part0010

A cultural perspective [on hysteria] alerts us to the profound effects of psychiatric theory and practice on patients’ illness behaviour…Conversion hysteria reflects more pervasive cultural concepts of body, mind, and consciousness. It is precisely because hysteria contravenes commonsense notions of rational self-control and autonomy that it continues to evoke both theoretical interest and scepticism. Hysteria has much to teach us, not only about the mechanism of attention, self-control, and awareness but also about the social and cultural roots of our sense of self .

In this chapter, the healing activity of tang-kis is described and situated in relationship to the notion of hysteria. In the first part, the Ang Mio Kio shrine is introduced. Then, two descriptions of people attending the shrine for healing are given, followed by shorter vignettes of others helped by involvement in tang-ki healing practices. Next, an account of Anna, the tang-ki at the Ang Mio Kio shrine, and Wei, the tang-ki at the Redhill shrine, is presented. Both, prior to becoming mediums, were very ill, but their ‘illness’ disappeared as they were caught up in the symbolic system of tang-ki worship and became tang-kis themselves. In the third section, the psychoanalytical notion of hysteria is outlined and, in the conclusion of the chapter, it is argued that some of the situations discussed in this chapter can be understood by relating them to the notion of hysteria.

One Friday evening, two weeks after arriving in Singapore and after making contact with a local tang-ki through a friend, I, slightly anxious, was accompanied to Anna’s small shrine. The brightly painted red door and the security grill were open. Two small incense holders for the door gods [Men Shen] were outside on either side of one of the windows. There was a shoe rack on the ground. Above the window was a red sash with the name of the shrine written on it and hanging down in front of the window were two round red lanterns. Opposite a narrow passageway was a small altar for the heavenly god, Yu Huang Dadi, made of a small, red, wooden platform mounted on the outside wall. i

Beside the altar was a black flag [hei ling] depicting the Ba Gua, or eight trigrams symbol [a series of trigrams arranged in a circular fashion with a yin-yang symbol at the centre]. Each trigram is composed of broken yin and unbroken yang lines. The Ba Gua is considered powerful in warding off evil spirits [gui]. When one sees the flag outside a shrine, one knows that a spirit medium operates from the shrine. The flag is also used to head processions.

After taking off our shoes and entering the shrine, we came into a clean, dark room, dimmed by incense smoke. We were greeted by one of the temple members who took us over to Anna, the tang-ki, who was sitting with others on the side of the room near a notice board. Anna was in a white t-shirt and white trousers. She is a short, attractive-looking woman with a large, slightly cheeky smile. Anna looked to me to be in her late thirties, although I later learnt she was in her late forties. We were given tea by one of the members and Anna spoke to us for a while, but as we were late she then left us talking to a member while she went to prepare for consultations.

There were about eight or so members present in the temple dressed in white t-shirts with the name of the shrine and the name of a company [owned by a patron of the shrine] written on their t-shirts. Two younger members, Anna’s sons, came in a little later with the name of a Catholic high school marked on their t-shirts. There were also six people at the back of the shrine waiting for a consultation. Soon after we arrived, Anna became possessed by the deity Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, and people started to go up to Anna to consult with the deity.

The room we entered from the outside leads into the kitchen at the back right of the flat. Immediately opposite the door after entering are two altars, one above the other. The top altar is dedicated to the generals and soldiers who help the gods carry out their work against evil spirits; the one underneath is dedicated to the earth god. The heavenly general’s altar has five different coloured flags on it. There are three rows of five small wooden heads, each mounted on a needle, each one representing one of the many generals and armies in the service of the gods. Also present is a small statue of the dog, Tian Gou [heavenly dog], owned by one of the generals. There are two oil lamps, representing longevity, and two electric lamps on the altar. There are also various food offerings. Two crescent-shaped divining blocks [bei] are also present on the altar.

To the left of these two altars is a red box for people who want to give donations to the shrine. These donations are sometimes put in a red packet [hongbao H. angbao] a customary way of giving a gift of money. Hanging from the ceiling is a bell, which is rung whenever a person gives a donation. On the main altar, there are nineteen idols [the term Anna used to describe the statues of the gods] on three levels of the altar, with Guanyin in the centre of the top row. Various other objects on the altar include a mirror [to reflect the nature of an evil spirit so that the area would be avoided by any wandering spirit]; a vase, representing the powerful vase used by Miao-shan [the incarnation of Guanyin] in the story about her, and two swords. The temple name is at the top of the altar on a plaque to the right. Just under the name are three paper talismans [fu H. hu] to help ward off evil spirits. To the left of the altar is the tang-ki’s cloak, which Anna wears when possessed. There are also flags on the sidewall. The front part of the altar consists of a table with the central urn containing joss sticks lit for the gods, mainly for Guanyin. Both sides of the altar have an oil lamp and two seven star lanterns, seven stars being the star constellation known as the Big Dipper [part of the Bear]. In front of the urn are three red cups of tea and three cups of wine set out as an offering. There are usually offerings of fruit and a special type of cake [H. hoat kueh] as well as tea and water in small red cups. At another table, part of the altar with the ba gua painted on the front, Anna sits on a red ‘throne’ [daozuo], sometimes referred to as the ‘dragon chair’, waiting to see those wanting consultations. This chair has dragon heads mounted on the top corners and on the arms. A dragon is a symbol of the emperor. The table contains the seal [jin yin H. kimyin], symbolic of authority; the block [banged on the table when Anna becomes possessed and also at the end of the session]; a box of talismans [fu] and a brush and ink [vermillion ink – symbol of immortality] for writing on the talismans.

