Exorcism, Anthropology

The topic of study of this work is the investigation of exorcism in its etymology, biblical
view, throughout the history of the church, in its most diferente aspects and
characteristics, as well as its perception in the presente. The question to be answeered is
what factors led exorcism to cease of being a chuch practice. It is known that the practice
of exorcism was common in biblical times, in the early church and in the middle ages,
what happened from the enlightenment onwards? Also investigated is the need to
maintain the practice of exorcism today as part of pastoral care and not simply be
dismissed as antiquity. The methodology used in this article is the qualitative one. The
technical investigation procedure used was bibliographic research. The reserach aims at
a general introduction to the subject of exorcism, addressing the theme from various
angles, etymological, biblical, historical and bringing its general characteristics to the
present.

Lo kitsch es asociado a la cultura de masas y del consumo masivo. Los medios de comunicación aprovechan esta cualidad para poder llegar a un mayor número de personas. El kitsch es un medio más simpático y referente para el público, sin embargo su mayor propósito es vender o darle más valor a la imagen que se promociona. ¿Qué habrá hecho que la protagonista de la película de El Exorcista  Regan se vuelva un ídolo en la cultura popular de Occidente?

Violence occupies a paradoxical place in Tibetan tantric Buddhism. Although the ethical imperative of not harming beings is absolutely central, there is also a darker face to tantric ritual activity, a face of power and violence: the repelling and destruction of harmful agents. An entire ritual machinery is deployed to ward off or kill hostile demons, or sometimes "enemies" of indeterminate nature — agressive magic is not absent. Wrathful protective deities are summoned to kill, to beat, to reduce to pieces... How can we understand that this violent modality can occupy quite an important place in certain Buddhist contexts?

The question is all the more intriguing that there exists a type of Tibetan religious specialist that (beyond a substantial overlap with the monk in terms of religious profile and activity) is quite strongly associated with this ethically problematic side of ritual activity: the ngakpa (sngags-pa), or tantrist. As opposed to the monk, this specialist of tantric rituals does not take monastic vows, and lives as a householder. Tantrists typically constitute patrilineal family lineages, with descent, not renunciation, as a key structuring feature of their socioreligious universe. How are we to understand that a Buddhist religious specialist is associated with a specialization in violent rituals? In order to answer this question, this book takes us to a village community of tantrists situated in the Himalayan borderlands of the Tibetan cultural area, in a high valley of northern Nepal. The anthropological examination of these specialists and their society, of their rituals and their moral dilemmas, and of the contrasts between tantrists and their monastic counterparts, enables to identify elements of larger (social, religious, moral) coherence underlying the association of tantrists with rituals of violence. This substantial contribution to the anthropology of Tibetan Buddhism brings new insights to our thinking on ritual violence and exorcism. Through the analysis of the duality of the monk and the tantrist, and of the associated polarity of moral purity vs. ritual power, it also contributes to the anthropology of complex religious fields marked by the coexistence of different forms of religious specialization. Finally, it also engages in a sustained reflection on a properly anthropological approach to the textual component (such as the ritual manuals) of this local religious sphere.

Note:
- The attached PDF contains the front matter, Introduction, Index and Table of Contents.
- The book's illustrations are in black and white, but the color plates can be downloaded here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/320225/Sihle_Rituels_Color-Plates.pdf
- The publisher's webpage for book orders is here: http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503544700-1

In this article, (part of a theme issue of Ethos) I engage the existential and ontological ambiguity of “hauntology” by considering the three figures of specter, phantom, and demon. The literary ghost, the psychoanalytic ancestor introject, and the theological evil spirit evoke distinct but interrelated modes of being and nonbeing, presence and
absence, subjectivity and intersubjectivity. What they have in common is the element of secrecy, where the
secret may in various instances be shameful, not yet speakable, or deceitful. My ethnographic focus is on the
demon in contemporary Roman Catholic exorcism as a figure of lies, deceit, and destruction within a ritually
constructed assumptive world, and I examine this figure by describing the hauntological structure of the lifeworld
of a demonically afflicted woman. The analysis shows that the notion of hauntology can help understand the
contemporary phenomenon of Catholic exorcism, but also reciprocally that the examining of the practice of
exorcism can help elaborate a theory of hauntology. [hauntology, possession, exorcism, healing, Catholicism]

