part0008

Spirit Possession is a complex phenomenon, integrally related to many other aspects of society and culture...and it is of great interest to local people themselves. Much intellectual, creative, and emotional energy is invested and generated by it...[it is] intrinsically interesting - it raises questions that are provocative for all of us as human beings, questions pertaining to such things as the source of human agency, or the relationship between action and passion, or autonomy and connection, in selfhood. One of the questions it inevitably touches on has to do with the relationship between mind and body .

This book is about tang-ki worship in Singapore. i The core of tang-ki worship is a belief that the gods [shen] can come down from heaven and possess people. When possessed by a god, a person is said to become the god incarnate, and people are able to consult with this god for assistance with problems. People go to a tang-ki for various reasons, such as healing an illness, alleviating worries, helping to obtain a job, passing examinations and obtaining winning lottery numbers. Many tang-kis operate from a room in their house, usually called a shrine [H. xintua, shrine – small temple], while others operate from larger temples.

Chinese people in Singapore hold differing views about tang-ki worship. While some are very positive about involvement with tang-ki worship and give accounts of how such participation has helped in their lives, others are negative and consider it a superstition and the practice of less-educated people. Some see the medium as fraudulent and out to make money from gullible people, while others see mediums as in some ways `mad´.

The phenomenon of spirit possession has been of considerable interest to anthropologists, especially in the subfields of medical anthropology, psychological anthropology and the anthropology of religion. The interest is still current. Spirit possession is, as Boddy says, a subject matter that has been central in anthropological investigations, and she sees its exotic appearance and resistance to being tamed leading it to be looked at with the help of various theoretical approaches and making it, ‘…thematic for the discipline as a whole in its confrontation with the Other’ (1994: 407-408).

Evolutionists, functionalists, structuralists, psychoanalytical anthropologists, phenomenological anthropologists and others have all been interested in this phenomenon. Spirit possession is seen:

It was once thought that with modernity and the associated biomedical and psychological approaches to healing, spirit possession phenomena would disappear, but this, in the main, has not happened, and, in some places, involvement has increased (Comaroff 1994; Behrend and Luig 1999). The diversity of viewpoints amongst researchers on this phenomenon is dealt with in more detail in the next two sections.

Three factors motivated my interest in tang-ki spirit possession and healing. First, in 1991, while visiting Malaysia, Harry, an acquaintance of my brother-in-law, took me to observe a tang-ki session. There was something about the ritual, particularly the elliptical and humorous manner in which the tang-ki communicated with people that reminded me of the way a Lacanian psychoanalyst communicates in analysis with his analysands. I wanted to follow up the relationship of religious healing to psychoanalytic healing. Secondly, in my clinical practice in psychoanalysis, I had come across experiences of analysands that resembled the experiences of those engaged in tang-ki worship. Thirdly, my wife, who is Chinese, has always seen some resemblance in Lacanian psychoanalytic thinking to Chinese philosophy, and I wondered if there was a link between the two and whether there was the possibility of using Lacanian ideas to help understand tang-ki phenomena. These three factors and my reading about spirit mediumship motivated this work.

In this Introduction, information about various background issues important for understanding the nature of this research will be given. First, an outline of the academic literature relating to spirit mediums and possession generally and the relationship to Chinese tang-kis, in particular, will be provided. Then there will be presented a formulation of the nature of the research questions, an outline of the methodology involved in the research, and, finally, a summary of the various chapters.

One can discern in the anthropological literature various approaches towards spirit mediums and possession phenomena. Castillo (1994) outlines three such theoretical orientations: Freudian psychoanalytical theory, a dissociation theory and a culturally shaped ‘Altered State of Consciousness’ theory. However, this classification is limited and does not do justice to the complexity inherent in any one perspective. In essence, it reduces all studies of spirit possession to psychological approaches, whereas many researchers would want to distance themselves from such an orientation.

Boddy’s description of approaches to spirit possession as being between orientations that are reductive, naturalizing, rationalizing and functional and those that are phenomenological and contextualizing seem to do more justice to the material (1994: 410). Her first group includes medicalizing, psychopathologizing and viewing possession rites as group therapy approaches, as well as sociological approaches such as Lewis’ (1989), which see such possession rituals as strategic ploys by disadvantaged groups. Boddy’s other category includes analyses that pay more regard to religious, aesthetic and identity construction concerns as well as to the theme of ‘resistance’.

For heuristic purposes, some of the above orientations are further described, although it must be remembered that most approaches overlap and cannot be separated into exclusive categories. Within any one outlook, there can be aspects that can be seen to be on either end of Boddy’s continuum between reductive and contextualizing orientations.

One main orientation in studying possession behaviour is the social-cultural paradigm where spirit possession is seen to reflect socio-political issues of society. Lewis’ study is paradigmatic in this orientation, and he concludes that possession is mainly a response to difficult situations, which includes environmental uncertainty, insecurity and social change (1989: 182).

Katz’ (1982) work is another example of an analysis that is strong in this trend, as is Stoller’s (1989) work among the Songhay in Niger. In Stoller’s work, the spirits are seen to be representations of the Songhay social and political situation.

While not hostile to religious behaviour and neither psychologically reductive nor pathologizing of religious phenomena, the social-cultural viewpoint has often been socially and culturally reductive. This viewpoint often leaves out what religious people would see as an essential aspect of their beliefs and behaviour; in the case of healing, that it is actually about healing and related to some idea of transcendence. The social-cultural viewpoint, more often than not, merges into other approaches.

