Spirit concepts and possession are not uniformly distributed across cultures; women participate in possession cults at higher rates than men. This chapter examines how environmental and social factors may amplify or suppress the cognitive mechanisms that give rise to such beliefs, building on earlier chapters that described those mechanisms. The analysis suggests that variable distribution of spirit concepts can be explained by interactions between innate cognitive processes and external conditions.
Chapters 4 and 5 present a scientific approach to studying possession cults and spirit phenomena, reviewing past and present methods. Chapter 4 examines ethnographic description and anthropological interpretation, emphasizing the importance of rich description and faithful representation of cultural meaning for developing scientific theories.
This book explores possession through a detailed account of a healing ceremony and the daily life of an Afro-Brazilian cult house (terreiro) in Belém, northern Brazil. It introduces key questions about why possession occurs and how it is understood, briefly reviews dominant academic theories, and outlines the author's own explanatory framework. The text provides a chapter-by-chapter summary of the book's contents.