WHERE (FRAGMENTED) SELVES MEET CULTURES Theorising spirit possession

Cognitive theories of religious experience, while helpful in explaining some aspects of spirit possession, do not provide a means of accounting for the experience of mediums whose ordinary selves are ‘absent’ during possession rituals. Using the late nineteenthcentury medium, Mrs Piper, as a case study, I argue that hypnosis provides a means of inducing involuntary experiences similar to those experienced by possessed persons, and that models of how hypnosis works in both hypnotic ‘virtuosos’ and ordinary subjects can be utilised in thinking theoretically about involuntary experiences in religious contexts. In conclusion, I suggest that phenomena of interest to scholars of religion might be subsumed under the heading ‘auto-suggestive phenomena’ and contrasted with the ‘hetero-suggestive phenomena’ associated with hypnosis proper and the ‘autosuggestive disorders’ associated with hysteria in the nineteenth century, and conversion and dissociative disorders in the twentieth century.