Spirit Possession in French, Haitian, and Vodou Thought: An Intellectual History, written by Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken

an investigation of accuracy and complexity across different proficiency levels in written narrative task

abstract this quasi-experimental study was aimed at examining the impact of storyline complexity on the grammatical accuracy and complexity of advanced and intermediate efl learners. a total of 65 advanced and intermediate efl learners were selected from iran language institute (ili). an intact group including 35 intermediate participants and another intact group with 30 advanced participants ...

Conceptualizing Spirit Possession: Ethnographic and Experimental Evidence

We report the findings of a programmatic series of studies designed to investigate the cognitive underpinnings of cross-culturally recurrent forms of possession belief. Possession phenomena are frequently portrayed in the anthropological literature as incompatible with common cultural assumptions and biases guiding Western notions of ‘‘self’’ and ‘‘personhood’’ and as resisting generalization a...

Dreaming Dreaming in Haitian Vodou: Vouchsafe, Guide, and Source of Liturgical Novelty

Dissociative trance and spirit possession: Challenges for cultures in transition.

The cross-cultural validity of dissociative possession and trance disorders is a matter of some debate, limiting research and meaningful interpretation of prevalence data. Intimate to these concerns is the status of spirit possession categories studied in the social sciences, particularly anthropology. These two categories are phenomenologically related and display similar epidemiological assoc...

What is Spirit Possession ? Defi ning , Comparing , and Explaining Two Possession Forms

Reviewing anthropological analyses of possession forms cross-culturally and drawing from recent advances in cognitive psychology, this paper attempts to explain recurrent features of spirit possession. Spirit possession concepts fall into broadly two varieties: one that entails the transformation or replacement of identity (executive possession) and one that envisages possessing spirits as (the...