goodman (1988:89) in her cross-cultural analysis observes that, “To rid a person of these malevolent spirits of the dead is extremely difficult, because they embed themselves in the patient’s organism” (Goodman 1988:89). She illustrates the elaborate rites often associated with exorcising the dead using an example from Vodun (aka Voodoo) of Haiti. Antoine, a stevedore in good health from Port-au-Prince, had fallen ill and was wasting quickly away. When other treatments failed, the family turned to Lorgina, a Vodun priestess. She diagnosed Antione as being possessed by the spirits of three dead people that could be driven from him using a complex ceremony reflecting his rebirth. The ceremony started with Antoine being restrained, bound, and laid out as if dead even as the three possessing spirits swore at Lorgina, telling her she could not drive them out (Goodman 1988:90). His jaw was bound with a leather strap, his nostrils were plugged with cotton, and his arms and feet were bound. Maize and peanuts was placed on head, hands, and torso, a chicken and roster were passed over him, and were then allowed to eat the maize and peanuts starting at the head. The birds were again passed over his body several times, starting at his head and moving to his feet, while various prayers and chants were repeated (Goodman 1988:91). Eventually, he was pelted by the priestess and his family with a water-based mixture of decaying leaves and bull bile (Goodman 1988:91). Antione violently struggled against his bonds and begged to be released during the “bath” of the contaminated

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water. The priestess attributed this to the spirits fighting against her cleansing. After Antione collapsed in exhaustion, burning rum was spread on and around him and an assistant “rubbed him and pummeled him” with the edges of her hands on his shoulders and the insides of his knees and elbows. He was then placed in a ditch while holding a small banana plant as another series of prayers and incantations were read over him. His body was anointed with oil, water, and other materials and the chicken was passed over him again. Antoine was then removed from the ditch, the chicken was put in his place and then buried alive. The banana tree was planted as well. Antoine was again rubbed in burning rum and dressed in a ritual white shirt with red embroidery. The ceremony ended as he was given tea to drink, his feet were washed with a solution containing various herbs, and he was told to spit frequently. After the exorcism, Antoine was again able to eat, and he recovered his health. The banana tree died indicating to Lorgina and the other participants that the offering of the chicken had been accepted and the evil spirits had indeed been removed. Goodman (1988:92) notes that, In the ritual, the patient was subjected to an enactment of death and rebirth, complete with reducing him to a corpse, burying him, and then having him born from the depth of the ditchwomb, and finally giving him his first bath and making him drink like a newborn infant. The effect of the powerful drama was reinforced on the neurophysiological level, because with its help Lorgina efficiently induced the trance, as evidenced by the trembling of the patient and the protestation of the possessing ghosts.

Similar accounts of possession by the dead are common throughout American society, even gaining adherents within professional psychology. Edith Fiore (1987), a retired clinical psychologist with a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Miami, recounts her interaction with the dead in her book The Unquiet Dead: A Psychologist Treats Spirit Possession. From her perspective as a psychologist working to help her patients, it did not matter if the spirits were real or not. Depossession (a term she preferred over exorcism) as a clinical method worked for many of her patients often helping them recover from devastating mental health problems (see Allison 2000 and Betty 2005, 2015 for similar perspectives). She leaves it an open question whether this is because of the influence of actual spirits or simply because the treatment reflected cultural norms that resonated with her patients. Through hypnosis Fiore (1987) sometimes found that some of her patients unknowingly had a “hitchhiker” spirit(s) in them, which caused them to adopt selfdefeating behaviors such as drinking or smoking (an example of Allison’s Grade I possession). For example, a person might suddenly have personality changes, new behaviors such as craving something they never liked before, and/or memory loss and confusion as a result of one of these hitchhiking spirits. The victim was usually a young child or an adult in a weakened physical state in a setting such as a hospital. She treated the possession using hypnosis to talk directly with the spirit; similar practices are used by psychologists and spiritualists throughout the world (e.g., Krippner’s [1987] opening quote to this section discusses how it is common in Brazil). Under hypnosis Fiore found these restless spirits had several explanations as to why they stayed in this realm: addictions to alcohol, drugs, tobacco, food, or sex that they were afraid would not be available after they “crossed over”; to watch over

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a loved one, such as a young mother staying to watch over her child after her sudden death; or to get revenge (Fiore 1987:30). However, the spirits were often ignorant or confused about the fact that they were dead, or refused to believe they were dead because they continued to exist in a body, even as they realized there were entities around them in the same body (Fiore 1987:28–29). Through hypnosis Fiore (1987) would do a depossession for each spirit. Sometimes convincing spirits to leave took several office visits. As a clinical psychologist, she was surprised with how quickly her patients would overcome a problem after she did a depossession. To illustrate this, she provided an example of a patient who developed an eating disorder after a major surgery. After discovering the attached spirit during hypnosis, Fiore (1987:1, 126–127) was able to talk the spirit into going into a bright light. This immediately “cured” her patient’s eating disorder. Such problems otherwise usually take months if not years to overcome for the typical patient, according to Fiore. It was actually the rapid impact that caused her to consider the validity of a spirit component to her patients’ situations. Although American (and most Western) ethnosemantics structures allow for the possibility of spirit possession by the souls of the departed, Fiore’s book surprised us in that American psychology as an academic enterprise has a decidedly secular bent, so much so that Peck (2005:2) quips that 99.9% of psychologists do not believe in the devil. In peer-reviewed psychology journals, it is obvious that most psychologists do not believe in spirits in general, although it is worth noting that 34% of psychologists are at least willing to consider the possibility of a deity and 11% are deeply religious (Ecklund and Scheitle 2007:296). Most scientists are content to attribute all ‘spiritual interactions’ to physiological and psychological factors alone. Yet some such as Fiore (1987) entertain the possibility of at least some influence from “consciousness that survives death.” A variation of the basic structure Fiore (1987:18) describes is practiced by Brazilian spiritualists. Like Fiore, these spiritualists often have medical training, including formal training in psychology, and they often rely on hypnosis. They tend to be aligned to one of three different religions, which are all influenced by the traditional African religion introduced with the enslaved Yoruba tribesmen imported prior to Brazilian independence in 1888 (Krippner 1987:274–277). These religions are Candomblé (oldest and most similar to Yoruba tradition), Kardecismo (based on additional syncretism with the French spiritualist traditions, especially the writings of Allan Kardec), and Umbanda (started in 1904 as a syncretism with indigenous Brazilian traditions). These religions do differ from each other in meaningful ways, but they all accept the idea of past lives, that spirits are distinct from the physical body, and that spirits can help with healing (Krippner 1987:276). In contrast to Fiore’s (1987) view that the possessing spirits are the “consciousness” of other people who have died, the Brazilian spiritualists typically believe the possessing spirits are personalities from past lives (i.e., are different aspects/personalities of the reincarnated spirit). Through hypnosis, the spiritual specialist/psychiatrist could help the patient “integrate” the personalities of the past lives with the patient’s current personality until eventually the other personalities would be completely subsumed (Krippner 1987:280–281). This in turn would decrease negative behaviors and other

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signs of mental health issues. Krippner (1987) views this as an example of a useful treatment of DID. Fiore (1987) did not report what percentage of her patients were possessed in her book, so we do not know how frequently she diagnosed a spirit possession. According to Krippner (1987:285–286), a spiritualist named H.G. Andrade (a Kardecist) treated over 1000 cases of possession, most of which were examples of Grade I possession (obsession) or the manifestation of past lives (which is most similar to Grade III possession). In addition, Andrade estimates 3% of his patients likely suffer from DID without any spiritual influence at all (Grade II possession). These results are roughly similar to those of Eliezer Cerqueira Mendes, a retired surgeon (and another Kardecist) who headed a therapeutic institution in Sāo Paulo (Krippner 1987:277–280). As part of his practice, Mendes claims he and his staff treated about 20,000 clients, most of whom were schizophrenic. About 300 were diagnosed as victims of spirit possession resulting from past lives (Krippner 1987:278). As with the other cases, Mendes used hypnosis to help these personalities integrate with the current, dominant personality.

Possession by Demons As a psychiatrist, I had been converted by Jersey’s case alone, from a belief that the devil did not exist to a belief—a certainty—that the devil does exist and probably demons (under the control of the devil) as well. By the devil, I mean a spirit that is powerful (it may be many places at the same time and manifest itself in a variety of distinctly paranormal ways), thoroughly malevolent (its only motivation seemed to be the destruction of human beings or the entire human race), deceitful and vain, capable of taking up a kind of residence within the mind, brain, soul, or body of susceptible and willing human beings—a spirit that had various names (among them Lucifer and Satan), that was real and did exist.—Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck (2005:238)

Even as Krippner (1987) suggests the hypnotherapy of the Brazilian spiritualists can be useful for integrating split personalities, he notes that the spiritualists sometimes encounter other types of personalities that appear to be distinct from the patient’s personality. The Brazilian psychologists/spiritual specialists often consider these to be harmful demonic entities, especially an ifa or exu, which are potentially harmful traditional Yoruba spirits. One spiritualist included in Krippner’s (1987:287) study estimates that ~35% of cases reflect past lives while the remainder are spirit “intruders” (i.e., spirits external to the patient) of some sort. Unlike the personalities of past lives, these spirits cannot be integrated into the patient’s personality, because they are inherently separate from the patient. Instead, they must be exorcised by a medium, who might invite/capture the possessing spirit in his/her own body, and then force it from the physical realm into “another dimension” (Krippner 1987:287). Similar practices are found elsewhere in world. For example, the Greek Orthodox Magus of Strovolos, Spyros Sathi, would sometimes draw spirits out of a patient and send them to another “dimension” using his will (Markides 2003:23–27). Like Fiore’s (1987) patients, Brazilian spiritualists believe those who are sick or who

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have recently undergone an exorcism remain vulnerable to harmful, external spirits. Special foods and herbal medicines including purgatives are then used in conjunction with rituals and prayers to keep the victim from being possessed by other spirit entities until they have time to recover. Within a Christian ethnosemantics framework, demons are fallen angels that rebelled against God, but in Muslim ethnosemantics perspectives demons are jinn (note: jinn is the plural form of jinni, which is more commonly associated with fables such as Aladdin and the Genie in Western literary frameworks). These spirits are distinct from angels, which are immortal and inherently righteous followers of Allah, in that they reproduce and die. Further, they are predisposed to disobey Allah and hate humans, although they might fall in love with particularly beautiful humans and might convert to Islam in rare instances. Satan is viewed as a jinn in Islamic traditions (El-Zein 2009; Philips 1993:39–75; Young 2016). Al-Krenawi and Graham (1997) present a case of jinn possession in which a Muslim Bedouin psychiatric patient was successfully treated through an exorcism. The Bedouin are traditionally semi-nomadic pastoralists who move across the Middle East and North Africa with their livestock (primarily cattle but also goats and sheep). This patient was part of the 100,000+ Bedouin who live primarily in southern Israel, and he was a 31-year old married male without children. He grew up with an abusive father that he resented, but he had good relationships with his other family members including his five older brothers and his mother. After his father’s death when the patient was 20 years old, the patient’s family sold their herd, and the patient took over the primary responsibility of caring for his aging mother in a sedentary Bedouin village. He and his mother began to fight frequently, primarily over what the mother perceived to be the patient’s lack of ambition, poor work performance, and frequent joblessness. The fighting culminated with the patient becoming so angry he nearly struck his mother. Afterwards, he became depressed, socially withdrew from public life, and became uncommunicative. The patient was subsequently referred by his family to the psychiatric ward of Soroka Hospital, which is the region’s major health care facility. During his initial treatment, the patient reported that he hallucinated “terrifying characters who were trying to hurt him” (Al-Krenawi and Graham 1997:214). He also showed signed of disorientation, although his physical examination did not reflect any physiological issues or any signs of alcohol or drug abuse. The psychiatrist initially diagnosed the patient as a paranoid schizophrenic and treated him with anti-psychotic medication, which did not alleviate the hallucinations. The patient began to work with a Bedouin psychiatric social worker, who sought to integrate Bedouin cultural practices into the treatment. According to the session notes, the patient described the figures as jinn that took the form of bearded men wearing white robes that he could see but others could not. According to the patient, “they push me and try to force me to do what they want and if I don’t comply, they shout and threaten me” but they also prevented him from committing suicide (Al-Krenawi and Graham 1997:215). Through additional therapy, the patient revealed that he was being punished by Allah for failing to treat his mother correctly. After a meeting with the patient and his family, the social worker and the patient decided to consult a local

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dervish, a traditional Bedouin healer called by Allah through a Baraka, an intense “mental breakdown” that is cured as the newly-called dervish begins his religious training (Al-Krenawi and Graham 1997:213; this pattern of course follows the common structure typical of shamanic calls; see Chap. 5.) The dervish invited the family to his house, formed a circle of the patient’s family members, lit incense, and had the patient lie down in the center of the circle. Over the following 90 minutes, the dervish had the patient fall asleep/enter trance, sang holy songs, talked with the jinn possessing the patient, and struck the patient’s feet with “a stick while calling out ‘Allah Allah’” (Al-Krenawi and Graham 1997:217). The patient appeared to be in trance the whole time and showed no pain response. The jinn were initially resistant to leave the patient, but eventually the patient, “cried out a strange sound—that is the cry of the demons that the dervish insisted should leave his body” (Al-Krenawi and Graham 1997:217). The patient then began to shake as the jinn left his body, and shortly thereafter awoke. The dervish told the patient he had indeed been possessed because “he had done a bad deed” (showing disrespect to his mother) and should continue to pray and complete Islamic healing rituals (Al-Krenawi and Graham 1997:217). The patient showed instant improvement and shifted to a bi-weekly outpatient treatment plan soon thereafter. The chief psychiatrist re-examined the patient and revised his diagnosis to extreme neuroticism (Al-Krenawi and Graham 1997:217). The patient continued to meet with the dervish on a weekly basis initially but within three months met with the dervish on an irregular basis when he felt the need. He also no longer needed psychiatric treatment. Al-Krenawi and Graham (1997:218–219) attribute the success of the exorcism to the idea that it provided a culturally acceptable way for the patient to deal with the hallucinations that ultimately reflected the underlying resentment towards his mother and deceased father. In their words, although traditional and modern therapeutic models have “stark epistemological differences,” they “can be used successfully, in parallel” and it is possible to have “one model enrich the other” (Al-Krenawi and Graham 1997:219). Philips (1993:198) expresses a similar sentiment from a Muslim perspective when he states, “If science can assume there exists a psychology believing in demonology, exorcism becomes an inevitable means of healing.” Although recognizing the effectiveness of the exorcism as a means of treating the patient’s mental illness, Al-Krenawi and Graham (1997) do not seem to accept that possibility of actual spiritual influences at any point of the process. However, the exorcism process they outline fits the general pattern used by Muslim exorcists who do accept the literal possession of a person by jinn as a fact. According to Philips’ (1993:151) cross-national study of Islamic exorcism, modern exorcists typically do not rely on numerology or talismans as was common in the past, although these are part of some regional traditions in Iran, Sudan, and elsewhere (Donaldson 1938:201; Philips 1993:188–189). Instead, the general process includes reading verses from the Quran, having the patient drink blessed water, directly talking with the possessing jinn and ordering them to leave in the name of Allah, and (gently or vigorously) beating the patient, especially on the feet (Philips 1993:147–148, 151). The tradition of beating a possessed person possibly dates to exorcisms conducted by Muhammad

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himself, and, according to Islamic tradition, the blows are felt only by the possessing jinn (Philips 1993:137–138, although see Philips 1993:191 where he suggests the accounts of Muhammad using beatings are untrue). According to Islamic tradition, the patient does not feel these blows at all, meaning that the exorcist can directly “punish” the jinn to encourage them to leave the body (Philips 1993:190). Such beatings have led to the death of the possessed person (Philips 1993:191). (On a side note, Betty [2005:15] indicates that Hindi traditions may also hold that possessing demons, not the victim, are the ones who feel pain when they are brought to the forefront of a possessed person’s consciousness during exorcism. Oesterreich [1974:106–107] reports exorcisms for people possessed by foxes in Japan can be “somewhat violent in nature” with sharp weapons being used (a despairing father tied his youngest daughter, who was possessed by a fox, to a pillar and rushing upon her with drawn sword cried for the spirit to leave or he would kill them both. “The girl was cured.”) In some cases, Muslim exorcists might even seek to ‘convert’ possessing jinn to Islam and a worship of Allah, a practice that makes the exorcism easier (Müller 2018:168). American psychiatrist M. Scott Peck (2005) did not share Al-Krenawi and Graham (1997) and Fiore’s (1987) hesitancy to commit to a spiritual/supernatural basis for at least some possessions he encountered. As reflected in the opening quote, he unambiguously held both that Satan was real and that demonic possession did happen. Peck was a well-respected psychiatrist who has been cited over 5,000 times in scholarly research, according to Google Scholar. To put this into perspective, this places him in the top 2% of researchers across all disciplines based on the number of citations, despite the fact he did not hold a research position with a university or research institution. He earned a BA from Harvard in 1958 and a MD in 1963 from Case Western Reserve University. During his career he served as the Chief of Psychology at the Army Medical Center in Okinawa, Japan, as the Assistant Chief of Psychiatry and Neurology in the office of the US Surgeon General, and towards the end of career he was the medical director of the New Milford Hospital Mental Health Clinic and he also had a private practice in New Milford, Connecticut. He also publicly wrote about his experience with demonic possession and directly participated in exorcisms. In his 2005 book Glimpses of the Devil, he joked that he would be “excommunicated” as a psychiatrist because of his beliefs (Peck 2005:238), but that did not change his willingness to speak about them. Allison (2000) likewise discusses the professional cost and personal suspicion he experienced for entertaining the possibility of demonic possession. Returning to Peck, he became a famous psychiatrist after writing a best seller, The Road Less Traveled (1978), which sold ten million copies and led to public speaking invitations throughout the United States. Through his long career he became familiar with thousands of mental health cases. For the first 15 years of his practice, he reported he did not witness anything that could be labeled demonic possession, but he became curious about the possibility after reading Malachi Martin’s Hostage to the Devil. As a psychiatrist with a deep interest in the issue of ‘evil’ as it relates to human behavior (see Peck 1983), he contacted Martin and asked to witness potential cases of demonic possession to evaluate if they were real or were simply examples of

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mental/physiological disorders. Peck (2005) discussed two cases of possession that he believed did not fit any defined psychological ailment and consequently were actual cases of demonic possession. The first was Jersey, a woman that Martin referred to him. Jersey was the married mother of two young children who became obsessed with the occult and selfreported as being possessed by many different spirits. She exhibited some characteristics of borderline personality disorder (BPD) but did not fit the diagnostic patterns (Peck 2005:15–22). The following encounter was one of the first signs, according to Peck (2005:20), that Jersey did not fit typical BPD behavior: Referring to her demons, she said, “I feel sorry for them.” “You feel sorry for them?” I [Peck] echoed, confused. “Yes,” she answered, “they’re really rather weak and pathetic creatures.” The reason this stopped me dead in my tracks was that it did not fit with standard psychopathology. It seemed to me that if a young woman—particularly a somewhat hysterical one—had a need to invent demons, she would create great, strong, hairy demons, not weak pathetic ones.

