SPIRIT POSSESSION:
 A CASE STUDY FROM SRI Lk~KA
 Deemathie W. deSilva
 Wichita State University
 Wichita, Kansas
 DISCUSSION ~~D CO~CLUSION
 The focus in this case study is Sita, a 19-year-old
 young adult, who is possessed by a spirit. Sita identified
 the spirit as "Mahasohona," the demon that frequents grave 
yards and cemeteries. The cure was an elabbrate 32-hour
 exorcism ceremony that included drumming, chanting, and
 dancing.
 A Brief Family and School Background
 Sita's illness commenced six years ago with stomach
 cramps which were too severe to be ignored or treated by
 simple cures. Sita is the youngest child and the only
 girl in a family of four adult children. Her home was
 located in a small village. The predominant occupation
 in the village, including that of her father, was farming
 rice. Her involvements in school in addition to academic
 courses included participation in athlet.ic events'., He-r:'
 academic performance s:lGHved graduation from high school and
 a continuation of school work towards higher education.
 A Traumatic Experience
 After two years of study, she took the national uni 
versity entrance examination. She obtained simple passes
 which qualified her to enter the university where only the
 top twelve percent of those who qualify can really gain
 admission to the university. While attending school in
 preparation for this examination, Sita was taken ill several
 times with severe stomach cramps and chest pains for which
 she got Western medical treatment through the hospital.
 In a culture that values education students who take the
 national examination but fail to enter find it such a
 traumatic experience that some have even committed suicide.
 University education has the promise of mobility, self-
14
 respect, a job with a reasonable earning capacity, and the
 connotation of an ultimate good life. Sita lost all these
 prospects when she could not enter the university.
 A Point of Decision-Making
 The alternative was to continue in school and try to enter
 th.e university once again as she had one more chance to gain
 admission. This was not possible due to the economic position
 of her family. She felt that they had sacrificed too much
 alieady to send her through twelve years of education. Her
 grades in school had been good, and therefore her family had
 encouraged her to continue her schooling. She suffered loss of
 self-esteem and self-worth--and a sense of shame that some of
 her friends did enter the university while she failed to do so.
 The pa~alys~slof her legs from the knees downward was a
 psychophyslologlc response (Schwab and Schwab, 1978:254):. She
 literally asked for forgiveness on her knees from her family
 who had collectively contributed to buying books, clothes,
 and paid her school fees. She had strong expectations of high
 performance but was deeply disappointed at obtaining only pass 
ing grades. She was the first in her family to study up to
 the entrance to the university, and her family was very proud
 of her.
 This was a point w~re she either had to resort to some
 kind of manual labor as employment or undergo training to
 obtain other skills. The daily respite with her school friends
 was now over, and she would be confined to the house like
 every young female adult, ~ntil she found gainful employment
 or got married. Marriage was furthest from her mind at this
 time as she wanted to find an educated and handsome young
 man, someone who could offer her a better standard of living.
 In addition to coping with new problems that were bound to
 appear, she now had to deal with conflict, fear, and feelings
 of worthlessness. She also had to find new friends in the
 village and new sources of support for security. At this
 point, all these feelings brought intolerable tensions and
 an overall sense of unresolved problems. This was indeed
 a crisis point for her.
 Analysis
 Traditionally, psychologists have tended to view a client's
 current life situations through past experiences with an
15
 emphasis on early childhood development. However, we can
 look upon individual and family problems not only in a
 maturational perspective but in terms of developmental
 stages. These are transitional stages which confront all
 people during the human life cycle.
 It has been found that there are tasks in a person's
 developmental process and also in the social and physical
 environment at each stage of the life cycle. Erikson
 (1959:116-121) names these "intergenerational cogwheeling."
 People in the course of their lives have to learn roles
 that are unfamiliar and for which they are unprepared. In
 a village culture that is undergoing social and economic
 change, a young person may be the first to face a particular
 situation. In Sita's case, she is the youngest in the
 family and the only female. Two of her brothers are
 employed, and her sister-in-law works in a shirt factory.
 She is a young adult in a developmental phase with a matura 
tional crisis. The passing grades she obtained in the
 University Qualifying Examination determines her ability to
 obtain entrance to the university system which qualifies
 only the top twelve percent of the student population that
 appears for this examination. For her "passes" she will
 receive a certificate but that does not qualify her to enter
 the university. Therefore, her only avenue of obtaining a
 bachelor's degree is closed to her.
 With many students having these certificates and with no
 special vocational skills, Sita is now at a decision point.
 Is she to sit for the examination again? Is she to quit
 school and seek a job? Do her parents have the money to see
 her through another year of school and pay the fees to sit
 for the examination again? What is to happen to her in the
 future? Would she be forced to get married to someone from
 her village?
