Intimacy and Alterity: Prophetic Selves and Spirit Others in Central Mozambique
Tracy Luedke
Journal of Religion in Africa 2011 DOI: 10.1163/157006611x569238 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 6 |
| Key points | Argues that in Mozambican prophet healing, spirit possession is characterized by a dialectic of intimacy and alterity, where spirits are both kin and strangers to their hosts. The spirits' power emerges from their unknowability and contrariness, and this tension provides a unique perspective on human suffering. |
Abstract
Abstract In the context of Mozambican prophet healing, spirit-host relationships unfold between intimacy and alterity. The interweaving of spirits’ and hosts’ biographies in possession is enacted bodily in the form of pains, postures, and punishments, and often pits their wills and well-beings against one another. Spirit possession is an intimate exchange, a bodily and social confluence that invokes the most familiar of interpersonal relationships (spouses, parents and their children). On the other hand, the natures, motives, and agendas of the spirits often remain opaque. As prophets struggle to make sense and make use of the spirits who possess them, the power of the spirits reveals itself in their unknowability and contrariness, the elusiveness and partiality of their profiles. These intimate others both threaten and succor their hosts, to whom they are both kin and strangers, and it is through this dialectic that their special vantage on human suffering comes into view.