The Variety of Holy Spirit Possession
Considering Cohen’s Executive and Pathogenic Possession for the Pentecostal Context
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/ptcs.v12i1.107Keywords:
possession, Pentecostal ritual, Holy Spirit baptism, cognitive anthropologyAbstract
This article seeks to extend Emma Cohen’s cross-cultural categorization of spirit possession to the phenomena of Holy Spirit possession in Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian communities. Cohen argues that cross-culturally recurring features of spirit possession can be explained by evolved patterns in human cognition, and identifies a typology of executive possession and pathogenic possession. I show the usefulness of Cohen’s categorization through an analysis of Holy Spirit possession phenomena as reported in ethnographic studies of Pentecostalism in Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, and Ghana. By doing so, this article accomplishes several things. First, it draws the study of Pentecostal ritual into the wider study of the anthropology of religion. Second, since Cohen’s categorization offers a cognitive explanation for recurring patterns of spirit possession, this article may help explain patterned behaviors and beliefs concerning the activity of the Holy Spirit even in very diverse cultural contexts. Finally, Cohen’s concepts of executive and pathogenic possession broaden the discussion of Holy Spirit possession beyond moments of the initial baptism in the Holy Spirit to the continual presence and relationship that many Pentecostals maintain as the central focus of their religious experience.
References
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Alexander, B.C. 1991. “Correcting Misinterpretations of Turner’s Theory: An African American Pentecostal Illustration”. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30.1: 26–44.
Alland, Jr., A. 1962. “‘Possession’ in a Revivalistic Negro Church”. Society for the Scientific Study of Religion 1.2: 204–13.
Anderson, A. 2010. “Varieties, Taxonomies, and Definitions”. In Anderson et al., 2010: 13–29.
Anderson, A., M. Bergunder, A. Droogers and C. van der Laan (eds). 2010. Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Austin-Broos, D.J. 1997. Jamaica Genesis: Religion and the Politics of Moral Orders. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Bialecki, J. 2009. “The Kingdom and its Subjects: Charisms, Language, Economy, and the Birth of a Progressive Politics in the Vineyard”. PhD dissertation, University of California, San Diego, CA.
—. 2011. “Quiet Deliverances”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 249–76.
Boddy, J. 1994. “Spirit Possession Revisited: Beyond Instrumentality”. Annual Review of Anthropology 23: 407–34.
Bourguignon, E. 1976. Possession. San Francisco, CA: Chandler & Sharp.
Buckley, A.D. and M.C. Kennedy. 1995. Negotiating Identity: Rhetoric, Metaphor, and Social Drama in Northern Ireland. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Burdick, J. 1993. Looking for God in Brazil: The Progressive Catholic Church in Urban Brazil’s Religious Arena. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Cartledge, M.J. (ed.). 2006. Speaking in Tongues: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives. London: Paternoster Press.
Chong, K.H. 2011. “Healing and Redomestication: Reconstitution of the Feminine Self in South Korean Evangelical Cell Group Ritual Practices”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 98–128.
Cohen, E. 2008. “What is Spirit Possession? Defining, Comparing, and Explaining Two Possession Forms”. Ethnos 73.1: 101–26.
— and J.L. Barrett. 2008. “Conceptualizing Spirit Possession: Ethnographic and Experimental Evidence”. Ethos 36.2: 246–67.
Coleman, S. 2000. The Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity: Spreading the Gospel of Prosperity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
—. 2006. “When Silence Isn’t Golden: Charismatic Speech and the Limits of Literalism”. In M. Engelke and M. Tomlinson (eds), Ritual and the Limits of Meaning: Case Studies in the Anthropology of Christianity. Oxford: Berghahn: 39–61.
—. 2011. “Voices: Presence and Prophecy in Charismatic Ritual”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 198–219.
Comaroff, J. 1985. Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture and History of a South African People. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Corten, A. and R. Marshall-Fratani. 2001. “Introduction”. In A. Corten and R. MarshallFratani (eds), Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press: 1–21.
Crapanzano, V. 1977. “Introduction”. In V. Crapanzano and V. Garrison (eds), Case Studies in Spirit Possession. New York: John Wiley and Sons: 1–40.
Csordas, T.J. 1988. “Elements of Charismatic Persuasion and Healing”. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 2.2: 121–42.
—. 1994. The Sacred Self: A Cultural Phenomenology of Charismatic Healing. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
—. 1997a. Language, Charisma, and Creativity: The Ritual Life of a Religious Movement. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
—. 1997b. “Prophecy and the Performance of Metaphor”. American Anthropologist 99.2: 321–32.
—. 2011. “Ritualization of Life”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 129–51.
Di Bella, M.P. 2003. “Conversion and Marginality in Southern Italy”. In A. Buckser and S.D. Glazier (eds), The Anthropology of Religious Conversion. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield: 85–91.
Droogers, A. 2001. “Globalisation and Pentecostal Success”. In A. Corten and R. MarshallFratani (eds), Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press: 41–61.