Coordenades d’aquest treball

De sempre la fe catòlica, com en la majoria de religions, prestà una atenció especial al desemparament de la població, especialment al món rural, davant les inclemències del temps, les plagues, la salut, les guerres i la fam duent
a terme exorcismes, oracions i altres pràctiques en ocasions programades i, molt especialment, quan la malvestat
amenaçava el benestar i la supervivència de les comunitats. Però no fou fins tancat el Concili de Trento —1545-
1563— que aquesta pràctica no va prendre rang litúrgic i se li van assignar espais concrets, ben definits i ritualitzats.
Durant més de sis segles, fins a mitjan segle XX, aquests ritus (que inicialment es practicaven a l’aire lliure) es van anar establint i consolidant en espais coberts, especialment els de conjurar el mal temps quan aquest
amenaçava. I, per això, sempre amb el màxim de visió als quatre punts cardinals o, si més no, una ampla vista en
la direcció que solien venir les tempestes. Els bisbes post-tridentins insistien que els ritus es duguessin a terme
tan a prop de les campanes com fos possible. En general es van aprofitar o aixecar espais dedicats en la mateixa
planta de les campanes o en les de sobre o sota als campanars, o sobre les façanes, teulades i segones torres, o aprofitant aixecaments de murs i terrabastalls, però en alguns casos, especialment com més al nord anem de Catalunya, Aragó i Navarra, es va anar a buscar l’aixopluc en unes petites construccions separades o adossades al costat
del temple per protegir de la tempesta l’oficiant i els assistents. En tots els casos, a partir del Concili, amb el nom
de comunidors, conjuradors, exconchuradors o qualsevol dels seus nombrosos sinònims (es coneixen amb molts
altres noms, segons època, idiomes i àrees geogràfiques).
El temps i el desús irremeiable d’aquestes pràctiques han fet que moltes de les construccions s’anessin
abandonant o destinant a altres usos. Hi ha hagut darrerament un bon afany de recuperació i algunes reconstruccions notables, però són molts els comunidors que han quedat oblidats i només en resten runes quan no han desaparegut del tot.
En aquest treball de recopilació, inicial i incomplet, pretenc recuperar la memòria de tants comunidors com
pugui, vius o morts. No seran pas tots, en soc ben conscient. I potser n’hi haurà algun que mai no ha servit per
comunir. Al llarg de molts anys he anat seguint pistes fent tasca de col·leccionista i tinc un recull considerable de
referències. De molts en tinc informació i fotografies abundants, d’altres només indicis. Ara els poso tots en el
catàleg amb la informació més rellevant. Més endavant, mentre tingui salut, aniré incorporant i afegint tanta
informació, documentació, fotografies, vincles i referències com en pugui disposar.
No cal dir que estic plenament obert a estudiar i afegir o corregir qualsevol comunicació que se’m faci arribar i, d’aquesta manera, aconseguir confegir un catàleg complet i exhaustiu de la vida i miracles dels comunidors,
els germans petits (o pobres, com diuen alguns) dels campanars.


Coordinates of this work

The Catholic faith, like most religions, has always paid special attention to the helplessness of the population,
especially in the rural world, in the face of inclement weather, plagues, health, wars and famine by carrying out
exorcisms, prayers and other practices on scheduled occasions and, most especially, when disaster threatened the
well-being and survival of communities. But it was not until the closing of the Council of Trent —1545-1563—
that this practice did not take on liturgical rank and concrete, well-defined and ritualized spaces were assigned to
it. For more than six centuries, until the middle of the twentieth century, these rites (which were initially practiced outdoors) were established and consolidated in covered spaces, especially those to ward off bad weather when
it threatened. And, therefore, always with the maximum vision at the four cardinal points or, at least, a wide
view in the direction that the storms used to come. The post-tridentine bishops insisted that the rites be carried
out as close to the bells as possible. Dedicated spaces were generally used or erected on the same floor of the bells
or on those above or below on the bell towers, or on the facades, roofs and second towers, or taking advantage of
lifting walls and attics, but in some cases, especially the further north we go from Catalonia, Aragon and Navarre, they went to seek shelter in small separate or terraced buildings next to the temple to protect from the
storm the officiant and attendees. In all cases, from the finish of the Council, with the name of ‘comunidors’, ‘conjuradors’, ‘exconchuradors’ or any of his numerous synonyms (they are known with many other names, according to time, languages and geographic areas).
The time and irremediable disuse of these practices have caused many of the constructions to be abandoned
or allocated to other uses. Lately there has been a good desire for recovery and some remarkable reconstructions,
but many ‘comunidors’ have been forgotten and only debris remains or they have completely disappeared.
In this compilation work, initial and incomplete, I intend to recover the memory of as many ‘comunidors’
as I can, alive or dead. Not all of them, I am well aware. And maybe there are some that have never been used to
conjure (‘comunir’). Over many years I have been following tracks doing collector work and I have a considerable
collection of references. Of many I have abundant information and photographs, others just hints. Now I put
them all in the catalog with the most relevant information. Later, as long as I am healthy, I will incorporate and
add as much information, documentation, photographs, links and references as I can have.
Needless to say, I am fully open to studying and adding or correcting any communication that is sent to
me and, in this way, to make a complete and exhaustive catalogue of the life and miracles of the ‘comunidors’, the
younger (or poor, as some say) brothers of the bell towers.

