Conclusion
20
Acts 16:16–18, 19:12–16, and Spirit Possession in Modern Anthropology
Various cross-cultural parallels to New Testament spirit-possession narratives (both in terms of behavior and interpretation) suggest that scholars should respect the New Testament descriptions as potentially reflecting eyewitness accounts or sources. Anthropologists have documented spirit possession or analogous experiences in a majority of cultures, although interpretations of the experiences vary. In some cases, possession trance can produce violent behavior toward oneself (cf. Mark 5 : 5 ; 9 : 22 ) or others (cf. Acts 19 : 16 ), and some cultures associate it with publicly recognized, apparently superhuman feats of strength (cf. Mark 5 : 4 ) or knowledge (cf. Mark 1 : 24 ; Acts 16 : 16–17 ).
In this chapter I am not primarily interested in the exegesis of specific passages about demonization or the theology of the early Christian works in which they appear. Rather, my focus involves a more fundamental historical question as to whether many of the sorts of descriptions we find in early Christian documents might reflect genuine eyewitness material. The argument here will not relieve scholars from the task of examining these texts individually to determine their editorial Tendenz and other features, and discussing to what extent historical evidence suggests earlier tradition in a particular account.¹⁵⁷⁵ What I do wish to challenge here is the frequent assumption that such descriptions could not stem from eyewitnesses. Analogous descriptions today show that eyewitnesses can and do offer such accounts.
In this chapter I contend that spirit-possession claims (known to New Testament scholars from the Gospels and Acts) are a fairly widespread cross-cultural experience. They are often expressed and interpreted in culturally specific ways, but the claims themselves appear widely. That some accounts today bear striking resemblance to reports from Mediterranean antiquity warns against skepticism that the ancient accounts can reflect genuine eyewitness sources or experience.¹⁵⁷⁶
Even some New Testament accounts that some scholars consider overly dramatized, such as the self-destructive behavior of possessed persons in Mark 5:5 and 9:22, the violent behavior in Acts 19:16, and the mantic behavior in Acts 16:16–17, have clear analogues in modern accounts not influenced by them. After surveying the pervasiveness of the experiences and various anthropological interpretations, I will briefly note these features of some possession accounts in modern sources. I will then conclude with a sample ancient depiction that has often been treated as fictitious, yet likely reflects at least some genuine acquaintance with the character of possession behavior.
An Anthropological Approach
New Testament scholars have often treated spirit possession as an ancient Mediterranean (or even early Christian) belief in isolation from apparently analogous phenomena today.¹⁵⁷⁷ Although some Gospels scholars have noted current analogies,¹⁵⁷⁸ most New Testament scholars appear unfamiliar with the voluminous anthropological documentation of analogous claims today. While I will not rehearse in any detail the accounts in the Gospels and Acts with which readers are familiar, I want to introduce concisely into the New Testament discussion a broader repertoire of sources for consideration. One could illustrate the widespread character of possession experiences abundantly from missiological literature (often with theological perspectives shaped by the New Testament models), but I focus instead especially on anthropological literature, which is mostly independent today of New Testament descriptions.
I pause to observe here that an anthropological approach to spirit possession may prove useful even to scholars more generally reticent about anthropological models. Whereas the availability of concrete ancient sources regarding customs (my own usual scholarly focus) sometimes relativizes the value of more abstract anthropological approaches to the New Testament, beliefs in control by a foreign spirit are so common among unrelated cultures that they appear to reflect a common human experience of some sort rather than a mere custom. Although the particular expressions vary from one culture to the next, anthropologists have documented possession claims in some form in a strong majority of the world’s cultures studied. Their wide occurrence beyond a particular culture warns against assuming that they are generated solely from a particular cultural framework (e.g., early Judaism or hellenism), although I readily acknowledge that such ancient contexts are the primary ones for understanding New Testament interpretations of the reports.¹⁵⁷⁹
Although seeking to provide a transcultural framework for classifying or interpreting spirit-possession claims would be beyond the scope of this study (and unlikely to command consensus in any case), I note the breadth of interpretations to illustrate that we may take for granted the pervasiveness of such experiences more readily than the interpretive constructions modern reporters sometimes place on them. Some factors such as neurological stress are fairly common to many of the accounts, but the postulation of other factors often depends on the sociological, psychological, and other models of explanation employed.
