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Book Reviews The linguistic system is particularly engaged in the "epiphanies" verbalized, generally in sensoryrecall mode, often poetically, by those describing possession experiences. experientially, spirit possession begins as trauma, an unwelcome intrusion and affliction that, she argues, in a deep metaphorical sense, reflects and invokes the historical affliction of slavery, only one generation distant for many Gnawa. but for adepts, possession matures into mastery, "working the spirits," annexing their powers and intermittent presence to achieve a kind of transcendent joy. She identifies three stages in the lila ritual: first, possession as a bodily experience (concerning which she invokes kristeva's concept of the abject); then naming the particular spirit, (re)entry into language (both referential and poetic), and the symbolic; and thirdly, sacrifice, which achieves a separation from the possessing spirit through substitution of the sacrificial victim (which is then consumed communally, by both the spirits and the assembled human participants). There is no question of exorcism--Gnawa spirit possession once experienced is permanent, but vastly different in its psycho-spiritual effects depending on the availability of healing (management) through the music, gesture, and material exchanges of ritual. There is much to learn and much to think about in Traveling Spirit Masters,
Journal of American Folklore – American Folklore Society
Published: Mar 9, 2014
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