After a detailed historico-critical analysis of the different sayings contained in the Beelzebul Controversy, the accusation of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul, and Jesus' reactions to it, are studied using some models developed by social-scientific studies of deviant behavior. This kind of approach helps to discover more clearly the meaning attached by Jesus' accusers to that negative label. At the same time, the strategy followed by Jesus in his different answers reveals the political consequences of the exorcisms of Jesus.

Il libro contiene un’approfondita analisi della pratica dell’esorcismo e del trattamento della possessione diabolica nell’antichità cristiana. Vengono riprodotte, criticamente esaminate, tradotte e commentate tutte le occorrenze scritte esistenti – più di duecento, in sette lingue – in cui compare qualche menzione o anche solo qualche allusione al tema. La provenienza dei testi è varia: autori cristiani, autori pagani che descrivono gli usi dei cristiani, scritti giudeocristiani, gnostici, apocrifi, ordinamenti ecclesiastici, etc. L’arco cronologico preso in considerazione va dall’inizio del II secolo (Elcasaiti) alla metà del III (Cornelio di Roma). La parte analitica è preceduta da un’antologia dei testi antecedenti giudaici (Antico Testamento, Qumran e Giuseppe Flavio) e protocristiani (Nuovo Testamento), e delle testimonianze pagane coeve (Luciano di Samosata e Filostrato). Una lunga introduzione indaga in generale sui presupposti teologici dell’esorcismo, sui modelli biblici, sulle sue implicazioni apologetiche e propagandistiche, sulla sua funzione nell’ambito del conflitto interreligioso, sulla terminologia adoperata, sui formulari e le pratiche attestate, sulle caratteristiche, prerogative e qualità morali dell’esorcista, sul progressivo stabilirsi dell’esorcistato come ordine sacro e sull’istituzione del rito dell’esorcismo dei catecumeni. La bibliografia scientifica utilizzata supera i 1000 titoli. Al termine del libro è a disposizione un riassunto in lingua inglese.

This thesis is an interrogation into the epistemological structures which underpin modernity, the project and claim which has come to significantly shape the contemporary world. Following a line of inquiry which analyses the intersections between knowledge, power, and history, this paper examines how signifiers such as religion and culture have come to designate 'otherness‘ in the context of modernity. The assignment of such terms to beliefs, values, worldviews, and ideologies that are not readily assimilated by the epistemological framework of modernity is problematised as a central obstacle to mediating social and political difficulties in modern contexts.

The argument is that the issue of 'what counts for knowledge‘ has been progressively 'closed‘ through particular historical processes in which the shift a societal model based upon Judeo-Christian tenets (broadly defined), to secular modernity, has been rendered invisible. The other has, through these processes, become twice-removed from epistemological validity: in the first instance, as the pagan other in early Christian contexts; in the second instance, as the religious or cultural other within a secular that is falsely claimed to have been liberated from its theological roots. These epistemological marginalisations impact significantly on social life, especially in the areas of social justice, power flows, education, and medicine. The invisibility of the shift from Christianity to secular modernity is also perpetuated by the separation of social life and knowledge production into distinct 'spheres‘, as mirrored by the arrangement of disciplinary spheres established within the modern universities. The conclusion is that a transdisciplinary space is therefore required to engage philosophically and critically with the now internalised Christian bias hidden within what we might call modernity.