Although western scientific interpretations tend to be materialistic, increasing sensitivity to local cultures has invited a growing appreciation for indigenous interpretations that often include the activity of actual spirits. I am sympathetic to this appreciation of nonwestern perspectives. My limited purpose in this article, however, is to introduce the value of the broader discussion rather than to arbitrate among the competing scientific or other interpretations.
The Pervasiveness of Possession Beliefs and Behavior
Despite various interpretations assigned to it, no anthropologist today denies possession trances and the like.¹⁵⁸⁰ Possession experience is not limited to either the New Testament or the ancient eastern Mediterranean world. One specialist, Erika Bourguignon, has observed that spirit-possession beliefs are geographically and culturally pervasive, “As any reader of ethnographies knows.”¹⁵⁸¹ After sampling 488 societies, she found spirit possession beliefs in 74 percent of them (i.e., 360 societies), with particularly high ranges in the islands of the Pacific (88 percent), and 77 percent around the Mediterranean.¹⁵⁸² Among these, the forms of “possession” vary. Thus 16 percent percent of these 360 societies have possession trance only; 22 percent have other forms of possession; and 35 percent have both.¹⁵⁸³ The overall evidence suggests some sort of common experience in conjunction with more specific cultural patterning.
Most regions of the world provide some examples, though possession experience is more common in some regions than in others.¹⁵⁸⁴ A concise geographic survey would leave no doubt about this; for this reason, in the notes to this paragraph, I seek to illustrate at some length (yet not comprehensively) just how pervasively anthropologists have documented possession experience. As noted above, they appear widely in the Pacific.¹⁵⁸⁵ More often studied, they are common throughout Africa,¹⁵⁸⁶ where anthropologists have documented these experiences in a variety of forms in the northeast,¹⁵⁸⁷ southeast,¹⁵⁸⁸ central east,¹⁵⁸⁹ northwest¹⁵⁹⁰ and west.¹⁵⁹¹ Less widely studied but nevertheless documented in anthropological studies, they also appear in the Middle East,¹⁵⁹² many parts of Asia,¹⁵⁹³ and the Americas.¹⁵⁹⁴ Local incidents of “possession” on a notable scale (though westerners often attribute these to mass hysteria) have also been documented.¹⁵⁹⁵
The few New Testament scholars noted above who have noted anthropological parallels for possession behavior have rightly observed that it is fairly transcultural.¹⁵⁹⁶ Transcultural elements in fact include a biological element that cannot be reduced to (though may be patterned according to) cultural models. Studies reveal “an altered neurophysiology” during many possession states.¹⁵⁹⁷ While some anthropologists note that neurophysiological studies cannot resolve whether supernatural factors might supplement natural ones,¹⁵⁹⁸ it is clear that neurophysiological changes, including hyperarousal, do occur.¹⁵⁹⁹
In a diverse sampling of societies, possession produces major personality changes, with notable, abrupt alterations in “behavior, timbre and pitch of voice.”¹⁶⁰⁰ Those leaving the “possession” state often have no recollection of how they acted while “possessed.”¹⁶⁰¹ Thus Raymond Firth notes that field experience has confronted social anthropologists with
dramatic changes of personality in men or women they were studying—startling yet evidently accustomed alterations of behaviour, with trembling, sweating, groaning, speaking with strange voices, assumption of a different identity, purporting to be a spirit not a human being, giving commands or foretelling the future in a new authoritative way. Sometimes it has been hard for the anthropologist to persuade himself that it is really the same person as before whom he is watching or confronting, so marked is the personality change.¹⁶⁰²
Sometimes the possessed act like the spirits that are believed to possess them.¹⁶⁰³
Cultural Variations
Despite the common neurological character of possession trance, possession behavior and beliefs vary widely among cultures. Forms of possession behavior vary in some respects even in the New Testament; it is possible that different types of possession existed in the early Christians’ milieu, and that cultural features sometimes either patterned some common elements or invited some particular transcultural elements to the fore.