Another major orientation to spirit possession is the phenomenological one. Taussig (1987), Boddy (1989), Kapferer (1991), Lambek (1993) and Csordas’ (1994) studies stand out as seminal works in this genre of writing on spirit mediums and possession. Writers in this group often focus on the aesthetics, the theatrical and the performance aspects of possession. The religious aspect is often emphasized in these orientations, as is the subject matter of the construction of the self, subjectivity and identity, although the psychological approach can also address these aspects.

Lambek (1980a, 1980b, 1988, 1993) sees possession as a cultural system that helps people living in a mixed community interpret their experience and enables them to become social persons. Boddy’s (1989) work on women’s possession cults takes the possession cult as a women’s counter-hegemonic discourse as does Ong’s work in Malaysia (1987, 1988).

Some of the studies described eschew psychological approaches to the study of spirit possession. Boddy, for example, acknowledges that although the Northern Sudanese Zar cult she studied is therapy in some ways and is about healing, it is more than this. She calls it a ‘cultural aesthetic’ (1989: 353). Boddy accepts Obeyesekere’s psychodynamic analysis of Sri Lankan ascetics as convincing but denies having the competency to carry out such an analysis (1989: 137). She then suggests that such an analysis may not be needed, as possession is about cultural processes rather than individual processes. Boddy cautions us about taking any one facet of human life, such as the psychological, as being the basis for an analysis of this phenomenon.

Lambek adopts a similar approach to spirit possession. He talks of therapy and cure being part of the idiom of many rituals but says that these are not primary factors. Of prime importance to him is how, ‘possession creates and reproduces social persons, legitimizes their appearance and articulates social relationships’ (1998: 724). In a later paper, however, Lambek (2003) explicitly uses a traditional psychoanalytical approach based on ideas of how projection and introjections are processes that help build a person’s ego, and how these processes can be seen at work in possession phenomena.

While taking Boddy and Lambek’s views on board, one could respond with the question: Is not individual psychotherapy itself a cultural process, a cultural aesthetic and about more than just therapy and healing? While psychotherapy may not create spirit persons, does not therapy create persons and articulate social relationships in its healing? Perhaps this creating of persons is the healing of psychotherapy.

Kapferer is strongly against psychoanalytical views of spirit possession, criticizing Obeyesekere’s work as being reductionist and psychologistic (Kapferer 1991: xix). However, Kapferer’s work is itself partly influenced by a psychological approach, the approach of G.H. Mead (1934). He sees Mead’s work as being more socially orientated than a psychodynamic approach (1991: 273-274). One could say in response that it is puzzling to see how a psychology that involves a balance of the ‘I’ and ‘me’ factors in a person’s life, as Mead’s psychology does, is not psychodynamic.

Those writing from a psychiatric point of view have had a tendency to see religious phenomena as psychopathology. The Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (1976), in a paper on mysticism, indicate that they believe much of the behaviour classified under the heading of mysticism is psychopathological or even psychotic behaviour.

La Barre (1970) and Devereux (1980) see possession experiences, as seen in shamans, as possibly psychotic phenomena as does Silverman (1967). Langness (1965) sees them as hysterical psychotic states. Linton (1956) and Métraux (1959) see them as hysteria. Dulaney and Fiske (1994) and Fiske and Haslam (1997) see religious rituals generally as being similar to an obsessional compulsive disorder. Eyre (2006), in a highly commended medical student essay, argues that the behaviour we are considering is schizophreniform or schizotypal and part of a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. ii He particularly points to the shaman’s belief in having access to a realm beyond the ordinary and also to his or her ability to make connections between phenomena that objectively do not have any connection [apophonia] as aspects of shaman’s behaviour that have similarities to schizophrenia spectrum disorders (Eyre 2006: 4-5). Van Ommeren, Komproe, Cardena, Thapa and others (2004), though, in a study of shamans in a Bhutanese refugee community in Nepal, come to the conclusion that there is no significant difference in psychopathy between shamans and non-shamans [they exclude psychotic illness from their investigation].

Post (1993) points out that many examples of psychopathology in the DSM-111 Manual of Psychiatric Classifications have been taken from religious experience. In the ‘Present State Examination’, used in research for the diagnosis of mental illnesses, various symptoms are described which overlap with religious experience (Wing, Cooper and Sartorius 1974). Klass notes the similarity of some manifestations of possession behaviour to psychopathology (2003: 109). Post (1993) and Crossley (1995) see some of the negativity towards religion on the part of psychiatry as stemming from a Freudian psychoanalytical influence. A few researchers see the main factor causing possession experiences as physical factors such as epilepsy (Loeb 1924) and calcium deficiency (Kehoe and Giletti 1981).

Nearly all the above people writing from a psychiatric viewpoint are reductionist, to some extent, and do not acknowledge that psychopathology is not an ontologically fixed grouping of knowledge but is socially constructed knowledge.

The concept of dissociation in the West is associated with a pathological loss of consciousness and a loss of identity. It is the psychopathological condition, according to Klass, that is most often associated by anthropologists with spirit possession (Klass 2003: 79). One can question whether dissociation is different from hysteria, although, certainly, Castillo thinks so. iii Castillo (1994a, 1994b) sees possession as dissociation related to multiple personality disorder [now called dissociative identity disorder] in psychiatric nosology. He disagrees that dissociation is based on repression [a defence mechanism] of unacceptable ideas [related to oedipal dynamics] into an unconscious that can only be accessed through derivative material such as dreams and parapraxis (1994a: 5-11). Castillo maintains that another consciousness, cut off from normal consciousness, is present in dissociation and that this is clearly seen in possession phenomena.

