Human Development
Spirit possession
Description:
A part of many religious systems and cults, the possession by a spirit may be a privilege (when the person possessed may become capable of spiritual healing, divination, or the detecting of witchcraft or the cause of some misfortune); or an affliction (see the numerous accounts in the Bible of the casting out of evil spirits). Spirit possession is initially a disorder and is not the same as being a medium, although it may lead to becoming one. The individual is impelled to carry out actions alien to his or her normal personality which are not remembered after the event. It may give rise to distressing physical symptoms, from faintness and exhaustion to paroxysms, trance, to the devouring of inedible and dangerous objects (knives, hot metals) and regurgitating them without apparent injury. Resistance to the frenzy may cause insanity or death. Such possession is particularly characteristic of religious traditions giving prominence to ancestral spirits, where the spirits possessing a [shaman] assist him in foretelling the future and in carrying out priestly functions.