On the entrance wall opposite the main altar is another altar for the tiger gods [Hu Ye H. Ho La], with five small statues of tigers. The tigers represent generals from the Song dynasty [960-1279] known for their ferocity and used by the gods to help carry out their work. Further down, over the door, is a collection of objects tied together [pencil, garlic, mirror, scissors and a book] that all help ward off evil spirits. On the right-hand side of the temple, as one enters, is a table and chair where someone sits to make up the talismans. Nearby, on a shelf near the door, are packets of joss sticks, which people buy to use in their prayers. Another small room leads off from this area and is used for storage and as a place where one of the members of Anna’s family stays. There is a notice board on one of the walls that contain information on donations, annual accounts, events, etc. There are a few chairs along the wall where people wait for their turn to consult with Guanyin. At the back of the main room is a kitchen with a small altar for the kitchen god [Chu Shen H. Chau Kun] and off to the side the toilet.

Many shrines are organized in a similar way to the Ang Mo Kio shrine. At the Redhill shrine, there are also altars for the main deities - the tiger gods, the generals, and one dedicated to Toa A Pei [First Uncle] and Ji A Pei [Second Uncle], two hell-spirits. We see on this altar to Toa A Pei and his ‘brother’ various objects - old pipes, swords, alcoholic liquor and an ashtray for cigarettes burnt for the hell spirits during consultations. Behind the main altar in the kitchen area are other collections of idols.

Anna says one of the first things she teaches people when they come to her shrine is how to pray [bai shen]. To pray involves taking a number of incense sticks, lighting them, holding them slightly in front of one’s face and moving them up and down three times and then putting them in the various urns on the different altars, thus showing respect to the various deities. The incense smoke from the burning joss sticks is believed to join the human to the heavenly world. After taking a set of joss sticks and lighting them, a person goes outside the shrine, prays first to Yu Huang Dadi and puts one joss stick in the urn. They then go around to the various altars inside the shrine.

Burning incense paper (spirit money) is another way of offering respect to the gods and spirits.

Food is nearly always offered to the gods and usually an altar will have on it various fruits - apples, oranges and pears; a type of cake [fa gao H. huat kueh] and rice [See page 226 for more on the metonymic symbolism of various foods used at the shrines]. Water, tea and wine are also placed on altars as offerings. On special occasions, meat, vegetable dishes and noodles are placed on the altar before being eaten. Once a month a special meal is prepared during the day and a ceremony with the burning of paper money outside the building [hao jun H. ko kun] is performed in the early evening. This ritual is carried out in order to make payment to the celestial army as thanks for their hard work, helping the gods defeat evil. All these actions come under the category of praying or paying respect.

There is a definite military theme involved in Taoist beliefs and rituals. In most shrines, there is an altar to the generals and soldiers, who are believed to go out on the command of the gods to battle against evil. Flags signify the presence of armies and soldiers with power. The five flags kept in the shrines [coloured black, red, green, white and yellow] represent the five celestial armies of the five directions respectively [east, south, west, north and centre]. The black eight-trigram flag, the triangular flag and the seal are emblems of the tang-ki’s authority derived ultimately from the deity Yu Huang Dadi. In most shrines, various weapons are displayed- swords sometimes with a seven star [Big Dipper] zigzag constellation engraved on them, imitation daggers and imitation weapons on which the flags are hung. When possessed and incarnating the god, the tang-ki will usually use a brush to write with red ink on a talisman [fu] and will stamp it with a seal, thus giving instructions to the evil spirit to depart.

Once a year Anna and Wei, at their own shrines, cut their tongues with a very sharp, large sword and place some of the blood on a number of fu in order to make the fu more powerful. They will give out these fu to various people over the year. Before a healing ceremony or at different points in a ritual and in a procession, the tang-ki’s assistant uses a whip [shen bian H. sinpa] with either a dragon’s head or a snake’s head for a handle. It is used to do battle with demons and to open up a clear path for the deity. The tang-ki as a warrior battling against evil is a central motif of tang-ki worship.

When it is time to start seeing people, Anna prepares for the descent of the god [H. loh tang]. This preparation is carried out by taking some joss sticks, lighting them and then going around the altars praying. After this, Anna takes a piece of lighted incense paper and waves it around her legs and body in a purification rite to create an atmosphere conducive for the deity to inhabit her body. Then she sits on the dragon chair. Meanwhile, one of the assistants cracks the whip in the four directions of the compass.

On a few occasions in this shrine but on every occasion in the Redhill shrine, the members start singing an invocation chant [H. koan ki] as the tang-ki becomes ready to be possessed [not often practised at this shrine due to the noise level disturbing the neighbours]. At shrine celebrations, cymbals accompany the chanting. Anna is now ready to receive the deity.