À la suite d’un mémoire de DEA consacré à la perception et aux cinq sens dans la littérature suméro-akkadienne, il s’agissait d’étudier du point de vue du lexique et des images littéraires, les rapports entre le bruit et les émotions en Mésopotamie ancienne. L’étude du bruit s’intègre dans une anthropologie du paysage sonore qui témoigne d’une réflexion de l’homme sur son propre environnement et la manière dont il se l’est approprié par la voix. L’étude du vocabulaire révèle les différents mécanismes de la langue akkadienne pour décrire les phénomènes sonores (réduplication, redoublement, onomatopées…). Les traités de divination décrivent toute une mosaïque sonore du quotidien en suggérant la charge affective des sons. L’imaginaire sonore de la douleur est construit autour de l’amertume des larmes, mais aussi du mugissement, du braiement, ou du grondement. Le cri de fureur, quant à lui, est un mal dont il faut se prémunir. Le monstrueux et le sauvage, associés à l’inarticulé qui les caractérise, en sont une source inépuisable d’images. Le bruit et les modulations de la voix de l’officiant se font aussi arme efficace dans le cadre de certains rituels. Les perspectives de recherches à l’issue de ce doctorat sont nombreuses (poésie, expériences sensorielles, silence…) et laissent entrevoir l’immense travail qui reste à accomplir pour approfondir notre connaissance de la culture et des hommes du Proche-Orient ancien.

Spirit possession has witnessed a renewed scholarly interest, driven by new approaches. Research in cognitive science focused on the cross-cultural features of these phenomena, while anthropological studies
provided accounts of experiences with spirits as emerging through interactions between the lived body moving in the world and the environment. Yet, a focus on how spirits gradually emerge through bodily perceptions, affects and interactions, is missing. In this article I focus on experiences during a Roman Catholic exorcism in contemporary Italy. I argue that: 1) Possession is not a self-standing phenomenon, but a "meshwork"(lngold 2011) of lines of movements and attunements of humans and non-humans, which include specific affects, emerging through practice. 2) Spirits-in this case the devil-and their reality emerge "in-between," among actors, as captures of a complex series of correspondences. 3) In this process, "somatic modes of attention"
(Csordas 1993), bodily perceptions and "affective correspondences," play a major role.

This work describes the ritual stages proposed by Takiwasi, one of the main “shamanistic centers” of the Peruvian Amazon. Each year, an international clientele in search of alternative therapies visits this center in order to participate in “seminars” inspired by the practices of Peruvian curanderismo.
Lasting for two weeks, the “seminar” involves the ritualized usage of emetic plants and the psychotropic brew known as ayahuasca as well as retreats into the jungle, conferences and discussion groups. Participation in these practices often leads the subject to see himself as the carrier of pathogenic elements. A few participants experience evil possession behavior during the ayahuasca rituals, while most designate themselves as “infested,” which means affected and in a certain sense inhabited by unseen evil forces that they want to exorcise. Starting from an ethnographic description of the ritual stages in Takiwasi, I propose to identify the driving forces behind the appropriation of these motifs as well as its implications, both in terms of relational reconfiguration and symbolic modifications of identity. I show that the participation in the proposed practices involves learning certain skills that transform the relationship that the subject has with his perceptions and mental states. The participants therefore learn to detect the signs of the presence and identity of culturally postulated supernatural entities both in a ritual context and in their daily life. These sequences, perceived as the experiential verification of the cosmological and etiological theory specific to Takiwasi, are central in the cultural transmission process. Even though the mode of belief peculiar to these  practices is not exempt from doubt and reflexive ambivalence, the ritualistic experience of the tangible presence of supernatural entities leads the participants to form narrative reconstructions that help to clarify the origin of unhappiness, sickness and misfortune.

In 1992, the experts of the World Health Organization decided to introduce a new diagnostic category. Possession Trance became recognized as a psychiatric disorder. The introduction of this new category prompted the clarification of its diagnostic criteria. In an unprecedented way, the authors of the 10th edition of the International Classification of Disorders (ICD-10) made the diagnosis of possession trance dependent on the cultural context of its occurrence making the diagnostician-clinician responsible for determining the relations between the possession trance and its cultural environment.