Thus, for example, the larger gentile culture apparently valued the mantic abilities of the enslaved woman in Acts 16:16, yet recognized the danger in the more violent possession in Acts 19:16. As we explore analogies in a broader range of cultures, therefore, we should allow for even greater variations in expression. This diversity need not surprise us; cultural conceptions shape the experience of many illnesses, sometimes including behavior that other societies associate with possession.¹⁶⁰⁴ For example, observers have noted one form of possession associated specifically with initial encounters with overhead airplanes.¹⁶⁰⁵
Not all alleged activity with spirits produces possession behavior.¹⁶⁰⁶ In many regions, for example, shamans believe that they communicate with spirits without being controlled by them. By contrast, shamans in some other regions believe that they are fully possessed, whether briefly or over a long period of time.¹⁶⁰⁷ Possession states can be viewed as voluntary or involuntary,¹⁶⁰⁸ though sometimes these alternatives coexist in the same society (e.g., voluntary for the medium but “hysterical” for the afflicted person being treated).¹⁶⁰⁹ For an example of temporary, voluntary possession, mediums in many traditional African societies remain in control of their own minds except when spirit-possessed; they function as mediums only when in a trance state.¹⁶¹⁰ For such purposes, people can seek or inspire spirit possession, with drumming being one common technique.¹⁶¹¹
Possession behavior often conforms to patterns particular to the cultures where it appears,¹⁶¹² and some possessed persons respond in stereotyped manners.¹⁶¹³ Thus, for example, Somali possession cults do not emphasize different spirits with distinct behaviors (in contrast to related Sudanese cults); although the possessed dance, they speak little (in contrast to, say, Comoro island possession).¹⁶¹⁴ In traditional Ghana, possession often begins with a stupor, then becomes frenzied;¹⁶¹⁵ a spirit may possess an established diviner to provide information as to what deity is possessing another person.¹⁶¹⁶ Among traditional Valley Korekore, mediums through whom spirits speak are fairly rare and typically must remain in the area belonging to the spirit possessing them; by contrast, possession more generally is common there, and cult groups dance it out.¹⁶¹⁷
In many cultures, general patterns allow observers to predict the likelihood of some elements, whereas other elements vary considerably. Thus in Brazilian spiritism, nearly all participants see supernatural beings; in most cases mediums and initiates are posssessed; most include ecstatic trance, usually unconscious; in most cults possession can be either spontaneous or induced. Nevertheless, these general cultural patterns do not produce complete conformity; for example, whereas over half of participants report seeing spirits of the dead, the proportion is not overwhelming.¹⁶¹⁸
Cultures also vary as to whether they treat trance behavior as positive or negative;¹⁶¹⁹ these and other interpretations influence how people in trance states behave.¹⁶²⁰ Even cultures that seem to outsiders to share some common elements may vary with regard to particulars. Thus, while many societies feature spirits of the dead¹⁶²¹ and even possession by ancestor-spirits,¹⁶²² interpretations vary. Some peoples, for example, regard spirit-affliction as a danger caused by an ancestor spirit;¹⁶²³ but not all peoples view such spirits as malevolent or dangerous.¹⁶²⁴ Many societies associate particular powers with possession.¹⁶²⁵
Even within a single culture, possession behavior can vary widely (e.g., mediums in Palau display a range of trance forms).¹⁶²⁶ Some societies lack even dissociation in some cases, so that the common element in possession in these societies tends to be simply the belief that a spirit is overpowering one’s personality.¹⁶²⁷
Reviewing such diversity of experience, Bourguignon remarks that despite transcultural constants stemming from “its psychobiological substrate,” possession behavior “is subject to learning and by this means, it is amenable to cultural patterning. As such, it takes on a striking variety of forms.”¹⁶²⁸ Because of this culture-specific element, travelers can carry specific expressions of mediumship and possession behavior to societies without prior experience of them.¹⁶²⁹ Likewise, the nature of possession cults can evolve;¹⁶³⁰ indeed, some societies have even gradually transformed therapeutic possession cults into group entertainment.¹⁶³¹
Spirits, Religion, Illness, and Prophecy
While early Christians resisted depicting their own prophetic, mystical and other divine “Spirit” experiences in terms of possession,¹⁶³² they were ready to associate spirits with other cultic contexts.¹⁶³³ Cultic or religious settings provide a frequent context for possession behavior.¹⁶³⁴ Haitian vodun¹⁶³⁵ and various forms of spiritism in Brazil¹⁶³⁶ offer obvious examples of this pattern. While such examples may be best known in the west, many other cults involve possession trance, such as in traditional Yoruba rituals,¹⁶³⁷ the Zar cult,¹⁶³⁸ practices in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism,¹⁶³⁹ and even in some fundamentalist sects in St. Vincent.¹⁶⁴⁰ The social pressure of cultic settings may frequently invite particular persons to experience possession trance.¹⁶⁴¹ Many cases of possession trance, however, lack particular religious connections.¹⁶⁴²