As Anna sits on the chair, her head starts to move from side to side, and her right-hand starts to make slow circular movements on her right thigh. ii One of the assistants uses a wooden block to bang on the altar to help the departure of Anna’s soul and thus facilitate the deity’s descent into her body. Anna’s movements then slow down and nearly end. The movements slowly start to build up again until she reaches a crescendo, where she is jumping up and down from the chair, her head moving furiously, her arms moving up and down, eyes rolling and then she leaps up from her seat, her body quivering and swaying from side to side. The belief of the members is that Guanyin has now taken over her body. After Anna stands, her assistant attaches a cloak around her shoulders, combs her head and places a headband in her hair. Anna then sits down on the chair and is ready to see people.

When I was present at the shrine one Friday evening, a young man, Christopher, in his late twenties, came into the temple, accompanied by his mother and girlfriend, to consult with Guanyin. He looked rather awkward and slightly out of place in the shrine. All three went up to the altar when it was Christopher’s turn to consult with the possessed tang-ki. Christopher spoke in a mixture of Mandarin and English. The tang-ki spoke in a high falsetto voice in a Hokkien dialect not readily understandable to the ordinary person. It needed one of the members to interpret for Christopher and the other people who consulted with the god.

When Christopher went up to the altar, he took some joss sticks in his hand, which Anna took from the lighted end and gave to her assistant to place in the urn. She asked Christopher why he had come to consult with Guanyin, and Christopher replied that he often felt there was a pressure in his head, which sometimes caused headaches, distracting him from daily tasks and stopping him from concentrating. He said he had had this problem for a number of years. Anna [the temple members believing it is the deity speaking] asked him if he had ever had a bad fall. Christopher replied that he had a fall when he was sixteen years of age. Anna then said to him not to worry too much, asked him to kneel down and then moved a flag several times on either side of him. She then took a paper talisman [fu], burnt two holes in it to empower it, dipped it in the ash in the urn, stamped it with her seal and gave it to the assistant, who burned it, allowing the ash to drop into the water. Anna then asked Christopher to drink the water. Christopher was then requested to come back the next day bringing an offering of rice, three types of vegetables and some pig fat, as well as ten eggs. The whole process took little more than half an hour with the actual time with the tang-ki being about ten minutes.

The next day, when Christopher came back with the offerings, he was given nine joss sticks that after ‘bai shen’ he placed in the urn on the main altar. He then moved to the nearby tiger god altar and placed the eggs and pig meat on the altar. After Christopher had knelt on the floor, Anna took a flag and waved it around him while he prayed and made a request. Christopher then had to step three times on incense paper on the ground to get rid of any evil spirits. After this, he took some incense paper, went down the outside stairs and burnt it in a container outside. Anna, meanwhile, taped two small cardboard figurines on to joss paper, burnt dots on the eyes of the attached tiger and snake images and put this on the side of the altar to await the fifteenth of the month when there is a special celebration for the generals and soldiers.

Christopher took one boiled egg at a time to the mouth of each of the tiger gods, while Anna gathered the vegetables, incense paper, eggs, one bottle of water and sweets and put these in a bag outside the flat. Christopher then took three joss sticks and the prepared items down to a nearby crossroad [a crossroad being a place spirits are attracted to], about one hundred yards from the shrine, where he put all the objects on the ground with joss sticks and two candles inserted into the food. Next, Christopher moved the joss sticks up and down in front of him and behind him, took a cooked egg, moved it clockwise and then anti-clockwise around his head, took the shell off and put it with the other objects on the ground and set them alight. His instructions were to then quickly return to the shrine using a different route, not looking back or speaking at all, especially not if he heard any voices talking to him, as these could be spirits trying to attach themselves to him. After Christopher had come back and washed his hands, three talismans [fu] were given to him, one for each day, and these had to be burnt, the ashes placed in his bed. Each day he also had to burn a fu, put some leaves in a bowl with the ashes of the fu and bathe with this, as a purification ritual to get rid of any ‘unclean things’ [unzhang – literally dirty, a word used for evil spirits]. This, then, was the ritual of healing Christopher went through to purify himself of any negative influences that might be affecting him.

I was later told by Christopher that he did not understand the meaning of what the tang-ki had told him to do and that he found it all rather silly. Placing the ashes in his bed made him unable to sleep properly. He also said he had only gone to see the tang-ki at his mother’s request and that he had agreed it would not hurt to try the ritual procedure.

In the previous two or three years, Christopher had consulted various people about his condition. These people included general medical practitioners, a neurologist, a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist, none of whom, he said, could find anything wrong with him. While I was in Singapore, Christopher went to see a Chinese medicine practitioner. This doctor gave him some medicine, told him he was too dependent on his mother, unable to make decisions for himself and that he had some feminine elements in his personality as well as advising him to see a psychologist. The feelings of pressure, the inability to concentrate and the general feeling of vagueness and emptiness have not gone away. Anna found it surprising that after the consultation with her there was no improvement in Christopher’s condition.

Christopher was educated at a university in the USA and had a good degree in one of the sciences. Despite this achievement, he does not appear to have much confidence. For example, when overseas he kept himself to himself and did not venture out much or mix with others. Although Christopher has now been working for five years, he finds mixing with others and office politics difficult to deal with. According to his mother, he is very critical of others at work. When young he had few interests apart from computer games. Christopher was mainly brought up speaking Mandarin Chinese at primary school and found the switch to speaking English difficult. Compared to his sister and younger brother, his mother describes him as sensitive, especially in his relationship with women. His sister once, jokingly, referred to him as gay, as for a long time he seemed to show no interest in relationships with women. He is now married to a Taiwanese woman, and they both live in Taiwan.