Over the course of several chapters, Peck recounted Jersey’s medical and spiritual treatments, which were overseen by Peck and Father Terry O’Connor, a priest with a background in psychiatry. As part of the process Peck had Jersey undergo a battery of medical and psychological tests performed by another certified psychologist. Peck’s account culminated with an exorcism conducted during a 4-day period. Throughout the process, Jersey did not consistently exhibit the typical symptoms of any defined mental illness including BPD or schizophrenia. Further, Jersey’s mental issues did not return after her exorcism, as would be expected in a typical patient suffering from schizophrenia, BPD or other common mental health issues. In other words, the fact that Jersey’s mental health problems were successfully treated using exorcism indicated they were not caused by schizophrenia, BPD, or other typical diagnosed psychological/medical causes, according to Peck (2005). The second case was Beccah, an exceptionally intelligent woman in her forties who was referred to Peck for severe, long-term depression and self-harm (Peck 2005:133–134). Beccah was born into a Jewish family but converted to Christianity as a young adult. She was also engaged in shady, possibly criminal stock trading practices organized with her husband. Beccah had previously been treated with various antidepressants but was nonresponsive. Peck tried various other methods, especially helping Beccah develop greater assertiveness and coping skills to deal with her abusive husband. After an extended period of treatment, Beccah was not making progress, and in fact had worsening symptoms. Her response to both pharmaceuticals and his counselling did not fit the standard psychiatric pattern, prompting Peck (2005) to consider the possibility of spirit possession based on his experience with Jersey. With further consultation with relevant religious authorities and with the consent of the patient, he again performed an exorcism. The first attempt was a ‘deliverance’, a common Christian practice of praying over someone with a spiritual infection (see Csordas 1994; Hunt 2008; Markides 2003; Mercer 2012). This deliverance was completed in his office, and, according to Peck (2005:156–157), initially appeared successful. Beccah’s symptoms lifted for several

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weeks but returned even more severely than before. Peck (2005:261–162) attributed this to a second case of possession from a separate, more powerful entity that took advantage of Beccah’s weakened condition after the deliverance. Beccah could hear this entity’s voice in her mind, and it caused her to harm herself more extensively than before. Peck arranged and led a more formal exorcism that lasted three days and ended with the entity being driven from Beccah. Again, Beccah showed great improvement for a period, but aspects of her illness began to return after many months, although not so severely (Peck 2005:220–225). Peck (2005:225) concluded she was again possessed, and even states that on two separate occasions he had a “more distinctly paranormal experience.” In each case, Beccah’s face briefly appeared to be reptilian, that is, as the face of a “lizardlike creature—possibly an iguana” or a snake. Peck did not try another exorcism with Beccah, in large part because he was convinced it would not work; in his opinion, Beccah was so socially isolated and had been possessed for such a long time that she did not wish to be free from the possessing demons. In Peck’s (2005:236) words, “You see, for all intents and purposes she had no family, she had no friends, she had no allegiances. . .Beccah had only Satan. A fiend who pretended to be her friend, a fiend whom she believed to be her friend. . .” Within the context of the ethnosemantics frameworks of his patients, Peck (2005:246–249) summarized and speculated on the causes of spirit possession. He stressed that in his opinion, the demonic possession required some level of consent, probably given under duress, on the part of the victim, and that removing the demon required the victim to consciously withdraw this consent (which was the reason why Beccah’s exorcism ultimately failed). Loneliness and childhood trauma were also common among those demonically possessed. Once possession started, it was an ongoing process of spiritual merging in which the victim’s spirit was subsumed within the demon’s, making exorcism increasingly difficult as more time passed. Finally, Peck (2005) noted that the type of possession that is the focus of his work (which would be a Grade V possession using Allison’s 1980 taxonomy) was not the only type of possession, just the most extreme form. He suggested other cases of possession were likely to be less extreme in the way they present themselves in a patient. Peck (2005:237–249) also outlined a few characteristics for demonic possession for his two patients. During their exorcism, both patients had: • non-human appearances with the facial skin being pulled into satanic smiles or the face looking more snake-like and having snake-like movements; • different personality traits than their typical dominant personality; • rage expressed through screaming curses and obscenities (coprolalia); • a tendency to speak in demonic gibberish (which he circumvented by insisting in both cases that the spirit and the victim speak in English, given that was all he could understand). These and the other traits he identified corresponded closely to the traits others identify as diagnostic traits of demonic possession (Table 6.1). Peck (2005:239) emphasized that his two cases were not part of a systematic scientific study, but “they do make a beginning of a science, and that’s all that’s needed to start.”

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In the front matter of her book, Fiore (1987:i) lists “the 10 Most Common Signs of Possession.” They are: 1. Low energy level; 2. Character shifts or mood swings; 3. Inner voice(s) speaking to you; 4. Abuse of drugs (including alcohol); 5. Impulsive behavior; 6. Memory problems; 7. Poor concentration; 8. Sudden onset of anxiety or depression; 9. Sudden onset of physical problems with no obvious cause; and 10. Emotional and/or physical reactions to reading books or accounts such as those contained in her book The Unquiet Dead. There are clear differences and overlaps comparing Fiore’s list of spirit possession to Goodman’s list for demonic possession (Table 6.1). Martin (1992 [1976]) and Peck (2005) likewise identify certain traits accompanying demonic possession, which are consistent with Goodman’s list but less so with Fiore’s. None of Fiore’s (1987) reported patients had telltale signs of demonic possession (i.e., stench, convulsions, foaming at the mouth, and/or screaming fits that include cursing and obscenities). Based on her own claim to have never encountered a Grade V (demonic) possession, Fiore’s (1987) list might be more applicable to Grade I and IV possessions whereas Goodman, Martin, and Pecks characteristics might be more applicable to Grade V possession. Taking the cultural premise of spirit possession seriously, some demonologists (Sarchie and Cool 2001; Wicks et al. 2012; see also Peck 2005) suggest spirits (including demons) are attracted to other spirits. If this is true, a case of possession by the ‘restless dead’ such as Fiore discusses (Grade IV possession) could lead to possession by other entities (Grade V possession), which is consistent with the Brazilian case studies Krippner (1987) reports. These consistencies and differences suggest these are cultural universals at play.

6.4.3

A Final Comparison of Voluntary and Involuntary Possession

Possession, it was argued, is an explanation-defying, holistic social reality. ‘Its province is meaning’, Boddy asserted, ‘and it is best addressed in that light’ in terms of the ‘potential range of its significance within the cultural and social context’. Nevertheless, beneath the behaviours we observe (both recurrent and variable) lie universal mechanisms and processes of cognition, the workings of which our participants may be largely unaware. The common structures of this cognitive architecture impose appreciable constraints on the forms that possession concepts (and other cultural phenomena) take.—Anthropologist Emma Cohen (2008:22)

The starting point for our consideration of possession was the possession trance associated with mediums and others who undergo short-term and often voluntary possession. These trances share much in common with general shamanic trances and appear to be similar or identical to the typical ASC associated with shamanism, but they appear quite distinct from the cases of long-term and involuntary possession summarized above. Shamans are not mentally ill relative to other members of their societies, but those possessed by demons, the restless dead, or witches are socially and often physically in jeopardy. They are far more likely to seek medical, spiritual,

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and physical help from spirit specialists and medical doctors, and are nearly always seen as being in a state of suffering and are often considered dangerous (Sapkota et al. 2014). Such experiences are quite different from possession by ‘good spirits’ such as deity possession in India, which is associated with positive emotions, especially love (F. Smith 2006). Likewise, Goodman’s (1988) analysis from around the globe indicates that spirit possession by the Holy Spirit among Pentecostals does not put a person through a kind of ‘hell on earth,’ but instead typically brings feelings of enlightenment and euphoria. Furthermore, Goodmans’s (1990) ritual body postures that work with spirits, which is discussed in the next chapter, brings enlightenment and euphoria too. Yet demonic possession of Christians as discussed by Goodman (1988) and Martin (1992 [1976]) clearly reflects a very different experience, even though Christians in both cases accept certain ethnosemantics categories including the literal existence of demons and the personification of evil in the form of Satan. Given the shared ethnosemantics categories but different physiological experiences, it is a certainty that distinct physical, psychological, and spiritual processes are at play in these possessions. Emma Cohen (2008) observes, though, that a shared underlying cognitive architecture structures the human mind in both positive and negative possession experiences. Cohen (2008) separates these two categories of experiences into executive possession and pathogenic possession. Pathogenic possession is cognitively linked to the concept of contamination and associated with illness (Cohen 2008). It seems to us that this is dominant in involuntary possession. Executive possession in contrast rests on a separation of the body and self, such that a foreign spirit can possess the body without damaging the possessed person’s own mind/spirit. Under executive possession, neither the possessed person’s mind nor body are irrevocably tainted by the possessing agent (Cohen 2008). It thus is considered less dangerous and likely even beneficial given that the intruding spirit does not corrupt the possessed person, but may provide some sort of guidance, wisdom, or other boon. There may be something to Cohen’s (2008) idea, although we note that shamanic initiation is often based on spiritually integrating (contaminating) the shaman’s spirit with other spirit beings such that their spirits can no longer be disassembled. Yet this type of experience does not fit pathogenic possession as Cohen (2008) defines it, although it is one of the features that scares shamanic initiates the most (which in its own way may bolster Cohen’s point). We thus suggest an additional key issue is whether the spirit is seen as benevolent or malevolent towards the person being possessed. Even as shamans become entangled (contaminated) with possessing spirits, they know that these spirits are their guides and allies, and hence are ultimately beneficial. The “contamination” of the spirits helps cure the shamanic illness, as opposed to creating pathogenic responses. This is not true for demons and witches, and uncertain/ unlikely for the restless dead (as opposed to ancestors or other categories of benevolent dead). Spiritual entanglement with malicious or at least selfish entities creates a negative result, and thus produces a pathogenic possession. The presence of a pathogenic possession at least in part consequently reflects the nature of the spirit. However, Cohen (2008) is undoubtedly correct that the shared underlying cognitive architecture suggests there ought to be areas of similarities, even as there are areas of

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differences between pathogenic (often involuntary) and executive (typically voluntary or at least passively permitted) possession. Malachi Martin and Ralph Sarchie provide case studies of demonic possession that illustrates both differences and overlap in involuntary possession and the typical patterns of shamanic trance discussed earlier in this chapter and elsewhere throughout this book (especially Chap. 5). Martin was Peck’s friend and mentor although the two never worked directly with each other. Peck even dedicated his 2005 book to Martin, referring to him affectionately as “the Leprechaun” because of Martin’s short stature and Irish accent. Father Martin was a former professor at the Vatican’s Pontifical Biblical Institute but was retired when Peck met him in 1978. Peck’s (2005) book was in some ways an extension of Martin’s works, although they differed on some key issues (e.g., Peck calls for the Roman Catholic church to revisit their trait lists for diagnosing possession, believing that their criteria for demonic possession were too rigid and limited, which in turn causes them to miss people who have attached spirits and need spiritual help). Martin passed away in 1999, six years before Peck’s (2005) book was published. It would have been interesting to have had Martin’s comments on Peck’s book. Martin’s (1992 [1976]) book parallels many of the same key traits and trends Goodman identified (Table 6.1). It presents five cases of demonic possession in painstakingly graphic detail. The book was first published when we were children, and although it is well known, we had not bothered to read it until 2019. It dealt with a subject that is not central to the animistic religious systems we tend to research. Yet the importance that others placed on it (e.g., Sarchie and Cool [2001]; Peck [2005]) required us to ‘go ahead and swallow the pill.’ Martin (1992) stands in stark contrast to the anthropological perspective Goodman (1988) employed. Goodman (1988) took the issue of ethnocentrism seriously, and her discussions of unpleasant events (e.g., the stench of a possessed person; coprolalia, which is the involuntary and repetitive use of obscene language) were discussed in an analytic, and at times an even sympathetic, manner. Martin’s discussions spared the niceties and at times he seems to relish being provocative as he focuses on the confrontation between the patient, the possessing demon(s), and the team of exorcists. His book concentrated more extensively on the ills of being possessed when compared to the others discussed here, but aspects of his discussion fit with cross-cultural patterns discussed above and in our discussion of shamanic trance in Chap. 5 and elsewhere. One of the key features that Martin (1992) emphasizes is the mental and physical anguish that accompanies spirit possession in the cases he considers. Martin (1992:10) states: Violent physical transformation seems sometimes to make the lives of the possessed a kind of hell on earth. Their normal processes of secretion and elimination are saturated with inexplicable wrackings and exaggeration. Their consciousness seems completely colored by the violent sepia of revulsion. Reflexes sometimes become sporadic or abnormal, sometimes disappear for a time. Breathing can cease for extended periods. Heartbeats are hard to detect. The face is strangely distorted, sometimes also abnormally tight and smooth without the slightest line or furrow.

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Goodman (1988, 2005, see also Peck 2005) also notes these specific physical transformations in her cases studies, which again is very different from the experiences of Pentecostals and others possessed by the Holy Spirit (and shamans in general). Another significant aspect of demon possession that Martin (1992) emphasizes that differs from most reports of both voluntary and involuntary possession is physical manifestations beyond the possessed person’s behavior. Martin reports that demonic entities can cause a room to have freezing temperatures, chairs or beds to levitate, furniture to break violently without direct physical contact, doors to open and slam without physical explanation, and fabric near the possessed victim to tear. There are accounts of fantastical events being associated with shamans, but early ethnographers and others considered these events to be simply sleight of hand tricks more akin to stage magic, not the action of spirits (Bogoras 1904; Ellis 1952; for a contrary perspective see Lyon 2012). They certainly are not as dramatic as Martin reports. Yet there are other accounts of demonic possession outside of a Christian ethnosemantics framework that parallel Martin’s in terms of their spectacular nature, suggesting the possibility of a cross-cultural pattern related to demonic possession. Goullart (1961:86–89) for example summarized a Taoist exorcism he witnessed in the 1920s near Shanghai, China. The exorcism took three days and included the possessed victim speaking in a “strange, shrill voice, which sounded mechanical, inhuman,” having his body swell “until he became a grotesque balloon of a man,” and then excreting a “stream of malodorous excreta and effluvia” for an hour before he returned to normal size (Goullart 1961:86–87). The man later became rigid, as if made of stone. His weight preternaturally increased until the iron bedframe bent, and four men could hardly lift him (Goullart 1961:89). Additional signs of possession mentioned by Goullart (1961) closely parallel those listed in Table 6.1, including yelling obscenities, frothing at the mouth, exceptional strength, agitation, and so forth. Still, as extreme as the exorcism described by Goullart (1961) sounds, it does not include some of the more fantastical aspects that Martin describes such as levitation and poltergeist-like activity; such extreme physical manifestations are rarely reported in other cases of involuntary possession (although see Harvey-Wilson 2005:134–136 for some purported examples). Eliade (1964:481–482) notes that Catholic and Muslim history holds that levitation can be a sign of a close relationship with God. He provides the example of St. Joseph of Cupertino (1608–1663) as one of many Catholic saints who reportedly levitated. As such, levitation as a manifestation of spiritual power is consistent with Catholic (and Islamic) tradition. One of the stark differences between shamanic ASC and involuntary possession is the presence of entoptic imagery. Shamans including those entering trance during shamanic possession tend to see entoptic imagery during the initial stage of ASC even when they cannot physically ‘see’ because of darkness or even blindness (Bressloff et al. 2001; Siegel and West 1975); these entoptic images must be a mental manifestation, as opposed to a distortion of actual vision, and are central to the shamanic trance (Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1988). Yet, entoptic imagery generally is not reported by researchers studying involuntary possession by

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malicious spirits. Again, the origins and manifestations of shamanic experiences are distinct from those underlying unwanted possession. We note one exception here, though, in which demonic possession matched a shamanic call to a limited degree. Martin (1992) reported that a Roman Catholic priest, Father Yves, experienced what we would call entoptic images that may be similar to those that shamans have reported. According to Martin, Father Yves did not realize that he was possessed until he began to involuntarily portray entoptic imagery when painting: After about an hour, on the first vivid and eerie occasion of this kind, he was shocked to discover that he was now painting in a strange and completely alien fashion compared to his normal way. His canvas had become a hodgepodge of his initial brushings, which he had intended to portray a street scene. On top of them was a crazy quilt of other forms and shapes—shadowy trees, rivers, irregular forms with legs, squares with ears, loops that ended in numerals (Martin 1992:112).

Yves tried to push these images aside and go for a drive, but instead he was forced to pull over. According to Martin, he felt like images and ideas were being “shoved” into his mind. Eventually he surrendered to these images and thoughts, which Martin (1992:113) later identified as “the point that he consecrated his possession” (i.e., allowed the invading demon to enter him). Similar experiences happen to shamans as the spirits shove their wills onto the shaman initiates and eventually (re)structure them through the shamanic training (see Chap. 5; Vitebsky 2001). Martin (1992) reports another unusual case that we suggest show similarities between shamanic ASC and a case of demonic possession. Shamanism (especially when associated with entheogens like peyote) is often associated with synesthesia, which is the mixing of senses in which one might ‘hear color’ and ‘see sound.’ Wixárika shamans of West Mexico, for example, state that the spirits speak words in colors (MacLean 2001). Martin reports a similar phenomenon during one of the exorcisms, in which the exorcist and his team experienced synesthesia. To quote Martin (1992:19): His ears seem to smell foul words. His eyes seem to hear offensive sounds and obscene screams. His nose seems to taste a high-decibel cacophony. Each sense seems to be recording what another sense should be recording. Each nerve and sinew of onlookers and participants becomes rigid as they strive for control. Panic—the fear of being dissolved into insanity—runs in quick jabs through everyone there. All present experience this increasingly violent and confusing assault. [emphasis in original]

The synesthesia experienced by the exorcist presumably does not reflect the effects of entheogens, given that taking such entheogens is not a typical part of Catholic exorcism and was not mentioned by Martin (1992). It instead reflects the impact of the spiritual encounter, which might be similar to many shamanic traditions. To elaborate on this point, Peruvian shamans report that consuming ayahuasca is neither sufficient nor necessary to produce a shamanic vision including synesthesia (Campos 2011; Glass-Coffin 2010). While ayahuasca helps communicate with spirits, the spirits are the source of the vision, and they will only come when the shaman or other religious practitioners have correctly petitioned the spirits by completing the rituals per the spirits’ wishes (Campos 2011; Glass-Coffin 2010; Goodman 1988, 1990;

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F. Smith 2006). This in turn indicates that the visions are more than just druginduced hallucinations; having a vision includes additional components beyond just ingesting the entheogens and ingesting the entheogens is not necessary for a vision. The fact that the exorcist and his team, who have a role analogous to healing shamans in this case, had the mixing of senses without ingesting psychoactive compounds is consistent with the premise that synesthesia can be associated with spirit-human interaction, even in the absence of entheogens. Another area of potential similarity is the continuous intrusion of spirits. Martin (1976) and others (e.g., Peck 2005) note that the demons can antagonize a person for years, which is superficially similar to the experience of many shamans when they are called upon by the spirits. During the initial period, people who “refuse to undertake the onerous life of a shaman. . .are pursued and tormented by spirits who are determined to make them capitulate. Almost always the initiate gives in, but the struggle can be bitter and can last for years” (Vitebsky 2001:52). Sarchie and Cool (2001) report a case in which a painter named Michael was pursued and tormented by demons for years. Michael had been infected by a powerful demonic entity since 1986 and went, unsuccessfully, through several exorcisms to rid him of the entity. The spirit had made Michael’s life miserable, so much so that Michael requested another exorcism in May 1993. At times the housepainter would suddenly become frozen in his footsteps, with a hideously contorted expression on his face, as the evil force suddenly seized control of his body— leaving him to stand there like a gargoyle until it released its grip (Sarchie and Cool 2001:189).

This passage is an excellent example of what Martin referred to as “possessed gravity” and is similar to Vitebsky’s (2001:57) description of Siberian shamans sometimes lying motionless on the ground for days and possibly weeks at a time. Michael tried everything to diagnose and treat his seizures and subsequent headaches, including consulting doctors, psychiatrists, and other health professionals to no avail. Michael did have occasional respites, “when these problems lifted on their own, sometimes for months or even years on end, but the darkness always returned” (Sarchie and Cool 2001:193). Given the lack of a clear physiological or psychological origin for his ailment, Michael concluded his problem was supernatural. Through a priest in Queens, Michael learned about Sarchie’s police partner, Joe, who did “the Work” of casting out evil spirits (Sarchie and Cool 2001:188). Through various interviews and based on their previous exorcisms, Sarchie and is partner believed that Michael’s ex-mother-in-law might have had one of her South American employees curse him (a case of Grade IV possession). During the second exorcism, they recorded the ordeal. Michael who was raised Jewish and spoke Hebrew, began to speak in a language that sounded like “sarabande” that no one understood. A linguistic professor listened to the tape and concluded it was a mix of Spanish and Portuguese. Possessed people reportedly are able to speak foreign languages that they previously did not know, but only when the possessing spirit is dominant over the victim’s typical personality. Sarchie and Cool believed that this was indisputable evidence of demonic possession. Michael also had to be restrained during the exorcisms. He seemed to have inhuman strength

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and telepathic abilities manifested by the possessing demon planting images in others’ minds (telepathic abilities were stressed by Martin [1992] and Peck [2005] too). Although aspects of Michael’s experience are similar to shamanic initiation, the entire process and manifestation of the spirit possession does not correspond to the cross-cultural patterns summarized in Chap. 5. Thus, despite our attempts to find examples of involuntary possession that closely correspond to typical shamanic practices, the cross-cultural accounts of involuntary possession and shamanism indicates that they reflect different processes and are manifested in different ways, both behaviorally and physically. Involuntary possession cannot seemingly be reduced to a form of shamanic illness, and those who suffer from involuntary possession do not fit the general pattern of being psychologically healthy as is typical for shamans and mediums around the world (Moreira-Almeida et al. 2007; Peres et al. 2012; Smith 2001; Winkelman 2010). Exactly what relationships among a person’s physiological, mental, and spiritual health are reflected in involuntary possession remains a topic of debate (see also F. Smith 2001, 2006). We are certain that the early historians and explorers that equated shamanism with devil worship are wrong. The spirits shamans interact with are vastly different than demons and produce very different experiences for the humans they affect.