Spirits are often associated with sickness, as in some New Testament passages. In the Gospels (most clearly Luke 13:11), spirits sometimes constitute a cause of infirmity.¹⁶⁴³ In Acts 10:38, Jesus’s ministry by God’s Spirit empowers him to “heal” those “exploited by the devil,” an idea intelligible in an early Jewish milieu.¹⁶⁴⁴ Although some cultures do not associate spirits with sickness, one could list vast numbers of cultures that do.¹⁶⁴⁵ Still, many people in cultures today that embrace both some traditional and some western beliefs attribute sickness to spirits yet depend most often on medicine to cure it.¹⁶⁴⁶
In texts like Mark 1:24 and Acts 16:16–17, spirits display supernaturally acquired knowledge (in the latter case, the spirit’s designation specifically associates it with mantic activity).¹⁶⁴⁷ No less than in antiquity, many traditional societies today look to spirits for supernaturally revealed information.¹⁶⁴⁸ Mediums in traditional African societies almost always claim to speak for lower spirits rather than for the supreme creator deity.¹⁶⁴⁹ These societies usually envision some spirits as benevolent and others as malevolent, with most being neutral (on the analogy of people).¹⁶⁵⁰ They may treat spirits as essential intermediaries for deities even in societies that normally consider them harmful.¹⁶⁵¹
Such supernatural knowledge also appears in an extensive survey of possession reports in traditional China, offered mostly from rural areas over a century ago when such experiences were far more common than they are in urban areas of China today. Informants claimed that some spirits spoke with unusual voices or poetic abilities,¹⁶⁵² and noted “northerners speaking the languages of the South, which they did not know.”¹⁶⁵³ Although most of the study’s informants naturally understood and presumably shaped their reports through the assumptions of their own Christian worldview, a range of scholars have continued to find their information useful.¹⁶⁵⁴ We already noted above other reports that dramatic shifts in personality and persona are common during possession.
Interpreting such Experiences
My purpose in this section is not to offer a decisive interpretation of such experiences, on which there is no agreement even among anthropologists. Multiple sorts of factors may be involved, and unlike many other scholars, I am not willing to rule out the common indigenous and early Christian interpretations that genuine spirits are sometimes among the factors in possession trance.¹⁶⁵⁵ My purpose here, however, is to survey current views so that New Testament scholars studying the matter in further detail will be ready for the range of options with which the secondary literature will confront them.
Early Christian texts portray the source of possession as invasive spirits, an interpretation of spirit-possession experiences held in many cultures today. By contrast, western scholars seeking to interpret possession behavior have traditionally interpreted it in non-spiritual ways that differ markedly from many indigenous interpretations.¹⁶⁵⁶ Nevertheless, in recent decades anthropologists have sought to understand the experience in terms defined by the societies that claim it, rather than in traditional western terms.¹⁶⁵⁷ Already over three decades ago a major study on spirit possession suggested as a working definition for it “any altered state of consciousness indigenously interpreted in terms of the influence of an alien spirit.”¹⁶⁵⁸ More recent studies are even more inclined to emphasize the indigenous understanding; traditional western categories facilitate cross-cultural comparison more readily, but sensitivity to local interpretations cautions against pronouncing on the meaning of such experiences.¹⁶⁵⁹
Various grids for interpretation today include neurological, sociological, psychological, and spiritual frameworks, though these classificatory categories need not be construed in a mutually exclusive manner. Neurological approaches are illuminating, although they explain effects and causal factors rather than absolutely consistent causes. Many sorts of stimuli not normally associated with “possession” can produce trance states in normal people¹⁶⁶⁰ (though not all experiences indigenously defined as “possession” involve trance states in any case).¹⁶⁶¹ People in all cultures can experience dissociation and altered states of consciousness, but worldviews affect how various societies describe them and under what conditions they most often experience them. (Degree of acculturation is often a common factor,¹⁶⁶² and lack of suggestibility can sometimes render “possession” trance difficult.)¹⁶⁶³
Further, “altered states of consciousness” include a wide continuum of states, from rapid eye movement to a more traditionally defined “trance” state to “possession trance linked to impersonation behavior.”¹⁶⁶⁴ Some scholars note neurological parallels in sleepwalking,¹⁶⁶⁵ psychomotor epilepsy,¹⁶⁶⁶ and hysterical fugue states.¹⁶⁶⁷ Studies show that the nervous systems of organisms experiencing stress overload may collapse; health workers sometimes even employ an induced collapse to relieve stresses and help mental health.¹⁶⁶⁸ Consistent with such findings, studies confirm that stress may render a person more susceptible to a possession state.¹⁶⁶⁹
In addition to neurological factors, some have linked possession experience to social frameworks; this interpretive model is not necessarily incompatible with some others,¹⁶⁷⁰ and some have applied it even to the proliferation of possession in Jesus’s setting.¹⁶⁷¹ Sociological factors seem to influence susceptibility, but do not by themselves appear adequate to explain all the phenomena. While these factors do not predict individual cases, however, they may correspond to larger patterns of incidence.
