La vía apofática

instance, gives the following citation from 1871: "These cases belong rather to

ob session than p ossession, the spirits n ot actually inhabiting the bodies, but hanging or hovering about them."

m eanings of me are: to be in fa tu a te d w ith love for som ebody o r very keen ab o u t som ething (e.g. music); to be unconscious o r insensible (a m eaning w hich is m ore explicit in th e com pound term me man, 'u n c o n s c io u s'/'in a

com a'). D uring me possession, m edium s are torm ented, o r 'in fa tu ated ', by evil spirits. Regarding th e m eaning o f me as 'unconscious', m ost m edium s d escrib ed me possession as m ark ed by physical activity, so to tra n slate me as 'u nco nsciou s' w ould be m isleading.44 However, me possession is sim ilar to being 'unconscious' in th a t it is ch aracterised by a com plete lack of aw areness. The te rm obsession, then, evokes th e m eaning o f me as in fa tu a te d , while avoiding a n in a p p ro p ria te use of 'unconscious'.

A lthough my use o f th e term obsession in the V ietnam ese co n tex t is re la ted to Rouget's defin itio n of th e term , th ere are two im p o rta n t

differences. Obsession, for V ietnam ese m edium s, never leads to exorcism , an d w hile it usually leads to initiation, obsession is possible, th o u g h extrem ely rare, a fte r in itiatio n .

Me possession m ight be described as a crisis. However, obsession seem s p referab le because th e term crisis has often been ap p lied to m an y d iffe re n t states th a t do n o t involve possession. In the V ietnam ese context, all the exam ples o f th e m edium s' troubles experienced before in itia tio n - su ch as problem s w ith fertility, illness a n d being b ed -rid d en - could be re fe rre d to as crises even if th ey d id n o t involve possession.

Describing th e possession of V ietnam ese m edium s d u ring len dong as 'tra n c e ' directly co ntrad icts the idea o f aware possession d escrib ed by m edium s. N evertheless, re c en t V ietnam ese research has a tte m p te d to fin d a V ietnam ese term fo r trance th a t is applicable to len dong. The term th a t has been used as th e eq u ivalen t to trance is ngay ngat. In the book Hat van it states: "m edium s m u st hypnotise (tu thoi mi§n) them selves to create a state o f tran ce (trang thai ngay ngat)" (Ngo Out: Thinh 1992:43). Literally ngay ngat m eans: 1) to be thrilled, e n ra p tu re d , throw n into ecstasy; 2) intoxicating, heady. However, this term is n o t re le v an t for those involved in sp irit possession: I n ev er h e a rd a m edium use it outside o f such occasions as m y b la ta n t a tte m p t to lu re Van into considering the term . In the interview , Van briefly

acknow ledged m y referen ce to ngay ngat, b u t did n o t use it in h e r d escrip tio n of th e experience of possession.

W hen I discussed ng&y ngat w ith th e scholar Ngo 0110 Thjnh, h e co n firm ed th a t th e term was a scholarly a tte m p t to find an equivalent for th e n o tio n of

4 4 Hoa's 'death' experience, m entioned earlier, was obviously som e kind of

unconscious state. However, such an extreme experience was not com mon and was not characteristic o f the me p ossession described by other mediums.

'tra n c e 1, a n d he suggested th a t those m edium s who did n o t e n te r a state of tran ce w ere n o t 'tru ly ' possessed by spirits, b u t ju st w anted to 'p erfo rm ' (bieu diln) (p.c. June 1998).45 Ngo Otfc Thinh was unco n cern ed th a t his

V ietnam ese term for 'tra n ce ' was n o t u sed by ritu al p articip an ts a n d h e did n o t e n te rta in th e idea th a t his own 'scholarly' view - nam ely, th a t

possession is inconceivable w ith o u t tran ce - m ight be challenged by the eth n o g ra p h ic situ atio n . The aim in the re st of this ch ap ter is to p ro v id e an u n d e rstan d in g o f possession based on m edium s' descriptions o f th e ir e x p e rie n c e s,

