This essay examines a ritual called a 'disobsession' by Brazilian Kardecist-Spiritists, discussing how it might affect the biophysiology of the patient and provide more than symbolic assistance. In the ritual, mediums enter into trance, communicate with and/or receive spirits, and engage in exchanges with them, while the patient being treated merely observes. Since the sufferer is not knowledgeable about the Kardecist belief system, an analysis that assumes shared values, contexts, and systems of semiosis between healer and patient does not apply. I argue instead that the participants are in a trance-like, hypnotic state during which they respond as do patients treated elsewhere with hypnotically facilitated psychology or hypnotherapy. While not necessarily aware of it, during the ritual they internalize beliefs about the powers of spirits that may be transduced to produce proteins that activate the immune and other bodily systems, thereby contributing to their cure.
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Treating the Sick with a Morality Play
The Kardecist-Spiritist Disobsession in Brazil
Sidney M. Greenfield
In Social Analysis
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2004
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 174–194 (21 total)
Recursivity and the Self-Reflexive Cosmos
Tricksters in Cuban and Brazilian Spirit Mediumship Practices
Diana Espírito Santo
evocations during collective rites called ‘spiritual masses’ ( misas espirituales ), in which the dead are summoned in prayer and song to ‘come down’ ( bajan ). While Espiritismo honors its nineteenth-century Kardecist roots through concepts of spiritual
Adjudicating Religious Intolerance
Afro-Brazilian Religions, Public Space, and the National Collective in Twenty-First-Century Brazil
Elina I. Hartikainen
proliferation in Brazil as the Catholic Church's direct confrontations with the military regime led the regime to turn to Evangelical Christians, Freemasons, Kardecists, and Umbandistas as potential political collaborators ( Brown 1986 ; Mariano 2002 ). The
In Religion and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 92–110 (19 total)