Thus some scholars observe that possession without a trance is more common in hunter-gatherer societies; greater societal stratification and complexity corresponds to greater likelihood of added trance states.¹⁶⁷² Similarly, some have found that possession trance appears particularly likely to occur in stratified slave societies.¹⁶⁷³ When societies become less stable, they seem to prefer trances in ritualized, controlled settings.¹⁶⁷⁴
Perhaps this stratification increases social distance between social norms and marginal members of society. Bourguignon suggests that possession trance is most common among the latter; groups that once experienced it have moved away from it as they have become increasingly respectable.¹⁶⁷⁵ Some other anthropologists have observed that it appears among those marginalized from other means of power in their society.¹⁶⁷⁶ Although association with gender varies from one society to another,¹⁶⁷⁷ in many traditional societies women prove particularly susceptible to spirit possession.¹⁶⁷⁸
In some societies, possession behavior also can be used to achieve the fulfillment of desires that one would not otherwise dare express;¹⁶⁷⁹ similarly, projecting guilt on a spirit can absolve an individual of responsibility.¹⁶⁸⁰ In some settings, some trance states might perform a cathartic function.¹⁶⁸¹ Such psychosocial functions of possession have sometimes made it resistant to factors once expected to reduce it (such as urbanization or western education).¹⁶⁸²
Beyond psychosocial theories, diverse cultures offer a vast range of interpretations for possession trance.¹⁶⁸³ Societies diverge, for example, as to whether they prefer naturalistic or supernaturalistic explanations.¹⁶⁸⁴ (Not unexpectedly, naturalistic expectations predominate in the west,¹⁶⁸⁵ though they sometimes appear elsewhere.)¹⁶⁸⁶ The dominant supernaturalist or mystical explanations include soul absence or the presence of a spirit.¹⁶⁸⁷
While anthropological literature normally seeks to maintain objective neutrality, simply describing experiences and the views of the subjects, some specialists in traditional beliefs now publicly contend that genuine spirits are sometimes involved.¹⁶⁸⁸ Most notably, anthropologist Edith Turner claims to have personally witnessed visible “spirit” substance during a Zambian spirit ritual in 1985,¹⁶⁸⁹ and she afterward embraced the spirit experiences of traditional Eskimos she visited in 1987.¹⁶⁹⁰ She questions whether it should be acceptable, in light of contemporary multicultural values, to impose on local cultures a traditional western paradigm formed in a more positivist era.¹⁶⁹¹ Some scholars have expressed appreciation for Turner’s challenge to traditional western reductionist treatment of possession claims.¹⁶⁹²
Some other scholars have also opted for eclectic approaches. Some sociologists, for example, have allowed for both socially patterned, apparently culturally learned expressions of possession behavior and the possibility of genuine spirits in some cases.¹⁶⁹³ Thus a recent work notes that earlier anthropologists tended to explain possession in psychosocial terms, not commenting on possessing agents, but more recent research “does take seriously the agency of possessing ancestors, deities, and spirits.”¹⁶⁹⁴ In view of how widely the experience appears to surface in unrelated cultures, I believe that we should recognize this synthesis as a viable approach.
Regardless of interpretation, however, the experience is well-documented, and there is no reason to doubt that such experiences occurred in various forms in Mediterranean antiquity as well as today. Thus we need not dismiss their occurrence in ancient sources as necessarily fictitious or legendary rather than potentially based on eyewitness claims, but should evaluate those reports on a case-by-case basis (involving a work’s genre, sources, and similar factors).
