Mind over Mind: The Anthropology and Psychology of Spirit Possession [Paperback]

Morton Klass (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0742526771 | ISBN-13: 978-0742526778 | Publication Date: September 2003

Mind Over Mind explores the phenomenon of spirit possession from both anthropological and psychological perspectives. Spirit possession is ritually important in many cultures from India to Brazil to Madagascar, but has tended to be narrowly regarded from modern American and European perspectives as a psychopathological problem of multiple personality disorder. This book proposes an integration of anthropological and psychological approaches, concluding with a new analytical framework for understanding spirit possession and resolving the controversy surrounding the "reality" of possession. The issues raised are thus essential to both the anthropology of religion and the psychology of altered states of consciousness. At the same time, Mind over Mind confronts the most challenging philosophical issues of human consciousness and human identity, which can not be properly formulated without the insights of social and cultural anthropology. At the most general level, this study argues for the unequivocal importance of an interdisciplinary approach to spirit possession and for the integral significance of anthropology for the other human sciences.

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About the Author

Morton Klass was professor of anthropology at Barnard College, Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia in 1959, and did field work in Trinidad and in India. His books include East Indians in Trinidad: A Study of Cultural Persistence (1961), From Field to Factory: Community Structure and Industrialization in West Bengal (1978), Caste: The Emergence of the South Asian Social System (1980), Singing with Sai Baba: The Politics of Revitalization in Trinidad (1991), and Ordered Universes: Approaches to the Anthropology of Religion(1995). He died in 2001, as he was completing the manuscript of Mind over Mind.

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742526771
• ISBN-13: 978-0742526778
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,200,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not entirely on topic or revolutionary, January 8, 2007

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Wyote (Seoul) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mind over Mind: The Anthropology and Psychology of Spirit Possession (Paperback)

Class's thesis here is that spirit possession is dissociation, similar to hypnosis or various kinds of mental illness, thoug he stresses repeatedly that the derogatory associations of mental illness are inappropriate to the phenomenon of possession. He presents in a page or two near the end of the book, although throughout the book he promises to reveal this theory.

The rest of the book is a general overview of anthropology and pschychology as he sees them. No harm at all in that, but the title didn't indicate that this was the real purpose of the book. Oh, well. He probably knew what he was doing, as I for one wouldn't have read a book dedicated to that topic.

Part of his overview includes a violent criticism of E. O. Wilson and a defense of traditional anthropology, uninformed by biology or evolution. But then, his treatment of that matter reveals, I think, that Wilson is right on, or nearly so. This controversy has been raging in the anthopological community for over two decades, but barring any shocking surprises in the near future, Wilson and his crowd have nearly decisively won.

Read this book if the issues it covers really do concern you. If you are looking for something on spiritual possession, read the last 3-4 pages, and look for something else.