—. 2010. “Essentialist and Normative Approaches”. In Anderson et al., 2010: 30–50.
Gifford, P. 2011. “The Ritual Use of the Bible in African Pentecostalism”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 179–97.
Goodman, F.D. 1972. Speaking in Tongues: A Cross-Cultural Study in Glossolalia. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Hann, C. 2007. “The Anthropology of Christianity, per se”. Archives Europeennes de Sociologie 48.3: 383–410.
Hollenweger, W.J. 1972. The Pentecostals: The Charismatic Movement in the Churches. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House.
Johnson, T.M. 2009. “The Global Demographics of the Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal”. Society 46.6: 479–83.
Lawless, E.J. 1988. God’s Peculiar People: Women’s Voices and Folk Tradition in a Pentecostal Church. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.
Lindhardt, M. (ed). 2011a. Practicing the Faith: The Ritual Life of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians. New York: Berghahn.
—. 2011b. “When God Interferes: Ritual, Empowerment, and Divine Presence in Chilean Pentecostalism”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 220–48.
Luhrmann, T.M. 2004. “Metakinesis: How God Becomes Intimate in Contemporary US Christianity”. American Anthropologist 106.3: 518–28.
—. 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Alfred A Knopf, Inc.
Maloney, H.N. and A.A. Lovekin. 1977. “Religious Glossolalia: A Longitudinal Study of Personality Change”. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 16: 383–93.
—. 1985. Glossolalia: Behavioral Science Perspectives on Speaking in Tongues. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Meyer, B. 1998. “‘Make a Complete Break with the Past.’ Memory and Post-Colonial Modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostalist Discourse”. Journal of Religion in Africa 28.3: 316–49.
—. 1999. Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity Among the Ewe in Ghana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Miller, D.E. and T. Yamamori. 2007. Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Otero, R.A. 2003. “The Transformation of Identity through Possession Rituals in Popular Religion”. Religion 33.3: 249–62.
Poloma, M. 2003. Main Street Mystics: The Toronto Blessing and Reviving Pentecostalism. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
Robbins, J. 2003. “What is a Christian? Notes Toward an Anthropology of Christianity”. Religion 33.3 (Special Issue on the Anthropology of Christianity): 191–9.
—. 2004a. Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
—. 2004b. “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity”. Annual Review of Anthropology 33: 117–43.
—. 2009. “Pentecostal Networks and the Spirit of Globalization: On the Social Productivity of Ritual Forms”. Social Analysis 53.1: 55–66.
Ryle, J. 2011. “Laying Our Sins and Sorrows on the Altar: Ritualizing Catholic Charismatic Reconciliation and Healing in Fiji”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 68–97.
Samarin, W.J. 1972. Tongues of Men and Angels: The Religious Language of Pentecostalism. New York: Macmillan.
van Dijk, R. and P. Pels. 1996. “Contested Authorities and the Politics of Perception: Deconstructing the Study of Religion in Africa”. In R. Werbner and T. Ranger (eds), Postcolonial Identities in Africa. London: Zed Books: 245–70.
Alexander, B.C. 1991. “Correcting Misinterpretations of Turner’s Theory: An African American Pentecostal Illustration”. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30.1: 26–44.
Alland, Jr., A. 1962. “‘Possession’ in a Revivalistic Negro Church”. Society for the Scientific Study of Religion 1.2: 204–13.
Anderson, A. 2010. “Varieties, Taxonomies, and Definitions”. In Anderson et al., 2010: 13–29.
Anderson, A., M. Bergunder, A. Droogers and C. van der Laan (eds). 2010. Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Austin-Broos, D.J. 1997. Jamaica Genesis: Religion and the Politics of Moral Orders. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Bialecki, J. 2009. “The Kingdom and its Subjects: Charisms, Language, Economy, and the Birth of a Progressive Politics in the Vineyard”. PhD dissertation, University of California, San Diego, CA.
—. 2011. “Quiet Deliverances”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 249–76.
Boddy, J. 1994. “Spirit Possession Revisited: Beyond Instrumentality”. Annual Review of Anthropology 23: 407–34.
Bourguignon, E. 1976. Possession. San Francisco, CA: Chandler & Sharp.
Buckley, A.D. and M.C. Kennedy. 1995. Negotiating Identity: Rhetoric, Metaphor, and Social Drama in Northern Ireland. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Burdick, J. 1993. Looking for God in Brazil: The Progressive Catholic Church in Urban Brazil’s Religious Arena. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Cartledge, M.J. (ed.). 2006. Speaking in Tongues: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives. London: Paternoster Press.
Chong, K.H. 2011. “Healing and Redomestication: Reconstitution of the Feminine Self in South Korean Evangelical Cell Group Ritual Practices”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 98–128.
Cohen, E. 2008. “What is Spirit Possession? Defining, Comparing, and Explaining Two Possession Forms”. Ethnos 73.1: 101–26.
— and J.L. Barrett. 2008. “Conceptualizing Spirit Possession: Ethnographic and Experimental Evidence”. Ethos 36.2: 246–67.
