Title: Ecstatic religion : a study of shamanism and spirit possession /
Authors: Lewis, I. M.
Publisher: Routledge,
Year: 1989
Subjects: Ecstasy.; Spirit possession; Religion and sociology.; Shamanism.; Religion and Psychology [MESH]; Shamanism [MESH]
Abstract: States of spiritual possession in which believers feel themselves to be 'possessed' by the deity and raised to a new plan of existence are found in almost all known religions. This book offers a comprehensive sociological approach to this experience, drawing an important distinction between central possession cults, dominated by male ecstatics, which reinforce official morality and established power, and marginal cults, which are often a form of protest on the part of the oppressed -- particularly women. this wide-ranging comparative study looks at the biochemical, psychological, aesthetic, religious and sociocultural aspects of possession in discussing African shamanism, the classical shamanistic religions of Arctic Asia and South America, Haitian voodoo, the cult of Dionysus, Christian mysticism, and other manifestations of spiritual ecstasy. In this new, completely revised and expanded edition of a classic work, the author explores the social and political significance.
Contents: Towards a psychology of ecstasy -- Trance and possession -- Affliction and its apotheosis -- Strategies of mystical attack : protest and its containment -- Possession and public morality: I. Ancestor cults -- Possession and public morality: II. Other cosmological systems -- Possession and psychiatry.