6.5

Discussion

Whether or not ‘spirit possession’ exists is still being debated in the American scientific community. One example is in the deliberation of that group of anthropologists concerned with consciousness and worldwide healing practices, including shamanism. [Michael] Harner's paper 'Shamanism, Science and Spirits' emphasized the fact that the existence of spirits was not disproven and, thus, according to Popper's definition of science it should not be ignored by science, otherwise scientists would be basing their dismissal of spirits on 'faith.' He spoke in a very logical fashion, about the positive conclusions regarding spirits, which he came to through his long-term research and participation in comparative experiential shamanism.—Psychiatrist Ralph B. Allison (2000:109) One [of the conceptual ambiguities] is the boundary—here threshold may be by far the better word—between psychiatry and religion. Somewhat ironically, this threshold is rendered problematic not because exorcists reinterpret mental illness in demonological terms. On the contrary, the threshold is haunted precisely by the [Catholic] Church’s complete acceptance of psychiatry. That is, an affliction can be either demonic or psychiatric, or ambiguously both at the same time.—Anthropologist Thomas Csordas (2020:528)

Our discussion in this chapter and indeed throughout this book is filled with accounts of spirit-human interaction beyond what is considered typical in Euro-American perspectives. Stories of Yenaldlooshi turning into sheep, the spirits of dead people ‘hitchhiking’ into the bodies of ill patients in hospitals, and demons inhabiting the bodies of possessed people strain the credulity of most Westerners. Are these accounts real? This is a deceptively hard question to answer, in large part because what ‘real’ means in this context can be difficult to define. We are not trying to be pedantic here. Nor are we trying to equivocate. We had worked on several Native

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American Pueblos with tribal members of various Native American nations. We have also taught classes that included Puebloan students in our courses at the University of New Mexico and occasionally at the University of Missouri. Although we rarely ask about them, our colleagues, friends, and students often bring up their relationships with the kachina. We have, in our admittedly limited experience, never had one of them disavow the literal reality of the kachina. To the contrary, their validity is presented as a cultural truth; the kachina are obviously real, so much so that no justification of their reality is needed. Perhaps in keeping with this attitude, none of our non-Puebloan students has ever seriously questioned the existence of kachina, asking if they “are real” even though they ask this question regarding spirit possession, demons, ghosts, and the other sorts of spirits presented here. Perhaps this is because our non-Puebloan students know that kachina are real, in the sense that masked dancers put on kachina regalia and perform ceremonies. Yet their acceptance of kachina as real in this sense is different than what we have observed among our Puebloan friends and students—they have a different understanding of what it means for kachina “to be real.” One group treats them as real animating spirits working within nature while the other views them as a real masked dancers that foster social cohesion. There are two (or more) very different definitions of ‘real’ at work here, and both have their importance in the context of the anthropology of religion. Sikes (2000) in fact addresses this issue in detail and observes that in the study of culture, objective reality may be less important and less interesting when compared to culturally specific ideas of reality. What is real within the confines of the culture may be more critical to understanding and explaining variability in human behavior. Is spirit possession real, in the sense that victims are literally possessed by spirits with an objective existence independent of humans? And if so, are these spirits jinn, fallen angles, spirits of dead people, the spirits/personalities of past lives, and so forth? To be honest, answering this is not our focus here. Real spirits in this context constitute Hempel’s theoretical entities and are not observable terms as we discussed in Chap. 2. We suspect that those from religious/intellectual backgrounds that accept the possibility of spirits are more likely to believe that some spirits have the power to modify humans and effect the physical world. Those who are doubtful about or outright reject the existence of spirits will likewise consider all of the case studies above ‘false’ in the sense that they do not objectively reflect the actions of spirits with their own volition. We have no way to convince the believer that spirits are not real or the skeptic that spirits are real. Nor is that a legitimate goal of an anthropological study in our opinion, any more than a central goal of anthropology should be to prove or disprove the existence of the kachina in the Southwestern Pueblos or mana in the cultures of Oceania. Attempting to destroy the very cultural traditions we seek to understand would be a terrible way to do anthropology and would absolutely violate the efforts to keep ethnocentrism out of our research. It would also alienate our discipline from humanity, which, as a rule, does care about spirits. Shifting the question somewhat, are spirits active and capable of influencing and even possessing humans? Here we can emphatically answer, yes. People around the world take these spiritual threats seriously and work to mitigate them, often in formal and costly ways. The “Witchery Way” was created by First Man and First Woman

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when they created the Diné and is mentioned by too many ethnographic informants to have been made-up for the benefit of meddling anthropologists. The “Witchery Way” represents a ceremonial complex among the Diné that they consider uniquely dangerous (Kluckhohn 1944:25–30). It is worth noting that there are documented cases of the execution of witches among the Diné and other Southwestern Native Americans (Brugge 1978:311). Likewise, Islamic countries often have formalized and even government-sanctioned agencies that deal with jinn activity, including jinn possession (e.g., Müller 2018). The concepts of spirits and spirit possession are also central in Brazilian spiritualism (Krippner 1987). In India, deities are said to frequently possess people (Smith 2006). Demonic possession is considered a reality by the Roman Catholic Church, which is one of the longest lived continuously existing political/religious institutions in human history (Young 2016). We do not wish to bring in more case studies at this point, but there are literally hundreds of reported examples of spirit possession and/or malevolent spirit influence from around the world. In terms of their cultural impact, unwanted, malevolent spirits and the danger they pose are undeniably real as an observable phenomenon in that malevolent spirits cause people to have bad luck, have seizures, make grotesque faces, speak in strange voices, emit foul odors, and so on. Building from this base, is exorcism real? Again, we run into the issue of objective and cultural reality. The data seem clear that exorcisms are effective in treating people diagnosed as suffering from mental health issues associated with spirit afflictions around the globe (e.g., Al-Krenawi and Graham 1997; Fiore 1987; Goodman 1988; Krippner 1987; Peck 2005). Exactly why exorcism is effective is open for debate, but, in an objective sense, at least some health care professionals (including shamans working in non-industrialized societies) find treating their patients’ ailments as spiritual problems helps their patients. Going further, events such as involuntary possession correspond with specific and repeated physiological characteristics (Table 6.1). Consistent characteristics are used to diagnose involuntary possession, and similar treatments (e.g., calling on benevolent/protective spirits, using blessed or holy charms) are found to be effective cross-culturally. This is not to say that all cultural traditions agree with each other. They do not. For example, Muslim scholars hold that jinn leave when exorcised by Christian exorcists in order to help trick Christians into trusting their false religion (Philips 1993:203–204). Likewise, most other cultures do not put the same emphasis on the past lives as the Brazilian spiritualists do. Yet calling on God (broadly defined) and/or other benevolent spirits, talking to the possessing spirit, saying prayers, using Holy Water or other blessed materials, spreading ashes and other protective magic, and even hypnotism are reported cross-culturally as effective methods for combating malevolent spirits (Csordas 2020; Fiore 1987; Goodman 1988; Martin 1976). Unwanted possession corresponds to physiological changes/manifestations, and this physiological process has consistencies across cultural boundaries (Goodman 1988). We can thus conclude that dealing with malevolent spirits is a cultural universal, as is the use of protective magic. Within an ethnosemantics perspective, each culture will have its own classification for spirits. It is worth noting that many cultures also include defined limits in regard to the influence of malicious spirits. Most modern

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cultures that include Western psychological professionals recognize that sometimes the symptoms reflect ONLY physiological/psychological issues (Grade II possession), even if they hold spiritual influences beyond psychology are at play in other cases. So, who is likely to suffer from malicious spirits up to and including being the victim of unwanted possession? There is variation based on the ethnosemantics structure(s) of each culture. According to Krippner (1987:278, 287) Brazilian spiritualists tend to ascribe possession to a “karmic” or “spiritual problem,” with more women than men being affected. Further, possession is most common during young adulthood (between 16 and 25 years old). The possessed individuals often have traumatic childhoods or severe illnesses, which help create a state of “hypersensitivity” to spirits (Krippner 1987:278). Sapkota et al. (2014) finds a similar link between childhood trauma and possession events in rural Nepal. Fiore (1987) suggests that in the United States ‘hitchhikers’ are commonly picked up by sick or vulnerable people at hospitals, although occasionally a healthy person may simply be a magnet for spirits. Alcohol and drugs, even innocent experimentation with “recreational” drugs, “have resulted in years of possession” (Fiore 1987:110). Excessive negative emotions like grief, depression or anger also make people susceptible to spirit possession in the US (Peck 2005). Christian exorcists focused on demonic possession tend to hold that the possessed person consents to possession (often under duress) (Martin 1992; Peck 2005; Sarchie and Cool 2001; Wicks et al. 2012). They often engage in internal dialogue with the invading spirits (Csordas 2020: 522; see also Anonymous 2017, which is the personal account of a Chinese woman’s struggle against her possession without the support of a qualified exorcist). Muslim scholars often hold that people without strong religious beliefs and/or with deep misunderstandings of proper Islam are particularly susceptible to jinn possession. Jinn may be motived to possess their victims because the human injured them somehow (although spirits, jinn themselves are mortal and can be injured), a jinni might love the victim, or jinn want to cause mischief (Philips 1993:97–98). Regardless of the culture, though, attacks by malicious spirits will create bad luck and likely mental/social problems within the specific cultural context. Western medical doctors and psychologists often associate possession events with “dissociative phenomenon” (Seligman and Kirmayer 2008), especially DID, which is often associated with extreme childhood trauma (Peck 2005; Tyrer 2019). According to this framework, the central personality can distance itself from painful actions and/or memories by creating another self, as the other self takes over and gives the person “amnesia” (Allen and Movius III 2000; Peck 2005; Spiegel et al. 2011). These different personalities can be quite behaviorally distinct and their presence can meaningfully impact a person’s ability to function in their day-to-day life. In these cases, dissociative states reflect a mental illness, but it is unclear that DID can be applied to all cases for unwanted possession, and is certainly not common among shamans, mediums, and others (e.g., Pentecostals) that can be voluntarily possessed. Shamans and mediums are typically in control of the process, choosing when and how the spirits are called. This level of self-control is inconsistent with DID-related amnesia as well as schizophrenia and other proposed mental health syndromes. Peres

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et al. (2012), for example, evaluated the mental health of 10 Brazilian mediums who used trance states to have spirits write for them (psychographers/autowriters, which we will discuss in the next chapter), and found that they are mentally healthy and socially well adjusted. Thus, Peres et al. (2012) stress that there are dissociative states that reflect a pathology, but these do not include the ASC of the mediums (see also Flor-Henry et al. 2017; Krippner 2002). In contrast, though, victims of unwanted, malevolent possession are not mentally healthy as defined by in their own culture and in clinical contexts and are often poorly socially integrated. Healthcare professionals increasingly acknowledge that treating these negative spiritual influences may be central to effective treatment of many ailments based on a culture’s ethnosemantics framework (e.g., Mercer 2012). Sharp (1994) even reports that Protestant exorcists may be more effective dealing with ‘failed shamans’ (those who have the shamanic calling but cannot grow beyond their initial shamanic illness) than either traditional shamanism or modern psychiatric treatments in some cultural contexts. Unlike the shamans who have tried to help the initiate through the spirit integration process, the exorcist actually has a way to remove the spirits that are tormenting the patient. Ultimately then, there are different ways in which spirits interact with humans. To the extent that they can, humans tend to try to control these interactions, seeking to maximize the positive impacts and minimize any negative outcomes they can. Magic is central to this effort. When interactions are direct, such that the spirits influence human behavior through some form of ASC, there are undoubtedly physiological and neurological components. Humans may seek to maintain and strengthen relationships with spirits, even to the point of (possibly reluctantly) inviting them into their own body (e.g., shamans with tutelary spirits and mediums who talk with the dead), but there are also spirits that people wish to avoid. Both voluntary and involuntary possession can be costly and painful, but the unwanted possession by malevolent spirits consistently presents an extremely difficult situation, one that comes with negative social and physical consequences. This interaction is culturally specific, but it necessarily reflects the physiological and neurological consistencies inherent in human bodies.

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Chapter 7

Neurology, Physiology, and the Mind/Spirit Interface

Abstract Here we shift our focus explicitly on humans as opposed to spirits to explore human neurology and physiology as it is reflected in spirit-human interactions. Although most Western scientists dismiss supernatural claims, many suggest that our mind is responsible for perceiving (imaginary and perhaps real) things that people claim are spirits. Even so, psychologists, medical doctors, and others recognize that spirit encounters produce strong impacts on people’s minds and bodies. The chapter starts with a synthesis discussion of the physiology associated with ASC, both with and without the use of entheogens. We discuss both Felicitas Goodman’s and Michael Harner’s work inducing trance without entheogens, focusing on the associated hormonal and neurological changes (e.g., changing brain activity as measured by EEGs, increased beta-endorphin production). We also summarize the results of studies focused on Brazilian psychographers, Buddhist monks, and Catholic nuns involved in religious meditation. Neurologist Andrew Newberg has conducted numerous brain scans of nuns and monks and found that prayer activates the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes of the brain. It appears that longtime practitioners have larger frontal lobes than people who do not meditate or say daily prayers. We compare these results to documented patterns associated with schizophrenia to identify differences between ASC and mental illness. Our discussion then extends to the gut, which is a major source for serotonin production and is involved in spiritual, especially ASC-based, experiences. We use ethnographic examples from the Inuit and other groups to demonstrate how shamans incorporate the impacts on the gut into shamanic experiences. We then discuss non-ASC spiritual experiences including mass hysteria and the Miracle of the Sun (the Marian apparition simultaneously experienced by thousands of people in 1917 in Fátima, Portugal). We stress that these experiences cannot be reduced to trance-based ASC or mental illness and reflect that people in their normal state of consciousness can, under the right circumstances, have spiritual experiences. The chapter then turns to the physiology and cross-cultural patterns underlying near-death experiences. Again, we use examples from Western and non-Western/traditional people. Our final discussion then stresses the cross-cultural similarities in many of the physiological and neurological patterns associated with spiritual experiences, but also the limits of our knowledge.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. S. VanPool, T. L. VanPool, An Anthropological Study of Spirits, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25920-3_7

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The brain is truly wonderful and complex, seamlessly and apparently effortlessly able to attend to multiple tasks at the same time. However, the human brain, via religion or science, art or technology, has yet to figure itself out.—Anthropologist John S. Allen (2009:6)

The body is central to spiritual experiences. Intense physiological and psychological responses correlate strongly with spirit interaction in many contexts. These responses further appear to reflect both our evolutionary past and our current physiology/psychology as humans. Here we briefly explore aspects of the human body as they relate to perceptions of and interactions with spirits. We primarily focus on the physiological discussions presented by anthropologists, most notably Felicitas Goodman and Michael Winkelman, but we also examine a few studies completed by neurologists and psychologists (e.g., Julio Peres and colleagues) that demonstrate that mediums are physically, mentally, and socially healthy people who perceive spirits. Sometimes anthropologists have a tendency to simplify shamanic and other spirit experiences to being the side effect of entheogens. We challenge this using the work of Goodman and others that demonstrates that entheogens are not needed to see spirits and that the human body has neurological and physiological responses that allow humans to perceive spirits in many ways and at many scales. We conclude this chapter by observing that spirit interaction does have empirical physiological and neurological correlations, but how the brain-spirit interface works remains a mystery.

7.1

The Spiritual Brain

With modern parts atop old ones, the brain is like an iPod built around an eight-track cassette player.—Science Writer Sharon Begley (2007:15)

Direct spirit-human interaction overwhelming takes place in some form of ASC (Lyon 2012). ASC may be initiated using entheogens in many cultures, but the entire experience typically cannot be reduced only to the effects of hallucinogens. Ayahuasca, a potent mix of two plants used by South American shamans, produces amazing and complex visions that have been captured and painted by Pablo Amaringo (Charing et al. 2011). Amaringo’s work, which is reproduced in various books, has piqued the curiosity of Americans, Europeans, and others who frequently go to Peru in search of shamans like Amaringo to ingest ayahuasca themselves so that they can have experiences like those that he painted. However, anthropologists that have looked beyond the sensational accounts associated with hallucinogens have found that shamanic experiences/visions are not guaranteed by simply ingesting ayahuasca (Campos 2011; Glass-Coffin 2010). In fact, Bonnie GlassCoffin (2010:208) reports that despite her best efforts while doing field work for 20 years and having drunk gallons of ayahuasca with healers she was not able to have a vision. The physiological response of South American shamans and the interested tourists is facilitated by ayahuasca, but their experiences are not attributable only to ayahuasca. The powerful visions are most likely when placed in the

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context of ceremonial cleansing, chanting, drumming, and other elements of shamanic practices. Further, research has shown that shamans (and other people) can effectively and reliably have powerful visions that promote a sense of wellbeing without ingesting entheogens at all. One of the leading institutions studying and applying these methods is the Cuyamungue Institute (CI) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a non-profit research/training organization founded by Dr. Felicitas Goodman (who is the same researcher that studied demon possession and glossolalia discussed in Chap. 6). Goodman’s research started in the late 1960s and focused on studying “non-ordinary body postures” she found represented in non-Western art, especially in the archaeological record. In her earliest experiments, Goodman (1990:19) worked with eight individuals. She showed them a drawing of a ritual posture found in contexts suggesting ecstatic shamanism (or at least religious practices) based on archaeological or ethnographic evidence (e.g., kneeling as depicted in figures proposed to be temple statuary associated with Mississippian period [ca. AD 1200] religious authority, leadership, and ancestors [Goodman 1990:90; Smith and Miller 2009:157–159; Wolforth and Wolforth 2000]). Each of the test subjects would hold a specified “ritual body posture” (RBP) as a rattle was played around 210 beats per minute for 15 minutes. Goodman then conducted an interview to record what, if any, reaction each subject experienced. To her surprise, Goodman (1990) found that people easily entered what she called “ecstatic trances” without psychoactive plants or synthetic drugs (see also Fachner and Rittner 2007; Goodman 1988:9–11, 1999; Hunger and Rittner 2015). Further, different postures reliably resulted in different experiences (feelings, perceptions, and visions) (Goodman 1990). One RBP was based on the famous “birdman” found in Lascaux Cave. This painting depicts the birdman standing at a 37-degree angle with his arms stretched out. To recreate this posture, Goodman (1990:22) used “chairs, pillows, sleeping bags, and the like. It was quite comfortable, and my participants expected to have a restful fifteen minutes in that posture. Instead, things became highly dramatic. . .” Below we repeat a couple of the accounts they reported. Anita: The hand position seemed to indicate a polarity to me, and I began to experience that more and more as I went into trance. The left hand that pointed down and was pushing away was getting warm, the right one was cold. This seemed to develop a flow of energy that became circular. The energy wrapped me into a cocoon, and for a while I was floating in a very nice, golden cocoon (Goodman 1990:22–23). Suzanne G: I saw a path, it took me to a white cloud. Then I was in that cloud and it opened and I came out, flying about in blue (Goodman 1990:23).

The other participants reported similar experiences that were consistent with the sorts of visions shamans from around the world report. Further, none of these individuals were known to have psychological or physiological abnormalities that regularly produced hallucinations, and none had taken any form of entheogen before their trance. According to Goodman (1990:22), it took a while before she realized that ASC could be initiated simply by holding specific ritual postures while listening to the simple rhythmic stimulation of the gourd rattle.