 Some of her friends have qualified to enter the univer 
sity; therefore, she has experienced a ,"loss of face" which
 she referred to in my interview with her. She has had to
 deal with some family problems such as her brother's unem 
ployment amidst a soaring standard of living and inflation
 of thirty-two percent. Therefore, the reality of the failure
 at the examination did place additional strain on her.
 She was on the threshold of assuming a new role which
 was that of staying at home and hunting for a job in the
 city, which was doubtful with high unemployment at that
 time. Later, she had registered herself in the Bureau for
16
 Employment and stood in line many times hoping they had found
 a job for her. At this point, her capacity to assume an appro 
priate role may be very small. She decided to seek training
 as a typist but found that the funds her family had were inade 
quate for this. At this time, where she had to stay at home
 and periodically seek some sort of employment, Sita was facing
 a psychosocial crisis and a 'turning point' (Erikson, 1968:96)
 Robert Weiss (1976:213-232) refers to this as a "transition
 state." He says, "Should the crisis end instead of change.
 the individual's emotional organization and his or her other
 relational arrangements must also undergo change. In addition
 to having to cope now with new problems, the individual must
 find different ways of dealing with dissapointment,tensibn, or
 fatigue and fi~d new sources of support for security, for
 feelings of worth and for other components of well-being."
 sita has shown the psychophysiologic response of being
 unable to walk due to the stressful situation that she had to
 face at this crisis point. Her culture does not take kindly to
 people who are mentally ill. That would have been a negative
 affliction and would bring shame on a young girl who is 19 years
 old. Even her chances for marriage would be affected but this
 culture does not look down on being possessed by a spirit. For
 in this case L~e young woman is not to blame; the blame is on
 the spirit who has possessed her. Sita could show her hostility
 and even demonic aggressiveness as a sympton of the spirit pos 
session without any overtones of mental afflication.
 Based on Adolf Meyers' teaching that illness is associated
 with life events, successes, or faitlures in school or at work,
 etc., Holmes and Rahe (1975, 6:133-146) in 1967 developed the
 Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) to quantify stressful
 life events requiring some degree of adjustment. A cluster-
 ing of events such as major life changes such as death, divorce,
 change of job, and so on that adds up to a score of 150 has the
 likelihood of illness to increase; 150-199, mild life crisis; and
 200-299, predicts associated health changes.
 Recently, Kohn (1976, 133:177-180) has emphasized the role of
 stress in etiology of ~chizophrenia. He cites a study conducted
 in San Juan which showed that schizophrenics who were in the low
 SES brackets and underwent deprivation, had experienced many more
 stresses than had the control group. He says that lo.wex sqcial
 class persons are genetically vulnerable, encounter numerous
 stressful events and circumstances, and have fewer inner and
 outer resources to cope with these tensions. Sita's family
17
 Ityed at subsistence level. Her choices of acceptable
 adaptive responses were few. Hsr physiological response
 for the release of tension manifested itself as a temporary
 paralysis of her legs until a simple exorcism ceremony was
 performed for her. This was performed a month ago, and
 her paralysis was cured, but s~~ still suffered from severe
 stomach cramps. The family wanted a complete cure and held
 an advanced all-night exorcism ceremony to rid her of the
 spirit that was making her ill. The exorcism ceremony was
 an acceptable therapeutic practice in the culture.
 culture's Therapeutic Influences
 Scientific attempts to understand relationships between
 culture and mental illness can be traced to the early de 
cades of the 19th century when both psychiatry and anthro 
pology emerged as disciplines. At the beginning of the 20th
 century, advances in psychiatry and significant achievements
 in anthropology led to a convergence of interests in ethnic
 psychosis and relationships among culture, personality, and
 mental illness.
 Schwab and Schwab (1978, pp. 254-255) say that culture
 exerts preventive and therapeutic influences. Cathartic
 strategies such as festivals, holidays, vacations, and
 particularly in the United States, sports, are examples.
 Harvey Cox (1969) deplores the progressive decline of
 festival and fantasy in the modern world. He believes that
 the diminishing importance of festivals is leading cultures
 to a "cultural aridity" that may be linked with obsessionalism.
 Scheff (1973, p. 88) refers to several examples of
 procedures that have led to the emotional release in social
 settings such as Greek tragedy during the classical era of
 democracy in Athens (Luca, 1968, p. 273). Performances were
 occasions for the expression of crying and wailing and there 
fore catharsis. He also refers to the Quakers, who con 
sidered shaking as a form that discharges fear, more recently
 seen in black churches in the United States.