Coleman, S. 2000. The Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity: Spreading the Gospel of Prosperity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
—. 2006. “When Silence Isn’t Golden: Charismatic Speech and the Limits of Literalism”. In M. Engelke and M. Tomlinson (eds), Ritual and the Limits of Meaning: Case Studies in the Anthropology of Christianity. Oxford: Berghahn: 39–61.
—. 2011. “Voices: Presence and Prophecy in Charismatic Ritual”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 198–219.
Comaroff, J. 1985. Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture and History of a South African People. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Corten, A. and R. Marshall-Fratani. 2001. “Introduction”. In A. Corten and R. MarshallFratani (eds), Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press: 1–21.
Crapanzano, V. 1977. “Introduction”. In V. Crapanzano and V. Garrison (eds), Case Studies in Spirit Possession. New York: John Wiley and Sons: 1–40.
Csordas, T.J. 1988. “Elements of Charismatic Persuasion and Healing”. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 2.2: 121–42.
—. 1994. The Sacred Self: A Cultural Phenomenology of Charismatic Healing. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
—. 1997a. Language, Charisma, and Creativity: The Ritual Life of a Religious Movement. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
—. 1997b. “Prophecy and the Performance of Metaphor”. American Anthropologist 99.2: 321–32.
—. 2011. “Ritualization of Life”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 129–51.
Di Bella, M.P. 2003. “Conversion and Marginality in Southern Italy”. In A. Buckser and S.D. Glazier (eds), The Anthropology of Religious Conversion. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield: 85–91.
Droogers, A. 2001. “Globalisation and Pentecostal Success”. In A. Corten and R. MarshallFratani (eds), Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press: 41–61.
—. 2010. “Essentialist and Normative Approaches”. In Anderson et al., 2010: 30–50.
Gifford, P. 2011. “The Ritual Use of the Bible in African Pentecostalism”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 179–97.
Goodman, F.D. 1972. Speaking in Tongues: A Cross-Cultural Study in Glossolalia. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Hann, C. 2007. “The Anthropology of Christianity, per se”. Archives Europeennes de Sociologie 48.3: 383–410.
Hollenweger, W.J. 1972. The Pentecostals: The Charismatic Movement in the Churches. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House.
Johnson, T.M. 2009. “The Global Demographics of the Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal”. Society 46.6: 479–83.
Lawless, E.J. 1988. God’s Peculiar People: Women’s Voices and Folk Tradition in a Pentecostal Church. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.
Lindhardt, M. (ed). 2011a. Practicing the Faith: The Ritual Life of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians. New York: Berghahn.
—. 2011b. “When God Interferes: Ritual, Empowerment, and Divine Presence in Chilean Pentecostalism”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 220–48.
Luhrmann, T.M. 2004. “Metakinesis: How God Becomes Intimate in Contemporary US Christianity”. American Anthropologist 106.3: 518–28.
—. 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Alfred A Knopf, Inc.
Maloney, H.N. and A.A. Lovekin. 1977. “Religious Glossolalia: A Longitudinal Study of Personality Change”. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 16: 383–93.
—. 1985. Glossolalia: Behavioral Science Perspectives on Speaking in Tongues. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Meyer, B. 1998. “‘Make a Complete Break with the Past.’ Memory and Post-Colonial Modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostalist Discourse”. Journal of Religion in Africa 28.3: 316–49.
—. 1999. Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity Among the Ewe in Ghana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Miller, D.E. and T. Yamamori. 2007. Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Otero, R.A. 2003. “The Transformation of Identity through Possession Rituals in Popular Religion”. Religion 33.3: 249–62.
Poloma, M. 2003. Main Street Mystics: The Toronto Blessing and Reviving Pentecostalism. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
Robbins, J. 2003. “What is a Christian? Notes Toward an Anthropology of Christianity”. Religion 33.3 (Special Issue on the Anthropology of Christianity): 191–9.
—. 2004a. Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
—. 2004b. “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity”. Annual Review of Anthropology 33: 117–43.
—. 2009. “Pentecostal Networks and the Spirit of Globalization: On the Social Productivity of Ritual Forms”. Social Analysis 53.1: 55–66.
Ryle, J. 2011. “Laying Our Sins and Sorrows on the Altar: Ritualizing Catholic Charismatic Reconciliation and Healing in Fiji”. In Lindhardt, 2011a: 68–97.
Samarin, W.J. 1972. Tongues of Men and Angels: The Religious Language of Pentecostalism. New York: Macmillan.
van Dijk, R. and P. Pels. 1996. “Contested Authorities and the Politics of Perception: Deconstructing the Study of Religion in Africa”. In R. Werbner and T. Ranger (eds), Postcolonial Identities in Africa. London: Zed Books: 245–70.
Published
2013-05-05
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Burrow-Branine, J. (2013). The Variety of Holy Spirit Possession: Considering Cohen’s Executive and Pathogenic Possession for the Pentecostal Context. PentecoStudies, 12(1), 107-124. https://doi.org/10.1558/ptcs.v12i1.107
