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POSSESSION BY SPIRITS

There is no village concept of witchcraft as such, but the anthropological
concept is partially recognizable in the nature and activities of a spirit
called phii paub. In village classification phii paub is one type within the
general category of malevolent spirits. But it is distinctive for several
reasons. First, removal of phii paub affliction usually requires the services
of an exorcist (mau tham), whose procedure is entirely different from the
placation technique. (The steps in the latter technique are: first invitation
to leave, then payment of a fee offering.) The placation technique applies
to ordinary spirit illness in which a spirit causes affliction but is not thought
to enter and reside inside the patient. Secondly, phii paub can be hosted
by some living human beings, whereas all the phii we have examined so
far are disembodied spirits of dead humans. However, there are some
complications which blur the lines between witchcraft and spirit attack,
and between witchcraft and sorcery.

The agent (phii paub)

Phii paub can be hosted by either a male or a female living person. In
everyday life, such people cannot be distinguished because they are like
other normal, ordinary people (pen khon thammada). The human host
becomes known only in the course of the exorcism procedure after a victim
has been possessed.

Village theory is that a man or woman who is a mau wicha, an expert
in the magical arts of love magic, or protective magic (such as making
amulets that make the wearer bullet-proof), or control of epidemics (like
cholera), is the person who is prone to harbour a phii paub, if he acts
immorally or contravenes taboos associated with his dangerous but potent
art. Since his special powers derive from this secret knowledge of charms
and spells, it is said that under certain conditions these spells themselves
turn into phii paub. Typical circumstances that lead to this transformation
are: (1) if a mau wicha discontinues his practice; (2) if he uses spells
immorally by causing diseases in people rather than curing them, or if he
exploits his patients by charging excessive fees (the accusation here being
that he himself sends disease in order to extract fees); (3) if he fails to
respect and propitiate his teacher; or (4) if he breaks food taboos associated
with his profession.

To comment on 3 and 4 first. The teacher-pupil relationship is emphasized
not only among monks but also among all village cult specialists,
especially those connected with the malevolent spirits. Sometimes a patient
becomes a practitioner after his cure, learning the technique from his
curer. In this case there is a double bond: patient-curer, pupil-teacher.
A spirit specialist must pay homage to his teacher at the beginning of
each ritual; some practitioners say that it is the spirit of the teacher which
enters them and gives them the power to make their spells effective, or if
they are exorcists, it is the teacher's spirit that possesses them and enables
them to combat the spirit possessing the patient. Hence the failure of
a mau wicha to propitiate his teacher is a serious ritual mistake.

All controllers of magical powers (mau wicha) and all exorcists (mau
tham) are said to have special food taboos associated with their practice.
Thus for instance, a mau wicha must never eat the placenta of a cow
(rok wua rok kuay) which is ordinarily eaten by villagers: if he does he
will become host to a phii paub. The association here appears to be an
analogy between, on the one hand, a cow and its placenta (a `kind of'
calf) and a woman and her placenta at childbirth, and on the other hand,
the human host and the phii paub which resides inside it. The phii paub,
moreover, usually attacks and penetrates women who appear to be the
most frequent victims of phii paub attack. However, in addition to the
similarity between phii paub and placenta, there are also differences.
Thus the phii paub inside a person and the placenta of a cow or a woman
are both analogous and opposed, because the latter represents the innocuous
remains of life-giving pregnancy and birth, while the former connotes
disease-producing internal growth.

Implicit in 1 and 2 above—that the practitioner of magical arts must
not discontinue his practice, nor must he on the other hand misuse it—
is an ambivalence in value judgments about those who deal with spells
and charms and exercise extra-human powers. Such powers have their
use in the society and must be kept available for those who need them.
But, at the same time, such powers are in themselves dangerous; they are
a double-edged sword, cutting both ways. He who dabbles in them in
order to control spirits is in danger of becoming their victim or agent.
Thus a man who learns to control disease through spells may himself
sometimes send or cause disease; a man who gives love magic to earnest
lovers may himself come to fornicate with village wives; the man who
exorcizes malevolent spirits may himself become a sorcerer sending spirits
to possess his enemies.

The ambiguous structural position of the mau wicha and the mau tham
exorcist is a reflection of this ambivalent evaluation of their ritual roles

and the rituals they conduct. In the hierarchy of evaluation of the different
cults and their practitioners, they are not accorded anything like the
respect and approval the monk enjoys, nor are they looked upon as
prestigious village elders and leaders as mau khwan are.