 The Chinese Communists used the theatre depicting the
 oppression of the old society that caused the audience to
 explore woe and weeping. An instance of a social form that
 meets individual needs in a social setting was the "speak
 bitterness" meetings where prostitues in China were encour 
aged to rid themselves of shame and hostility by recounting
 their pasts and oppressions which resulted in catharsis
18
 (Wallace, 1961, pp. 182-184). The process of becoming cured can
 be compared to Wallace's concept of "mazeway resynthesis;" that
 is, a reorganizing of one's way of structuring the world due to
 intolerable anxiety and crisis. The culture can be either a
 hindrance or a support to mazeway resynthesis depending on
 whether the culture views the experience as undesirable and
 negative with shame, anxiety, and a feeling of alienation, or
 as positive and appropriate providing a culturally sanctioned
 channel for emotional release. In this case, the culture has
 indeed accepted the ceremony as a manner of healing (Ames, 1978,
 pp. 42- 48) .
 Obeysekera (Scheff, 1975, pp. 135-151)
 of· a spiri t in Sri Lanka where a woman, who
 and withdrawn, was cured through an exorcism
 exorcist questioned her adroitly and brought
 the open, resulting in an emotional release.
 reports an exorcism
 was delusional, mute,
 ceremony. The
 her conflicts into
 Trance State, Problem Resolution, and Catharsis
 Although personal life crises may be painful, the effects
 of them need not be pathological. The resolution of crisis
 experiences (Forer, 1963, 13:275-281) can lead to a creative
 effort. It can lead to new inner convictions and insights and
 thoroughly benefit the individual.
 During the trance state, whether the individual remained
 conscious or experienced amnesia, the person has had an oppor 
tunity to "act out" some of the frustration and conflict while
 some inner resolution takes place. For some individuals under 
going trance, there is memory upon awakening and for others,
 amnesia. Hilgard (1978) confirms that possession-trance and
 amnesia are not necessarily connected. His "neo-dissociation"
 theory says that possession represents a special type of dis 
sociation where "amnesia is not essential." He also emphasizes
 that repression and dissociation are not inter-changeable terms.
 Yap (1960, pp. 114-137) indicated possession by a mythical per 
sonality may be psychotherapeutic in that it "can help the
 individual grasp a profoundly complex life situation as a first
 step towards further action and self-development."
 Conclusion
 A culturally-accepted therapeutic strategy known as the
 "thovile" exists in Sri Lanka and it is a combination of almost
 thirty years of dancing, drununing, and chanting and provides
19
 elaborate ritual, festivity, fantasy, therapy and enter 
tainment. The Thovile, or exorcism ceremony, also displays
 deep concern of the immediate family, friends, and community
 who attend in order to witness the cure.
 In the exorcism cererrDny, three stages are identifiable.
 The first stage of the exorcism is that of initial spirit 
communication, where the exorcist opens himself to attack
 at the cemetery. There is a second state of trance-sugges 
tion-cure where there is a lengthy and elaborate ritual of
 chanting, drumming, and dancing. There is a third stage of
 recovery-resolution, and a sense of togetherness in enter 
tainment where masked dancers in colorful costumes evoke
 laughter, mirth, and enjoyment. Sita made a personal effort,
 with a healing effort by the two exorcists and a supportive
 effort by the community, resulting in a synthesis of conflict
 resolution by Sita. After recovering from the trance, and
 having gone through the entertainment stage of the ceremony,
 Sita seemed to have gained composure. She looked extremely
 exhausted but not in pain. She could now see that her family,
 friends, relatives and neighbors accepted her, in spite of
 her failures.
 I interviewed her a week later and inquired about her
 health. She said that she had not experienced the former
 symptoms of her illness. She also said that the exorcists
 brought her some medicine to be taken internally. This was
 a herbal medicine to be taken for a week at regular inter 
vals. She discussed her future plans, her decision to seek
 work, her decision not to go back to school and her plans
 to seek training in pursuit of batik-making, which is a
 cottage industry. She had risen above her feelings of weak 
ness and hopelessness and had resolved to look for the future
 possibilities for success and personal growth.
20
FOOTNOTES
 1. For years, the term "psychosomatic" designated
 bodily conditions thought to be caused mainly by
 psychological forces and conflicts. But in the
 1950s, the use of the term was limited to a few
 specific diseases such as asthama and peptic ulcer 
"psychophysiologic reaction" encompassed a large
 variety of somatic complaints where emotional and
 social factors were etiologically prominent.
 Currently, the terms are used interchangeably.
 2. Since pity, especially in tragedy, is often pity
 for the dead or bereaved, it is also akin to the
 shared or public lamentation which is part of life
 in small and closely knit communities. There is
 a suggestion that the audience luxuriated in com 
munity sorrow, "surrendering itself" to lamenta 
tion and taking part in mourning along with actors
 and chorus.
 21
22
23
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