Christopher’s father, a senior manager for a large overseas company, is well educated and comes from a Hokkien background. While he was with me, he was often disparaging of tang-kis and said that many are just out to make money, but he also stated that he believes that some tang-kis can actually help people. He criticized Anna’s work with his son, saying there was no follow-up and that the time spent with him was too short. In my experience, Anna spent as much time as most tang-kis spend with those seeking consultations, although in two other shrines that I attended the tang-kis spent more than half an hour or more with clients. Christopher’s father had when younger consulted a tang-ki, although he declined to say why. His own father, while not a tang-ki, had some ability to heal people. Christopher’s mother comes from a Hakka background and is a housewife. While she had less contact with tang-kis when young than her husband, she had been to see a few. She would often when talking about tang-kis say that they are not very well educated. Despite this negative appraisal of tang-kis, Christopher’s mother had for a while shown some interest in attending Anna’s shrine. This was when she had not made many friends after moving to Singapore from Malaysia, although she never kept up this contact with the shrine. She also visited the Redhill shrine and was impressed with the people there. However, in her conversation, she showed a tendency to value Buddhism over Taoism. Nevertheless, when Christopher’s mother heard about Anna from a friend, she decided to take Christopher along to see her. The family is typical of a middle-class, Chinese, Singaporean family where the parents show some interest in religion, but their children show no interest.

Christopher as an individual is not quite representative of the people who are members of a shrine. He is, though, representative of a number of people who might attend a shrine because of encouragement by their family and a view within the family that it does not hurt to try any avenue to get help for a problem. His ‘free thinking’ views, secular education and ‘cosmopolitan’ ideas would seem to mark him out as not quite typical of the average shrine attendee. However, there was present in this shrine someone slightly older than Christopher with an advanced training in Information Technology, who had become a member of this shrine. Also, there were four younger members at the shrine, one of whom was at university studying science subjects [Anna’s daughter], with the other three at the end of their secondary schooling and preparing to go on to university after completing military training. At another shrine in the Geylang area of Singapore, where I also had an association, there were two people in their late fifties each with an MA degree, one in the biological sciences, both of who had an English education and were intensely involved in temple activities. It is difficult, therefore, to generalize about the characteristics of shrine membership.

The account of Biranchi’s involvement in the Ang Mio Kio shrine is interesting in three respects. Firstly, it is the best example I came upon of someone very unwell who made a remarkable recovery after his involvement in the shrine. Secondly, Biranchi is not Chinese, and thirdly, he is a well-educated ‘cosmopolitan’ person whom one would think, similar to Christopher, would not be taken up by the culture of the shrine. We met on my first visit to the shrine and then another four times in my stay – at the Friday consultation session, the shrine celebrations and lastly when some of the shrine members gathered with me for a farewell dinner at Biranchi’s restaurant at the end of my stay in Singapore.

When I first met Biranchi, he looked very ill – he was walking very slowly and unable to bend over. Moreover, he looked anxious and unhappy and had problems engaging in conversation due to the pain that he was experiencing. He told me:

I am setting out my life, my feelings, and my experiences to you because in my case it was my first day when we met. It had been a very terrible week for me. I had been feeling very bad, very bad. I came here a few more times, then I continued to do various things and applying things to my body, applying eggs [taken home from the shrine] and roots, I think tree roots, to my body. And then Anna told me to wear this coloured string around my wrist for forty-five days. I’m still wearing it. I’m feeling very good .

Four years previously, Biranchi had come from another Asian country, where he had met his Singaporean, Chinese, Hokkien wife, who was on holiday at that time. They have one daughter. In Singapore, his wife has her own commercial business, and he has a restaurant, which involves long hours of work. In his own country, before he came to Singapore, Biranchi had worked as a tourist guide, escorting people around the various temples in the city where he lived. Before that Biranchi had completed university studies and had lived in Europe for a number of years, so he was very cosmopolitan in his outlook on life.

In Biranchi’s country of origin, his family attended a Hindu temple where the main goddess in the temple was a virgin goddess, similar to Guanyin. In fact, after the first visit to Anna, Biranchi had a dream of this goddess. In the dream, he was going to the temple of the goddess but fell down and did not make it. This dream was worrying for Biranchi and he rang his parents the next day. He also talked to Anna about the dream. While life had been comfortable for him back in his home country, life in Singapore was more difficult, he said. However, his wife had not wanted to bring up children in his country and she had wanted to return to Singapore. Finally, Biranchi said that he had always been confused between religious explanations and secular explanations of life but now his experience in the shrine had made him more decisive. He said:

I interviewed Biranchi’s wife on several occasions. She had a slightly different perspective on her husband’s illness. She said Biranchi’s pains were recurring, rather than ongoing, and that over the last six years the pain had appeared about three times a year, although the last time it had stayed for about six months, which was the longest time it had been present. Biranchi’s wife also said that the ringing in the ears that Biranchi had complained of was from the side effects of medication. It did not seem that she was attributing the cure entirely to involvement in the shrine as Biranchi was doing. She said she did not believe strongly in Taoism and did not know what religion to follow, feeling it would be better to take up some religious commitment when she was older rather than now, while she was so busy.

