Notes on “Possessing Spirits and Healing Selves. Embodiment and Transformation in an Afro-Brazilian Religion”

a book by by Rebecca Selligman

This book describes an ethnographic study of the psychophysiology of Candomblé mediumship. Combining ethnography and psychophysiology proved to be hard, and the author describes several obstacles, including the difficulty of maintaining a balance between recruiting a large enough sample for the study to be valid and building a trusting rapport with the participants.

 The central premise of the book is that the process of self-transformation in Candomblé spirit possession mediumship is a process with the potential to heal both mind and body. This idea is based on the finding that all mediums that the author interviewed for the study had come to become mediums at the time of suffering, and initiation transformed them in both physical and mental dimensions. In order to bring healing, the transformation has to include integrated changes in both the representational and physical dimensions (embodiment). 

Selligmans dedicates a considerable part of her work to the exploration and explanation of embodiment and the processes that it causes on different levels of self and argues that Candomblé practice results in a form of embodied learning. Her research is aimed at finding some physiological “evidence” of it through the study of the results of cardiac autonomic regulation (CAR) and electrocardiogram data, which together demonstrate a pattern of autonomic nervous system functioning with vital implications for health. The outcomes show that mediums have higher CAR  which usually means that they are more capable of adjusting their autonomic cardiac response and appropriately matching psychophysiological arousal to circumstances. 

These results are not enough to draw fundamental conclusion only because there is no proven cause and effect in the study, in sense that there is no way to know whether CAM of the medium had been higher prior to initiation or had it become so after. But, as the author discusses the ways all possible scenarios are meaningful, her findings fit the psychophysiological work on spirituality suggesting that religious experts in general may exhibit enhanced autonomic cardiac regulation.

Through the explanation of the complex relationship between the self and the body in the sociocultural settings the author comes to the concept of biolooping. She proposes that the model of biolooping can capture the “bidirectional influence between mind and body” and explore how it intersects with the loops of influence connected to the sociocultural context. The ways in which individuals engage with, utilize, internalize, embody, contest, and transform the symbolic and material substance of their social and cultural worlds becomes clear through the prism of this model. It is pointed out through the book that various cultural forms, such as Candomblé capitalize on biolooping processes to contribute to changes on multiple levels of subjective experience at once, which brings on unique therapeutic self-transformations. 

Being fascinated with psychosomatics (my constant reference point), I could not help but notice the phrase: “the well-being of the body is viewed as an obvious material indicator of spiritual well-being”. (141) It immediately brought to my mind a Russian saying: “In a healthy body there is a healthy spirit”. Both phrases represent the idea that it is possible to be healthy only if the spiritual part is in order. 

The analysis of religious embodiment and its effects on the person have also indicated the constant interaction between mind, spirit, and body. A fascinating example is given in the description of what happens internally with a person who undergoes divination where the orixá(s) who “own his head” are revealed. The process of identification with orixá(s) allows individuals to reshape their core sense of selfhood, to reorient towards new or different characteristics, and even at times to separate themselves entirely from their behavior and bodily characteristics. 

The author herself noted how she had immediately changed her posture after she has been told about her ruling deities. This process can be therapeutic in itself once the person attributes the control of his behavior to the orixá. He forgives himself for whatever he had been holding himself responsible for, which releases tension and stress, which in turn has been proved to lead to various physical and mental problems. 

One mechanism of movement from suffering to the well-being for many mediums is also immersion into the system of meaning that provides new understanding of their experiences. They start to view their history of suffering and its effects on self in terms of the influence of their orixás. Through Candomblé they can explain failures, losses, stress, and pain in terms that locate causes outside of the self. This type of understanding similarly contributes to their perceptions of themselves in therapeutic ways. As the author points out, one of the most important aspects of biolooping model is that the same bodily qualities that made part of the negative loop prior to initiation, made part of the positive loop through the religious involvement. 

The concept of biolooping can help us to understand how changes in self-understanding can transform how the body is experienced and the way it functions – influencing physiological state and phenomenology together. Sometimes adopting a new social identity may cause a shift in self-understanding with bodily consequences and behavioral transformations, such as starting to dress in a different way and adopt new physical mannerism. 

One of the great  parallels drawn by the author (found by Seligman’s student)  is between “coming out” as a gay and mediumship. Both processes involve reinterpretation of past experiences and assuming a new self. This is just one of the many examples that illustrate the way the loops of interaction between the mind and the body, and between the individual and the sociocultural context intersect. The depth of the biolooping model makes it applicable to different aspects of social science.