Castillo says spirit possession and multiple personality disorder are two illnesses of a dissociative type that are psycho-culturally distinct (1994b: 157). In his paper, he is mainly concerned with looking at ordinary people who become possessed, rather than looking at mediums. Given that Castillo refers to possession as a disorder and as an illness, this approach still involves an explanation of possession as involving pathology based, in his thinking, on stress. Klass sees possession as dissociative phenomena, only not pathological (2003: 119). Suryani and Jenson (1993) also take a view of possession in Bali being about dissociation and related to multiple personality disorder. Oesterreich (1974) sees possession as being about multiple personalities. Boddy (1989), Littlewood (1996, 2002) and Klass (2003) see value in linking discourses about multiple personality disorder to discourses about possession.

Not all people working in the above paradigm think of religious behaviour as involving pathology, nor are all the writings in this group simplistic, reductive and pathologizing. One can find works in medical anthropology that are complex, non-reductive and non-pathologizing. There are also various empirical studies showing a positive correlation between religious belief and good mental health (Schumacher 1992; Batson, Schoenrade and Ventis 1993). Within psychiatry, the works of Littlewood and Lipsedge (1982), Kleinman and Good (1985), Littlewood, (1993, 2002), Skultans and Cox (2000) and Jenkins and Barrett (2004) stand out as non-reductionist studies on cultural aspects of mental illness. Littlewood’s work on possession avoids pathologizing spirit possession. He relates it to various phenomena in both modern and traditional societies, including multiple personality disorder. Littlewood effectively deconstructs the psychiatric idea of psychopathology as an ontological category and shows that psychiatric researchers need to consider illness as being about behaviours that are embedded, contextualized and understood as belonging to particular sociocultural contexts.

The ‘Altered States of Consciousness’ approach does not see trance states as mental illness but sees such experiences as part of the ‘psychobiological potential’ that resides within humans, and it sees people like shamans and spirit mediums as able to utilize these states for healing and transformative purposes (Winkelman 2000). Bourguignon (1968) and Goodman (1988) are key investigators utilizing this orientation.

Another strand of the psychological approach is the view of possession and healing as a type of psychotherapy for non-Western people. Freud (1897) saw medieval ideas of possession and exorcism as being similar to his ideas about hysteria and psychoanalysis. Suryani and Jenson (1993) see possession rituals in Bali as a type of therapy. Lévi-Strauss’ ‘The Sorcerer and his Magic’ (1963) is a classic in this type of analysis. In the paper, Lévi-Strauss compares shamanic healing with psychoanalysis. He sees the shaman helping a woman with a difficult birth by providing her with a language or symbolic system that orders an unintelligible pain [what Lacan might call the real] (Lévi-Strauss 1963: 197-198). It is mentioned that one of the differences between shamanic healing and psychoanalytic healing is that in the shamanic cure a person is introduced to a social myth, while in psychoanalytical healing a person is introduced to a personal myth (1963: 199). Interestingly, in the light of this present study, Lévi-Strauss shows that a study of shamanic healing may help us to understand the obscure works of Freudian theory (1963: 202).

Peters makes a direct comparison of shamanism with therapy, seeing the major factor of shamanism being the diagnosis and treatment of both physical and mental illness and the solution to personal problems, marital conflict, economic difficulties and bad luck (Peters 1978: 63). Kakar (1982) also points out both the resemblances and differences between possession rituals and psychotherapy. For him, the differences include the fact that traditional systems of healing concentrate more on integrating an individual within a community, rather than strengthening the individual, on faith rather than insight.

While the above writers compare possession rites and religious rituals to psychotherapy, there are attempts by several writers to compare psychotherapy with religion and ritual processes (Rieff 1966; Bull 1984; Gellner 1985; Webster 1995).

Psychoanalysis, overall, has had a negative evaluation of religious phenomena. It has had a tendency to see religion as pathological in nature. Freud saw religious behaviour as involving obsessionality (Freud 1907), illusion (Freud 1927) or even delusion (Freud 1930). He, several times, alludes to the similarity of possession experiences to hysteria. We see this in a letter to Fliess and in two early papers on hysteria (1886, 1888, 1897). It is important to note that, in these comments, the importance for Freud is the psychopathology of the disturbed person and not the exorcist. In A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DEMONOLOGICAL NEUROSIS , Freud (1923) furthers the analysis of possession as being about psychopathology. Again, this work is not about the healer but about the patient.

Many psychoanalytical researchers of spirit possession have taken up the position of possession states as being hysterical in nature. Moreover, they have included in their analyses the possessed spirit mediums or shamans that treat the disturbed. Freed and Freed (1964) see possession experiences in India as hysterical phenomena and as being an illness. The woman they write about has an illness, hysteria, manifested in possession. They see the illness as being related to tension and conflict caused by an unconscious desire of the woman to have sex with her father and thus about Oedipal dynamics (1964). However, they do not look at mediums or shamans. Devereux (1980) thinks that shamans have a mental illness, either hysteria or schizophrenia. Spiro sees religion as being part of a necessary culturally constituted defence mechanism and not necessarily psychopathology. However, he does see some male initiation rituals as being wasteful of economic and emotional resources that could be applied to more ‘rational’ ways of dealing with problems of life (1987b: 96). We could conclude that the examples given above of various psychoanalytical approaches to spirit mediums are psychologically reductive and pathologizing.

But while psychoanalytical analyses of possession behaviour have tended to be strongly related to the view of possession as pathology, there are also psychoanalytic studies that involve other factors such as identity concerns. Thus, the volume by Crapanzano and Garrison (1977) includes psychoanalytic analyses that relate possession phenomena to the cultural-social process of the cultures in which they are found as well as to questions of individual identity and subjectivity. Zempleni’s (1977) work, drawing particularly on Lacanian psychoanalysis, demonstrates this.