Now village theory attributes the historical origin of phii paub to the
transformation of spells into an evil force inside a magical expert, be it
man or woman (the latter are sometimes said to dabble in love magic),
who uses spells to achieve supra-human effects. But when it comes to
the persistence of phii paub after the death of the original human host
the theory takes two directions. One possibility, it is said, is that before the
host dies, he or she transfers the spirit to his or her son or daughter. It is
important to note that this is a case of transference, not automatic inheritance
at birth. The ageing host, before his or her death, transfers to one child
only. The mode of transference is poorly articulated:[1] it is said by some that
the parent spits saliva into the mouth of a loved child, or on to its skull.

But there is another mode of spirit persistence which does away with
the need for a living human host. Village theory asserts that when a man
or woman who has phii paub dies, the spirit (phii) itself does not die but
will be free-floating and wander in the village and attack one person after
another. Here the phii paub is seen as capable of existing apart from any
human owner. When a person is attacked by a phii paub one part of the
exorcism ceremony consists of getting the patient to name the person in
whom the spirit resides or from whom it emanates. In the case of a disembodied
spirit it is said that the patient may name the host who, although
dead, has returned to the village in spirit form.

This kind of malevolent disembodied spirit shades into another type
which also attacks humans, especially mothers at childbirth. The spirit
in question is called phii prai and is generated in a pregnant woman
dying with the child inside her. It is said that when she dies the child
inside her turns into a phii prai and consumes the mother's blood. The
dead mother is taken to the cemetery, a `surgeon' is invited to cut the
womb and extract the child's corpse, and the mother and child are buried
separately so that the child will not go on existing as a phii prai. For if the
child is not removed and separately buried, it will grow into a monster
which sucks the blood from other mothers at childbirth, or from victims
of physical injury who bleed profusely. Thus the notion of phii prai is centred around violent and sudden death, especially the death of pregnant
mothers. Profuse bleeding at childbirth is a symptom of phii prai attack,
and may provoke the holding of an exorcism ceremony to stop it.

The victim

It is clear from village description that it is women, both married and
unmarried, who are the most common victims of phii paub. Children of
both sexes may also be victims. Adult men are rarely or never attacked.
Phii paub afflictions have been on the decline in recent years: the last
appearance, according to villagers, was around 1960 in a nearby village.
But there are in the village women who were previously possessed and
have been cured.

The symptoms of affliction are that the victim cries out or laughs
loudly and, when addressed, hides her face. These appear to be hysterical
symptoms. The patient may also complain about lack of attention, that
she has not been given the food she has asked for. Such complaints appear
to signify unfulfilled wishes and a demand for attention, and probably
come to a head or are culturally permitted at the time of pregnancy and
impending childbirth. The villagers describe the affliction as a mental
disturbance, and when actual cases occur they readily diagnose it as
phii paub possession. Sometimes the possession takes place right at childbirth,
in which case in addition to the behaviour described the patient
also bleeds profusely. Here the phii paub is described as sucking the
mother's blood, and behaves like the phii prai (the spirit of the dead
child in a dead mother's womb) which I have already described.

The exorcist

In the case of a minor spirit affliction resulting in a relatively minor illness,
the spirit concerned—whether it be ancestral spirit, nature spirit, spirit
of a young person who has died a violent death, spirit of the fields—is
not interpreted as possessing the victim, but as causing an illness through
attack. The mode of treating such illness, we have seen, is diagnosis
through divination and placation through paying a fee.

Any of these malevolent spirits, however, may cause more serious illnesses
which are accompanied by `mental' symptoms. This is interpreted
as spirit possession. The spirits most commonly associated with such
possession are phii paub (which is reminiscent of witchcraft) and phii prai.
In such instances, the exorcist (mau tham) takes over, performing both
the identification of the afflicting spirit and its exorcism from the patient.
His training and technique are very different from those of other ritual
experts I have so far examined. Yet at the same time his art is in a subtle
way an inversion of the arts of the others. The exorcist's true colours
emerge in full view when he is compared with the other specialists and
when he is placed in relation to classical Buddhist doctrine.

I shall argue in a novel fashion that the exorcist is both a caricature
and an inversion of the orthodox Buddhist monk. He uses Buddhist
sacred words for purposes diametrically opposed to those of the monk;
the latter chants sacred words in order to teach morality and to transfer
merit and blessings, whereas the exorcist uses the sacred words to frighten
spirits and drive them away. The exorcist has a ritual relationship with
his teacher (achaan) which is reminiscent of the monk's relationship to
his upacha (preceptor and ordainer). He treats primarily diseases of women
whereas the monk assiduously keeps his distance from them. There is
thus a mock affinity and an inversion between monk and exorcist.