Violent expressions of possession
Not only do early Christian spirit-possession claims and interpretation have cross-cultural parallels, but so do some behaviors associated with some forms of the experience. For example, the sometimes violent expressions of spirit possession in early Christian narratives have parallels in some other cultures.¹⁶⁹⁵ Mark and Luke associate some spirit possession with extraordinary strength, when no one was able to bind the possessed man (Mark 5:4; Luke 8:29) and only Jesus could deliver him. For these Evangelists, this image illustrates the principle that only one stronger than the “strong man” (Satan) could bind him and release from his authority his possessions (Mark 3:27; Luke 11:21–22).¹⁶⁹⁶ Cross-cultural parallels suggest, however, that Mark need not have simply invented this illustration to fit his theological point. In a variety of diverse cultures where it has been observed, spirit possession sometimes yields apparently superhuman strength that makes restraint difficult or impossible.¹⁶⁹⁷
Possession can be expressed violently, toward oneself and others, both in the early Christian narratives and (as we shall observe afterward) in some modern accounts. Thus possession is expressed self-destructively in Mark 5:5, where a demonized man cuts himself with stones, and in 9:22, where a spirit-afflicted boy falls into fire or water. While it is not impossible that Mark might have additionally intended a criticism of some pagan cults,¹⁶⁹⁸ his descriptions probably reflect authentic tradition about possession behavior.
Spirit possession is expressed in violence toward others in Acts 19:16, where a possessed man overpowers the would-be exorcists and leaves some of them naked and injured.¹⁶⁹⁹ This description does fit Luke’s theology: whereas demons might normally cooperate with exorcists for strategic reasons, Satan’s kingdom is here divided (cf. Luke 11:17–18) due to the invasion of God’s kingdom (Luke 11:20). Earlier in Luke’s material “unclean” spirits both caused a demon-controlled person to go naked (Luke 8:27) and gave him supernatural strength (Luke 8:29). In Luke’s irony, it is here the exorcists (the “sons of Sceva”) who are stripped and cast out.¹⁷⁰⁰ Nevertheless, historians typically offered their theological and moral points from genuine sources,¹⁷⁰¹ and cross-cultural studies show us that such violent expressions of spirit possession are not restricted to fiction.
We have noted that possession trance has sometimes provided culturally acceptable opportunities for expressing forbidden desires; sometimes this may include aggression, especially for those not otherwise permitted to express it. More generally, in many cultures forms of spirit possession can yield destructive behavior.¹⁷⁰² Sometimes the destructive behavior includes violence against oneself, which can include self-laceration.¹⁷⁰³ For example, at a traditional Taiwanese festival, mediums become possessed and lacerate themselves to demonstrate immunity to pain.¹⁷⁰⁴ Some observers of possession feats, however, note that some trancers “have died of post-possession exhaustion” or during the peak of ecstasy.¹⁷⁰⁵ Among traditional !Kung Bushmen, people have to restrain those less experienced in possession from harming themselves or others. Those in trances there sometimes smear live coals on their flesh, burning their skin for several seconds.¹⁷⁰⁶ One may also crash into a tree or attack a dog.¹⁷⁰⁷
John Mbiti, a scholar of African religions, recounts a case of possession trance that he observed near Kampala, in which the person escaped injury while pounding his head on the floor. The person then resumed a normal state after the trance.¹⁷⁰⁸ Mbiti’s further description of spirit possession in many African societies would hardly surprise readers of the Gospels: he notes that spirit possession drives the person to live in the forest, to jump into fire or to use sharp objects to hurt oneself.¹⁷⁰⁹ Similarly, in Mark a person controlled by spirits might dwell outside society (Mark 5:3), jump into fire (Mark 9:22) or use sharp objects on his body (Mark 5:5).