La Filosofía de Virgilio de Córdoba debe situarse en el ámbito cultural de aquella Toledo multiétnica y multicultural, centro del saber y del renacimiento peninsular del siglo XII, donde se encontraron por primera vez el pensamiento cristiano y la ciencia y la filosofía griegas trasmitidas por los árabes. Como obra filosófica, pertenece a la categoría de tratados que se escribieron bajo el influjo del naturalismo aristotélico que tuvo su origen en la difusión de los libri naturales del Estagirita traducidos y comentados, primero, por Avicena y, después, por Averroes. No sabemos quién fue “Virgilio de Córdoba”, cuya obra, según el Explicit del manuscrito del siglo XIV en que se conserva, se tradujo en Toledo del árabe al latín en 1290. Hoy día, sin embargo, se cree que el nombre del autor no es más que el pseudónimo de un avispado “escolar” toledano, que lo escogió, entre otras razones, para esconder su identidad de clérigo heterodoxo y nigromante. Como representante del aristotelismo averroísta, Virgilio se presenta con una personalidad polifacética, ambivalente y ofuscada por otros intereses personales, que le llevaron a profesar más bien una modalidad de naturalismo averroísta de índole popular, antes que el culto y filosófico. Esta versión popular del naturalismo aristotélico fue entrelazada con las artes teúrgicas, la Nigromancia, o Refulgentia, el Arte notoria y la Demonología, resultando de esta combinación una obra singular y en muchos aspectos hasta única. Su fondo ideológico y cultural es, por un lado, el de la filosofía natural, la ciencia aristotélica y los debates académicos, y por otro, el mundillo de la magia negra de los zocos, especialmente el toledano, en el que se respiraba el ambiente relajado proveniente del naturalismo determinista de índole averroísta sin que el entorno humano percibiese sus refinamientos filosóficos. De hecho, la obra delata el naturalismo nigromántico popular, burdo y callejero, con un énfasis casi exclusivo en el instinto natural del placer sexual, la procreación y la supervivencia de la especie, como necesidad instintiva de todo animal de perpetuarse. No hay que pensar, por tanto, que nos hallemos ante un tratado de filosofía, ni aristotélica ni averroísta, sino más bien ante un almodrote de doctrinas cristiano-rabínicas impregnadas de un naturalismo aristotélico-aviceniano que, llevado hasta las últimas consecuencias, tuvo serias repercusiones en la moral individual que, al final, dieron paso a posiciones heterodoxas que rayan en un crudo libertinaje sexual. Es en este campo donde su obra reviste una importancia particular por ser testigo de una corriente filosófica, el aristotelismo heterodoxo, o averroísmo latino, que en España no ha sido muy reconocida, pero que sin duda se infiltró en el pensamiento filosófico y en la cultura popular del siglo XIII, y más tarde influirá en la obra literaria de los dos arciprestes, el de Hita y el de Talavera, seguidos de infinitas ramificaciones.

This article is based on a comparative ethnography of the possession trance in two religious contexts: the Xangô, an initiatory cult of Yoruba origin in Recife (Brazil), and Takiwasi, one of the main "shamanic centers" of the Peruvian Amazon. This comparison suggests that certain traits related to rituals and cultural elements of the religious practices organize the experience of possession, and in particular its emotional dimension.
We propose here to explore the emotional dimension of possession trance, often treated as contingent in cognitive, functionalist or symbolic approaches. We suggest that the emergence of possession is suspended to a learning process on the part of the candidates for possession, but also by religious specialists whose function is to guide them in this learning process. This learning involves not only the induction of specific emotions, their identification, but also their interpretation, organization and expression in the prism of the cultural expectations of the social group. We will then seek to identify what, in the emotional dimension of possession, brings together and distinguishes the two religious cultures. The exploration of the emotional dimension of possession proposed here can be seen as a first step in the direction of a wider modeling of the phenomenon, which remains to be realized.

Key-Words: possession, learning, emotions, Shamanism, experience

La acusación de expulsar los demonios con el poder de Becebú, y las respuestas de Jesús a esta acusación, son analizadas con ayuda de algunos modelos desarrollados por las ciencias sociales para el estudio del comportamiento desviado. Este tipo de acercamiento ayuda a descubrir con más claridad el significado que sus acusadores daban a esta "etiqueta" negativa, y al mismo tiempo revela el alcance político de los exorcismos de Jesús.

The interview was realised in Rome in 2004, the third of a small series on the exorcist/psychiatrist/anthropologist triad. Prof. Talamonti has conducted researches on Catholic exorcism in Italy since the early 1990s, publishing numerous articles and books on this topic. In this interview, she reflects on the method she used to approach the study of the exorcisms practiced by Don Gabriele Amorth, and considers the challenges of the collaboration between anthropology and psychiatry. Her observations shed light on the therapeutic itineraries of patients who move back and forth between the possibilities offered by the religious and the medical frameworks. She recalls her experience of doing ethnographic fieldwork on exorcism, and reflects on the place the ritual has occupied in anthropological studies, in the official doctrine of Catholic Church and in popular culture. Eventually, she details the role of Catholic charismatic groups and their collaboration with exorcists.
In Italian.