The name mau tham literally means expert in reciting words from the
Buddhist sacred texts (Dhamma); tham has also the second meaning of
`straight' or `upright', that is one who observes the five Buddhist precepts.
One set of connotations is then that he is a pious and learned Buddhist.
The mau tham of Phraan Muan village considers himself a Buddhist and
goes to the Buddhist wat for worship, but he is neither pious nor well-versed
in Buddhism and the sacred texts. How then do we resolve this
paradox that a mau tham is both a pious Buddhist and his opposite? The
resolution lies in the fact that Buddhist sacred words carry power. Whereas
they are normally chanted by monks, here we have the very antithesis of
a monk using the words for different purposes. Yet this employment of
the words requires that he be a kind of `mock' monk. (Furthermore, there
is one trend or development in Buddhism itself in which supra-natural
powers are sought and the mau tham is not alien to this tradition: of this,
more later.)

These statements will become clearer if I describe the characteristics,
recruitment and equipment of one of two exorcists in the village. Nai
Sarlee, forty-nine years of age (in 1966), was born in another village
(Baan Naabua) in the region, and has been residing uxorilocally in Baan
Phraan Muan for twenty-two years. He is virtually illiterate, is a small
farmer, and he has no position of leadership in the village. He is in fact
considered somewhat eccentric and is certainly not a village elder.

Nai Sarlee learned the art of exorcism from a travelling teacher from
another province (Sakorn Nakorn), who arrived in the village and was
prepared to teach the art for a fee. Three candidates enrolled. The period
of teaching was three successive nights. The teacher was given an `offering'
(which constituted his fee) before the studies began. The offering consisted
in the main of the ritual articles we have repeatedly noted in village
khwan and guardian spirit rituals, but it was more substantial. It consisted
of kanha-kanpaed (5 and 8 pairs of candles and flowers), white cloth 1 metre
in length, 160 pairs of small candles, 10 pairs of big candles each of 1 baht

weight, 1 pair of bajsi (ceremonial flowered structure) and 25 baht in cash
(about 10 shillings).

The first sequence in the instruction was the finding out of whether
the candidate was suited to practise as an exorcist. Suitability here means
the ability of the candidate to go into a trance (khaw song), and to tremble
(thua sun) and lose consciousness (khaw charn) when Buddhist sacred
words are recited. It is here that we get a simulation and a parody of
Buddhist ordination.

The candidates sat cross-legged before the teacher and his assistant,
with the hands in the waj (worship and showing respect) position. The
teacher then chanted the sermon which is normally chanted at the ordination
of a monk. On hearing these sacred words those who were capable
of study began to tremble and lose consciousness. (Two of the three
candidates passed the tests.) Then, while they were in the trance state,
the teacher questioned the candidates as to what they wanted to learn.
Nai Sarlee said that he wanted to learn the gatha (sacred verses) for
driving away spirits. The spirits he mentioned were: phii paub, phii prai,
phii fa (spirit of the sky), which are the three possessing spirits par excellence,
and several other less malevolent spirits, some of which have been mentioned
before: phii naa (spirit of the field), phii pong (spirit of the forest),
phii sya naam (mermaid or spirit of the water), and phii saeg sao hyan
(spirit of the house-posts).

The appropriate formulae were written down on paper in the alphabet
of the local dialect but composed of words in the Korm (Khmer) language
which is one of the sacred languages for Buddhist texts. The words as
such were and still remain totally incomprehensible to Nai Sarlee, but he
believes them to be gatha from Buddhist texts. On the following two nights,
while in a trance, he was taught to recite the words and how to conduct the
exorcism ritual. There was an interval of one year before he was authorized
to practise—during this time he was expected to memorize the verses.
Nai Sarlee was also enjoined to observe certain food taboos which are
called `ten kinds of flesh': cat, snake, dog, horse, elephant, two kinds of
monkey, tiger, human beings, and turtle. All except turtle are taboo to
all villagers; however, the candidate is also prohibited from drinking
liquor, which is liberally taken by other mediums. If he breaks any of
these food taboos, the spells he makes are likely to turn into phii paub
inside him, the very spirit which is his arch enemy and which he combats
and exorcizes in his patients.

There is also a Buddhistic twist to his role commitment. Since his
spells are supposedly derived from Buddhist gatha, he is required to
worship the Buddha at the private shrine in his house every evening.

(In contrast, it is not incumbent on him to be a pious worshipper at the
temple.) Nai Sarlee alleged that sometimes in the course of worship he
fell into a trance. We shall see later on that not only does he follow the
practice of all ritual experts by invoking the Buddhist Trinity at the
exorcism ritual, but he also, like a Buddhist monk, administers the five
precepts to the exorcized patient. All this reminds one of the Black Mass.

