05 Films

After this volume went into production, two films dealing with spirit possession were released that deserve comment here because they illustrate the point of the title of this book. One was an American film, The Exorcism of Emily Rose; the other was an Indian film, Paheli (The Riddle).¹ What is striking about these films is their representation of the self possessed. Emily Rose was founded on the assumption of a naturalized, identifiable, and unitary self that was breached by demonic possession. This replicates the standard view within Western culture, even if it is belied by the very fact of, for example, acting (as in a movie) or role playing, which presupposes a fluidity, multiplicity, or even nonexistence of a fundamental identity on which personalities, or even persons, are constructed or superimposed. Another standard Western view, also casually supported by this film, is that possession can only be sinister, demonic, and evil. All of these assumptions are called into question in the present study.

In the Hindi film Paheli, a wife is seduced by a bhūt (spirit) who falls in love with her and takes the form of her husband after he is sent by his father, a successful businessman, to a distant city for an extended period. Soon, the bhūt is drawn into his own self-construction, and at the end of the film he appears to merge with the character that he has replicated, making the possession complete and, we believe, satisfying and permanent. Thus, the bhūt possesses, first, his own shape-shifted construction and, eventually, its more substantial prototype. Almost as casually as Emily Rose replicates Western assumptions of selfhood and fixed identity, Paheli illustrates the Indian (and other Asian) recognition of selfhood as mutable, multidimensional, nonlinear, and (at least in Buddhism) fabricated, a moving part among other moving parts. The bhūt maintains his self-possession, his own identity as a bhūt (the wife also knows this—it is their great secret), aware that he has instigated his own construction. In certain important respects, this is similar to some of the cases I discuss here; indeed, it emerges from the same religious and cultural tradition. These include, for example, the Upaniṣadic case of Brahmā possessing the inert world that he has created and the eighth-century philosopher Śaṅkara possessing the body of a dead king. We also see in Paheli a striking sympathy for the character of the bhūt, a portrayal of possession that would not be possible in Western cinema, except perhaps as comedy.(4)

As startling as the film Emily Rose may be, equally startling to this viewer is the cinematic figure of Dr. Adani, an anthropologist. Dr. Adani is perhaps not entirely unlike this book’s author or some of its readers. About this character, and the film in general, A. O. Scott writes, in his review of Emily Rose in the New York Times, that the anthropologist “studies demonic possession and is studiously noncommittal as to whether it really exists. The movie pretends to take the same tolerant, anything’s-possible position.… Its point of view suggests an improbable alliance of postmodern relativism and absolute religious faith against the supposed tyranny of scientific empiricism, which is depicted as narrow and dogmatic” (Scott 2005). This volume addresses the issues brought up by Scott, all of which are implicit in Emily Rose and Paheli, and tries to present them from a variety of perspectives.

Finally, I have established a Web site that will include some of the material in this book, including the plates, which will be in color, and the bibliography. In due course I will also put on the site audio and video clips of possession phenomena as well as photographs and accompanying explanations. I invite interested readers to contact me about adding entries to the bibliography and placing other possession material on the site, or links to theirs. I envision this as a clearinghouse for the topic of possession in South Asia. The URL is www.possession-southasia.org, and I can be contacted at fms108@gmail.com.