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After Goodman’s pilot study, she worked with various universities, started her own workshops, and eventually founded CI. One of the first RBP she recreated and continually used was the Bear posture based on a Kwakiutl wooden effigy from the Pacific Northwest (Goodman 1990:19). The wood carving shows a large bear standing behind a human who has an ecstatic expression on his face. In this posture, the person tilts his head back, has his hands placed above the navel, and his knees slightly bent. According to Goodman (1990:20), the sensations associated with this RBP felt like “the bodies of the subjects or their heads would split open as if to receive something, a substance, a flow of energy, which was then administered to them” (Goodman 1990:20). She found without prompting her participants or telling them about the Bear posture or showing them a picture of the artifact that people sometimes perceived a bear spirit, as illustrated by the following account: Kristina (Cuyamungue, August 1984): I was taken up into the bear, but also saw him. We went flying together very slowly; I perceived a spiraling motion of my feet and also of my spine. There were bluish and purple flowers with yellow centers. I was being pushed back and forth by the bear, then there were subtle movements all over my body. It felt that I was sinking ever deeper into my body while at the same time dissolving into nothingness. Then I became conscious of my body again, and it felt okay all over (Goodman 1990:111).

Goodman (1990) found it significant that the Bear posture was depicted using bear imagery in anthropological contexts and also produced bear-related visions among some (but not all) of her participants. These sorts of non-random association between the specific poses, the shamanic imagery, and the participants’ experiences could not be reduced to the effect of suggestion given that the participants did not have foreknowledge of the details of the imagery. Instead, Goodman concluded that specific poses tended to produce similar experiences among humans, even when they are from different cultural backgrounds. In other words, there was a physiological response underlying RBP and it enables people to perceived spirits. Michael Harner (1990) using a different methodology found a similar research institute, “The Foundation for Shamanic Studies.” He also found that people could easily go into ASC without entheogens by listening to a rapid beating drum. In 1984 Goodman (1988, 1999) worked with an unnamed PhD student in Johann Kugler’s neurophysiological laboratory at the University of Munich, Germany. They had test subjects hold a RBP while listening to a rattle for 15 min to study what neurophysiological changes occurred during trance. Kugler’s lab was one of the first research laboratories that could measure electrical activities of the brain using an Electroencephalogram (EEG). The brain emits oscillating electrical millionths of voltages (brainwaves) that can be measured. The EEG measures these oscillations and scientists generally accept that waking and sleep modes are associated with different brainwaves. Delta waves are typically associated with sleep, and measure between 0.5 to 4 cycles per second (Hertz [Hz]). Theta waves are associated with deep relaxation (e.g., as people begin to fall asleep or have a deep inward mental focus such as chanting and praying) and measure 4 to 7 Hz. Alpha waves (7–13 Hz) are emitted when one is relaxed and not concentrating on anything. Beta waves (13–35 Hz) are the most common state for people who are awake and reacting to

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their environment. Gamma waves are the fastest brainwaves (over 35 Hz) and are associated with intense problem-solving and information processing. Unfortunately, an illness prevented the unnamed student from finishing her training, but Goodman (1988, see also 1999) reported their preliminary findings. Subjects underwent RBP-initiated trance while being wired to the EEG machine. Bloodwork and blood pressure were also taken before, during, and after trance. The EEGs indicated that the trance produced slow Alpha waves (7–8 Hz) and Theta waves (4–7 Hz), which are much slower than the beta and gamma waves typical of awake, alert humans. They also found that slower waves were primarily distributed in the occipital regions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain (Goodman 1999:56). Blood analysis indicated that various catecholamines (hormones made by the adrenal gland such as epinephrine and norepinephrine) were present before the trance but by the end of the trance these hormones were absent in the blood serum. (Epinephrine and norepinephrine are related to the brain’s stress response.) Towards the end of the trance the brain began to synthesize beta-endorphins, which are part of the brain’s reward-and-pain response system and are well known to cause euphoria. Do not worry if the medical jargon is a bit much. In practical terms, the person had a “waking dream” that left them feeling less stressed and otherwise feeling good. Goodman (1999) also provided a summary of a similar project that focused on a spirit medium from Chicago who channeled spirits. The results were similar to but not identical to those recorded with RBP, perhaps indicating some difference in the underlying physiology between RBP-based ASC and the practices of at least this particular medium. According to Goodman (1999:58): To summarize the findings, blood pressure during [shamanic] ritual body postures dips slightly in the middle while in channeling it dips slightly at the end. Pulse during ritual body postures drops radically in the middle and in channeling remains generally steady with a slight drop at the end. For both epinephrine and norepinephrine, ritual body postures cause a drop between the first and second readings, while channeling causes a steady level until the end, where it spikes. The most significant difference is in the evolution of the betaendorphins, which remains the same after reaching an initial level during ritual body postures, while it spikes at the end of a channeling episode. These laboratory data are confirmed by observation. At the conclusion of a ritual body posture, there is a moderately pleasant euphoria.

Ultimately, both the RBP-based shamanic trance and the medium’s ASC produced Theta (4–7 Hz) brainwaves, likely associated with the “waking dreams” of shamans. Blood work from both practices shows a decrease in stress hormones and a sudden increase in beta-endorphins in the bloodstream. These are responsible for the euphoria commonly experienced at the end of ecstatic trances. In terms of modern medicine, it is now widely accepted that long periods of elevated levels of stress hormones, like cortisol, can have devastating effects on health (Agorastos et al. 2020; VanItallie 2002). Likewise, scientists are finding that “happy hormones” like endorphins are beneficial for health. Given that shamanic rituals and trance states decrease stress hormones and increase “happy hormones,” such rituals do promote health and well-being in a meaningful way (Winkelman 2010).

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Subsequent researchers such as Fachner and Rittner (2007) and Hunger and Rittner (2015) confirmed that Goodman’s RBP changes the electric brain activity. Their studies focused on two subjects (Fachner and Rittner 2007), and 19 subjects evaluated over a 10-month period (Hunger and Rittner 2015). Both sets of researchers found that the use of a rattle or a monochord increases brain voltage to 2,500 to 3,000 microvolts, which is substantially higher than normal. However, while the voltage is increasing, the brainwaves slow from the Beta range to Theta range (4-7 Hz), which is consistent with Goodman’s EEG results. These researchers use Guttmann’s (1990) term “paradoxical arousal” or “relaxed tension” to explain this unusual brain phenomenon (Fachner and Rittner 2007:10). ASC among Brazilian psychographers (aka autowriters/mediums) has also been studied. Psychographers call upon the spirits of the dead to possess their minds and/or hands during ASC to conduct automatic writing (Peres et al. 2012). Peres et al. (2012) conducted neuroimaging on a sample of 10 psychographers. Each was white and right-handed, but they varied in age and skill. Peres et al. (2012) assessed their social well-being and their mental health using the Beck Depression Inventory, the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry, the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule, and the Self-Report Psychiatric Screening Questionnaire. All had good mental health and were socially well adjusted. None of them used psychoactive substances (although some psychographers do). The results of the psychographers’ neuroimaging were compared to Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns involved in religious activity as a baseline. While the study of the monks and nuns indicated increased frontal lobe activity with prayer, some of the Brazilian mediums had a decrease in activity in the frontal lobes. Peres et al. (2012) expected areas of the brain involved in conscious writing (especially the right precentral gyrus, right superior temporal gyrus, left anterior cingulate, left hippocampus, left culmen, and left inferior occipital gyrus) to be active during autowriting, but they were not. To the contrary, they found there was decreased activity in the anterior cingulate, precentral gyrus, superior temporal gyrus and hippocampus. Peres et al. (2012:6) suggest the lack of activity in these areas might “partly explain the absence of focus, self-awareness and consciousness during the dissociative state observed in psychography.” Peres et al. (2012) also discuss how psychographers and their trance states differ from other types of mediumship as well as other brain pathologies that cause dissociation like schizophrenia. Schizophrenia, for example, is well known for causing visual and auditory hallucinations. According to Flor-Henry et al. (2017), people with schizophrenia have lower blood flow levels in their left hemisphere and more blood flow to their right hemisphere, which also happens for some psychographers (Peres et al. 2012). However, Peres et al. (2012) found that the brains of the psychographers as well as nuns and monks were structurally healthy, whereas numerous studies have shown that schizophrenia corresponds with shrinking brain tissue and brain atrophy throughout the entire brain, but especially in the frontal and temporal lobes (Iritani 2013). Ultimately, Peres et al. (2012) stress that Brazilian psychographers are mentally healthy and socially integrated in their communities (unlike those suffering from schizophrenia and similar conditions),

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despite earlier Western preconceptions that they suffer from mental health challenges. Winkelman (2010) provides a different, speculative cognitive framework to understand the origins and manifestation of ASC. He starts by adopting the triunebrain theory originally developed by MacLean (1973, 1990). MacLean’s triunebrain theory holds there are three hierarchical layers of the brain—the Reptilian brain, the Paleomammalian (Limbic) brain, and the Neomammalian brain—that developed at different periods of human evolution (MacLean 1990; see also Ploog 2003:489 and Triarhou 2009:198). The Reptilian brain developed earliest and reflects a simple structure that regulates basic survival functions and species-specific “daily master routines” and behaviors such as drinking and feeding activities, mating, territorial instincts, and the nature of social hierarchies. The Paleomammalian brain developed next and incudes the limbic system, which is central to emotions, the identification of offspring, play, basic vocalization (e.g., crying, yells warning of danger), and other types of behaviors characteristic of most mammals (Ploog 2003:489; Triarhou 2009:198). The Neomammallian brain that largely consists of the cerebral neocortex developed most recently and in humans facilitates spoken and written language, arithmetic, symbolic thought, imagination, and so forth. Winkelman suggests that regardless of the way that trance is achieved (e.g., using music, drugs, prayers, fasting, pain, etc.), it is consistently created by a single coherent brainwave that originates in the lower brain structures (the reptilian and paleomammalian brains) and moves through the frontal cortex to the neomammalian brain. This brainwave is a high-voltage but slow-frequency (theta) brainwave (4-8 Hz). Although Goodman (1990, 1999) and others use EEG data to measure brainwave and create surface brain maps, Winkelman (2002:1879) asserts that the lower brainwaves originate in the brainstem (Reptilian brain), which is not accessible through EEG. He then suggests the Theta brainwaves (4–8 Hz) move through the last two layers of the brain causing it to have synchronizing brainwave patterns. This affects the brain in a variety of ways that are interrelated, and “produces a synthesis of behavior, emotion, and thought” (Winkelman 2002:1879). The frontal cortex becomes synchronized with the rest of the brain. This in turn creates “a synthesis of behavior (Reptilian brain), emotions (Paleomammalian brain) and thought (Neomammalian brain),” which creates “discharges across the neuraxis and nerve bundles allowing altered states of consciousness to be experienced” (Winkelman 2002:1880). Moreover, Winkelman (2002:1880) hypothesizes that ASC activates the limbic brain’s serotonergic circuits, which in turn enables the body’s serotonergic, opioid, and immunological systems to be activated. As part of this process, shamanic rituals cause the brain to internally (endogenously) produce opioid and serotonin. Focusing specifically on the “opioid” system, it controls pain. The human brain is remarkable in that it naturally produces “endogenous opioids” that circulate through all the body. In the brain, when the opioid receptors (mu, delta, and kappa) are activated, endogenous opioids such as enkephalins, dynorphins, and endorphins are released. Again, Goodman’s research on RBP/rattling shows that these activities

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release endorphins into the bloodstream, and Winkelman’s research based on neurology suggests shamanic activity increases endogenous opioids. This would have the effect of producing a good feeling. Ultimately shamanic ASC should be associated with euphoria. Winkelman’s hypotheses are not based on practicing shamans, however. Rather he cleverly piecemealed multiple lines of evidence to propose how shamanic rituals might work neurologically and physiologically. To stress this point further, his discussion of the serotonergic and opioid systems is based on what medical researchers have learned about the impacts of plant-based and chemical drugs (especially LSD) that effect the dopamine and serotonin systems (Winkelman 2010:145). Likewise, he did not conduct neurological studies on shamans, but rather focused on neurological studies that have been conducted on monks, nuns, and yogis. The upshot is that while Winkelman’s ideas are intriguing, it is not clear that they correctly model shamanic trance, especially trance initiated without the use of hallucinogens. Also, the triune-brain theory has apparently been largely rejected by neurobiologists, although it remains common among psychologists (Cesario et al. 2020). The validity of the triune-brain model is beyond our expertise to evaluate, but we are skeptical of Winkelman’s suggestion that all ASC experiences follow a single physiological pattern. In fact, the research of Goodman and the others cited above seems to indicate that it does not. A study by Hove et al. (2016), however, supports Winkelman’s model. Hove et al. (2016) conducted fMRIs on 15 shamans while they listened to rhythmic drumming at 240 beats per minute. They found that part of the limbic system was activated and worked with a “central hub” to cause all the major brain areas to be integrated, as theorized by Winkelman (2010). Surprisingly, Hove et al. (2016:3122) also found the auditory network was disengaged, which suggested to them that shamanic trance causes a “dampening of sensory processing.” While this study supports Winkelman’s model, they also discuss the limitations of their study, especially that they conducted their research in a laboratory setting with shamans lying in fMRI tubes. Other (more typical) contexts might produce some variation compared to their results (Hove et al. 2016:3122). In addition to influencing hormonal levels and modifying brain activity, there is evidence that religious practices correspond with and in fact can literally change an individual’s brain development over a course of years. Some neurologists are now suggesting that spiritual experiences can be explained by shifting blood flow in the brain (D’Aquili and Newberg 1999; Johnstone and Cohen 2019; Newberg and D’ Aquili 2000; Starkstein and Robinson 1997). In their study of patients with traumatic brain injuries (TBI), Johnstone and Cohen 2019) found that people with damage to their left parietal lobe had more spiritual experiences than those without TBI. From this, they suggested that increased blood flow to the right parietal lobe can help instigate spiritual experiences. Even without TBI, spiritual activity can impact blood flow through the brain and its subsequent development. Newberg et al. (2001:7) studied Franciscan nuns and Tibetan monks to see how prayer and meditation affected the brain. They conducted a series of neuroradiological studies (PET and

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SPECT imaging) that showed monks had increased activity in their frontal lobes. In a later study Newberg et al. (2003) found that Franciscan nuns who repeated prayers had increased blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, and the parietal and inferior lobes. Likewise, Azari et al. (2001) conducted PET scans on twelve individuals who read a telephone book, read a nursey rhyme, and read a Biblical psalm; they found that reading the psalm activated the frontal-parietal area. The brain is like a muscle, and the increased blood flow corresponds to larger frontal lobes among the nuns and monks when compared to people who did not continuously pray and meditate. The scientific understanding of the relationship between brain physiology and religious experiences including the perceptions of spirits and the presence of ASC is in its infancy. Scientists do not have a clear picture yet of the brain physiology of shamanism and other religious practices. Researchers are uncertain what approaches are most likely to be successful, how these processes relate to and reflect evolution, and even what questions are most significant (see Azari and Birnbacher 2004; Bulkeley 2015; Miller et al. 2019). We are certain, though, that additional research over the next several decades will produce illuminating insights!

7.2

The Religious Gut

A primal connection exists between our brain and our gut. We often talk about a “gut feeling” when we meet someone for the first time. We’re told to “trust our gut instinct” when making a difficult decision or that it’s “gut check time” when faced with a situation that tests our nerve and determination. This mind-gut connection is not just metaphorical. Our brain and gut are connected by an extensive network of neurons and a highway of chemicals and hormones that constantly provide feedback. . . The enteric nervous system is often referred to as our body’s second brain. There are hundreds of millions of neurons connecting the brain to the enteric nervous system, the part of the nervous system that is tasked with controlling the gastrointestinal system. . .The enteric nervous system is so extensive that it can operate as an independent entity without input from our central nervous system, although they are in regular communication. While our “second” brain cannot compose a symphony or paint a masterpiece the way the brain in our skull can, it does perform an important role in managing the workings of our inner tube.—Microbiologists Justin Sonnenburg and Erica Sonnenburg (2015:24–25)

The brain impacts a person’s perception of the world and will obviously be a key portion of the human body involved in ASC and other types of religious experiences. However, it is linked to the rest of the body in a complex series of relationships and is certainly not the only portion of the body linked to ASC. Another important organ is the gut, which is associated with the brain via a complex series of neurological and hormonal interactions, especially serotonin. In a short video, Cambridge Professor Trevor Robbins (2019) states that the serotonin system originates in the dorsal and the median raphe, two areas associated with the limbic system of the midbrain (which is part of the paleomammalian brain). Serotonin is a key neurotransmitter in the brain, and is associated with sensory processing and perception, sleep cycles,

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learning and memory, mood, and motor activities and behavior (Winkelman 2010:146). Serotonin is sometimes called the feel-good hormone, although too much or too little serotonin can have negative health and mental impacts (Gershon 1998). It plays a significant role in a person’s mood in that differences in serotonin levels are associated with feelings of wellbeing, fear, or anxiety. For example, lab rats with low serotonin levels are more aggressive; it is thought that the same holds true for humans (Robbins 2019). Emotional states are manifested in the brain, but not only in the brain. Anyone who has ever had butterflies in their stomach can attest that their gut communicates emotions too. Gut wrenching experiences are truly gut wrenching. Serotonin also appears to be one of the key neurotransmitters in our gut (Gershon 1998). The gut is filled with 100 million neurons (more than are in the spine), leading modern scientists to call the gut our second brain (Sonnenburg and Sonnenburg 2015). Stoller-Conrad (2015) estimates that at least 90% of the body’s serotonin is produced in the digestive track, and researchers are currently looking at the gut-brain relationship to determine how they are intertwined as part of human cognition and emotional systems (Hadhazy 2010; Nielson 2018; Rogers et al. 2016). Although research in this area is in its infancy, there is tantalizing evidence that gut issues may factor in mental health issues. Koloski et al. (2016) did a random survey and one-year follow up survey of 1,900 people in Newcastle, Australia. The questionnaires were based on the Rome III Irritable Bowels Syndrome diagnostic criteria and the Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale. They found that irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and functional dyspepsia developed first, and that depression and anxiety followed, indicating to them that gut issues can lead to psychological distress. Their study did not collect serotonin data but Gershon (1998) suggests that too much serotonin might be one of the contributing factors of IBS. Although the research is limited and our suggestions are speculative, we suspect the gut may be central to many aspects of spiritual experience, both in terms of religiously-focused ASC and in terms of spirit-based treatment of mental and physical health problems. Ethnographic accounts indicate the gut and the head tend to be the two main areas of the body that the spirits impact as they train a perspective shaman, especially during a shamanic illness (Eliade 1964). During these initiations, it is common for the person to feel like the spirits manipulate their innards, and shamans often report that the spirits rearranged and/or replaced parts of their guts with rocks or other foreign objects. For example, Eliade (1964:45) reports an Australian Aboriginal belief that, “The spirit of the deceased would visit [the shaman initiate], seize him by the throat, and open him, take out his bowels, which [the spirit] replaced, and the wound was closed.” Likewise, the Inuit of the Iglulik region of northern Canada believe the human body is inhabited by several spirits. During shamanic training, the specific spirits in their eyes, brains, and intestines are modified to enable their souls to fly through time and space (Eliade 1964:60). The eyes and brain have an obvious association with shamanic visions. We suggest the inclusion of the gut with them likewise reflects a strong association. The relationship of the gut in spirit-human interaction will likely become apparent with more research into the brain-gut system of interaction. We additionally propose

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that the gut is central to demonic possession given the associated severe abdominal pain, bloating, stench, and the inability to eat (see Chap. 6; Table 6.1)

7.3

ASC with and Without Entheogens

Shamanic cultures all over the world know a wide variety of means for entering non-ordinary realities. Michael Harner has pointed out that “auditory driving” with prolonged drumming is perhaps as equally a widespread technology for entering shamanic states as the use of hallucinogens. In some cultures, the rhythmic hyperventilation produced through certain kinds of chanting may be another form of altered state trigger. Animal spirits become guides and allies in shamanic initiation. Plant spirits can become “helpers” also, even when the plant is not taken internally by either doctor or patient. Tobacco smoke used as a purifier, as well as a support to prayer, is actually the most widely used psychoactive plant substance in indigenous and mestizo South American societies. In some traditions crystals are also used in ceremonies, in addition to plants, to focus energy for seeing and healing. There is attunement, through prayer and meditation, with deities and spirits of the land, the four directions, the elements, the Creator Spirit. The knowledge obtained from other states and other worlds is used to improve the way we live in this world. The use of hallucinogenic plants, when it occurs, is usually part of an integrated complex of interrelationships between nature, spirit and human consciousness.—Psychologist Ralph Metzner (2013:72)