Let me now make a digression. Although I have so far described the
exorcist as in some ways acting like a `monk' but in a manner and for
purposes totally different from those of a village monk, yet it is also true
that the art of exorcism by using Buddhist verses actually stems from or
has precedents in one rather unusual development in Buddhism itself.
Although none are to be found in Phraan Muan village, there are elsewhere
literate exorcists who possess, read and use written magical texts, and
who have acquired their esoteric knowledge and techniques from famous
extraordinary monks who have been their guru and who themselves have
been famous healers and exorcists. It is important to note that these
monks have used their special powers and knowledge for curing and not
for nefarious purposes such as sorcery. Village exorcists often claim that
they themselves have learned under some famous abbot. It is thus possible
that the enacting of some of the monk's attributes and his religious role
by the village exorcist may be an imitation of the behaviour and techniques
of the monk-exorcist.

The link between this phenomenon and classical doctrinal Buddhism
is as follows. Buddhism shares with traditional Hindu Yoga the notion
that when a monk (or yogin) attains a particular stage of meditational
discipline and control over thought and physical desire, he automatically
acquires `mystic powers' (siddhi/iddhi) such as the ability to fly in the
air, to know the mental states of other men, etc. In Chapter 3 I discussed
the Buddhist conception of the arahat and the mystic and extraordinary
powers he has access to. (There is the analogous Hindu belief that `By
virtue of renunciation, of asceticism (tapas), men, demons, or gods can
become powerful to the point of threatening the economy of the entire
universe' (Eliade 1958, p. 89).) Doctrinal Buddhism, however, deplores
the use and exhibition by the arahat of his miraculous powers, in the same
way the yogin is admonished to resist the temptation of magic, and encouraged
to reach a higher stage of spiritual enrichment. The point I am
making here, in regard to monks and their miraculous powers, is that the
notion of renunciation having the capacity to give the ascetic extraordinary
powers is the basis for some monks and ascetics actually taking to the
practice of doctrinally devalued but tempting magical techniques.

Tantric Buddhism contains certain ideas and distinctions that are

germane to our problem. Adepts in occultism are differentiated as those
who follow the `right-hand path' and those who follow the `left-hand path'.
Evans-Wentz (1960) likens the right-hand path to `white magic' and
the left-hand path to `black magic'. The former is used for beneficial
purposes, for invoking the appearance of deities, and for proceeding
upwards to final emancipation, whereas the latter employs the mantras
to call up and command inferior orders of spiritual beings and is often
used for nefarious purposes.

It is most interesting that the distinction appears at a different level
in Burmese exorcism. The hierarchical distinction made in relation to
exorcists—who are usually not monks—is between athelan hsaya, `master
of the upper path' and aulan hsaya, `master of the lower path' (Spiro
1967). The athelan hsaya is committed to Buddhist discipline and aspires
to become a weikza (reminiscent of the arahat), belongs to a gaing sect,
and practises alchemy. The inferior aulan hsaya tries to control harmful
supernaturals. The remarkable aspect of Spiro's description is that the
athelan hsaya uses Buddhist gatha prayers, the monk's paritta, and invokes
the Buddhist Trinity in his encounter with the possessing spirit: `the
purpose of the ceremony is to enlist the support of Buddhist power, for
it is the power of Buddhism, not the power of the exorcist... which
overcomes the evil power' (Spiro 1967, p. 199). Not only this, but another
statement of Spiro's has relevance for a formulation made by villagers
in our Thai village: the power of the exorcist is morally ambiguous and
the power to heal can also be abused to do harm, and in the eyes of some
Burmese villagers the two kinds of practitioners are therefore not distinguishable.

The point I wish to make is that, rather than viewing the exorcist and
exorcism as un-Buddhist deviations or antitheses to Buddhism, we shall
increase our understanding by placing them in relation to it. The classical
Buddhist distinction is between the true arahat who renounces the use
of his mystic powers for worldly ends and transports himself to a higher
plane, and the ascetic who does not; the Tantric distinction is between the
mystic who employs them ethically and the one who does not. Similar
distinctions occur in Burma at the level of exorcists who are also Buddhist
laymen. The lay exorcist's powers are derived from Buddhist techniques
and words, as are the monk's, but are used for different purposes. Thus in
Burmese village Buddhism the distinction is re-established between the
monk, who is engaged in higher pursuits and must have nothing to do
with spirit (nat) cults, and the exorcist who, while subservient to Buddhism,
is rigorously separated from the monk because of his lower pursuits.
Similar distinctions can, I think, be discovered in Thailand. The distinction

is again paralleled at another level between normal death and bad death,
and the rites and officiants associated with them. It therefore makes great
sense to view the exorcist both as a `mock' monk and as the `inversion'
of a monk, a viewpoint which will become clearer after we view the exorcistic
ritual.[2]