Problems such as business decline, [sometimes attributed to people in neighbouring businesses placing a curse on an establishment], a husband having a second wife, losing one’s job and examination worries are all brought to tang-ki sessions. The deity is said to give advice on such problems, sometimes giving out herbs and commonly handing out a talisman. All these acts are aimed at changing a person’s luck, helping to rid a person of any evil spirits and sometimes directly curing them. The person in return makes offerings of food and money, especially if they are cured.

In the following sub-section, dialogues are presented of three individuals in consultation with Wei [possessed by Nezha] at the Redhill shrine:

On first hearing a possessed tang-ki’s conversation with someone that is consulting with him or her, it can seem simple if not trivial. In nearly all situations that I came across, the tang-ki told people not to worry [H. mian tam sim]. I could not see that being told not to worry was particularly helpful, yet one woman who was somewhat doubtful about tang-kis in general, became very positive when she heard that they were giving out this advice as it proved to her that the mediums were genuine.

The above scenarios and the responses of the medium have to be put into a larger context than any particular session. It is evident that there was not much of a cultural context for Christopher, a young, educated, cosmopolitan person, to derive any meaning from the healing session. For Biranchi, despite not being Chinese, there is already the setting of his family’s religious beliefs and particularly the virgin goddess motif, which made sense to him as he was trying to engage in the Chinese community into which he had married. The ritual of healing can be seen as helping this process and can be characterized here as a re-territorialization ritual. The participants saw the mechanism of this healing as the actions of a supplicated deity plus their own volition as freed by the deity.

One moment I could be very good and well behaved, the next minute I could behave like a monster, out of control. My shrieking upset my family and also the staff at work during business hours [her father’s business was carried out at home]. My grandfather was so irritated by my so-called ridiculous outcry that one day he came to sit next to me and encouraged me to draw what I had seen, which was the two hell spirits. I also stopped going to school .

Anna recounted how when she was young, about seven years of age, she kept hearing voices and sounds, especially when sitting on the staircase trying to see through the planks to the floor below. During the Second World War, some people had died in this place where Anna had lived. Anna also said that sometimes at night she used to see the family’s monkey god performing somersaults in front of her when she was trying to get to sleep. It was only when she was disturbed that she saw the monkey god, and she said that she cried hysterically at night when seeing the hell-spirits [Toa A Pei and Ji A Pei] on the staircase.

Although Anna had completed secondary school, she did miss some schooling because of these disturbances, which she described as hysterical:

At nineteen years of age, I suddenly fell sick. I could not understand what was wrong with me. I felt like I had been cast into a spell, and it did not matter how hard I fought to break out of it, I found it impossible. Sometimes my body system for no reason would absurdly change. First, there were movements in my intestines and somehow I felt weak and a current slowly burrowed inside my bones. My whole body would gradually straighten up and my arms and legs would move into a certain position as the current inside my body took charge. Then, almost instantly, my mind just went blank and I lost myself. I couldn’t accept the fact that I was possessed and in the near future would become a medium. I kept forgetting things, and I started to shun people and became a hermit, sitting still like a dummy, easily feeling fatigued. I constantly slept in order to pass the time .

One sees in Anna’s account of her illness, compared to Christopher’s account of his illness, that hers is very soon taken up into a discourse about possession and tang-ki worship. While initially described as an illness and a disturbance, perhaps a mental health practitioner would call it a psychological disturbance, the illness aspect of it falls away, and it becomes a spiritual crisis embedded in family and religious, mythical narratives.

Anna’s grandfather had been a schoolteacher in China. Her father had come from China when young and had later married her mother who was an Indonesian Chinese. Her father had slowly built up an electric repair business employing a small number of people. They had first lived in a village area [kampung]. The family was relatively well off and was one of the first in the kampung to own a television. Anna describes her parents as not being very religious. However, having said that, it was understood that her parents had married after a strange woman, a tang-ki of the monkey god [Qi Tian Da Sheng], appeared in the village with their names written on a piece of paper saying they should marry, and that they should then carve a statue of the monkey god for their house.

According to Anna, there were strange occurrences that took place at her birth - the weather was very stormy, thunder roared and lightning flashed, all of which frightened her parents, who began to think this baby could be very special [when Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy was born as Miao-shan, there were also changes in the weather]. Anna described her upbringing as fairly strict and protected. There were many occasions as a child, she said, of participating in celebrations of gods’ birthdays and watching temple processions and Chinese opera. Anna described herself as not being an extraordinary person nor gifted in any way but as different from others in that she is a tang-ki with a special god bone [shengu] and that she can cure the sick. iv Anna described one dream:

By then the family had found a tang-ki, possessed by Zhang Tian Shi [considered to be one of the three founders of Taoism, especially of organized Taoist religion], whom they found helpful. v Anna became possessed the first time she visited this tang-ki and then spent eight months in a type of apprenticeship with this person, but she put off fully committing herself to being a tang-ki and promised to serve when she was thirty years of age. However, once a year, on Guanyin’s birthday, she became possessed and gave consultations to people.

