Severing the bonds of love: a case study in soul loss.
Social science & medicine (1982) January 1, 1988 M M Steedly 18 citations
Karo Batak ceremonial healing in urban Indonesia operates in a contested space where social and cultural coherence cannot be assumed. Examining a spirit possession cult's efforts to cure soul loss in a young Christian man, the son of a leading spirit medium, this paper challenges the applicability of the 'integrative model' and proposes an alternative framework that focuses on the social, cultural, and interpersonal tensions running through the cult's practices, which those practices simultaneously aim to contain.