Ewing (1990) critiques the notion of the ‘self’ used by psychoanalysts inspired by Kohut, and elsewhere she uses the works of Lacanian psychoanalysis to talk about issues of self, identity and subjectivity (1997). Other writers in anthropology such as Lidz and Lidz (1977), Herdt and Stoller (1990), Kurtz (1992), Bull (1996/97), Ewing (1997), Weiner (1995, 1999) and contributors to the volume on anthropology and psychoanalysis, edited by Heald and Deluz (1994), provide sophisticated analyses of cultural phenomena from a psychoanalytic point of view. Foremost amongst those working in the area of anthropology and psychoanalysis is Obeyesekere (1981, 1990), whose work is dealt with in more detail in later chapters.

Researchers in the area of Chinese culture have taken multiple viewpoints concerning tang-ki spirit mediumship. Although this phenomenon has a long history in Chinese societies, it had not received much attention by either Chinese or Western scholars (Elliott 1955: 15). At the end of the nineteenth century, de Groot (1964) produced a detailed account of tang-ki practices in China. A classic study of tang-kis in Singapore is Elliott’s (1951) CHINESE SPIRIT-MEDIUM CULTS IN SINGAPORE .

This section considers the various orientations of researchers and their works on tang-ki worship. The different orientations can be labelled descriptive, social-cultural, phenomenological and psychological.

Both de Groot’s and Elliott’s works are descriptive accounts of tang-ki phenomena. They lack an analytical viewpoint. This applies, also, to the works of Potter (1974), Heinze (1979, 1993), Ju (1983), Cheu (1993) and Lang and Lars (1998), although Lang and Lars do point out that some of the differences in the way spirit mediums work are because of political factors [Heinze, Ju and Cheu’s studies are on spirit mediums in Singapore and Malaysia].

One of the main approaches to tang-ki worship in anthropology is the social-cultural approach. Many of the writings on Chinese spirit mediums fall into this second category of approaches. Thus, Seaman takes a social-cultural paradigm for his study of spirit mediums in Taiwan. He links the phenomenon of possession in spirit mediums to hierarchical roles in Chinese culture and argues that tang-ki rituals allow people to approach those in authority in a way that is meaningful to them (1978: 71). Cheu (1993), in a typically Durkheimian fashion, relates possession to larger cosmological beliefs. Wolf (1992) shows how a spirit-medium is legitimized or not by the people surrounding the spirit-medium. In a psychological orientation, one would begin to wonder here whether the question of legitimization has anything to do with the difference between being normal, or being mad or bad. Nickerson’s (2001) paper on Taiwanese spirit mediums is interesting in that it touches on some of the areas of concern in this present study. He sees spirit-medium shrines as being ‘autonomous spaces’ where there is a type of poetic/ecstatic ritual of possession, similar to how Deleuze and Guattari describe the ‘schizo’ in their writings. In Nickerson’s analysis, he draws on the work of Bakhtin, Kristeva and Lacan. Chau (2005) analyzes the re-emergence of temples in China in relationship to issues of legitimacy and state policies.

One sees in DeBernardi’s (1993, 1994a 1994b, 1995, 2004, 2006) work examples of a phenomenological approach to our subject matter. DeBernardi’s work also contains a strong social-cultural orientation. Her work is centred in Malaysia. The issue of identity for Chinese people living as a minority group and how religious practices, including tang-ki practices, help maintain this identity are central issues for DeBernardi (1993, 1994a, 1995, 2006). In one paper, she looks at medium activity from the perspective of the identity of Chinese Hokkien people compared to other ethnic groups in Malaysia (DeBernardi 1993). She borrows a phrase from Feuchtwang (1975) to express a second aim: to account for ‘the social formation of subjectivity’ through the study of Chinese religious ideology where, ‘…social forms are imagined as subjects and the relations between subjects’ (1993: 144). In another paper, DeBernardi draws explicitly on the idea of possession ritual being performative and theatrical in nature (1995). She also stresses the sacred nature of such performances and the transformative potential of the ritual (1995: 152). DeBernardi’s (2006) recent book on spirit mediums in Malaysia is largely a descriptive account of the phenomenon. Her work is, after Chan’s work, the most valuable for background material on tang-kis in the region where the present study is conducted.

Another important study on tang-kis is Chan’s (2002, 2006) work, which investigates tang-kis in Singapore from the point of view of performative studies. In this work, Chan’s thesis is that given that ritual is theatre and theatre is ritual, the ritual of tang-ki worship is a type of theatre and performance (2002: 34). Her thesis is informative and has a largely descriptive approach to tang-ki worship. It is strong in describing the historical background to spirit-medium worship, tracing details of tang-ki worship back to ancient China. This work is one of the few in the literature on Chinese tang-kis that deals with the mortification aspect of tang-ki practices. It lacks, however, ethnographic detail of particular people or locations. It also lacks description and analysis of the political and economic context of Singapore in which tang-kis operate. Chan acknowledges she has not looked at areas of tang-ki phenomena that a medical anthropologist may be interested in (2002: 48). She, for example, barely mentions the healing aspect of tang-ki worship. I see my study as complementing Chan’s analysis by taking up the theme of ‘healing’, something the tang-kis whom I met in the course of this study emphasize as central to their practice. I also provide detailed ethnographical description and analysis of the socio-political environment in which tang-kis operate.

Some of the studies in the social-cultural and phenomenological tradition lack a sophisticated notion of subjectivity. In DeBernardi’s works, the idea of subjectivity seems to mean a type of ‘social identity’. It leaves out of account issues of psychic structure, how an individual takes on this ‘social identity’ and how the social is related to the personal. It assumes this happens. The same criticism could be made of Chan’s work. Where are the people who are the actors in the theatre? Are they all just playing roles and wearing masks? This lack in the literature could be remedied by joining their analyses to a psychoanalytical approach towards tang-ki phenomena, as will be carried out in the present work.

