Arnaud Halloy

Learning Spirit Possession: An Introduction

Our introduction builds on existing approaches in possession studies to explore a less-developed path focused on processes of ‘learning possession’. We propose here an ontogenetic and pragmatic approach to spirit possession based on a historically and cognitively informed ethnography. Our main aim is to suggest an analytical framework able to take into account the interrelationality of cultural contexts and patterns of thinking, feeling and interacting involved in learning possession. Our epistemological framework is based on the notion of cultural expertise, defined as the culturally relevant matching of emotion, perception and reasoning in an assemblage pertaining to the process of learning a particular skill, as well as the creative and open-ended process in which experts learn to ‘play’ with shared social, aesthetic, moral and performative values.

Pierre Smith’s mind traps: The origin and ramifications of a theory of ritual efficacy

The Belgian anthropologist Pierre Smith was a perceptive ethnographer and a forward-thinking theorist whose insights provided the fertile ground out of which grew influential anthropological approaches to ritual, ritual efficacy, and art some 30 years later. In this article, I trace the genealogy of the ‘mind trap’, a key concept in Smith’s theoretical writing and a true analytical gem in itself. The appeal of Pierre Smith’s theory lies with how ritual action (or art) might produce such entrapment of the mind, and why this might be a key process in ritual (and art) efficacy, i.e. ‘operations’ liable to trigger a transformation. I then go on to review the many reverberations and ramifications of his concept as reflected in two recent theoretical approaches to ritual and ritual efficacy, as well as the possible connections between Smith’s ‘mind trap’ and certain aspects of Alfred Gell’s anthropological theory of art. Pierre Smith points ethnographers and ritual theorists in the right direction to answer questions about the transformational nature of many rituals (and art works) around the world. While mind traps cannot fully explain ritual efficacy, they can serve as a starting point for a strong and ethnographically-grounded theory of ritual efficacy.