Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena by Reed Carlson (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena by Reed Carlson Sara Ronis reed carlson, Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena (Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages 9; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2022). Pp. 201. $93.99. Does the Hebrew Bible discuss spirit possession and exorcism? Is there an Israelite pneumatology or pneumatologies? Can the spirit language of the Hebrew Bible offer insight into how ancient Israelites thought about what it meant to be a human in relationship to the self and God? In Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena, Reed Carlson answers all these questions with an unequivocal yes. Carlson comes to this answer using methodologies from religious studies, cultural anthropology, and ethnography. Four methodological strategies inform his answer: (1) a strategy of resistance to anti-Jewish readings of spirit phenomena in the Hebrew Bible; (2) an eye toward religious experience as experienced by individuals in particular communal contexts; (3) an orientation toward notions of the self and subjectivity; and (4) spirit phenomena "as a system of communication complete with genre conventions, idioms, and endless opportunities for creativity" (p. 22). Carlson uses these strategies to make the case that spirit phenomena play an important role in the Hebrew Bible. C. opens each chapter with an instructive case study from "contemporary possession-practicing communities around the world and, in particular, from the global south and its diasporas" (p. 6). He uses case studies both to "defamiliarize" intended readers (who apparently are not from the global south and its diasporas themselves) from their own cultural expectations around spirit phenomena, and to illustrate how spirit phenomena work within a wide range of religious communities today. Chapter 1, "The Ghost of a Self," opens with the 1981 murder of Alan Bono in Brookfield, Connecticut, the "Devil Made Me Do It" case, which C. uses to identify many of the elements of what he calls "popular Western demonology" (p. 3). These elements serve as a counterpoint to C.'s descriptions and definitions of the spirit phenomena of the Hebrew Bible. In chap. 2, "Raising the Specter," C. puts the Hebrew Bible's descriptions of Saul's spirit experiences in 1 Samuel in conversation with Cuban Espiritismo Cruzado (Crossed Spiritism). C. suggests that Espiritismo Cruzado offers a model of spirit possession as partial and, intentionally, cultivated. He argues that Saul "is presented as a man with porous spiritual boundaries" (p. 34), a porosity that explains his spirit sickness and prophetic actions. He concludes the chapter with a sustained and effective reading of the story of Saul's visit to the woman at Endor, arguing that this woman is "a professional spirit medium" (p. 30) who ritually hosts the deceased Samuel within her. Chapter 3, "Getting into the Spirit," turns to American Gullah/Geechee women's experiences of talking to the dead as a way of demonstrating that "consultation and interaction with spirits occur in a myriad of modes" (p. 61). C. uses this example to introduce his discussion of the myriad ways that spirits show up in the Hebrew Bible: spirit language, [End Page 542] descriptions of spirit possession, and myths about spirits. He ends the chapter by discussing the Sakalava festival of the "Great Service" in connection with the prophecies of Micaiah son of Imlah and the myth of the fallen angels, arguing that a coherent mythic system is not in fact a "a necessary precursor to participation in possession and other spirit practices" (p. 89). Carlson opens chap. 4, "When a Spirit Moves," with an account of the exorcism of Robert Briggs in 1573. He argues that this account offers a model of spirit possession different from those of Espiritismo and Gullah/Geechee women—one of spirit possession as unwelcome, resisted, disruptive, and ultimately exorcised. C.'s discussion of these contrasts leads into his discussion of a different contrast in the pneumatology of the Hebrew Bible: that between what he calls "abiding spirits" and "migrating spirits" (p. 94), noting the range of ways that spirits are experienced in the biblical text. Finally, in chap. 5, "In Good Spirits," C. turns to Umbanda public possession ceremonies to...