“Book review: Jeffrey Snodgrass, Avatar Faculty: Ecstatic Transformations in Religion and Video Games”
Ethos August 27, 2026 DOI: 10.1111/etho.70044 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Ethnography Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Bhats in Rajasthan, India; video game players in Udaipur, India and Colorado, USA |
| Key findings | Argues that religious possession and video game play both exemplify an "avatar principle," a universal human faculty of projecting consciousness into avatars, enabling escape from ordinary reality and access to novel capacities. Proposes that such "ecstatic" experiences can reduce distress and confer social benefits, as illustrated by Bedami's possession leading to her becoming a "healed healer" with increased social standing. |
Abstract
Avatar Faculty: Ecstatic Transformations in Religion and Video Games, by Jeffrey Snodgrass, compiles and compares the author's varied ethnographic research on two forms of ecstatic experience: Religious possession in India (Rajasthan) and video game play in India (Udaipur) and the United States (Colorado).In this ambitious and unexpected juxtaposition, Snodgrass argues that both experiences revolve around a "universal human faculty"-what he calls "the avatar principle" (16).According to Snodgrass, individuals who experience religious possession and play online video games both project their consciousness into "avatars," or "second selves" whereby they have access to alternative realities and novel capacities.In the case of religious possession, individuals become vessels for deities, who bestow supernatural gifts and elevated social status to otherwise ordinary or marginal beings.In the case of video games, players project their consciousness into online characters who become vehicles that traverse vivid and immersive virtual worlds.In both cases, Snodgrass suggests, people utilize avatars to "escape ordinary reality and to accomplish things not possible according to the rules of everyday existence" (19).In exploring both "spiritual and digital avatars," Avatar Faculty aims to describe the psychosocial mechanisms that define this universal avatar principle and evaluate the potential benefits and harms such "magical flight" across religious and virtual arenas bestows.Snodgrass scaffolds this broader aim and contextualizes the rich ethnographic and quantitative research he presents, with discussions on spirit possession, dissociation, absorption, self-concepts, health disparities research, and game studies.Most of the book (Intro-Ch.3)emphasizes the benefits of "ecstatic" avatar experience, suggesting a generalized "avatar therapeutics" (xiii) in both religious possession and video game experience.Drawing from his research among Bhats, low-status semi-nomadic "bards to untouchables" in India from the 1990s, and among gamers in Colorado in the early 2000s, Snodgrass suggests that avatar experience reduces distress for practitioners.For the case of spiritual avatars, he draws extensively from the experience of Bedami, a young Bhat woman in a conflict-ridden marriage, who experiences possession by her husband's clan devi (goddess), Chavanda Mata.Snodgrass analyzes the possession material in dialogue with foundational anthropological literature on religious possession of marginalized women, including work by I.M. Lewis, Gananath Obeyesekere, Janice Boddy, and Rebecca Seligman.In keeping with this literature, Snodgrass suggests that Bedami gradually controls these possessions, such that she becomes a "healed healer" (87), enjoying increased social standing.All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar technologies.