The 17th World Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences
University of Manchester (August 5th-August 10th, 2013)
V07
Representing the non-representable: visual representations of extraordinary beings in ethnographic films

https://www.pedramkhosronejad.com/representing-non-representable

Convenor: Dr. P. Khosronejad

Anthropologists have long struggled with the problem of how best to conceptualize and account for the observable diversity of religious belief and practice in various societies.Also recently there has been interest among ethnographic filmmakers who survey healing and spirit possession rituals, exorcism ceremonies or religious gatherings among which supernatural forces (djinns, demons and spirits) are the main topic of the ceremonies. The aim of this panel is to investigate and discuss how such non-representable supernatural beings could be studied and captured visually and ethnographically via documentary films.

The author of the Elenchos attributes to Alcibiades of Apamea, an Elchasaite who had arrived in Rome around 220 c.e., the preaching of a baptism for the remission of sin, and of ablutions for those that had been bitten by a rabid dog, the sick with consumption, and the possessed by demons. Erik Peterson has interpreted the rabid dog and the diseases as allegories of concupiscence, coming to the conclusion that the Elchasaite immersion would not have been an antidote for rabies, consumption, or demonic possession but rather a remedy against concupiscence and against the proliferation of sexual passion.
In my opinion, such allegoric explanation is to be rejected. The symptoms of rabies—a disease which causes the infected to suffer from hydrophobia—could have been considered by the baptist Elchasaites as proof of a demonic presence within the person. Likewise, the mention of consumption and demonic possession should be interpreted literally, according to a cultural context in which disease, demonic possession, and sins were considered to be tightly linked. The Elenchos would therefore contain an ancient testimony of a Christian exorcistic rite performed in the water.

The non-monastic clergy of Tibetan Buddhism (and Bön), and in particular the religious specialists that Tibetans most often call ngakpa, and which, following Stein, I call ‘tantrists’, have so far received only little scholarly attention. Until recently, the major anthropological contributions focused mainly on the social organization of village-and-temple communities of such specialists; the present dissertation, in contrast, is a first attempt to fully integrate issues of religious ideas and practices into the analysis. It aims more generally at contributing to the still highly under-developed anthropological study of Tantric Buddhism. This study is based on a total of twenty months of fieldwork carried out primarily in Ch'ongkor, a village-and-temple community of Tibetan Buddhist tantrists, situated in the northern Nepalese area known as Baragaon, or Lower Mustang. Additional, comparative fieldwork was also carried out in the neighboring Dolpo area.

Tibetan tantrists can be seen as primarily defined by a complex of sociological and religious factors. Sociologically, they are non-monastic religious specialists, living generally as married householders; they often constitute hereditary lineages. Reli¬giously, whether Buddhist or Bönpo, they are characterized by their strong specialization in various tantric practices; they are often depicted as engaging in the use of mantras, weather-magic, exorcism, or sometimes even sorcery. The central question this study addresses can be phrased as a critical examination, in the context of such a tantrist community, of a Maussian notion of holism: to what extent can a coherence be seen between these sociological and religious factors that define Tibetan tantrists?

The first two of the four parts of the dissertation analyze the socio-religious organization of the Ch’ongkor community in the larger context of the Baragaon area. Part I focuses on concepts of place, status, historical memory and identity, and, most notably, patrilineal descent (represented metaphorically by the central concept of rüpa, the ‘bone’). Part II situates the Ch’ongkor community with regard to the various levels of local religious organization, and notably the organization of patronage – a key feature, as the Ch’ongkor tantrists are mainly ritual specialists. Some first, important distinctions concerning the tantrists’ and the monks’ (but also the nuns’) ritual specialization are analyzed in this part, and the question is further elaborated in parts III and IV. Part III explores the structure and fundamental categories of the Ch’ongkor tantrists’ ritual universe, and focuses in particular on notions of empowerment (wang), and ‘violent’ or ‘fearsome’ (drakpo) ritual. Finally, part IV, by focusing on two key features of tantrists, worldliness and ritual power in its various forms (chinlap, nüpa, t’u…), delineates some of the fundamental lines of coherence that underlie the sociological and religious determination of this type of religious specialist. These lines of coherence appear all the more relevant when considered in the light of structural relations between the tantrists and the monks.