One researcher, AvRuskin (1988), looks at tang-ki spirit possession from the perspective of physiological processes occurring in the brain. McCreery (1979) takes up a more narrow aim in his paper and attempts to outline the difference between potential and effective meaning in therapeutic ritual in Chinese society.

Kleinman’s work is paradigmatic in the study of Chinese tang-kis from the point of view of healing (Kleinman and Sung 1979, Kleinman 1980). In his writings, Kleinman is at pains to show that healing takes place within cultural systems. Intrinsic to these systems are explanatory models taken up by people in various positions that give explanations of illnesses and possible treatments for them (1980: 104-118). Kleinman also makes an important distinction between disease, the biological and psychological aspect of unwellness and illness, the socio/cultural and meaning aspect of unwellness (1980: 72).

Psychiatrists are notable amongst early investigators of tang-ki phenomena. Psychoanalysis often inspired them. Li and Phillips (1990) show that in 1990, about 70% of those with mental illness living in the countryside of one part of China consulted tang-kis. In a similar study in Singapore, Kua, Chew and Ko (1993) note that 36% of psychiatric patients consulted tang-kis before going to a psychiatric hospital. Most were suffering from somatic symptoms.

A few scholars have used psychoanalytical thinking in their approach to thinking about tang-ki mediumship. Kua, Sim and Chee, psychiatrists, in their research on tang-kis in Singapore associate possession trance, both of mediums and ordinary people, with hysteria and see involvement in tang-ki worship as a defence mechanism for preserving one’s dignity and self-worth (Kua, Sim and Chee 1986: 363). The psychiatrist Yap (1960) takes on a psychodynamic approach combined with Mead’s social psychology. In his work, he adopts a traditional psychoanalytical account of the phenomenon as involving hysteria and pseudo-psychotic symptoms.

In another paper, Yap (1954) depicts Hung Hsiu-Ch’uan, the leader of the Chinese Taiping rebellion in 1850, a movement involving mass possession, as grossly hysterical and suffering from hallucinations and possibly also having schizophrenic-paranoid elements in his personality. Yet he also notes that other researchers into this movement might have seen it as a peasant uprising against officials or a protest against unjust economic conditions (1954). This paper, although well written, is an example of psychological reductionism - economic and political factors are ignored while psychopathology is highlighted.

Tseng (1972), a psychiatrist, in a paper on spirit mediums in Taiwan, also sees the spirit medium’s personality as being similar to that of the hysteric, although he does note that the shaman is a socially constructed role. Tseng sees people who become shamans as fulfilling unconscious desires, such as being able to play out various emotions or behaviours that would not be possible in normal circumstances. He also points out that shamanism is a type of psychotherapy or counselling for people.

Another psychiatrist, Teo (1973), takes an approach to tang-ki healing based on projection. He points to a culturally sanctioned externalization of a person’s interpersonal and intrapsychic problems as being involved in the attribution of the problems to supernatural causes as the main process of how tang-ki healing operates (1973:58). The problems are then dealt with on that level and are thus protective of people’s established relationships.

Jordan (1990) takes up the theme of the unconscious functions of cultural behaviour from Spiro to investigate automatic writing of trance mediums in Taiwan. He concludes that involvement in spirit-medium activities enables people to express dependency needs through devotion to the main possessing spirit. It allows people to obtain some much-desired praise for their efforts in life and also enables a degree of hostility to be expressed towards non-members of the cult. The article is not strong in the use of psychoanalytical theory.

Most of the psychiatric and psychoanalytical work on tang-ki worship and religious practice in Chinese culture are reductive and repetitive in nature. They do not take account of ethnographic context and are prime examples of what those opposed to psychoanalytical approaches in anthropology rail against as being reductive.

One of the best uses of a psychoanalytical approach in looking at Chinese religious practices is the work of Sangren (1997). He is a leading anthropologist of Chinese culture and his writing gives an extensive and comprehensive account from a Marxist point of view of practices associated with Chinese religion in Taiwan (1987, 1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2004). In these works, Sangren analyzes temple activity using the notion of alienation to show how society produces cultural subjects and how cultural subjects produce society (1991: 69). He attempts in MYTH, GENDER AND SUBJECTIVITY to provide a Lacanian psychoanalytic view (1997). This book makes the most extensive use of a psychoanalytical approach amongst writings on Chinese religion, and it is paradigmatic for my study of tang-ki healing. In his book, Sangren looks at the social production of the person and issues of gender and subjectivity by way of an analysis of the myths of Nezha and Guanyin. These two myths are central to understanding the two tang-kis I spent the most time with while in Singapore. While Sangren does not look at the phenomenon of tang-k worship in much detail, he does suggest that his work could be furthered by looking at this aspect of Chinese religion (1997: 34). I take up this challenge in this present work and see it as an extension of Sangren’s work in three areas:

The central question of the research is whether tang-ki worship is ‘madness’ or ‘transcendence’ [religious experience] or, indeed, both. iv Madness here is taken as a term meaning both a description of abnormal behaviour and as psychopathology. It can be considered as being on a continuum from a person’s view of another or another’s behaviour as somewhat strange, through psychoanalytical categories of abnormal behaviour to phenomenological descriptive psychiatry and lastly to biomedical psychiatry’s view of strange behaviour as being diseases in the brain. While it may be argued that it is better to keep these various aspects of conduct as separate, I maintain that there is some merit in keeping them together, given that the informants being studied in the research usually balanced these different understandings of ‘madness’.