After leaving school, Anna went to work in the finance sector, where she met her future husband, married and had children. Before marrying, she had thought of going overseas and studying fashion design. When delivering her last boy, near the age of thirty, Anna became seriously ill with a life-threatening illness. In her words, she cheated death twice. On the day of the birth, the hospital communications system was down. After giving birth, she was found to be bleeding and it was difficult contacting the gynaecologist. Anna said:

Anna had a blood transfusion of over eleven pints. A month after discharge, she became seriously ill again due to complications from the first operation, and she nearly died. She stayed in hospital for another ten days. For the next three years, Anna was unwell and had little energy. She had to be looked after. Even now, Anna has little stamina and becomes tired easily, especially when travelling away from her home area, although, surprisingly, when engaged in her own shrine activities she is very energetic, vibrant and active.

Six years after the birth of her son, Anna started to take up her tang-ki duties three times a year. Then at thirty-seven years of age, Anna had another dream:

The thick clouds in the sky suddenly opened and many celestial armies appeared. They descended from heaven. I was standing at the summit of the mountain. I turned to flee and heard a lot of noises and voices after me: ‘Since you didn’t want to ‘jiu shi’ [save the world], we have come to seize back your ‘ling chi’‘ [commanding flag]. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I was panting all the way. I shouted back that I was not going to surrender my ‘ling chi’ and then somehow I escaped .

I was standing in a long queue outside a house. I heard my name being summoned and I walked inside. A voice exclaimed: ‘Kneel down and admit your wrongs.’ I protested instantly, ‘I am a medium for Guanyin. How could you treat me so rudely? Why am I not offered a chair to sit down on?’ Another voice: ‘You didn’t carry out your promise and you have cheated Guanyin. Double punishment for your crime’. Upon hearing this I broke down and wept. I felt very remorseful. I woke up in a cold sweat .

I first met Wei and the other members of the Redhill shrine, where he is a tang-ki, at a shrine dinner and then, sometime after, I started attending his shrine three or more times a week and became a regular member involved in all the activities of the shrine. Wei explained how he became a tang-ki:

At first, I was sick, maybe one week or two. I was sick with a fever. On Monday, I could be really ill, then Wednesday I could get well, then Saturday or Sunday it would come again. This went on until I was twelve years of age, so I was ill like that from ten to twelve years of age. At that time, I could only recognize my family members. I did not want to go out. I ignored other people. This was some sort of mental health problem [jingshenbing] but not stupidness [zhen ben]. I only ignored other people. That’s why I only studied one year at primary school [the total of his formal education] when nine years of age [at that time, one started school when eight years of age]. So, for a period of about two years I was very sick. Then, when I was about twelve years of age a deity started to go into my body; maybe I felt it, but I still did not talk. But, then, sometime in April, when I was twelve, the god would come into my body three or four times a day. But it was like sleeping, and I would not know anything. My mother was not scared because I had been sick for two years already. She thought that there was no hope for this son, that there was something wrong with his brain .

Wei said that at the time of his illness the authorities were going to take him away to a psychiatric hospital, but it was the involvement with gods and mediums that had helped him become well. After this experience, he put on weight and is now a strong-looking man. For ten years, Wei left the shrine and went to a Buddhist temple to learn from the monks. He also established himself in the construction trade and now has his own business employing one or two other men. Although Wei missed a lot of formal schooling, he can read and write Mandarin well. He attributes this to teaching himself, guided by the gods. Wei has been leading the Redhill shrine, with its large group of men, for a number of years. He does this in an informal way, although he can be assertive and is a confident person. He is unmarried. Wei’s brother, who is rather shy, is married. While some people were not confident to be with me alone, fearing their English was not good enough or that they would not understand my Mandarin, Wei was more confident and though he did not speak English, he found it easier than others to understand me and to speak to me in Mandarin in a way that I understood.

Anna and Wei are good examples of people with a severe illness who completely overcame these illnesses through their involvement in tang-ki worship and, subsequently, have established themselves in the world, becoming in their own right leaders and teachers of people as well as healers.

Hysteria is noted by two psychiatrists as difficult or impossible to define (Reed 1971, Kendell 1974). It is often defined simply as physical symptoms with no known organic or neurological cause (Marshall, Bass and Halligan 2001: xi; Wessely 2001: 74). The symptoms of hysteria have been wide-ranging, including limps, tics, paralyses, headaches, speech disturbances, depression, exhaustion, eating disorders, the sensation of choking, fainting, blindness, deafness, pains in the body, anaesthesia, hyperaesthesia and convulsive fits or seizures.

Some investigators into hysteria have doubted its existence or its usefulness as a concept. Slater, in his very influential paper, calls the diagnosis of hysteria a ‘snare’ and also a ‘delusion’ (1965: 139). Ron, however, says that Slater’s paper has led to certain misconceptions, and he points out that many of the patients that Slater says had a neurological diagnosis rather than a hysterical illness could have in fact had both (Ron 20001: 273).