This dissertation provides a view of a Buddhist society which contrasts strongly with core features of the mainly Theravada, but also for instance Newar examples of the classical anthropological scholarship on Buddhist traditions. World renunciation is here hardly more than a distant ideal, even in local forms of monasticism. For tantrists, descent is much more a central feature, intimately linked with notions of religious transmission, authority and ritual power. Concerns for merit making, although present, are here secondary to concerns about drawing on Tantric power for worldly aims. Thus the retribution of specialists for their ritual services is here the main equivalent of what appears elsewhere as the paramount lay Buddhist practice, namely giving to the Sangha; and having a child enter the monastic order is less a way of accruing merit than part of a local socio-economic order, predicated on descent, village and household membership, and strata affiliation. Finally, in the Ch’ongkor community, ritual violence, mainly in the form of powerful exorcisms, but also in a corpus of orally transmitted stories extolling the protective and destructive powers of Tantric masters, is both central and, in an age of ‘globalization’ and heightened contact with centers of orthodoxy, increasingly problematic. Obtaining a clear view of this form of Buddhist society requires a methodological stance which departs from the dominant, rather elitist and text-centered orientation of Tibetological scholarship, and which instead inquires centrally into local meanings and their changes, and problematizes the complex relations between textual sources and local practices and conceptions.

Тезисы доклада на семинаре  "Соседи и соседство: джинны и люди в мусульманских культурах" Института этнологии и антропологии имени Н.Н. Миклухо-Маклая РАН

The paper describes an intriguing situation - the "jinn attack in the village of Sayasan (in the region of Chechnya)" - that took place in 2017 and that was further resolved by the efforts of the local imam Magomed. Drawing on field research conducted in the last couple of years, it also includes a brief analysis of the current state of neighborhood relations between residents of the Chechen region and the jinn - a look at the work of the Center for Islamic Medicine, the attitude of the power elite, and the state funding of the center's activities, as well as the activities of «unofficial» healers.

La relation entre les exorcistes et leurs patients est protégée par une confidentialité semblable à celle des médecins, bien que non réglementée. Dans cette chronique, une sociologue de la religion part en quête des cas qui sont en augmentation en France ces dernières années. Pour quels motifs en appelle-t-on aux exorcistes ? Comment arriver jusqu’à eux et quels sont leurs rituels ? Comment le diable se manifeste-t-il chez quelqu’un ? Le diable semble partout : aux marges de la folie, de la solitude, dans l’impossibilité de communiquer et, surtout, chez les autres.

RESUMEN
Este trabajo es una investigación sobre el rol de koiné cultural de los manuscritos mágicos para protección y exorcismos de Etiopía. Estas artefactos culturales son uno de los mejores ejemplos de la multiculturalidad de las prácticas etíopes puesto que contienen en su elaboración y uso elementos negro-africanos, hebreos e islámicos dentro un contexto cristiano. Nuestro objetivo es mostrar si en el ejemplo propuesto, el kətāb Mss. Robert Garrett 90, se da de un proceso de hibridación o transculturación tanto en su preparación como en su praxis.

ABSTRACT
This paper is an investigation about the role of cultural koiné of the Ethiopian magic scrolls for protection and exorcism. These cultural artifacts are the best examples of the multiculturalism of Ethiopic spirituality, because it contains indigenous, Hebrew and Islamic elements into a Christian context. Our aim is show in the proposal example, the kətāb Mss. Robert Garrett 90; it happens a process of hibridation or transculturation both in its preparation and in its praxis.

Full text of my interview to Gabriele Amorth (1925 – 2016). Catholic priest, exorcist of the diocese of Rome, founder and president of the International Association of Exorcists, Amorth has been a controversial figure and the most publicly known practicing exorcist of the last decades. He was also an author, a radio speaker and a decorated partisan who fought during the Italian Resistance in WWII.
The interview was realised in Rome in 2004 and focuses on his life and training under the guidance of exorcist Candido Amantini, on the qualities of an exorcist priest and on the characteristics of his patients and the ritual itself. The relations and possibilities of collaboration between exorcists and psychiatrists are also problematised, as are the reasons why Amorth believed the practice of exorcism was going through a dangerous period of crisis.
In Italian.