Publication
Encounters with the invisible : revisiting spirit possession in the Himalayas
Présentation
Marie Lecomte-Tilouine
This volume considers spirit possession in the Himalayas and the various ways in which invisible powers are made present. It does so by examining material representations of these powers through artefacts, animals, plants and natural substances, while also focusing on narratives of people’s encounters with the invisible that may help them to reconfigure reality. Through these two approaches, the contributions examine new phenomena associated with the concepts of "possession" and "shamanism", which otherwise tend to lead research into well-worn furrows. The book addresses a range of themes, including the gods of the Western Himalayas, death and ritual dissolution among Hyolmo Buddhists in Nepal, gods and rivers as legal persons in India, and the problem of conversion disorder in Nepal.
Rich in ethnography, this book will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of anthropology, religion, spiritualism, sociology of religion, Himalayan studies, sociology and South Asia.
Sommaire
Encounters with the Invisible: an introduction
Marie Lecomte-Tilouine and Anne de Sales
Part I – The pluridimensional self
Chapter 1: The Art of Surrender
John Leavitt
Chapter 2: The Gods of the Western Himalaya as Agents and as Intentional Beings
William Sax
Chapter 3: Reluctant Shamans: On the Limits of Human Agency and the Power of Partible Souls among the Kham Magars of Nepal
Ina Zharkevich
Chapter 4: Spirit dispossession in the Nepal Himalayas: Death and ritual dissolution among Hyolmo Buddhists
Robert Desjarlais
Part II – Techniques of encounter with the Invisible
Chapter 5: Beseeching, Summoning, Luring: The Orchestration of Rituals
Michael Oppitz
Chapter 6: Shamans, Ethnographers, Mimesis: The visible invisible among the Dumi Rai of Eastern Nepal
Marion Wettstein
Chapter 7: “In the Middle of Time”: Performative and Musical Aspects of a Spirit Possession Ritual in Uttarakhand-Himalayas
Franck Bernède
Chapter 8: Dialogues with Rice. Materiality of Oracular Encounters in the Himalayan Region of Garhwal
Serena Bindi
Chapter 9: Shaman’s Adventures in Spiritland: Ways of knowing the Unknown among he Kulung Rai of Eastern Nepal
Grégoire Schlemmer
Chapter 10: The Mediums’ Dance and Iconographic Silences. Medieval representations of oracular practices in the Karnali River Basin (West Nepal)
David Andolfatto
Part III – When the invisible face new normativities
Chapter 11: Gods and Rivers as Legal Persons in India
Daniela Berti
Chapter 12: The Threatening Invisibility of the Christian God and its Consequences among the Chepang (Nepal)
Diana Riboli
Chapter 13: Beneath the Symptoms: The Problem of Conversion Disorder in Nepal
Aidan Seale-Feldman
References
Index