The Egyptians had a gynaecological explanation for the symptoms of hysteria as a movement of the uterus, while the Greeks and Romans added a more explicit connection with sexuality. The Christians forged a new paradigm and according to the historian of medicine, Micale, it was a demonological paradigm involving possession, with the cure being prayers, amulets and exorcism (1995: 20). In the late Renaissance and 17th century, the condition again became an illness and from then on ‘hysteria’ became medicalized until, with the development of Freud’s work in the late 19th and early 20th century, it became psychologized (1995: 21-19).

Then, in the mid-20th century ‘hysteria’ seemed to vanish from both psychiatry and psychoanalysis but not from Lacanian psychoanalysis. More recently, increased attention has been given to this disorder by medical practitioners, usually under the category of dissociation and conversion disorder (Halligan, Bass and Marshal 2001; Kozlowska 1997; Isaac and Chand 2006). vi Micale (1995), Showalter (1997) [medical historians] and Mitchell (2000) [psychoanalyst] do not believe that hysteria has disappeared but that being mimetic in nature it has just changed its form.

Although ‘hysteria’ as a term is no longer within the psychiatric classificatory system, it has been redistributed, according to Micale, into the categories of factitious illness disorder, dissociative disorder-conversion type, histrionic personality type, psychogenic pain disorder and undifferentiated somatoform disorder (1995: 4). Showalter and Littlewood add to this list illnesses such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia, chronic fatigue syndrome, gulf war syndrome, multiple personality disorder, recovered memory syndrome and self-harm (Showalter 1997; Littlewood 2002). Micale notes that despite ‘hysteria’ disappearing from psychiatry, the interest in hysteria by others, especially by feminists but also by psychoanalysis, has increased (1995: 4-12).

Freud (1893-1895) saw hysterical symptoms as resulting from a conversion of psychic energy brought about when a frightening, or conflictual idea is repressed and the energy [cathexis] informing this idea is converted into physical symptoms in the body. This is a wider understanding of what hysteria is about than that contained in the psychiatric terms ‘dissociation’ and ‘conversion’. While Freud first thought that the precipitating factor was a sexual trauma, he later thought that it was mainly a fantasy. Freud’s formulation of hysteria had the merits of mapping together the various explanations given of hysteria up to that time - the neurological, gynaecological, erotogenic and psychogenic explanations (Mace 2001: 3). It is weak, though, in relating hysteria to social and cultural processes. Abse (1966), a psychiatrist, gives a fairly traditional and full account of hysteria and its treatment. Littlewood, rather radically, reverses the seemingly progressive understanding of hysteria as an illness, either physical or psychological, rescued from the dark ages concept of it as demonic and returns it to the religious possession idiom, which he sees it as being a variant of (2002: xiii).

The concept of hysteria has been one of the most widely used concepts of all categories of psychopathology used to look at spirit medium behaviour. Obeyesekere uses the concept of hysteria to inform his thinking on possession phenomena in Sri Lanka. He describes one person, Abdin, who was possessed by a deity and who engaged in religious rituals but who, in Obeyesekere’s opinion, remained hysterical (1990: 3-14). Obeyesekere also points to the case of a woman who initially becomes disturbed and was, in his view, hysterical, yet the hysterical syndrome became totally transformed from being an illness, as she was caught up in a religious symbolic system and became a priestess, into becoming a spiritual experience (1990: 11-13). While neither of these people thought of their disturbance as being hysterical or as an illness, Obeyesekere convincingly argues that the disturbance can usefully be considered as an illness for Abdin for most of his life and for the priestess at the beginning of her disturbance. Obeyesekere says this because the two people were dominated by personal psychic conflicts and symbols, whereas the priestess managed to get beyond psychic conflict to a position where these conflicts were taken up into a culturally constituted symbolic system (1990: 9-16).

There are, however, criticism of the use of the term ‘hysteria’ in analyzing possession and religious experience. Lattas (1992), for instance, argues that the use of such terms as ‘hysteria’ is misguided in that it imposes a Western cultural term on a non-Western phenomenon. Also, Lattas sees such a term as aiding domineering colonial cultures in their construction of ‘the other’ as irrational and in the extreme as mad; and that it ignores the behaviour as having a social, political and cultural meaning. Stephen (1997) continues this line of analysis.

While accepting Lattas and Stephen’s criticisms that the use of the concept of ‘hysteria’ in anthropology often leaves out of account social and political factors, their views could be accused of leaving out of account a person’s individual psychic life. It can be as if the non-Westerner does not have internal conflicts to contend with and that they live entirely in the social realm. The approach used in this thesis is to combine what Littlewood and Bartocci, in their paper on stigmata and hysterical conversion, call the personal and naturalistic (2005: 603). This approach keeps in focus informants’ views of the phenomenon being about religious experience and being ‘the work of the gods’. It looks at deep issues of psychic structure, as Obeyesekere does, and keeps in view the political and social meanings of the behaviour. vii I believe this combining of two explanatory systems can be carried out very easily by using the notion of hysteria as theorized by Jacques Lacan.

For Lacan, as noted in Chapter Two , human subjectivity is usually gained from entry into the world of language. Here, language serves as a synonym for culture in general. It involves a division in one’s self that comes from accepting a law, which states one cannot do what one wishes. This division, caused by the law, creates a lack in one’s being that makes one dependent in various ways on others. It also involves the loss of an enjoyment [jouissance] of being in a position of fullness – being at one with the world or with the mother, which psychoanalysts see as the psychic state of a newly born baby. This loss, difficult to put into words, is what Lacan calls ‘object a’. It is seen as a fundamental motivational factor that pushes us to search for this lost object.