EMBODIMENT

The way m edium s d escrib ed th e ir possession suggests in trig u in g relatio n s betw een th e heart, m ind, head, soul an d so on. In E m b o d im en t a n d

experience, Csordas has b ro u g h t to gether some of the re c en t w ork on

em b o d im en t (1994a). This research moves away from viewing th e body as e ith e r a m ere co n du it, an object given a thing-like qu ality w hich is filled w ith social reality o r the ratio n al m in d (Douglas),46 o r as a "creatu re of re p re se n ta tio n ", i.e. th e tendency, since Foucault, to "establish th e

discursive conditions o f possibility for th e body as an object o f dom ination" (1994b: 12). Drawing on M erleau-Ponty an d Heidegger, Csordas o u tlin es the 'e rro rs' of 'biologism ' a n d 'sociologism': in the form er, "the bod y is th e m ute, objective biological su b strate u p o n w hich m eaning is su p erim p o sed ", and, in th e latter, "the body is a blank slate u p o n w hich m eaning is

inscribed, a physical token to be m oved ab o u t in a p re -stru c tu re d

environm ent" (1994c:287). For a phenom enologist like Csordas, biologism an d sociologism objectify a "preobjective bodily synthesis", by w hich he m eans "th a t o u r bodies carry the social a b o u t inseparably w ith us b efo re any objectification" (my em phasis, ibid.).

46 Subsequent to my conversation with Ngo O lT c Thinh, he published an article which argues that len dong m ay be view ed as a "unique theatrical performance" (1999:56). Although perform ance theory provides scope for interpreting ritual (see, for instance, Freeland-Hughes 1998), Ngo Out: Thinh's short paper is devoid o f any theory: it just briefly m entions that m usic and dance "stimulate the participants to feel that th ey are p ossessed by deities" (ibid.:57).

46 See Jackson's critique o f Douglas' writing on the body (Jackson 1989:122-3). Jackson argues that Douglas views the human body as "an object o f understanding or an instrum ent o f the rational mind, a kind o f vehicle for the expression o f a reified social rationality" (ibid.: 1 23).

Csordas' analytical them e of "em bodim ent as the existential g ro u n d o f cu ltu re a n d s e lf1 a tte m p ts to open u p a space for a phenom enological analysis of em bodim ent, w h at he som etim es calls a "cultural

p henom enology o f em bodied experience" (ibid.:288). This ap p ro a ch en d eav o u rs to overcom e th e 'objectifications' of 'biology' a n d 'c u ltu re ' in fav o u r of a phenom enological d escrip tio n o f bodily engagem ent w ith th e world. The prom ise of Csordas' parad ig m of em bodim ent is to show how "culture is g ro u n d ed in the h u m a n body" (1994b:6).

In w h at follows I will discuss possession in term s o f the body a n d

em bodim ent, w here, following Csordas, the body is defined as a "biological, m aterial entity" a n d em b o d im en t as "an in d eterm in ate m ethodological field d efin ed by p e rc ep tu a l experience a n d m ode of presence a n d en g ag em en t in th e world" (ibid.: 12). In short, I will a tte m p t to give an acco u n t of how m edium s conceive o f th e ir bodiliness.47

M edium s m en tio n ed a n u m b e r of bodily changes d u rin g aw are possession. These included: 'heavy shoulders a n d h ead ' (Thanh a n d Xuan); 'lightness' (Binh); 'h o tn ess' a n d 'dream iness' (Lai). While these som atic changes are p a rt o f the experience of possession for some m edium s, th ey w ere n o t bodily resp o n ses th a t established the conditions o f possibility for possession. To exam ine possession from a phenom enological perspective, req u ires d etailed analysis o f how possession is gro u n d ed in th e body, ra th e r th a n m erely describing bodily changes. In th e following discu ssio n I will therefo re focus on how m edium s described the body as a nexus betw een the h u m a n a n d sp irit w orlds.

D uring aw are possession the spirits 'en te r' the m edium 's body (th a n /x ac than).48 Thanh an d Xuan a d d ed th a t the spirits en tered th eir h ead s as well as th e ir bodies, w hereas Bmh said the spirits e n tered h e r h eart. The precise details a b o u t how the spirits e n te r m edium s' bodies, then, seem to be p erceiv ed d ifferen tly by d ifferen t m edium s.

In th e interview extracts above, I have tra n slated th e th re e V ietnam ese words, dau, oc a n d dau oc as head, b rain a n d m ind respectively. The

differences betw een th em sh o u ld not, however, be overem p h asised as m edium s u sed th em flexibly. Van com m ented th a t during possession she h ad 'two roles' in h e r head , th a t h e r b ra in was limitless a n d th a t h e r m in d 'flew

47 'Bodiliness' - as w ell as other terms such as the 'lived body1 and the German word

le ib - have been proposed by m edical anthropologists as alternatives to 'embodiment'.

48 The term xac is used to refer to the dead body/corpse. However, in this context, the