ASC (among both shamans and their patients) is often associated with entheogens, so much so that sometimes it is assumed by default that shamanic trance is based on ingesting some sort of psychoactive compound. Specific entheogens will correspond to specific impacts on the brain (and other parts of the body including the gut and heart). VanPool (2009) for example describes various types of visions associated with specific hallucinogenic agents. When taken in large enough quantities, an extremely potent form of tobacco (Nicotiana rustica) produces powerful visions, but it also eliminates color perception (Wilbert 1987: 167–171; VanPool 2009:180). This causes tobacco shamans to see the world in black, grey, and white, and art associated with tobacco shamanism is often depicted as monochrome ghostly images (VanPool 2009). In contrast, peyote produces brilliantly colored visions (Furst 2003; MacLean 2001). This in turn corresponds to shamanic art traditions focused on the dayglow colors these shamans see while in trance (MacLean 2001). We will not attempt to summarize the impact of various psychoactive compounds on the human brain and body here, but we do add a word of caution. Entheogens impact the human brain, but shamanic experiences cannot be reduced simply to the impact of the entheogens. As we noted earlier in the chapter, simply ingesting an entheogen such as ayahuasca does not guarantee shamanic experiences/visions. These experiences require additional activity (e.g., praying, chanting). Entheogens can even be paired with methods such as Goodman’s (1990) RBP and accompanied with ritual drumming/rattling that have been demonstrated to impact brain function (e.g., the Casas Grandes shamans discussed in Chap. 4 likely held specific RBP positions while ingesting tobacco). In many contexts, patients being treated by shamans are also placed in specific RBP and may be given entheogens. For example,

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Schultes (1976:65) shows an illustration of a Mazatec patient laying on a mat with arms crossed over his chest with his hands under his armpits. In keeping with Goodman’s (1990) and Harner’s (1990) suggestion that rattling or drumming is important for trance, Schultes (1976:64) reports that “the all-night Mazatec ceremony, led usually by a woman shaman (curandera), comprises long, complicated, and curiously repetitious chants, percussive beats and prayers. Often a curing rite takes place during which the practitioner, through the ‘power’ of the sacred mushrooms, communicates and intercedes with supernatural forces.” This practice leads to an interaction between the changes in brain activity created by both RBP, the impacts of the psychedelic mushrooms, and spirits. Even when ingesting potent psychoactive agents, their impacts on the brain are modified (and likely intensified) in the context of shamanism when compared to the same individual simply ingesting a drug recreationally. Exactly what effects shamanic settings (which can include preparatory ritual, special garb or body painting, fasting, sleep deprivation, hyperactive movement, sensory deprivation, and many other atypical situations) are uncertain and likely varies based on the psychoactive agents ingested, but it would likely resemble the documented impact that Electronic Dance Music Events (Raves) have on the effects of the amphetamine MDMA. Like shamanic ASC, MDMA impacts serotonin levels and other aspects of the limbic system including dopamine production (Cadoni et al. 2005). Music also stimulates these systems (Menon and Levitin 2005), allowing the drug, music, and social setting to positively reinforce each other and produce a more intense experience than any one of the three components by themselves (Parrott 2004). “Technoshamans” leading raves realize the relationship between their music, the social setting, and the effects of MDMA-related trance and often orchestrate their performance specifically to magnify the trance experience. In doing so, they take “the dancers in a ‘journey’ so that they may experience the feelings of connectedness, spirituality, and a state of what participants refer to as ‘ecstasy’” (Takahashi 2004:iii). Unfortunately, the amplifying impacts of the rave environment on this interaction can be so intense that it can produce extremely harmful impacts, possibly even leading to death (Parrott 2004; Rigg and Sharp 2018). Returning to our earlier point that ASC cannot be reduced to the impacts of the entheogens, we note here that a significant number of rave participants report entering into ASC as a “natural high” without the use of MDMA or other psychoactive drugs, and ingestion of MDMA in other non-rave setting (e.g., therapeutic settings under the direction of a psychiatrist) does not produce the same impact as its use during raves (Redfield and ThouinSavard 2017:58).

7.4

The Brain Beyond ASC

We form our beliefs for a variety of subjective, personal, emotional, and psychological reasons in the context of environments created by family, friends, colleagues, culture, and society at large; after forming our beliefs we then defend, justify, and rationalize them with a

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host of intellectual reasons, cogent arguments, and rational explanations. Beliefs come first, explanations for beliefs follow. I call this process belief-dependent realism, where our perceptions about reality are dependent on the beliefs that we hold about it. Reality exists independent of human minds, but our understanding of it depends upon the beliefs we hold at any given time.—Science Writer Michael Shermer (2011:5; emphasis in original)

ASC holds a special role in spirit-human interaction, but not all spiritual encounters are based on ASC. Sometimes people who are in a normal state of consciousness (i.e., the normally functioning minds of daily life) have spiritual encounters. This suggests that spiritual experiences are a product of the typical human mind, as opposed to a phenomenon that can be attributed solely to some sort of physical or mental “malfunction.” In Chap. 2, we mentioned that many scholars maintain that perceptions of spirits result at least in part from a hyperactive agency detection device and are a by-product of brain function that evolved to protect people from predators and enemies (e.g., Bertolotti and Magnani 2010). If you are parked in a dark garage, and you hear a sudden noise, your body responds with a heightened level of arousal and will focus on identifying patterns that will let you evaluate the possibility of a threat. You will likely behave as if there is an “agent” present based on even the smallest evidence. If a sound turns out to be a nesting bird or a gust of wind, you don’t lose anything by being a bit more cautious, but it could be a crucial miscalculation if you fail to react appropriately to a criminal lurking in the dark. By the same token, it is far less costly to needlessly avoid the bush that is swaying in the wind than to ignore the swaying bush that conceals a lion poised to pounce. Once one accepts the possibility of legitimate hidden dangers, it is not too much of a stretch for a human mind to conclude that a swaying bush might contain a potentially dangerous spirit in addition to or instead of a physical entity. In this case, the supernatural entities “are the products of supernatural imagination” inherent in the typical human’s mental state (Boyer 2003:119, 123). This supernatural imagination is derived from humans’ ability to imagine and evaluate the intentions/actions of agents acting both in the current situation and in the future or the past (e.g., How will my brother react when he finds out I broke his tool? Did my friend intentionally break my tool yesterday?). Our ability to ascribe agency to actors/situations transcending the here-and-now allows, and in fact requires, humans to ascribe motives, action, and reflectivity to entities that are not directly observable; in imagining a brother’s reaction, one creates an imaginary version of the brother that is not limited to, and may not even correspond well with, the actual person. This ability to create imagined people in turn allows us to ascribe agency to objects that are not human (e.g., the spirit in the swaying bush; the clouds as living beings; the house acting as a protector against the elements; the sea acting as a dangerous adversary). One can now imagine both the presence and motives of long dead ancestors, the spirit watching over the lake, or the sorcerer who sent the deadly disease. Of course, some people’s brains deviate from the typical human brain for some reason (beyond a temporary state caused by ingesting entheogens, extended sleeplessness, and similar environmental factors). As discussed in the previous chapter, some ailments such as epilepsy and schizophrenia can cause hallucinations, which

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can be interpreted as ghosts, spirits, demons, and so forth. MRIs have shown that often epileptic patients have brain lesions in their temporoparietal cortex that may help explain their common perception of the presence of unseen ‘others.’ Blanke et al. (2014) test if this is true by electrically stimulating the temporoparietal cortex of healthy people and found that many of their test subjects reported feeling the presence of another person off to their side or behind them when no person was there. The researchers conclude that feelings of others being present can be linked to the temporoparietal and insular cortex of either hemisphere. Thus, there is little doubt that brain lesions or an electrical charge can cause one to feel the presence of another being in the room. While this may not explain every instance of “the feeling of being watched,” it helps explain why certain people with specific brain pathologies are prone to seeing/sensing the presence of ghosts/spirits. Although Blanke et al. (2014) could stimulate the brain to create the perception of unobservable others, this is not an explanation that is typical of daily life for most humans. It is therefore unlikely to be a generally satisfactory explanation for most human’s perceptions of nonphysical/supernatural ‘others.’ Likewise, hyperactive agency-detection and our supernatural imagination might help explain why someone thinks a ghost caused a tree limb to fall onto their head or made the apparent tromping sound across the roof of an old building. They might even cause people to treat their cars as if they were alive as they beg a car to go “a few more miles” before it breaks down. But what about supernatural events that include thousands of people experiencing roughly the same thing at the same time? It seems unlikely all these people suffer from the same physiological abnormality, were consistently fooled by hyperactive agency-detection, or had the same “supernatural imaginary moment” at the exact same time. We turn to a widely witnessed miracle observed near Fátima, Portugal, to evaluate this further.

7.4.1

The Miracle of the Dancing Sun

At one o’clock in the afternoon, midday by the sun, the rain stopped. The sky, pearly gray in color, illuminated the vast arid landscape with a strange light. The sun had a transparent gauzy veil so that the eyes could easily be fixed upon it. The gray mother-of-pearl tone turned into a sheet of silver which broke up as the clouds were torn apart and the silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy gray light, was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds. A cry went up from every mouth and people fell on their knees on the muddy ground. . .The light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had come through the stained-glass windows of a cathedral, and spread itself over the people who knelt with outstretched hands. The blue faded slowly, and then the light seemed to pass through yellow glass. Yellow stains fell against white handkerchiefs, against the dark skirts of the women. They were repeated on the trees, on the stones and on the sierra. People wept and prayed with uncovered heads, in the presence of a miracle they had awaited. The seconds seemed like hours, so vivid were they.—Eyewitness account of the Miracle of the Sun published in the 17 October 1917 edition of the Lisbon daily newspaper O Dia (reprinted at https://www.ewtn.com/fatima/ sixth-apparition-of-our-lady.asp)

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On this solemn occasion of his visit to Fátima, His Holiness [Pope John Paul II] has directed me to make an announcement to you. As you know, the purpose of his visit to Fátima has been to beautify the two “little shepherds”. Nevertheless he also wishes his pilgrimage to be a renewed gesture of gratitude to Our Lady for her protection during these years of his papacy. This protection seems also to be linked to the so-called third part of the “secret of Fátima.” —From an announcement made by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican Secretary of State, on May 13, 2000, at Fátima, Portugal. The reference to the third part of the secret of Fátima deals with a prophecy interpreted at least in part as a warning of the attempted assassination of Saint John Paul II.

The story of the Lady of Fátima is centered on the appearance of the Virgin Mary to three children (Lucia dos Santos, Fancisco Marto, and Jacinta Marto) at Fátima, Portugal (Madigan 2001 summarizes the story, which is recounted in greater detail in Sister Lucia dos Santos’s autobiography). The children experienced a total of nine appearances—the initial three of a male angel (often interpreted as the guardian angel of Portugal) and the remainder of the Virgin Mary. The visitations began during the early summer of 1916, when the children saw a young man seemingly made of light while tending their sheep. The man announced he was an angel and encouraged them to pray. The same angel visited them two more times (once in late summer and again in the fall) and served them communion on the final visit. The children did not initially tell anyone else about these experiences. On May 13, 1917, the children again saw flashes of light in an otherwise clear day while tending their sheep. A female form became visible, bathed in light. The woman announced that she was from heaven, asked them to pray the rosary every day to help end World War I, and requested that they return to the same place on the 13th day of the following six months. She blessed each of them, promised they would go to heaven, and said she would reveal her identity during future visits. The children told others, who were skeptical of the story. On June 13, 1917, 50 people joined the children. According to Madigan (2001), the Lady returned as promised although she was visible only to the children. She told them to learn to read, promised to take two of the children (Francisco and Jacinta) to heaven soon, but told the third child (Lucia) she would remain on earth for a longer period. One of the witnesses, Maria Carreira, reported that she saw Lucia crying, heard a loud noise, and saw a small cloud rise to the level of the top of the trees and move slowly to the east until it disappeared. On July 13, the children and an estimated two to three thousand others returned to the same place. The Lady appeared, although she was again visible only to the children. She encouraged the children and all others to pray the rosary. She also showed the children a vision of hell. This portion of the vision became known as the First Part of the Secret of Fátima. She then predicted the end to the current war (World War I) but promised a second, greater war (World War II according to Catholic interpretations of the prophesy) if the world did not repent. She stressed that the children should continue to pray the rosary for the reparations of sin and asked that the Catholic Church dedicate Russia to the Virgin Mary. This is the Second Part of the Secret of Fátima. Finally, the figure showed them a vision of a Pope and other religious figures (bishops, priests, and lay people) being martyred. This is the Third Part of the Secret of Fátima and was not immediately made know to Catholic

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authorities. Instead, Lucia recorded it in a letter after the death of the other two children and placed it an envelope with instructions that it was not to be opened until 1960. This letter was opened as instructed, but it was kept secret until it was published on June 26, 2000 (The Message of Fatima 2000). The local press had begun to report on the visitations, and the crowd for each event was growing larger. On the morning of August 13, 1917, the children were taken into custody by the Mayor of Vila Nova de Ourem, and consequently were not able to meet the Lady as instructed. Instead, she appeared to the children on August 19 and told them to continue to pray, and to return to the designated place on September 13. She also promised to perform a miracle. The children continued to pray for hours each day and fast for extended periods of time. On September 13, the Lady appeared in a flash of light visible only to the three kids. She again promised a public miracle on October 13, as well as a willingness to heal at least some people for whom the children asked aid. The press publicized the October 13 visitation largely through negative, skeptical stories. Tens of thousands of spectators (perhaps as many as 70,000 people) joined the children. The Lady again appeared to the children in a flash of light, and revealed she was the Lady of the Rosary (i.e., the Virgin Mary). She asked them to build a chapel at the site (the Sanctuary of Fátima was indeed built as requested and remains a significant Catholic pilgrimage site [De Pinho and De Pinho 2007; Vilaca 2010]). As she left, the Virgin Mary performed The Miracle of the Sun, which was witnessed by the bystanders, who could not see the Lady herself. The miracle caused the sun “to dance” (i.e., move in a zigzag pattern), fluctuate in color, and become unusually large. The air also become unusually still and some of those that the children had asked to be healed were spontaneously brought to full health. The “dancing sun” was seen as far away as 15 miles and was reported in thousands of documented statements, including the journalist Avelino de Almeida, who had previously published articles that were skeptical of the visitations reported by the children. However, not everyone saw the same thing. Most saw the sun dance, but some witnesses reported only seeing the radiant colors (but not the movement of the Sun) and a few saw nothing at all. Still, the story of the Miracle of the Sun spread throughout Portugal, and Fatima almost immediately became a pilgrimage location. In May 1922, the Catholic Church established a commission of inquiry into the matter, which issued a finding in 1930 that the miracle was indeed “worthy of belief” and established “the cult of Our Lady of Famita” (Madigan 2001:58). Francisco and Jacinta fell ill from the influenza epidemic that swept Europe in 1918, and eventually died in 1919 and 1920. Lucia attended a Catholic school away from Fatima to escape her notoriety, and eventually became a nun. On May 13, 1979 (the anniversary of the first appearance of the Virgin Mary), Pope John Paul II beatified Jacinta and Francisco and on May 13, 2017 (the 100th anniversary of the initial visitation) they were canonized as saints. Lucia claimed for the rest of her long life that the visitations were real; not only did Pope Pius XII accept this claim, he reported he was likewise visited by the Virgin Mary in the same manner in 1950 (De Pinho and De Pinho 2007:214). Roman Catholics today visit the shrine at Fátima and continue to report powerful spiritual experiences; we can reasonably

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assume most of those who saw the original miracle as well as most who travelled to the site as pilgrims do not show evidence of brain pathologies or psychological issues in their daily lives. According to Horsfall (2000), there have been an estimated 21,000 reported sightings of the Virgin Mary, with her appearance to Diego, an Aztec Indian in Guadalupe, Mexico, being perhaps the most historically significant; it led to the conversion of as many as 9 million Native Americans to Catholicism and engendered the Virgin de Guadalupe motif that is central to Latin American Catholicism (Norget 2017; C. Taylor 1987; W. Taylor 1987). In the case of Fátima, no researcher disputes that tens of thousands of people witnessed the event, yet many challenge its supernatural origin. Benjamin Radford (2013), the deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer (a journal focused on debunking accounts of supernatural/paranormal events) reasonably observes that it is a physical impossibility for the sun and earth to move in relationship to each other. Such an anomaly would have been felt and seen worldwide. Although the miracle was witness by people as far away as 15 miles, it was necessarily a local phenomenon. Nickell (1993:176–180; see also Wirowski 2012) suggests the sun miracle reflects sundogs, which are caused by sunlight being refracted through ice crystals. Radford (2013) rejects this explanation, noting that sundogs are stationary and cannot account for the sun “dancing” (although Wirowski [2012] suggests that sundogs may at least sometimes appear to move). Radford (2013) consequently suggests that the “dancing sun” is explainable only as a psychological phenomenon manifested as “an optical illusion cause by thousands of people looking up at the sky, hoping, expecting, and even praying for some sign from God” (Radford 2013). In his opinion, the power of suggestion, coupled with pareidolia (seeing patterns in random images) and the audiences’ tired eyes created by looking towards the sun explain why so many people reported similar experiences but also why a few did not see the miracle at all. The secular explanations have of course been challenged, first by the Catholic Church that concluded the miracle reflects supernatural elements, but also by scholars working in a more scientific framework. McNabb and Blado (2020) for example directly evaluate both the hypotheses that the Miracle of the Sun was moving sun dogs and that it was a purely psychological phenomenon caused by the combination of tired eyes and the power of suggestion. They challenge Radford’s “tired eyes” explanation based on documented results of visual experiments in which people staring at/towards the sun. These experiments did not produce a “dancing sun” and the other visual phenomenon reported as part of the Miracle of the Sun. McNabb and Blado (2020:60–61) instead support the argument that the Miracle of the Sun reflects a moving sundog, caused by a complex interaction between atmospheric conditions as Nickell (1993:176–180) and Wirowski (2012) suggest. However, they argue that this only helps explain how the miracle was produced, as opposed to undermining its miraculous nature. The physical process of producing the miracle cannot account for why the children “sincerely believed that they were seeing Mary, and it still does not explain how the children were able to predict when the metrological happening would occur” (McNabb and Blado 2020:61, emphasis in original). Thus, while they accept the metrological hypothesis, they conclude that the

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strongest explanation is that “God was behind the timing of the meteorological event and the Marian apparitions” (McNabb and Blado 2020:61). We suspect that people’s evaluations of the secular and religious origin of the Miracle of the Sun will correspond to their starting viewpoint. Those who are skeptical of the supernatural will almost certainly discount McNabb and Blabo’s (2020) conclusion, holding instead that the Miracle of the Sun is the result of metrological conditions, perhaps some aspects of psychology, and astronomically good luck. Those sympathetic to Christianity and/or supernatural explanations are more likely to accept the Miracle of the Sun, holding that the probability of such a profoundly unusual metrological event occurring at the exact moment when predicted by the children is too much to be a coincidence. Yet despite these different views, no one seriously disputes that tens of thousands of people who are physiologically and psychologically typical saw an event that they themselves concluded reflected the direct action of the supernatural. As the extremely skeptical Radford (2013) notes, “No one suggests that those who reported seeing the Miracle of the Sun—or any other miracles at Fátima or elsewhere—are lying and hoaxing. Instead, they very likely experienced what they claimed to, though that experience took place mostly in their minds.” Our point here, then, is that perceiving the supernatural does not require any physiological, neurological, or psychological abnormality.