The lack in being opens one’s self up to ‘the other’. It also opens one up to processes such as identification, being determined by others desires and the potential to be interpolated into the master signifiers of a social group. One can take various positions on this state of affairs. One could accept being interpolated by these master signifiers and even work for these signifiers, trying to iron out contradictions and live as perfectly as one can by following the injunctions one encounters in life. Such a way of life would, clinically, be the position of the obsessional person, avoiding any desire and enjoyment that might come from following his or her desire.

However, one can also reject these master signifiers as lacking, rebel against them, become a nuisance, ask too many questions and continue to look for other signifiers either from the same master or from another master with which to make a life for one’s self. In this stance, one starts from the position of being divided and incomplete, unlike the obsessional who denies this incompleteness. In the realm of sexuality, a result of this could be a refusal of the position assigned one as a woman [or as a man], a refusal of sexual enjoyment, and a feeling of disgust but in contrast with the obsessional, one still has a desire. A woman in this position might identify with a man in order to take up a position that will give her some answers to the question of the hysteric - am I a man or a woman? For Lacan, this would then be what a hysterical neurosis would be about, with a central question of what it is to be a man or a woman.

Lacan gradually moved away from the idea of hysteria being just an illness and a clinical category to an idea that it is a discourse [a formalization about speech and its effects] between people in particular positions that make a type of structural relationship that could be called a social bond. The discourse of the hysteric can only be understood in relationship to Lacan’s three other discourses. It is shown in the next two chapters that the tang-ki discourse, while not neurotic, can be seen as exemplifying a hysterical discourse that on one level challenges aspects of contemporary life that dictate how one ought to live.

The discourse of the master as its name suggests is about mastery of self and others in such a way that lack, desire and enjoyment are kept at bay. The aim of a person engaged in such a discourse is to command and order rather than to understand or enjoy. It is exemplified in relationships such as the master and slave and the capitalist and worker. The discourse of the university is a weaker form of the master discourse and can be taken to promote a master’s discourse presenting it in such a way that it seems reasonable to other people. Here ‘reason’ [in the sense of rationalization or Weber’s ‘instrumental rationality’] and ‘totalization’ are major concerns. Similar to the master’s discourse, there is little room in this discourse for desire and enjoyment. The person in this discourse, like the master, is unable to hold on to contradictory aspects of the world or of themselves, so the idea of the divided or split subject is repressed. Evans points to the hegemony of knowledge as exemplified in modernity by the hegemony of science as an example of this discourse (1996: 46). In Singapore, the strong governmental control over many aspects of a person’s life can be understood as exemplifying this discourse. The discourse of the hysteric, however, has at its centre the split subject so there is present both lack and desire, the desire to fill this lack by seeking an answer from another but also a refusal to take up the master signifiers given by those in the position of mastery as an answer to the lack. This discourse is intimately connected to the discourse of the master, as it is in opposition to the master that it has become a discourse. Revolutionaries, heretics and saints often take up this discourse of hysteria.

It is very easy, for instance, to take the situation of Christopher and to start thinking about hysteria. There are in his situation the persistent headaches and feeling of emptiness with no organic reason for them. There is in Christopher a persistent desire to find answers from someone else about his problems, but so far no one, neurologist, psychiatrist, psychotherapist or tang-ki has been able to give an entirely satisfactory answer to Christopher. Like Abdin in Obeyesekere’s (1990) work, Christopher is not cured. He is unable to take on any satisfactory symbolic structure that can help him manage his problems.

When Biranch first went to the Ang Mo Kio shrine, his symptomatic picture could also invite the description of hysteria. Yet he does take on some of the signifiers – virgin goddess and possession - provided by involvement with tang-ki worship and these have helped provide a solution or cure for his pain. Similar to what Obeyesekere says of the Hindu priestess (Obeyesekere 1990: 11-13), we could say that Biranchi’s discomfort or illness has become a spiritual experience as he involved himself in a symbolic system that helped structure his experience of illness in a way that has enabled him to move away from being dominated by psychic conflict. One conflict would include moving away from home and mother, where he wanted to live and following his wife to Singapore, where he had to set up his life within a Chinese family. One could say the same thing of Anna and Wei and compare them to Obeyesekere’s case of the cured priestess (Obeyesekere 1990: 11-13). All three found their way to a cure by adopting the symbolic system of being possessed by deities.

If one were to only stay with the above analysis, one would do no more than Obeyesekere has already accomplished in his employment of the term ‘hysteria’ in his approach to possession phenomena. Such an analysis would not pertain to other people, such as those who go to tang-kis looking, for example, for lucky numbers to win the lottery and who do not have observable hysterical symptoms. The above type of analysis would only pertain to Anna and Wei so far as they had symptoms when they were young before they became mediums. If one were to use the Lacanian notion of hysteria, one would have to take into account more adequately than has so far been done the two fundamental aspects Lacan highlights hysteria as being about - that of a question of what it is to be a man and a woman and the issue of resistance. The first aspect is discussed in Chapter Three and the second in Chapter Four .