Related questions are:

In answering the above questions, various Lacanian concepts, such as the three registers of the imaginary, real and symbolic; the typology of the four discourses-the discourse of the master, the discourse of the university, the discourse of the hysteric and the discourse of the analyst; the clinical category of psychosis; the idea of jouissance and the concept of the sinthome will be utilized. All of these concepts are worked out by Lacan in relationship to his ideas on psychopathology and subjectivity. v

The research for this book was conducted over two main periods. Previously, I had spent one month [in 1991] in Malaysia, mainly in Melaka, investigating the possibility of a study of tang-ki healing. I spent three months, from September to November 2002, in both Singapore and Malaysia carrying out research on tang-kis. I later spent ten months in Singapore, from December 2004 to September 2005, carrying out the main part of the research.

In the first period of fieldwork, eleven tang-kis were interviewed, three temple celebrations were attended and various other people involved in tang-ki worship were interviewed.

• A shrine founded in 2001, near Ang Mio Kio, which is in the north-central part of Singapore. The shrine is referred to as the Ang Mio Kio shrine. It is where the tang-ki Anna becomes possessed by Guanyin. I used to attend the shrine once or twice a week at the beginning of my research but not as frequently in the middle period, although close contact was maintained with Anna and her husband during the whole period of the research.

• A shrine established in 1930, near Redhill, and called in this book the Redhill shrine. I use to visit it three or sometimes more times a week. I had a very positive relationship with the two tang-kis and other members of the shrine. The main tang-ki at this shrine was Wei, who becomes possessed by the deity, Nezha. There was also another tang-ki at this shrine that becomes possessed by Qing Shii Zhoa shi [Cheng Chwee Chor Su], who was a Buddhist monk].

At all of the shrines, especially the Redhill one, there were, in addition to the normal weekly consultations offered to people, other activities taking place such as visits to other shrines, especially for their yearly celebrations. I often became involved in these activities.

I also got to know well a second tang-ki possessed by Guanyin, another tang-ki possessed by Nezha and a tang-ki possessed by a Datuk Kong Malay spirit, Latu Asila Tei [Datuk is a Malay word meaning grandfather and is an honorific term given by the state to certain people. Kong is a Chinese word meaning grandfather and also is an honorific title]. I met various other tang-kis during my stay in Singapore, attended eight temple celebrations and went to more than twelve temple dinners. Two psychologists and one psychiatrist were interviewed, and I attended two meetings on mental health issues in Singapore.

In the first period of the research, there was a concentration on obtaining interviews with various mediums, although a close relationship was formed with one tang-ki and also with a person, Harry, who had consulted with many tang-kis over the previous twenty years of his life. In the main period of research, although formal interviews with the tang-kis mentioned were carried out, the main source of material was gathered by participant observation, by being involved in the activities of the shrines. This procedure led to material that would not have been collected by formal interviewing alone.

The language in which ‘consultation with the god’ takes place is mainly a high form of Hokkien, although I have heard Mandarin being used and even, on one occasion, English. At the Ang Mio Kio shrine, the languages spoken are Hokkien, mainly, but also Mandarin and English. At the Redhill shrine, the languages usually spoken are Teochew, Hokkien and a mixture of the two, as well as Mandarin. Nearly all Singaporean people can speak English and people generally chose to speak to me in English. Wei, the medium at Redhill spoke to me in Mandarin. His ability to speak to me in a way I understood and to understand my Mandarin was outstanding. The ease in Singapore with which people spoke different languages and went from one language to another in the course of the same conversation was quite amazing and beyond my capacity to emulate, although I found my ability to speak Mandarin increased in the time I was in Singapore.

When carrying out formal interviews, especially at the beginning, an interpreter was usually present or a use was made of a tape recorder. Having an interpreter present, especially earlier on in the research, was particularly useful, as the interpreter also helped introduce me to the people I wanted to interview and could explain to the interviewees, more ably than I, what the research was about. The use of a tape recorder caused few problems, although, on occasions, when talking about personal matters people sometimes asked me to turn it off.

At the beginning of the research, I had for two months the help of my wife, who is Malaysian Chinese and who grew up in Malaysia and Singapore, as a field assistant; the help of Harry [an aficionado of tang-ki phenomena] and also the support of Kim-Seng. Their assistance was invaluable in quickly introducing me to tang-kis and their temples. At the Ang Mio Kio shrine, which could be characterized to some extent as a women’s shrine, I perceived that my wife was accepted into the group much quicker than I was, and she helped me better integrate into the life of the temple through her presence, despite her having less sympathy than I have for religious practices and spirit medium phenomena, in particular. Through her involvement, she gained some respect for the mediums we met during the research and became a friend to Anna, the tang-ki at Ang Mio Kio. My sister-in-law Erjie also helped as an adviser and sometimes as an interpreter in the latter part of the research.

Singapore is a country consisting of one main island, Singapore Island, on which the majority of the population live, and approximately sixty smaller islands. The land area of the country is 699 square kilometres. Singapore Island is 544 square kilometres and is 42 kilometres long and 23 kilometres wide. Singapore is located just 137 kilometres north of the equator. The climate is extremely humid at 75%, sunny and has an average temperature of 27ºC. Singapore is connected in the north by two bridges to Malaysia. Indonesia is to the south, west and east of Singapore.

