This abstract lists three scholarly works examining the intersection of religion, spirituality, and healing practices across different cultures. One work explores how the Akan people of Ghana integrate religious beliefs with medical practice. Another provides a cultural analysis of trance states in Mayotte. The third offers an ethnopsychiatric study of shamanism among the Tamang of Nepal, focusing on ecstatic experiences and their role in healing. Together, these works illustrate diverse ways that spiritual and religious frameworks shape understandings of health, illness, and treatment in non-Western contexts.
Spirit possession is a dramatic religious experience where humans encounter the supernatural or deities, and smell, sound, and vision are essential ingredients in recipes for possession. The chapter argues that including sensorial descriptions of performances enriches anthropological understanding and the existential dimensions of the human condition. It draws on functionalism, psychoanalysis, physiology, symbolism, and theatrical frameworks to explain key concepts of spirit possession.