The Transformation of Togetherness with Spirits

Deliverance and Witch Possession in a Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches in Benin

抄録

This paper explores how witch possession through deliverance in Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches (PCCs) in Benin has changed the way people relate to spirits, and its corresponding effects. To avoid reducing the complexity of deliverance to a mere reaction to socio-economic changes related to modernity, deliverance practices are investigated from the standpoint of "togetherness with spirits". First, the significance of witch possession emerging through deliverance is examined by referencing practices of divination. Second, the identification of witches in cases of witch possession is compared with conventional witch imagery. The case studies show how witch possession in deliverance made witch-finding shift from knowledge and technique-based to a body-based practice. The consequent transformation of relations with spirits caused an expansion of the category of "witch", an empowerment of women, and instability in social relationships. Yet, social instability needs not to be understood as static "rupture" as the studies in PCCs claim. It is rather a process of "detachment" within relations of togetherness. I argue that PCCs in Africa should not only be analyzed from the perspective of Christianity, but also from the one of larger spirits-human ecologies, wherein detachment co-exist as a kind of relation of togetherness.