Some ancient accounts of possession
Early Christian writings are not the only ancient sources to depict possession in ways that have modern analogies. Possession states appear in various genres of ancient literature. Many of the individual accounts are fictitious, but the descriptions probably often reflect known information about genuine possession behavior. Greeks and Romans believed that mantic ecstasy often involved possession by a deity.¹⁷¹⁰ People commonly associated madness with daimones¹⁷¹¹ (which for Greeks was not always negative).¹⁷¹² Such inspired madness might produce violence.¹⁷¹³ As in studies of possession today noted above,¹⁷¹⁴ one temporarily possessed by madness might not recall the mad behavior afterward.¹⁷¹⁵
Possession, inspiration, and ecstasy came in various forms. Plato thought of four kinds of ecstasy, one of the most important being prophetic ecstasy;¹⁷¹⁶ Virgil associates this prophetic ecstasy with divine possession.¹⁷¹⁷ Greeks expected such divine seizure for inspiration only during the time of prophesying, rather than expecting a mantic to be possessed continually.¹⁷¹⁸
In order to remain concise, I focus in this chapter on a single illustration. My focus here is one popular subject of ancient possession accounts, namely, the possession of Apollo’s priestess at Delphi. Lucan depicts this possession particularly graphically, although he certainly dramatizes, and even Lucan himself acknowledges the event as unusual.¹⁷¹⁹ He portrays complete possession, to the extent that the deity controls the priestess’s soul and lips.¹⁷²⁰ Without such evidences of possession, she might be thought to merely simulate inspiration. But when she was genuinely frenzied, Lucan insists, her hair would stand up, raising the wreath on her head, and her voice would fill the cavern.¹⁷²¹ In Lucan’s depiction, Apollo forcibly seizes possession of her body, forcing out her own consciousness; her head jerks, her hair again is said to stand up, and Apollo’s fire burns within her. Apollo’s invasion torments her; her lips foam, she pants inarticulately, wails, and finally issues the deity’s articulate speech.¹⁷²²
Despite Lucan’s literary exaggeration, we ought not suppose that Lucan has simply invented every element of her possession behavior.¹⁷²³ Precisely because Lucan’s account is probably fictitious, it underlines the likelihood that some people in antiquity had some more general acquaintance with possession behavior, whether or not in the particular account a writer was offering. Although without Lucan’s embellished depiction, a wide range of ancient sources claim that the Delphic priestess was possessed by a spirit¹⁷²⁴ and fell into a mad frenzy.¹⁷²⁵ In addition to Greek and Roman sources, a Jewish source acquainted with Hellenistic oracular forms likewise speaks of the Pythia’s frenzy.¹⁷²⁶ If multiple attestation counts for anything, there is plenty for the Pythia. This description might thus be relevant to what Luke envisions, and expects his ideal audience to envision, for the slave influenced by a “pythoness” spirit in Acts 16:16–18.
That even a fictionalized depiction of dissociation like Lucan’s shares common elements with modern observations of possession trance suggests that it rests on a repository of genuine ancient observations of possession behavior. Narratives and tales may include significant embellishment, but possession experiences described in such ancient sources appear comparable to many modern accounts of such experiences. Whereas the Gospels and Acts portray spirit-possession in exclusively negative terms,¹⁷²⁷ ancient Greeks, like many traditional peoples today, also affirmed some positive roles for the phenomena, especially in their oracular use. Regardless of their differing evaluation and interpretation, however, all these sources likely develop some information about at least the kinds of possession-behavior encounters that ancient observers genuinely reported.
Conclusion
Possession phenomena are widely attested, although many aspects of these phenomena vary from one culture to another. Interpretations vary from neurological and social explanations (more dominant in the west) to possession by ancestral spirits and other explanations involving extrahuman intelligence.
In view of the wide range of phenomena attested, some features of early Christian accounts that have appeared particularly suspect to many modern western interpreters appear plausible as genuine descriptions of possession behavior. These include demonized persons’ self-destructive behavior (Mark 5:5; 9:22); their violent behavior (Acts 19:16); and their mantic behavior (16:16–17). Early Christian writers interpreted such cases of possession as wholly negative, although many of their contemporaries and many traditional cultures today offer more diverse evaluations regarding the benefits or disadvantages of possession behavior.
My goal in this essay has been to introduce more New Testament scholars to samples of anthropological observations about spirit possession, rather than to offer detailed comparisons with individual New Testament texts. Nevertheless, it should be evident that anthropologists’ accounts of this transcultural phenomenon can enrich our reading of the early Christian accounts, illustrating both what they share with other accounts and where they prove distinctive. Nothing in the early Christian descriptions requires us to assume that they could not depend on material that ultimately goes back to eyewitnesses.