The Self-Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilisation. By Frederick M. Smith.

Abstract

Frederick Smith's The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature provides a number of groundbreaking insights with respect to conceptualisations of and methodological approaches to the phenomenon of possession (āveśa, praveśa, and samāveśa) in the Indian traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and more broadly in South Asian religion. Smith's analysis of the issues of gender, embodiment, economics, and class in relation to possession demonstrates the complex sociodynamics of adorcism (encouragement of positive possession states) and exorcism (removal of negative possession states), as have been postulated in the larger comparative context. Smith's work also elicits a number of insights into the dynamic spectrum within the traditions of yoga and tantra between world negation and world surmounting that are characteristic of the Indian traditions of bodily and contemplative practice. It provides greater contextuality to the phenomenon of possession on a broad comparative scale and...