7.4.2

Mass Hysteria

We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep humming all day until you spread it to some else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crockpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information.—Author Neal Stephenson (1992, in the science fiction novel Snow Crash)

Another explanation for spiritual experiences that affect otherwise “normal” groups of people that has been proposed is “mass psychogenic illness” (aka mass hysteria), defined as a collective spontaneous delusion that is rapidly spread through a small group. Radford (2019) explicitly rejects this explanation for the Miracle of the Dancing Sun (e.g., how could this account for uninvolved people so far away seeing the dancing sun?), but other more likely examples have been suggested (Bartholomew et al. 2012). Mass psychogenic illness (MPI) is caused by sudden and extreme stress and can be triggered by something as innocuous as an unknown odor or receiving vaccination shots (Baloh and Bartholomew 2020:71–94; Lisa et al. 2010; Simas et al. 2019). Resulting symptoms include dizziness, headache, fainting, and hyperventilation without a clear physiological or environmental cause. These symptoms tend to fade within 24 hours of leaving the group. Another manifestation of MPI called “motor hysteria” occurs from long-term stress or anxiety and can cause uncontrollable weeping and laughing, shaking, trouble walking, and even dancing/movement. Lanska (2018) documents the “Dancing Mania” as MPI episodes that erupted after the Black Death ravaged Europe during the fourteenth

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century. Dancing Mania continued intermittently into the seventeenth century. The condition was characterized by uncontrollable movement that spread through gatherings, sometimes affecting thousands of victims at a time. Those afflicted continually moved until they collapsed. Explanations for Dancing Mania ranged from a divine punishment sent by a Catholic saint (the most common explanation during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) to food poisoning caused by a psychoactive ergot fungus, but Lanska (2018) suggests it primarily reflects MPI, as well as feigned illness and ritualized behavior in some cases. Although the Dancing Mania ended, reports of MPI are still making world news. For example, mass hysteria forced the closing of a school in the city of Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia, in April 2016. Based on a BBC News report written by Tessa Wong and Saira Asher, the event started when a small group of students reported a black figure lurking around the school. Before the event was over, about 100 students and teachers reported seeing spirits or having “supernatural experiences.” A teacher reported that she felt a heavy spirit clinging onto her, and another claimed that a “black figure” tried to enter her body. Chris Graham, with the Telegraph, quoted Kamariah Ibrahim, the teacher that was attacked by the black figure, as saying, "I felt like my head was bloating, I felt numb and tears kept pouring down my face. I silently recited the Ayatul Kursi [a passage from the Quran], over and over again, then my head began to feel lighter after about an hour." A student took a picture of the black figure that was widely shared across social media. Looking at the image we cannot say what it is, although it resembles a shadow. One of the senior staff members told reporters that, "Our students were possessed and disturbed [by these spirits]. We are not sure why it happened. We don't know what it is that affected us, but the place is a bit old, and these children can be disobedient and sometimes throw their rubbish around the school grounds. Perhaps they hit some 'djinns' and offended the spirits" (Wong and Asher 2016). Bartholomew et al. (2012:509) discuss another case of mass hysteria in the town of LeRoy, New York. In October 2011, several high school girls developed spontaneous facial tics, muscle twitching, and jumbled speech. The outbreak started with two cheerleaders, and by January 2012, it had spread to 18 people including a 36-year-old woman. The first person to manifest symptoms was a cheerleader named Katie, who had facial tics for a few weeks. Thera, Katie’s best friend and captain of the cheerleading squad, then developed an extreme case of facial tics, muscle twitching, and involuntary vocalizations. Thera was taken to the ER several times and doctors ultimately concluded that both girls had conversion disorder, meaning that they were unconsciously turning their stress into physical symptoms. The symptoms then spread to others. The New York State Department could not find an environmental cause for their ailment, so they considered them to be the results of MPI (Bartholomew et al. 2012). In an article for Psychology Today, medical doctor Gary Small (2010) states that, “Mass hysteria can strike anywhere, anytime.” He explains that the human mind seeks explanations for things that are out of our control, especially when we are stressed. According to Small (2010), feeling powerless creates fear and that fear causes more stress and anxiety. As fear, stress, and anxiety increase, stress-related

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illnesses (e.g., hyperventilation) may manifest and even be triggered by seeing similar reactions, yet these responses are ‘unexplained’ in terms of specific pathogens. This in turn can further exacerbate stress and fear, with people leaping to causes like “mysterious poisonous water” or “a poltergeist [that] has taken charge of their willpower” (Small 2010). Simply put, stress can cause temporary physical responses that in turn can be ascribed to an illness caused by hidden and even spiritual factors/entities. The link between stress and illness has been noted by people through time and across cultures. Parsons (1996[1939]:191), for example, reports that Puebloan healers identified fear of dangerous animals as a cause of spiritual illness (e.g., the illness caused by stepping on a predator’s tracks), even though these spiritually powerful animals can also help cure the sick. Humans are amazingly complicated. As social creatures, we are dependent on each other to survive. We learn from each other (both the good and the bad), and we can often take even minimal information to read into others’ emotional states. Walter (2012:9) notes this is because humans are singularly empathetic, where empathy is defined as “the ability to share another’s internal world of thoughts and feelings.” We can look at the evidence for other people’s cognitive states and can match it to our own (past or current) emotional/cognitive states to extrapolate what others are experiencing. We can even spontaneously generate the same emotional state within ourselves. Fowler and Christakis (2008) for instance report the results of a 20-yearlong study looking at various measures of happiness of 4739 people. They find that interacting with happy people leads to greater levels of happiness on average, regardless of the original state (i.e., happiness spreads). They further argue their data cannot be viewed just as a process of self-sorting, with happy people wanting to associate with other happy people. To the contrary, being in close proximity to happy friends, spouses, and siblings significantly increases the likelihood of increased future happiness for a person. Of course, unhappiness and negative feelings are also contagious. Christine found this out the hard way. Years ago, she had a student come into her office in an extreme state of anxiety. The student was having issues with a professor and was terrified about failing a class. To make matters worse the professor had not been returning the student’s emails and no grades were reported for the assignments that had already been completed. Christine talked to the student for a while suggesting that maybe the professor had been sick or there was something keeping him from responding. She suggested the student give him another day or two and then try to contact him during office hours. If necessary, Christine would make contact to check on the professor’s health and availability. After the meeting, Christine did not give it much thought because many stressed students had come to talk to her over the years. About a half an hour later Christine went down the hall to the bathroom and suddenly had a major anxiety attack. Her heart started racing and she felt horribly upset and agitated. Feelings of anxiety are unusual for Christine, and this feeling was unusually intense. She in fact had to leave work because she was becoming physically ill. Christine realized on the way home that she must have somehow caught her student’s anxiety. Although she realized she was feeling the stress of a different person, she continued to have a hard time letting it go. When she got home, she did the only thing she knew

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to do to handle such stress–she exercised. It worked. After 15 minutes, she began to feel better, and within an hour she was fully back to normal. For her, exercise is probably the best medicine for stress. If she had been in a different situation, with people who were also having stress responses, it is entirely possible, even likely, that her stress response would have increased, and she would have had additional physical responses that could have paralleled those associated with MPI. The reasons why working out helped Christine and others deal with stress likely reflects the impact of hormones. When we are stressed, our bodies overproduce cortisol. Cortisol itself is an important hormone that helps regulate our metabolism, helps reduce inflammation, and assists with memory formulation. However, when we get stressed, cortisol levels increase and in turn increase our heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and muscle tension. It also temporarily shuts down several of the body’s systems (e.g., digestion and reproduction). But cortisol levels can decrease with as little as 20 minutes of rigorous exercise. This insight helped Christine deal with stress that day, but it may also explain why many groups including most Native American cultures believe that running is as much a spiritual activity as it is physical. For those who have experienced the release of stress and the “runner’s high” that can come afterwards, the shifting hormonal balance and physical responses feel like ridding oneself of bad spirits. Of more interest to us here is that Christine picked up stress from her student. Christine literally “caught” the anxiety her student was feeling. Her body responded to this anxiety even though she, personally, was not involved in any conflict with the professor (or student) in question. Truth be told, this is not unusual; we suspect most people have at one time or another experienced something similar. English even has the phrase “sympathy pain” to refer to this type of phenomenon. Mass hysteria may likewise involve similar empathetic responses as people begin to experience (to varying degrees) what others are experiencing. In the context of Kota Bharu, reports of a dark figure lurking menacingly about and the subsequent (very real) fear this report engendered could create a cascade of such experiences. If so, then the old cliché of “scaring ourselves sick” is quite literally true! Small (2010) presents another such case when he recounts how a grade school student’s fainting caused a domino effect with eventually 30+ children grabbing their stomachs and passing out. When officials investigated this case, they determined there was nothing wrong with the children that fainted after the first child; they simply fell victim to mass hysteria. Could cases like the Lady of Fátima reflect something similar, perhaps being caused by mass endorphins being released in thousands of people because of empathetic responses? This again does not explain how uninvolved people literally miles away would have observed the miracle, but it remains an open question if people can experience mass euphoria. We think it is a distinct possibility, and suggest a possible example is communitas, the “collective joy” that religious pilgrims often experience as the shared experience breaks down social distinctions among them and thereby creates a social unity focused on the divine (Turner 2012). Exactly how mass euphoria would be neurologically produced is unclear, though. Neurologists emphasize that there is not an “empathy area” in the brain. Empathy

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apparently happens as an emergent result of the activity of different portions of the brain. Many suggest, however, that “mirror neurons” play an important role for acting in an empathetic manner. Mirror neurons were identified in 1992 and became a focus of research shortly thereafter (Davis 1994; Smith 2006). Researchers found that mirror neurons are at least partly responsible for both “monkey see; monkey do” behavioral patterns and “she cried, so I cried” types of empathic responses (Bastiaansen et al. 2009). So, what are mirror neurons? Daniel Stern (2007:37) explains them concisely as: Mirror neurons sit adjacent to motor neurons. They fire in an observer who is doing nothing but watching another person behave (e.g., reaching for a glass). And the pattern of firing in the observer mimics the pattern that the observer would use if he were reaching for that glass, himself. In brief, the visual information received when watching another act gets mapped on to the equivalent motor representation in our own brain by the activity of these mirror neurons. It permits us to directly participate in another’s actions, without having to imitate them. This “participation” in another’s mental life creates a sense of feeling/sharing with/ understanding them, and in particular their intentions and feelings. There is another feature of this system. It is particularly sensitive to goal-directed actions, i.e. movements with a readily inferable intention. Even more, the perception of an attributable intention seems to have its own brain localization. If the exact same movement is seen but in another context where no intention can be attributed, the brain center will not activate. The longstanding idea of a human tendency of mind to perceive and interpret the human world in terms of intentions is strengthened by such findings. And the reading of another’s intentions is cardinal to intersubjectivity.

Empathy has significant evolutionary consequences and is associated with prosocial behavior in humans. For example, the lack of empathy is a criterion for Antisocial Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and other psychological conditions associated with antisocial behavior (DSM-IV and DSM-5 Criteria for the Personality Disorders; Ritter et al. 2011), although even in these cases, the influence of culture is profound (Rodriguez et al. 2019). As is typical of science, there are debates concerning empathy, especially about different types of empathy and how they work. Some researchers define two types of empathy: cognitive empathy and emotional empathy (Davis 1994; Smith 2006), although not everyone accepts this model. Emotional empathy is also called “primitive empathy” and thought to be an unconscious, automatic response to another’s emotional state (e.g., sadness when a friend loses a beloved pet). Emotional empathy activates the thalamus and limbic areas, which are involved with emotions and mirror neurons. Cognitive empathy conversely is thought to be the conscious effort one makes to understand another’s emotional state. It activates the same areas of the brain as emotional empathy, as well as additional areas including the prefrontal cortex that is involved with language and processing of semantic content and cortical areas that are involved in face and body perceptions and the premotor cortex (Nummenmaa et al. 2008). Natural selection favored both emotional and cognitive empathy for various reasons as humans lived and worked in larger groups. First, empathy and mirror neurons seem linked to the ability to watch others and copy their behavior, which was advantageous for tool making and controlling fire in early human populations.

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Second, and more relevant to our discussion here, Flinn and Alexander (2007) describe a process of “runaway social selection” created when human ancestors reached a point during our evolutionary past when their interaction with each other became more important to their evolutionary success than environmental factors such as evading predators. Within this context, social competition (and cooperation) became essential to determining an individual’s evolutionary success (i.e., their fitness). People that had better emotional empathy would have had an advantage in this context of social conflict and cooperation, both because they could better understand the actions and motives of competitors and because they could cooperate more effectively with allies (see Hoffman 1987; Smith 2006). This would have created the evolutionary context in which an ever-increasing ability through later generations to empathize with their social groups would have been advantageous. It likely encouraged prosocial behavior. For example, Smith (2006:6) suggests that empathy would encourage people to create social cooperation and harmony beyond just a system of reciprocal interaction (e.g., I scratch your back, you scratch mine). Positive emotions are associated with comfort, safety, security, and enhanced immune responses, whereas negative emotions are linked to discomfort, danger, insecurity, and reduced immune responses. Smith (2006) argues that emotional empathy motivated people to increase the occurrence of positive emotions (linked to positive interactions that correspond to increasing safety and security) between kin, mates, and friends while simultaneously working to decrease negative emotions (linked to negative interactions with others). In other words, empathy caused people to feel good when behaving in a way that increased security and comfort and to feel bad when behaving in a way that led to social conflict and increased danger. A population of empathetic people would thus be more likely to have good social relationships, security, and physical comfort compared to a population of people with a less-developed sense of empathy. Second, Plutchik (1987) notes that parents that could accurately determine their children’s needs without formal language (i.e., through empathy) would have had an advantage over parents that could not. Emotional and cognitive empathy can explain why a mother will be upset by a crying child. It also explains why that same mother will entertain and sooth the child that is hiding from “a monster under their bed.” Even as the mother assures the child there is nothing to be scared of in the room, she is also surveying the environment (including looking under the bed) to assure herself and the child there is in truth no danger. Goodall (1986:386) observed, “If we know that another, especially a close friend or relative, is suffering, then we ourselves become emotionally disturbed, sometimes to the point of anguish.” To alleviate our stress, we help (or try to help) ease the suffering of our loved one or friend. This is even more so for a child, which is why Plutchik (1987:44) calls empathy, “the fundamental basis of social bonding between parents and children.” Returning to MPI, it is feasible that a person or people who are under stress (which is when people would most closely monitor their cooperative/competitive relationships with others and therefore might be most empathetic) will internally copy the strong, startling emotion demonstrated by another person in response to an unusual event (e.g., weird lights in the sky, a dark figure, or a strange smell). Once

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the emotion is copied, human minds will seek an external cause, which can include perceived spiritual entities (e.g., a saint causing the Dancing Mania, the shadowy figure roaming the halls of a Malaysian school). If Smith (2006) is correct about the distinction between cognitive empathy and emotional empathy, humans would be using their cognitive empathy based in part on language and the conscious monitoring of the social environment to assess whether the emotional empathetic responses have merit. They are therefore basing their cognitive response on their ethnosemantics framework. In some cases, the emotional responses will be rationally dismissed (as Christine did when she worked through her stress copied from her distressed student). However, it may be possible that a judgment based on cognitive empathy (i.e., the belief that there is really “something there”) could lead to copied physiological/psychological symptoms (e.g., hyperventilation, nausea, fainting). This would be especially likely when the response is consistent with the ethnosemantics structure. As more people succumb to the ailment, the likelihood of the person misjudging the situation and succumbing to MPI would increase, until a potentially substantial number of people are copying the emotions and behaviors they see in others. This would be especially true for children, who have a less developed ability to correctly evaluate the validity of emotional empathy. Stress and empathy can play a role at a much smaller social scale, say within a household dealing with stress. We note many of the spiritual encounters reported in various paranormal interviews are associated with a major change in life including but not limited to significant changes in family composition (e.g., divorce, death of a loved one) and changing physical and social environments (e.g., moving to a new community, job, and/or friend network). These are exactly the sorts of events associated with the discomfort and uncertainty that produce negative emotions. Sometimes these spiritual events are limited only to an individual, although in interviews one can often hear loved ones and friends trying desperately to empathize with the afflicted individual, even if their experiences are not the same. In fact, over time these individuals often go from being sympathetic skeptics to reporting/ experiencing the same phenomena themselves. Sometimes, an entire household will fall victim to paranormal activities. Although not technically MPI, empathy may underlie this process as well. As an aside, even pets and other animals can be involved in these empathetic responses. A dog barking at an empty chair or a cat hissing towards the corner of a room might even be the triggering event causing a person to focus on spirits. In some ethnosemantics frameworks worldwide animals are sometimes the first to perceive spirits, can help attract and control spirits, and can even be potent spiritual entities themselves. The Animal Planet’s The Haunted had this exact theme. Part of spiritanimal interaction may be related to each animal’s own version of hyperactive agency detection; we always find it amusing when our dog barks and growls at a rustling bush or flapping plastic bag. Humans and their animals often respond to environmental stimuli (e.g., strange sounds), which in turn may even reinforce each other’s responses. Some animals are particularly responsive to cues from humans. For example, Hare et al. (2002) find that dogs are far better at reading and responding to human social cues (e.g., pointing to the location of hidden food) than even

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chimpanzees. They tie this to the required ability to read social cues from pack mates among the dog’s wild wolf ancestors that was then reinforced through the domestication process as dogs became focused on human behavior. It is possible that this close relationship might create its own form of empathy that produces selfreinforcing responses among dogs and their human partners towards perceived spirit phenomena.

7.5

The Brain of the Dead

These [Near Death Experiences] form, perhaps, one of the most cogent arguments for survival after death, as the evidential value and veridical (truth telling) character of these visions of the dying is greatly enhanced when the fact is undeniably established that the dying person was wholly ignorant of the death of the person he or she so vividly sees. – Physicist and Parapsychologist Sir William Barrett (1926) quoted in Tymn (2011:7) There is nothing paranormal about near-death experiences. . .Taken together, the scientific evidence suggests that all aspects of the near-death experience have a neurophysiological and psychological basis: the vivid pleasure frequently experienced in near-death experiences may be the result of death-elicited opioid release, while the life review and REM components of the near-death experience could be attributed to the action of the locus coeruleus-noradrenaline system. Out-of-body experiences and feelings of disconnection with the physical body could arise because of a breakdown in multisensory processes, and the bright lights and tunneling could be the result of a peripheral to fovea breakdown of the visual system through oxygen deprivation. A priori expectations, where the individual makes sense of the situation by believing they will experience the archetypal near-death experience package, may also play a crucial role.– Neuroscientist Dean Mobbs and Psychologist Caroline Watt (2011:448–449)

Another focus on spirit-human interaction is the well-established pattern of people seeing and hearing the dead or other spirits during Near-Death Experiences (NDEs). During NDEs, spirits are believed to reveal themselves to someone who is dying. NDEs are similar in some ways to shamanic ASC, in that the affected person is often unconscious or otherwise in an altered state of consciousness (Shushan 2009), but the underlying physiology of NDEs is likely different than the typical shamanic ASC. Neurologists are currently debating what happens to the brain as we die and how these processes relate to NDEs (Mobbs and Watt 2011; Tassell-Matamua 2013). As illustrated in the opening quote from Mobbs and Watt (2011), some hold that NDEs are part of a normal physiological response to dying, perhaps reflecting a process in which the lack of oxygen causes the brain to malfunction, and different regions become activated to create good feelings and hallucinations. Many others hold that the spirits of the dead, animal spirits, and/or deities visit people to help them crossover into the afterlife. Regardless, NDEs are broadly documented across cultures and through time (Carr 1993, 2021; Shushan 2009). The term Near-Death Experience was coined by Raymond A. Moody Jr in his 1975 book Life After Life. Moody (1975) suggests that during NDEs, people typically: (1) feel overwhelmingly peaceful; (2) feel that they leave their body