The Portuguese, in 1511, were the first Europeans to establish a colony in the region. They colonized Melaka on the west coast of what is today Malaysia. In 1611, the Dutch took over Melaka and extended their rule to Indonesia. The British, through the East India Company, founded a colony in Penang [on the west coast of Malaysia]. The British took over Melaka in 1795. From then on there was a gradual growth of British control over the Malay area including Singapore. When Raffles arrived in Singapore in January 1819, there was a small community of Orang Laut people and a community of Chinese people on the island. Raffles almost immediately made a treaty with the rulers giving rights over Singapore to the East India Company. The original rulers still had some authority on the island but they ceded this to the British in 1824. The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 gave Britain a ‘sphere of influence’ over Singapore and areas to the north, leaving the area to the south of Singapore under Dutch influence. The 1826, Straits Settlement joined Penang, Melaka and Singapore into one administrative unit. In 1867, the area became a crown colony ruled directly by the British.

The Japanese occupied Singapore during the Second World War. After the war, Singapore was ruled directly from Britain. There was a keen interest in politics at that time, and the communist and trade union movements were considerably powerful and made calls for independence from Britain. Malaysia gained independence in 1957, but Singapore stayed under British control with increasing levels of self-government being allowed. In 1959, Singapore was granted full internal self-government with the colonial administration keeping control of external affairs and internal security. The People’s Action Party [PAP], under Lee Kuan Yew, became the ruling party of Singapore, after elections in 1959, and has held office ever since. In 1963, colonial rule came to an end and Singapore became an autonomous state within the Federation of Malaysia but in 1965 was asked to leave the union. Singapore thus became independent in 1965. From that time, Singapore began to develop into a wealthy city-state. The PAP government under Lee Kuan Yew has been involved in the control of nearly all aspects of Singapore’s way of life (Trocki 2006).

Singapore is one of the world’s most densely populated countries. The population of Singapore was 4,483,000 in mid-2006 (Department of Statistics 2006). Of resident Singaporeans in 2000, approximately 77.7% are Chinese, 14.1% Malay, 8.2% Indian and others (Ooi and Shaw 2004: 54). Non-residents make up 18.8% of the population (Ooi and Shaw 2004: 72-73). Over 88% of the population live in high-rise housing built by the Housing Development Board [HDB] and over 90% of the population own their home (Chiew 2002: 18-19).

There are four official languages used in Singapore: English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil. Malay is the national language, although only spoken by a minority. English is the language of business and administration. Sometimes the colloquial English spoken by some of the population is referred to as Singlish. There are also other languages in use by people including Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew and Cantonese, all spoken by different Chinese people. The Hokkien people constitute 41.1% of the Chinese population (Lee, E. 2001).

In Singapore, most of the main religions are present, including Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Taoism, Confucianism, Hinduism and Sikhism. In the population as a whole 42.5% are Buddhists, 14.9% are Muslim, 14.6% are Christian, 8.5% are Taoists, 4% are Hindus, 0.6% other religions, while 14.8% say they have no religious belief (Department of Statistics 2001). The Chinese people are mainly a mixture of Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, but there is also a significant number of Christians amongst the Chinese people.

Taoism is a religion difficult to define. It has many dimensions to it. There is philosophical Taoism that can often be discussed without any reference to gods and spirits. There is a religious form of Taoism with its priests, monasteries, elaborate rituals and a vast pantheon of gods and spirits. Kirkland, however, criticizes what he thinks is a simplistic dichotomy made between philosophical and religious Taoism. He proposes the use of a dichotomy of mystical models and liturgical models as an alternative (2004: 92). Taoism started to become organized as a religion during the first-century C.E.

There are various schools of Taoism, including the Celestial Master sect [T’ien-shih Tao] and the Complete Reality School [Chu’uan-chen]. Out of the T’ien-shih Tao movement emerged a new school called Chengyi Taoism [Orthodox Unity]. This school is concerned with talismans, incantations, prayers and rituals. Chengyi Taoism is the dominant school of Taoism in Singapore, although it can hardly be called a school as the priests are independent of one another. One tang-ki told me that some operate like family businesses. Taoist priests as well as conducting funerals and other rituals also often attend parts of the rituals of tang-ki shrines’ yearly celebrations.

There is also in Taoism what is called ‘folk Taoism’ or ‘popular religion’, which includes tang-ki worship. vi Singapore tang-kis and followers refer to themselves as Taoists, although they often do not separate out teachings of Buddhism and Confucianism from their own teachings. There has been strain and tension in the past between tang-ki worship and other forms of Taoism (Davis 2001; Strickmann 2002).

According to some people I met, the aim of popular religion is to pay respect and honour to the gods in order to have some success in this life and to avoid too much time in hell in the next life. Taoists also take on as beliefs ideas of ‘karma’ and ‘rebirth’ derived from Buddhism. I found the thought and practices of tang-ki worship to be flexible with no governing body telling people what to do or believe; there is room for improvisation and individual opinions to be expressed. However, this is not to say there were no influences at work to keep practices fairly uniform.

Tang-ki practices can be traced back to very ancient times in China. Chinese religion is noted for the importance given to divination, to consultations with the gods and the spirit world for advice and for cures of illness. Sacrifices [chi/ji] of food items are offered to various deities. Chan reaches the conclusion that some aspects of spirit mediums can be traced back more than 5,000 years. She traces aspects of tang-ki worship back to the third millennium BCE to the pre-Chinese Yao people, who lived in southern China, from where Hokkien people originated (2002: 163). Chan links the mediums to male ritual specialists of the Zhou Dynasty [1027-221 BCE] and from there to the Yao, rather than to the female shamans [wu] of the Shang period [1766-1123 BCE.] (2002: 178-179).

Chan also notes that the Wang ritual specialists of the Shang era, who were exposed to the sun in rain-making rituals, were usually crippled, deformed or lunatic people seen as ‘other’, and because of this they were considered to be suitable intermediaries between gods in heaven and people on earth (2002: 181). She sees tang-kis, whose costumes symbolize children’s undergarments and thus nudity, as traceable back to Wang rituals of exposure (2002: 181).

