Trance Mediums and New Media: Spirit Possession in the Age of Technical Reproduction

Ongoing debates about the “return of religion” have paid little attention to the orgiastic and enthusiastic qualities of religiosity, despite a significant increase in the use of techniques of trance and possession around the globe. Likewise, research on religion and media has neglected the fact that historically the rise of mediumship and spirit possession was closely linked to the development of new media of communication.

This innovative volume brings together a wide range of ethnographic...