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(out-of-body experience); (3) float or drift through darkness sometimes described as a tunnel; (4) see or hear loved ones or other friendly beings in a field of golden light, although the beings themselves may be made of light; (5) rapidly see their past; and then (6) experience another world full of beauty. Not everybody goes through this exact stage sequence, but these six sequential steps are common enough to be considered typical. Shushan (2009:143–157) suggests that many of these traits, especially feeling peaceful, having visitation from loved ones, seeing one’s life as a judgement, and experiencing the divine or “Ultimate Reality” are found all around the world and reported in early civilizations in Egypt, India, and Mesoamerica. Similar deathbed visions have been known for a long time in the English-speaking world. Sir William Barrett, a retired professor of physics from the Royal College of Science in Dublin, wrote Deathbed Visions: How the Dead Talk to the Dying in 1926. Carr (1993) compared Euro-American NDEs to Tibetan death experiences. Carr (1993:64–65) documented the same pattern Moody (1975) identified (in part derived using Moody’s information) but also documented variation in NDEs based on the ways in which one might be dying. For example, Euro-American’s attempting suicide often had different NDEs than others. They might experience a “gray” or “murky” haze or have unpleasant or awful feelings as opposed to the peaceful or positive feeling typical of Euro-American NDEs. They might also see terrifying creatures or unsettling images and might be given uncomfortable messages from the Light (a consciousness that many people perceive). In contrast, an elderly person dying from natural causes often received a comforting message from loved ones and found the dark void to be velvety. Carr (1993) then examines NDEs reflected in the various Tibetan Books of the Dead, especially the Bardo thosgrot chen-mo. The Tibetan texts reflect a complex ethnosemantics system that involves remembering past lives and the periods between death and rebirth. Carr succinctly summarizes this system as it pertains to Tibetan death experiences. He finds for example that a “dying person respectively perceives a vacuity sequentially filled with white light, red light, and thick darkness. These are called the subtle minds of ‘white appearance,’ ‘red appearance’ and ‘black near-attainment’” (Carr 1993:75). The Tibetan texts indicated the white light that appears during the dying process manifests while the person’s spirit is still in their body, whereas in Euro-American NDEs people typically report that their consciousness has left the body when they see white/golden light. Thus, while both groups see a light, it is associated with different periods in the dying process. According to Carr the most clearly shared events during Euro-American and Tibetan NDEs are: “(1) hearing loud noises such as a wind or roar early in the death process; (2) seeing religious figures like Buddhas or Jesus; (3) seeing a white or gold Light that is separate from oneself, defining a dualistic state of consciousness; (4) merging with a brilliant Light so as to create a sense of Oneness or harmakayo; (5) a life review/judgment; and more generally; (6) events that reveal neardeath and death to be learning processes” (Carr 1993:86). Ultimately Carr (1993) concludes that death is a physiological process that is understood through one’s world view (ethnosemantics framework using our term). There seems to be a

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feedback system between neurological recognition of the darkness and subsequent light and how to interpret them based on one’s cultural background. Carr (2021:238) in a later book reports his ethnographic analysis of Eastern Woodlands and Plains Native Americans and found that many Native Americans NDEs (he calls death narratives) are strikingly different than those reported by Shushan (2009) and Moody (1975). Often Native Americans are faced with a number of obstacles and challenges when they die. Among 18 tribes people had to cross over a bridge, a slipper log, or a river. Sometimes a challenging dog was met (reported in 8 tribes), and others encounter serpents and Watery Underworld spirits (in 4 tribes). He suggests that dogs are present because “dogs are the nonhuman persons closest socially to humans and possibly were perceived as similar to powerful humans and nonhumans judges that are described in journey narratives” (Carr 2021:238). Bruce Greyson, a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Science at the University of Virginia is one of the leading authorities on NDEs. Greyson (2010) notes that in addition to out-of-body experiences, NDEs often include increased cognitive abilities that can increase “speed, logic, and clarity of thought; overall visual and auditory clarity; vividness of colors; and control of cognition” (Greyson 2010:160). They also include encounters with deceased people that the dying knew to be dead. Of significance, they sometimes also include people who died unbeknownst to the dying person. This phenomenon is called a Peak in Darien Experience (PiDE). As reflected in the opening quote of this section, many consider PiDE the best evidence for the continuation of a spirit after death, because the dying person would be unlikely to hallucinate about someone that they do not know is dead. Christine’s students often have strong reactions to reading Greyson (2010), and many are persuaded to the idea of the survival of consciousness after reading his research. Greyson identifies three types of PiDEs: a dying person sees a deceased person who died sometime before the vision, a dying person sees a deceased person who has died about the same time as the vision, and a dying person sees an unknown deceased person (i.e., a stranger who previously died). Greyson provides numerous examples of each of these in his article. The first kind of PiDEs includes historical accounts of dying people that reported seeing dead relatives that they did not know were deceased. Often, they tell their family members about their experiences, sometimes causing family members to argue about whether the person is alive or not. Then sometime later, the family receives a letter or telegraph stating that the person had died prior to the PiDE. This kind of experience is inconsistent with the suggestion that the spirits perceived in NDE are the result of the brain’s imaginative abilities, given that a person expecting to see a deceased relative would not naturally hallucinate about someone they believe to be living. The second type of PiDE is most common with sudden deaths, especially with car accidents in which a person experiencing a NDE wakes up in the hospital and reports that the person they had been traveling with appeared to them as a spirit. The third type is perhaps even more curious, in that the dying individual is visited by someone they do not know or recognize. Often the spirit is a loving person who has come to help them crossover. These individuals are often recognizable to people close to the person that had the

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NDE. For example, in one case a mother identified the described spirit as the biological father of the individual with the NDE. Later after being shown a photograph of the man, the person with the NDE confirmed the spirit’s identity. Greyson (2010) believes that all three kinds of PiDE are inconsistent with the hypothesis that NDEs are hallucinations based on what the person knows, and, as a result agrees with Barrett’s (2011[1926]) statement quoted above. Some researchers agree with Grayson’s conclusions (e.g., Fenwick and Fenwick 2008; Moody 1975), but others do not (e.g., Jansen 1997; Mobbs and Watt 2011). Mobbs and Watt (2011) for example contend that normal brain functions can explain all the characteristics of NDEs including the positive emotions and seeing tunnels, lights, and deceased people. They argue that many of the components in the midbrain regions are responsible for NDEs. In particular, the locus coereleus releases noradrenaline that is involved with arousal states related to fear and stress. The locus coereleus also connects to regions that “mediate emotion and memory, including the amygdala and hippocampus” (Mobbs and Watt 2011:449). It is likely that these areas are activated during NDEs, which could explain why people “hallucinate” the spirits of those they already know were dead. These people are stored in their memories. Mobbs and Watt (2011) also believe two more midbrain regions, the periaqueductal gray region and the ventral tegmental area, are activated during NDEs. Both regions are involved with emotional and hormonal responses. The periaqueductal region is involved with opioid analgesia and basic fear responses, and the ventral tegmental area is also the dopamine reward center. Dopamine and noradrenalin are known to cause good feelings and evoke positive emotions. Other medical doctors such as Peter Fenwick and neurologist Eben Alexander III, however, stress that science still cannot explain why people have visions while they are completely brain dead. These doctors emphasize that the brain cannot be involved in midbrain activities after it has ceased to function. Fenwick and Fenwick (2008) discuss cases in which people’s hearts stopped beating and their brains were clinically dead, but they still had NDEs. Based on the seeming medical impossibility, Fenwick and Fenwick (2008) suggest that NDEs are legitimate perceptual experiences of dead people. Eben Alexander, a neurologist who trained at Duke University and taught and practiced neurosurgery at Harvard, wrote and spoke about his own NDE when he had bacterial meningitis. In his book (2008) Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife and in numerous interviews and talks that are on YouTube, Dr. Alexander presents how his own brain stopped functioning, and yet he still went to a beautiful place and met a beautiful girl on the wings of a butterfly. He fervently reports that after one completely dies and is brain dead, that his/her soul travels to another realm. Skeptics might counter that there is no way to know for sure that Dr. Alexander’s brain had completely shut down and would suggest that something was still happening in the brain. Perhaps one of the most intriguing cases for the soul leaving the body during a NDE was reported by social worker Kimberly Sharp Clark (2003). Kimberly was working for Harborview (Trauma) Hospital in Seattle in 1977 when an unconscious Hispanic migrant worker named Maria was admitted into the hospital. When Maria awoke the next day, she and Kimberly worked on communicating in a “kind of

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pidgin language” (Sharp 2003:13). Several days later Maria flatlined in cardiac arrest. Maria during this time said she floated above her body, saw the doctors working to restart her heart, and then found herself floating outside of the hospital. There, she noticed a man’s blue tennis shoe on a ledge. After being revived, Maria was sure of what she saw and wanted to find it to prove to everyone that she was not crazy. She gave Kimberly a clear description of the blue shoe, including that it was well-worn, scuffed on the left side, and had a shoelace tucked under its heel. Kimberly had started looking through the windows of rooms on the east and north sides of the hospital. She reports that, “I was four rooms into the west side of the building when I pressed my face against a window pain, peered down on yet another ledge, and felt my heart go thunk. There it was” (Sharp 2003:14). Kimberly thought about different scenarios to explain how Maria had known about the shoe. One was Maria had somehow gained access to an upper floor of a nearby building and saw the shoe, although this would have likely required a telescope or binoculars. Second, Maria may have disconnected herself from the medical equipment, slipped into another room, and looked down onto the shoe, but Kimberly thought this was unlikely given Maria’s health and the alarms the medical equipment would have sounded. Or, third, Maria experienced what she claimed to have experienced, which is the conclusion Kimberly chose (Sharp 2003:15). A skeptic could easily dismiss this case for any number of reasons, but it became widely known and led to Kimberly being a local celebrity in the Seattle area in the 1980s. Now with YouTube one can find a lot of interview videos of Kimberly, who was always open to discussing the shoe and her own NDE. Again, our goal here is not to determine whether any case is “real” or not, but instead to observe that the response to Kimberly’s experiences demonstrated the underlying ethnosemantics structure typical of many in the United States at the time (and in the present).

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Discussion

These beliefs regarding the spirit world are not the product of our rational logical mind but something perceived intuitively and naturally. The naturalness of spirit beliefs reflects their foundation in our natural cognitive process, features of our ancient brain that provide information for consciousness.—Anthropologist Michael Winkelman (2010:13)

The discussion above has ranged from EEG readings of spirit mediums to hormonal production in the guts to MPI in school children. That is quite a bit of ground, but it is hardly exhaustive of the topic. Considering the physiology of spirit-human interaction is certainly worthy of a more extensive discussion and serious scientific inquiry, especially given that it is the foundation upon which ethnosemantics frameworks are built for each culture. Our discussion here is a starting point that lays out many of the primary issues and responses that must underlie spirit-human interaction. None of this necessarily discounts the spiritual encounters reported cross-culturally from around the world. Again, understanding the physiology of spiritual encounters does not necessitate the lack of spirits any more than understanding the functioning

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of a radio necessitates the lack of radio waves. We understand that this analogy is a bit strained, given that the radio cannot pick up anything without radio waves, whereas even the most committed believer would suggest that human physiology will at times produce the perception of a supernatural event without one being there. Sometimes the swaying curtain really is caused by the breeze from an open window as opposed to a lingering ghost. Frankly, we suspect that people often incorrectly attribute events to a supernatural origin when strictly naturalistic explanations are both possible and more parsimonious (a criterion of science). Still, even if 99% of reported cases of human/spirit interaction are simply the product of human physiology/psychology alone, the remainder could reflect the operation of spirits in addition to human physiology. As illustrated by the Miracle of the Dancing Sun, however, which examples are viewed as legitimate spiritual encounters and which are seen as tricks of the mind will be debated and likely depend on the starting assumptions of the evaluator. Moving beyond the mechanics of human physiology, the evolutionary origins of spirit detection mechanisms are still speculative. The development of adaptations such as empathy and the hyper active agency detection device seems straightforward when couched in the contexts of our hominid ancestors avoiding predators and integrating into increasingly larger social groups. In Chap. 5, we suggested seasonal/chronic nutritional stress may explain why shamanism was the first identifiable religious system, but this explanation again rests on underlying human physiology. Goodman (1990) suggests it is in our DNA to have spiritual experiences during trance states. Even if this is true, it is also clear that humans need the right environment (which often includes rituals and entheogens) to reliably have ASC. Further, this system of interaction may even have been structured by natural selection (as well as simply being a byproduct of our bodies’ responses to specific stimuli). In the words of Winkelman (2010:27): The relationship among natural and drug-induced alteration of consciousness must be understood from an evolutionary perspective. This reveals altered consciousness to be related to endogenous mechanisms that are triggered by both ancient evolutionary adaptations and more recently acquired propensities to use exogenous sources of substances to alter consciousness. Reconceptualizing plant “toxins” as “rewards” in terms of effects on behavior, emotions, and cognition reframes this human attraction as an adaptation involving an enhanced ability to use exogenous sources of important endogenous neurotransmitter substances that have a profound effect on human consciousness.

Humans can process some plants to get the neurotransmitter advantages while avoiding the plants’ toxic defenses (Winkelman 2010:27). These neurotransmitters are also impacted as the brain dies as it produces a variety of chemicals, especially dopamine and noradrenaline, if Mobbs and Watt (2011) are correct. These neurotransmitters are believed to be involved with the shamanic ASC and the spirit perceptions that people have during NDEs. To fully develop an ethnosemantics approach it will be useful for researchers to further understand human physiology and cognition and how these biological universals structure spirit-human interaction.

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Chapter 8

Modeling the Ethnosemantics of Spirits

Abstract Here we synthesize the preceding information into a model that ties common patterns identified in Chaps. 4 through 6 together. This is presented as a refined version of the model presented in Chap. 4 but is then separated into a “human-eye” model based on how humans conceive of spirits operating in their lives, and a “spirit-eye” model based on how spirits in the Middle World approach their relationships with humans. As a part of this, we identify traits that appear universal (e.g., the concept of the human soul, the presence of malevolent spirits), near universal (the Shamanic Universe), and highly variable (the use and methods of obtaining ASC to interact with spirits). We stress that these models are starting places that will make it easier to map out the specifics of each culture’s ethnosemantics frameworks to identify similarities and differences that may be present. We also identify a series of cross-culturally common traits (e.g., that ghosts look tend to look like a dead relative) and provide suggestions for why this might be the case for many but not all cultures. Future research will modify this list, but it is a starting place as anthropologists focus on the behavior and desire of spirits specifically. Finally, we stress that spiritual experiences cannot be reduced simply to imagination— experiences like involuntary spirit possession are real experiences, even if one rejects the underlying reality of spirits. Understanding the nature of spirits in each society will provide profound insights into the cosmology and social context of specific cultures.

I am thy father's spirit, Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confined to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porpentine: But this eternal blazon must not be © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. S. VanPool, T. L. VanPool, An Anthropological Study of Spirits, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25920-3_8

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To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love. . .Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. —The Ghost in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Spirits are important. They have structured the lives of people since at least the emergence of behaviorally modern humans (tens of thousands of years ago). Not even the heavy hands of Communists such as Stalin or Mao could drive them away, and they continue to influence us even as we reach for the stars. Worldwide spirits are thought to encourage good behavior or foster murderous belligerence, provide abundances, or cause starvation, they might lead humans to worldly and even eternal success or condemn them to pain and torture in this life and/or the next, or sometimes they simply leave people alone. Spirits come in many forms and take many shapes based on the time of the year, the behavior of humans, the location on the landscape, or their own desires and personalities. As a result, they may collaborate with each other and/or with humans. Or they may be crossways of each other and human foils. Thus, despite humanity’s long experience with spirits, their nature, essence, and aspirations remain elusive in significant ways. Here we have developed an analytic framework for the study of spirits. It shies away from addressing many of the most asked questions about spirits (Are they real? Do people really believe in them?) and instead focuses on the aspects of spirits that are reflected in human behavior. While “belief in the spirits” cannot be directly measured, and the “existence of the spirits” cannot be proved or disproved to anyone’s general satisfaction (even as people have strong opinions on the issue), anthropologists have observed case study after case study of the literal, concrete, and repeated interactions with spirits as manifested in human behavior. These case studies and cross-cultural patterns provide a means of describing, modeling, and even explaining aspects of spirit-human interaction, but only so long as the data being considered are the observable aspects of this interaction. For this reason, we have focused our discussion on actual behavior as opposed to unobservable variables (Hempel’s theoretical entities from Chap. 2) and have relied on operationally defined observational units. We also have focused on demonstrating how ethnosemantics frameworks organize the spirits and their worlds within various cultures. Ethnosemantics is the way that humans organize their local knowledge, and by extension their conceptual structures. It is a universal cognitive trait of humans, we suggest, that is derived at least in part from the way language structures our thoughts. Humans are driven to create classificatory hierarchies that allow the identification of similarities and differences in the factors that influence our lives (Atran 1998). These categories define larger conceptual linkages that may not be inherent in whatever it is we are classifying but become central to the way we think about what we are classifying—categories such as unclean animals and kosher food impact the way people think about food, for example. This is true of spirits and their worlds. Serpents are messengers tied to the underworld that can deliver messages as they slither into their holes in some cultures. The sun becomes a manifestation of the creator god that makes life possible for others. Lightning becomes a god’s method of punishment, and tobacco becomes a cleansing agent that physically and spiritually purifies people and places (Chap. 4).

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Each ethnosemantics framework is unique to its culture, but there are repeated patterns. As stated in Chap. 3 and further explored in Chaps. 4 thru 6, these can be based on: (1) universals typical of humans, (2) logical and analogical reasoning that creates conceptual linkages commonly shared among cultures in similar contexts, and (3) idiosyncratic variation derived through history or experiences particular to a specific culture. Here we will outline some conceptual models that can be useful for thinking about ethnosemantics frameworks, although they are unlikely to perfectly fit any given culture. Even though they do not take the place of detailed culturallyspecific descriptions of actual ethnosemantics analyses, having such models will make description easier and will help make many similarities and differences easily noticeable. Chapter 4 outlines a cross-culturally common structure for the spirit world. Expanding on this heuristic model, we start by dividing the spirit world into three divisions: the Upper, Middle, and Lower Worlds (Fig. 8.1). Each of these worlds can potentially be further subdivided. The Upper World is associated with the sky and is

Spirit World Overview Axis Mundi allows travel through worlds

Upper World

Middle World (benevolent/ malevolent spirits)

(sky and creator spirits)

spirit specialists nature spirits locational spirts

Lower World (Underground and Environmental Extremes)

growth/ fertility

malevolent spirits

demons

creature spirits

humans

magic mediates interaction

living objects (e.g., houses, drums, boats)

ghosts

Fig. 8.1 A common structure of the spirit world

ancestor spirits

lords of the dead

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most commonly the home of creator deities. The Middle World is the domain of humans even though spirits are manifested in many ways. Some of these spirits will be derived from humans (ancestor spirits, ghosts including malevolent or residual ghosts such as chindi) and will often be exceptionally important to humans because these once-humans span multiple worlds. Humans, especially spirit specialists, may even create additional spirits (e.g., house spirits, animated charms), possibly through collaboration with other spirits. Other spirits, however, are derived independently from humans and frequently have their own agency. Depending on the context of the spirit-human interaction, these spirits may help or hurt individual humans or humanity based on their own desires. Some spirits may transcend the Middle World, but some, especially those that are tied to specific spots on the landscape (locational spirits; elemental spirits), do not. Humans often seek to ally themselves with at least some of these spirits and will try to not offend an even greater number of them, given the spirits’ potential to reward good behavior (e.g., help crops grow) or punish those who offend them (e.g., cause a dangerous landslide). Malevolent spirits (possibly derived from humans, but also hostile non-human spirits including the inherently antagonistic demons) are (likely) a cultural universal, and special efforts are often invested in protecting against the spiritual and physical dangers these malicious spirits can produce. Regardless of their origin, magic will be a part of mediating both positive and negative spirit-human interactions. The Lower World is a place of darkness and environmental extremes (often water or fire). It is regularly associated with the night and nocturnal creatures in the Middle World, and is the home of at least some dead humans (ghosts). All three of these realms can be accessed from the Middle World through an axis mundi, which may take the form of a cave in a mountain (with its intuitive link to both the Upper and Lower Worlds), trees with their lofty boughs and deep roots, or even poles pointed towards the circumpolar region. Spirit specialists, especially shamans, further operate as the metaphorical axis mundi of the Middle World, providing the link among the various spirits in the Middle World and can travel among the various spirit realms (Upper and Lower Worlds). Although originally human, they are typically chosen by powerful spirits and are remade into spirit creatures themselves. As such, they often share as much or more with the spirits as they do with their fellow humans. Many aspects of this basic structure have been noted since at least Eliade (1964) and are central to the “the Shamanic Universe” discussed in Chap. 3. This basic structure is ubiquitous in shamanic systems but is also reflected in non-shamanic religious systems. For example, the Christian and Muslim heaven and hell and the Shinto concepts of Takama-no-hara (Plain of High Heaven), Utsushi-yo (this world), and Yomotsu-kuni (the Nether World, where unclean spirits reside) reflect the division of the world into the three realms outlined above. Again, this model is unlikely to fit any given case perfectly, but aspects of it will fit most cases to some degree and the differences between the model and a specific ethnosemantics framework will be areas of analytic interest. The model therefore reflects repeated patterns that allow anthropologists to talk abstractly about what is typical and identify the particulars of what is uncommon and possibly unique to a particular culture.

