Possession and self-possession

Summary

This article critiques the tendency in recent Tantra scholarship to separate it from practical ritual healing, mediumship, and spirit-possession. It examines Frederick Smith's argument that possession (avesa) is a fundamental concept in Indic thought, uniting phenomena from conception to Tantric ritual. The author questions whether standard scholarly categories misrepresent these traditions and proposes an alternative framework for understanding possession broadly, exploring its implications for religious studies.

Study at a glance

Abstract

While much recent scholarship on Tantra has tended to distance it from the world of pragmatic ritual healing, mediumship and spirit-possession, and treat it primarily as an elevated mode of pursuit of enlightened consciousness, Frederick Smith’s recent book The Self Possessed is the most comprehensive presentation so far of the reverse position, that all of these modes of interaction with the divine, whether to do with healing, sorcery or spiritual liberation, share common assumptions and a common idiom. Here, and in other recent writing, Smith presents the idea of entry, pervasion or possession (avesa) as a fundamental trope in Indic thought, encompassing everything from conception (seen as the individual jiva taking over possession of the embryo) to Tantric ritual, the temporary occupation of another body and malevolent spirit-attack. If this is true, however, does this suggest that we are applying the wrong set of categories to understand Indic and perhaps also other religious traditions? This article sketches an alternative mode of looking at the field of “possession,” broadly defined, and explores some of its implications.