Because of this ancient history and the fact that in most other Chinese countries tang-kis have suffered state control in one way or another, Chan comes to the conclusion that, ‘It is only in Singapore that the practice of tang-ki worship may be described as pristine’ (2002: 33). It is not entirely clear what Chan means by ‘pristine’, but the context in which she uses the term suggests the meaning of pure and uncorrupted. While aspects of tang-ki worship may go back for centuries, the concept of ‘pristine’ seems to suggest it is isolated from current concerns.

It is shown in this present work that tang-ki worship is still very contemporary and relevant. It is by no means a museum display piece but a discourse that can help one understand much about modernity and practices of healing.

The main theoretical orientation used in this thesis, that of Lacanian psychoanalysis, is outlined and a justification given for its use in this project. The history of the relationship between anthropology and psychoanalysis is outlined as well as the relationship of Lacan and Lacanian psychoanalysis to Chinese culture.

The second chapter introduces the reader to the field where tang-kis carry out their work of healing. The healing ritual of the Ang Mio Kio shrine is described, as are two detailed examples of people who went to the shrine for healing. Readers are also given examples of conversations between a tang-ki and clients. After that, the lives of Anna, at the Ang Mio Kio shrine and Wei, at the Red Hill shrine, are outlined to show how, after they became caught up in the symbolic system of possession and became tang-kis, their ‘illness’ disappeared. At the end of the chapter, Lacan’s theory of hysteria and his discourse of the hysteric are adumbrated, and it is suggested that these ideas can be helpful for understanding the situation of some of the people involved in tang-ki worship.

In this chapter, the issue of how spirit-medium discourse is related to gender is discussed. Lacan’s first aspect of hysteria - that it is a question about being a man or a woman - is used to help develop the analysis. The situation of Anna and Wei in relationship to the issue of gender is given. Two myths are then looked at in some detail – Guanyin and Nezha. These two myths serve as foundation myths for the two mediums. Sangren’s analysis of the two myths is outlined, as he gives one of the most extensive psychoanalytical analysis of these myths. His analysis is critiqued, and a further analysis of the material is developed. More ethnographic material is then introduced to show the diversity of the situation in Singapore in regards to gender and subjectivity.

The second aspect of the Lacanian theory of hysteria – that of hysteria being a resistance to a master signifier or master discourse – is taken up in this chapter and used to examine tang-ki phenomena in Singapore. The idea that some of the gods worshipped at tang-ki shrines are counter-cultural figures is first outlined. Toa Ji A Pei, two hell spirits who when possessing tang-kis are represented as opium-smoking spirits are discussed and presented as exemplifying this resistance. The reluctance of Singaporean people to talk about politics is noted, and it is suggested that the Government can be characterized as authoritarian and bureaucratic. Weber’s concept of ‘instrumental rationality’ is used to characterize the way the Government governs the country and the way major institutions operate. This idea is then aligned with Lacan’s concept of the discourse of the master, and it is shown that tang-ki worship can be seen, on one level, as a discourse of the hysteric challenging the discourse of the master and thus as an oppositional ideology.

It is postulated in this chapter that there is more involved in tang-ki activities than just gender issues or issues of resistance to master signifiers. The argument is put forward that tang-ki worship is also about the creation of subjectivity and the production of desire. In Chinese terms, this may be considered as a relationship between fate [min-gyuan] and luck [xingyuan]. This chapter shows that tang-ki worship, while based on small communities of people gathering together, also has a place for the individual.

In Singapore, one of the key issues for the Government is that of identity. Singapore is made up of various ethnic groups. It has established strong relationships with the United States of America. One question for Singaporeans is whether Singapore is an Asian or Western country. Another issue is whether the Chinese Singaporean is Chinese, Singaporean, a member of a dialect group or all of these. Other identifying categories for people are ‘heartlander’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ and traditional or modern. It is argued that the divided self of the tang-ki represents the possibility of multiple identities that a person is able to take on, and that tang-ki worship helps people live with these multiple identities.

In this chapter, the association of tang-ki worship with madness is discussed. Accounts of researchers who have seen spirit mediums as being in some ways ‘mad’, in the sense of being mentally ill, are given in the introduction. A description of the work of Jackson and Fulford (1997) and other commentators on psychopathology and spiritual experience is given. It is shown from the ethnographic material that tang-ki possession cannot be considered as madness in the sense of illness, but that it can, on the contrary, be seen to help keep madness at bay, or, at least, liveable with in some situations. While it is usual in psychoanalytical theory to use the idea of the Oedipus complex and whether a person has passed through it or not as a key to distinguishing normality from pathology, the Lacanian theory used here does not necessary imply that this is the only way through to ‘normality’. The psychoanalytical approach to the mechanism at play in tang-ki worship that helps people remain ‘normal’ in some way does not need to invoke the notion of the Oedipus complex. Lacanian concepts of the sinthome and jouissance are used to argue for another view of the subject matter.

Tang-ki worship is looked at, in this final chapter, in relationship to the capitalist economy of Singapore. Some of the people who attend shrines seemed to have a preoccupation with money and wealth production and also a considerable interest in lotteries. Some deities or spirits are believed to give out lucky numbers that are used to buy lottery tickets. It is shown that this interest is not just a ‘celebration of capitalism’ but also a manifestation of a peculiar ‘jouissance’ or enjoyment within a type of Chinese capitalism. It is also noted, contrary to Sass, Jameson, Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas that capitalism is in some way related to a certain schizophrenic logic, that this logic is not evident in Singapore and that various factors, including that of tang-ki worship, may mitigate against it. However, it is pointed out that an illness such as anorexia may be related to issues of modernity in Singapore.