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At this point, though, we want to step back and reconsider this ethnosemanticsbased model universe from the distinctive perspectives of the spirits and humans. Here we want to explore what we have learned about the observational term “spirit.” Taking a “spirit-eye view,” the Middle World is only one of three realms. Some spirits may be limited only to the Middle World (e.g., the restless dead; spirits tied to specific geographic locations such as a spring or mountain), but many spirits can move between the realms at will or at least in predictable ways (e.g., the Puebloan kachina, which come to the Middle World for part of the year). Further, spirits in the Middle World may have relationships with humans, but they also have relationships with each other. These relationships may be even more important than their interaction with humans; Viveiros de Castro (1998) for example discusses the “perspectivism” of South American animal spirits in which their dealings with humans is secondary to their relationships within and among species. Likewise, many Puebloan groups in the American Southwest have tales and even ceremonies focused on kachina wrestling with vengeful horned serpents (Geertz and Lomatuway’ma 1987:241–46). Yet some spirits in the Middle World are only reactive, lacking agency or intent from the perspective of humans unless they are activated (e.g., bundles discussed in Chap. 4) or provoked in some way. And some spiritual power lacks agency at all (e.g., mana in Oceania). Summarizing the variation into a graphical form (Fig. 8.2), the general model identifies three common classes of spirits typical in ethnosemantics frameworks: transcendent spirits, meaning they can travel across two or more worlds and likely reside largely outside of the Middle World; Middle World spirits that remain primarily or exclusively in the Middle World; and human-derived spirits including souls. Transcendent spirits include creator deities and other particularly powerful spirits (e.g., Bear) that may influence the Middle World. These spirits are often arranged in a hierarchy such that one spirit is viewed as a helper or servant of a deity or a particularly powerful spirit (e.g., Nkulunkulu, the Zulu creator deity, sends a spirit bird to collect souls by striking humans with lightning [Chap. 4]; an angel sent at the behest of God in Judeo-Christian-Muslim ethnosemantics frameworks). Transcendent spirits are typically involved in deciding who will be spiritual specialists because they will be working together. Their call often cannot be ignored or there will be pain or even death, and they frequently reshape and integrate the shamanic initiates to do their bidding, even as they teach the shaman to heal. Transcendent spirit power can also take the form of mana, which is impersonal and can be used by humans and other spirits for any number of purposes. Demons, defined as inherently malevolent non-human spirits, are also common, and can be transcendent (e.g., Sherpa demons) or limited Middle World spirits (e.g., Muslim jinn). They cause bad luck and regularly work with witches and sorcerers. They can also subtly or openly influence humans to the point of manifesting as unwanted possessions. There are also inherently benevolent spirits in some cultures, but these are less common cross-culturally. They are so infrequent that we do not have a dedicated discussion here, largely because it seems that even spirits that are typically thought of as benevolent towards humans can at least on occasion punish or cause destruction (e.g., the angels that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in the

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Spirits in the Middle Realm Limited to Middle Realm

Transcendent (able to move between realms)

Human Derived

magic constrains/enables spirit-human interaction

living objects mana creator deities

helper spirits

demons ancestors

topographic spirits

ecological/ phenomenological beings (e.g., Bear)

ghosts

spirit specialists mediate interaction

witches

possession

positive/ negative manifestations (punishment/rewards)

Fig. 8.2 Spirits view of the middle world

Abrahamic traditions). If anything, the destruction/punishment by such spirits is particularly devastating when they are provoked to such action. Further, otherwise helpful powerful spirits can cause harm to humans by simply coming too close to them (e.g., Bear illness caused by stepping on a bear track; the shamanic illness caused by excessive spiritual power in the untrained shaman; or Saul/Paul being blinded on the road to Damascus). Spirits that are limited to the Middle World are typically less powerful in many regards than the transcendent spirits and may even be derivative of them. This would include spirits limited to topographic locations (e.g., a water spirit limited to a pond or lake). These spirits likely reward people with local benefits such as good water flow or punish people for impropriety with a landslide or a dried-up spring. Their influence and power are local, though, and are likely limited to aspects of the environment and general health. Mana and other impersonal power will neither punish nor reward humans, except as it is (intentionally or unintentionally) directed/activated. Spirit specialists, including witches, are often central to its use.

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Human derived spirits of the Middle World include ancestor spirits, which are especially significant as a source of authority, luck, and judgement. Crossing the ancestors is typically met with swift justice, even as the ancestors reward pious adherence to traditions and culturally appropriate behavior. Humanmade spirits such as house spirits are also important to prosperity and good social relationships, and are often made in conjunction with other spirits. Elsewhere we have suggested that one of the large houses at Paquimé was made with the addition of a child sacrifice, turquoise votive offerings, a large disk to hold a large beam, and the adobe material (VanPool and VanPool 2020); the spirits of all these collaborated with the builders to make a new house spirit. Ghosts roaming in the Middle World are typically viewed as dangers to be avoided (e.g., avoiding whirlwinds) or placated/eliminated, either through a quid pro quo relationship or with the help of a spirit specialist. In extreme cases, these spirits may even possess the weak and unwary. Magic, often in the form of charms, is essential to mitigating and sometimes even controlling the competing spiritual influences surrounding most humans, but especially the spirit specialists who typically have specific practices and regalia they use for their own safety and the benefit of the humans they serve (e.g., medicine bundles, smudging with smoke and blessing with holy water or smoke) (Chap. 6). Switching to a focused human-view of the Middle World (Fig. 8.3), magic is central to human control over spirit-human interaction in the typical ethnosemantics framework. The creation of charms, the identification of spirit guardians, and other means of focusing spirit power, capturing luck, or preventing the “evil eye” of bad luck is often central to human efforts to influence each other and spirits of various sorts. Bundles or other types of sacred objects such as blessed water or sacred foods (sometimes made with entheogens and/or medicinal plants) often become the focus of ritual activity, especially as it relates to healing. Improper behavior (e.g., breaking a mirror, incorrectly reciting a chant), a curse performed by a human but especially a spirit specialist such as a witch, or the volition of an offended or inherently antagonistic spirit can focus bad luck and cause illness or harm, even death. As a result, spirits are often viewed as more significant for the patient’s treatment than any physical component, especially among pre-industrialized societies (as was seen in Chap. 5 with our discussion of the hospitalized 8-year-old Rarámuri girl whose health only improved after being helped by a shaman). The continued presence of chapels and dedicated chaplains in most hospitals around the world demonstrates this tradition continues to the present in industrialized societies too. Spirits are also active in the world. They can influence and often directly control aspects of the natural world (e.g., lightning, whirlwinds, the amount and nature of rainfall, the growth of crops, the abundance of prey), but also impact the built environment. Talismans, good luck charms, votive offerings and so forth can influence these spirits, and care must be maintained to keep proper relationships among humans and spirits. These efforts also are central to social order and cultural propagation/transmission. As such, spirits can be naturally allied to a particular group (e.g., house spirits, ancestors), but these spirits also include locally powerful nature spirits and transcendent spirits up to and including creator deities. Humans

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Human View of Spirits

Spirits in the World

Magic

creator sprits, ancestors, landscape spirits, creature spirits

causes harm

intentional

prevents harm

health/ healing

safety/ warfare

ecological impacts

unintentional Possession involuntary ghost, demons, witches

voluntary

ghost, tutelary spirits, deities

possessed shaman/medium autowriter Fig. 8.3 Humans view of the spirits

typically want something from these spirits, although what they want varies from safety and health to ecological and economic fecundity. Spirit specialists may have a special role in dealing with these active spirits, but “typical humans” generally also have some means of interacting with them, ranging from public ceremonies to private prayers/daily rituals. Further, spirits often expect physical sacrifices from human supplicants. From circumcision and other forms of body modification to selfmutilation to animal sacrifices or economically valuable gifts to extended periods of fasting and physical hardship, the spirits often expect clear and unambiguous demonstrations of a person’s dedication as part of the reciprocal nature of the spirit-human relationship. Further, all cultures have protocols regarding the treatment of deceased loved ones that take into account aspects of the souls’ journey to an afterlife (typically not part of the Middle World). Rites are often designed to give the dead a safe, and perhaps even happy, crossover into the spirit world. However, perpetual mortuary reverence is common, and dead humans are not necessarily excluded to the Middle World. Mediums may contact the dead, even if the dead are thought to have “moved on,” and the dead are invited back into the households during ceremonies and celebrations such as the Mexican Day of the Dead (Chap. 2).

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One of the most central aspects of the human view of the Middle World is the human soul. In most (and likely all) cultures, at least some part of at least some humans survives death and transcends this world even if the soul becomes reincarnated later. The living can rejoin the dead after they too die, but in many ethnosemantics frameworks the dead may continue to have positive contact with the living, especially their loved ones and/or as ancestor spirits. (This is one of the most common spirit encounters reported in the ethnographic record and among our own students. We have literally lost count of the number of times our colleagues, friends, family members, and students have reported perceiving that the spirits of their loved ones lingered after death to watch over them.) Likewise, it seems that in most, perhaps all, cultures at least some part of at least some humans can be trapped in this world, creating a ghost. Some ghosts like Hamlet’s father have their own purposes but they are more often simply trapped based on their own nature or through their linkage to a physical object (e.g., some Native American cultures hold the spirit is only free after the bones have completely decomposed/disintegrated; sacred relics may contain some essence of the associated human [Hall 1997]). Although we can create these three general models, we again stress they are not intended to summarize every culture in every detail. The true scale of variation in ethnosemantics frameworks cannot be easily summarized. Each culture has a concept of the soul, but the Roman Catholic view of the soul and purgatory would be confusing to the Aztec priest who would talk instead about the three spirits that inhabit the human body and the Flowery World where many dead go. A traditional Apache would be startled by the idea that a ghost would want to protect a loved one as opposed to hasten their demise. The Trobriand Islanders’ focus on magic, witches, and nature spirits would cause them to question the utility of the entire Christian framework. In fact, Paul Theroux (1992:119–120) noted that as recently as 1992, “Not even the missionaries with their threat of hell-fire for sinners have altered the Trobrianders’ view that their islands are a paradise, full of magic and sensuality. . .Most islanders claim to be Protestant or Catholic, but Christian theology does not impinge on their traditional beliefs.” This is despite nearly a century of Christian missionary work. And of course, even within Christian ethnosemantics frameworks, there is variation; many Christian denominations believe ghosts are clever demons in disguise, trying to confuse the unsuspecting and thereby lead them astray. Despite broad similarities, views of what spirits are, how they work, and how they are to be treated are as complex and varied as is any other aspect of human culture. Likewise, humans specialized in interacting with spirits range across cultures; they can be heuristically divided into categories such as shamans, mediums, priests, and so forth, but these categories are often not distinct (VanPool 2009). Further, interacting with spirits requires training and sacrifices. Spiritual power includes an element of danger that can be manifested physically (e.g., pain), spiritually (e.g., loss of identity and mental capabilities up to and including insanity or increase in mental capabilities), and socially (e.g., disruption of social relationships within the community). The training of spiritual specialists can be informal (which is often the case for

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shamans and mediums, although there are exceptions) or formal (which is more common among priests, although again there are exceptions). As illustrated in Fig. 8.1, humans recognize that spirits can influence this world, but tend to hold that humans can only access the other worlds through death or altered states of consciousness, whether that be shamanic trance, near death experiences, or even dreams. Entheogens and other shamanic practices including dancing, chanting, ritual body postures, and listening to fast beating drums can be an important part of ASC but are neither necessary nor sufficient in and of themselves. When present, though, ASC and the associated spiritual experiences are often framed as social contexts where social relationships are strengthened, challenged, or negotiated. The knowledge gained from the other spirit worlds often has considerable influence on human behavior and ethnosemantics frameworks in this world. A dream in youth can set a person such as Sun Bear on a distinct spiritual path they would not have otherwise pursued, and entire religious structures can be created or reformed based dreams and visions (Chap. 4). Female mediumship associated with ASC may provide avenues for marginalized women to expose and challenge the inconsistencies and inequities that structure their lives (Lewis 1989). The feeling of communitas among pilgrims may lead to social unity across ethnic, social, and economic boundaries (Turner 2012). The exact way that spiritual experiences influence larger social relationships varies across and even within societies, but they almost always have some impact. Direct physiological evidence of the neurological and hormonal systems demonstrates that spiritual experiences correspond to sometimes drastic physiological changes. Spiritual experiences often have a physical reality that must be acknowledged, even if one is skeptical of the “reality” of spirits themselves. Spiritual experiences are thus not easily dismissed as being “made up” or “imaginary.” Human physiology is geared up for spiritual experiences. We can see them, feel them, and hear them. We can modify our bodies, reorganize our minds, and in extreme cases let spirits take control of our bodies and minds. No doubt our physiology is primed to perceive spirits with all of our senses, although it is especially common for people to see them while in ASC. The cross-cultural pattern of spirit possession demonstrates even this extreme manifestation is part of our human capacity (Goodman 1988:21). In the words of Davies (1995:25): Possession is not a fiction, not a pretense, not a kind of folk belief. Possession is a powerful psychophysiological experience that is so widespread in human cultures that the potential for the possession experience is part of the genetic inheritance of all people. To put it bluntly, if you do not occasionally become possessed it is because you have not placed yourself in circumstances where the achievement of the possession state is possible.

Even in today’s modern world people still struggle with spirits and potential possession. Although demonic possession is relatively rare, 32% of American adults report struggling with demonic forces (Exline et al. 2021:2). Surveys such as this and the clear cross-cultural patterns demonstrate that our deep evolutionary history has primed humans to experience even the most extreme aspects of spirit-human interactions, while at the same time the Miracle of the Sun and many other cases

8.1

Cross-Cultural Regularities

245

demonstrate ASC is not necessary for meaningful spiritual encounters. Humans have spiritual experiences when they are awake and when they are asleep, when they enter into ritual contexts (e.g., sweat lodges, Buddhist temples) and when completing mundane tasks (e.g., going to work in a factory infested with angry water spirits). The spirits are always ready and waiting to interact with humans, lacking only the right opportunity or physical/physiological context to do so.

8.1

Cross-Cultural Regularities

In the previous section, we presented a series of three model that summarized ethnosemantics regularities that are typical, and in many cases likely universal. Shifting our focus a bit, following is a list of characteristics we suggest are universal to spirits in every human culture: • History matters as do origins stories. Each spirits including creator deities and ancestors is tied to a history that structures its cultural role and its placement in the world. Spirits are linked to people and to other spirits around them, to the landscape, and the cosmos in a complex web of meanings. • At least some objects contain spiritual power. This concept is placed in the framework of animism in most but not all cultures. • The spirit world can be accessed through ASC, especially dreams. Entheogens and other means of creating shamanic trance are also common, but not universal. • Spirits are involved in daily life and impact the world of the here and now in significant ways. These impacts can be managed to a certain extent using magic. • Powerful spirits include (possibly metaphorical) ancestors in some way. From Catholic saints, to the Zuni kachina, to the Yanomamo hekura, these ancestors can be transformed into spirits that transcend typical humans. There are also some lesser regularities that form what we somewhat seriously call “Mickey Mouse regularities.” They are real, insofar as they go, but they are better thought of as inconsistent patterns that are probably best understood through some other processes/causes. These are: • The human soul will often appear as a body double of the person when he or she was alive. In other words, grandma’s ghost looks like grandma. Now this can be as she looked at the moment of death, but it can also be as she appeared at the prime of her life. The anthropomorphic ghost of course makes a lot of sense, in that it is supposed to be the spiritual essence of that individual. It stands to reason that the spirit would share the outward appearance. However, there are also many cases, such as the Diné chindi in which ghosts are not anthropomorphic (Chap. 4). As a speculative starting point, we suspect that the anthropomorphic form is more common in cultures where the ghost shares behavioral consistencies with the living person. While chindis are arguably a form of ghost, they are the malevolent part of the human, and are therefore the least likely part of a human to be

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associated with the form of the beloved family member or friend. Another possible factor is that anthropomorphic ghosts become less common when the ghost is closely tied to physical phenomena. After all, whirlwinds do not look like humans, so the chindi at the heart of a whirlwind may not either. • Societies from around the world often attribute weather phenomena to spiritual forces. How weather and spiritual forces are related varies considerably. Sometimes the phenomenon itself is the spirit such that it cannot be separated (e.g., the aforementioned chindi) and sometimes it is caused by a distinct spiritual entity (e.g., Quetzalcoatl herding clouds and causing lightning). Again, an ethnosemantics approach is useful in mapping these conceptual differences. • Naturalistic spirits take the form of the animal, plant, or other natural phenomenon with which it is associated. For Native North Americans, Bear is a powerful spirit, just as it is a powerful animal. Mouse in contrast is shy but clever. For sailors such as the Trobriand Islanders, spirits associated with the sea are unpredictable and dangerous, just as the sea itself is. And so forth. These natural metaphors are symbolically powerful, and bridge the physical and metaphysical divide—the spirit world in a meaningful sense mirrors the physical world. • Spirits are active at night, when human perceptions, especially sight are most heavily curtailed. Although there are again exceptions, spirits often hide in the dark, manifest as shadowy figures, or otherwise hide at the edge of human perception. While humans are awake and active during the day, the Maya and Aztec of Mesoamerica believed that the night was when the spirits were active. Only priests and other supernaturally powerful individuals could venture into the dark safely. Similar patterns are found throughout the world. Those who subscribe to the hyperactive agency detection device discussed in Chaps. 2 and 7 would of course attribute this to the fact that it is at night when humans are most likely to be unable to gather accurate information about their world and night is consequently when they are most likely to attribute sentience to random events. Humans reasonably conclude they are more in danger from hidden threats when their vision is limited, so might also conclude that spiritual dangers hide in the dark forest and during a moonless night. While all of these “regularities” are not universal, and are most likely based on underlying cognitive associations, they do provide important insights that can form the basis of future research. They tend to tell us more about humans than spirits, though.

8.1.1

There and Back Again

Horatio: O day and night, but this is wondrous strange! Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Hotartio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. —From Hamlet by William Shakespeare

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Returning to the forward of this book, our focus has been to study spirits, especially the worlds they inhabit and the ways they influence and are influenced by humans. Like our boys, we hope you have enjoyed learning about the robust diversity of spirits. Despite our best efforts here though, there is much more to know than we have covered. Anthropology has helped us understand many aspects of spirits, but as scientists we have become very comfortable with the idea that there is a great deal that we do not know (which excites us) and there are some things we think we know that are wrong (which disturbs us). Our discussion here has provided some groundwork from which to build. It provides a framework for analysis and reveals relevant variables that will provide insights. We are quite certain though that some of the most significant future areas of growth in the anthropology of spirits will be associated with increased knowledge of human cognition and neurology as they relate to spirit interaction. Despite our increased knowledge of the physiology of spirit encounters and even as we enter a new age of digital life, spirits will remain central to human cultures.

References Atran, Scott. 1998. Folk Biology and the Anthropology of Science: Cognitive Universals and Cultural Particulars. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (4): 547–609. Davies, Stevan L. 1995. Jesus the Healer: Possession, Trance, and the Origins of Christianity. New York, NY: Continuum. Eliade, Mircea. 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Translated by William R. Trask. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Exline, Julie J., Kenneth I. Pargament, Joshua A. Wilt, and Valencia A. Harriott. 2021. Mental Illness, Normal Psychological Processes, or Attacks by the Devil? Three Lenses to Frame Demonic Struggles in Therapy. Spirituality in Clinical Practice. Online June 17, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000268. Geertz, Armin W., and Michael Lomatuway’ma. 1987. Children of Cottonwood: Piety and Ceremonialism in Hopi Indian puppetry. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Goodman, Felicitas D. 1988. How about Demons? Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Hall, Robert L. 1997. An Archaeology of the Soul: North American Indian Belief and Ritual. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Lewis, I.M. 1989. Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession. 2nd ed. London, UK: Routledge. Theroux, Paul. 1992. Under the Spell of the Trobriand Islands. National Geographic 182 (1): 116–136. Turner, Edith L. 2012. Communitas: The Anthropology of Collective Joy. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. VanPool, Christine S. 2009. The Signs of the Sacred: Identifying Shamans Using Archaeological Evidence. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 28 (2): 177–190. VanPool, Todd L., and Christine S. VanPool. 2020. Paquimé’s Appeal: The Creation of an Elite Pilgrimage Site in the North American Southwest. In Cognitive Archaeology: Mind, Ethnography, and the Past in South Africa and Beyond, ed. D. Whitley, J. Loubser, and G. Whitelaw, 115–134. London, UK: Routledge. Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 1998. Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4 (3): 469–488.