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Nnnngh, ok, I feel a strong need to declare that I am not the voice of my House. I am not the voice of my Kindred. I am only the voice of my own experience. I disclaim, because I don't want the trouble or drama of somebody coming by and reading and getting angry with me because they percieve it differently, and WOW is this a sensitive topic.
Also, I am voicing experience from two somewhat different contexts with rules that overlap. I learned posession in a Norse context first and then joined a pagan-friendly Umbanda house. I try to specify when the guidelines I understand are not common to both settings, but I've been having a rough time of things these last few months, and I'm not thinking 100% clearly right now. *sigh*
So ok, lemme see what I can do here...
Aunt Beast: I'm not very well-versed on the topic but isn't that the reverse of the situation in Vodou? From what I've read it's usual to ensure possession through tests and generally considered bad form to give someone a hard time about a God's behaviour while they were out.
I think you are generally correct, but I have little experience with other Afro-Diasporic houses that are not our sister houses. I am under the impression that our house is more accepting of in-between states than more strenuously traditional settings are but also that Hatian Vodoun and Santeria are more strict than Umbanda by far. Then also, some of my perceptions may be based on the fact that we've had such an influx of new members since I joined that a not insignificant quantity of the people attending our events are still in the learning stages of the process (including ME thankyouverymuch). I do know that we don't percieve Posession as an All-or-nothing prospect, and while we could indeed subject people to tests to see how far out they are, if they fail the test, we could hurt them, when really, that's not actually necessary unless you're in the kind of setting where you're going to take everything a medium says as pure unadulterated word of the Spirit. Since not even Spirit agrees with itself, nor are all spirits entirely honest, we go ahead and work with a "Confirmation and Judgement are required" method. Take what you are told with a grain of salt, and if the instructions are problematic, you have every right to declare a need for Confirmation, and to wait for that confirmation before acting. Confirmation means an untainted source echoes the information. This method comes in very handy.
How do you ensure that only a certain depth of trance is reached?
Ngh, experience, I suppose, and also methods of induction. When you're being jumped totally unexpectedly, that's a whole other kettle of fish, and in my experience we treat that as an urgent problem, not a ritual, so accountability is handled completely differently in that context.
When you've planned ahead for the induction, you've got a hell of a lot more choices. The first thing I've been taught extensively in the Umbanda house is that we're supposed to commune with the powers before the event to request that They be gentle with us, and take up any dissagreements about what should and shouldn't be allowed with the Mama, not us mediums. If we've had behavioral problems, we're to go over the rules with the powers we combine poorly with. Stuff like that.
Then, also, we train to trance triggers and cues. That's part of what all that drumming and music and regalia is all about. It's not to make things look more fancy, is to make the context very distinct from everyday life. I can and have gone out for my Papa Ghede in other contexts, but most of the time if I'm going out for my Papa, there are drums playing and people singing very specific familiar songs and I've got a hat and cane nearby to wear, and He's itching to dance with His wife - the motion of which drives me even further out. These kinds of things push for a deeper trance.
The Norse context I experience has far fewer events, fewer rules and guidelines, but similar expectations - fewer guidelines means we tend to have more warders planned to handle whatever comes up. But we use cues as well - Oracular Seidh is fairly involved.
It's funny, because I hear complaints from low-church Heathens that we're being too ritualistic, but those rituals are to establish more precise control that they get pretty damned unhappy if we don't have. Sure, maybe most of the time we don't need any given piece of the ritual because the situation it's designed to handle may not come up. But that's true of the emergency instructions on an Air Plane too.
I'm to understand that the intitial experiences when things were far less in control were handled somewhat differently than we now have the leisure to arrange. As I said, unexpected involuntary trance is an urgent situation, not a ritual. We may not pull you out of trance immediately, depending on what's going on, but we do have different expectations under those circumstances. How accountable will you be held? Well, how accountable do you hold somebody who is having a seizure or something? The next step isn't to blame them for what happened, the next step is to work on gaining more control over the situation and figuring out what options exist and what needs to be done.
What we generally do with a soft head is put them in cues training immediately. Help them establish "I'M JUST ME" cues first, and set up agreements with the power that jumped them to NOT jump them again because we're setting up designated space where it's safer.
XK: I'm concerned about the expectation of Deity arriving fully into the horse as a standard and the lack of testing.
I agree that this is not a useful combination. Either set up tests, or accept the spectrum. Pick one, but you can't do both. My experience is from contexts that accept the spectrum. Our primary test is confirmation. Don't take what any one power on any one medium says as a fact of life. Wait to hear it from others too. If Odin pulls me aside three or four times over the course of His party to tell me quietly via different horses that I need to do something, I'll pay more attention than if one medium announces for all the world quite loudly something dubious, and I never hear it again from anyone who didn't hear it the same time I did.
It seems to me this expectation puts an unfair pressure on the horse that they should always be able to be this receptive and that Deity is going to appear.
What I keep in mind is that the cultures that have the all-or-nothing attitude don't generally train people to be Mediums who aren't getting fairly well jumped of their own accord. Teaching a "soft head" to go full amnesiac isn't at all the same prospect as teaching a "hard head" to go full amnesiac. Then, also, when you're in that kind of cultural setting, I understand that the context really changes how you handle being jumped - you may be scared and confused in the immediate sense, but there's a cultural expectation drilled in that you can't hold on under those circumstances, so letting go to a full posession is potentially easier. I don't know about you, but I wasn't raised to expect even the possibility of being succeptible to spirit posession, so letting go is damned fucking hard. (pardonmyfrench)
What happens if you set up the expectation of full possession and it doesn't happen? How does that impact the community's belief, or what does it do to the horse's self esteem?
The answer is wide and varied, I'm sure. Even within the Heathen community 'round here, we get drama as a result of different assumptions about the significance of Posession. Some folks take it as hubris to even "attempt" such. Some folks assume that if you seem to be experiencing any presence of the gods at all, you must be claiming you're fully posessed, and if you then proceed to do anything they don't expect, you're a liar - sorry if I sound bitter, I've been through that one myself, and it sucked.
But for the most part, folks simply learn to take more responsibility for their own judgement, because they can't get away with blindly accepting everything that comes out of a Horse's mouth, and frankly, at least in a Heathen setting, I think that's appropriate. It may be unecessary, because the mediums however far out they are or aren't, are still sufficiently honest people with divinatory talent that what they've given for advice is still perfectly reasonable. I know we learn over time to trust some mediums more than others, and when somebody new comes in wide-eyed and prepared to accept something one of the less consistant mediums says, we pull them aside and explain the grain-of-salt disclaimer.
What mechanisms are in place to allow a horse to gracefully indicate level of possession truthfully without the fear of disappointing the community?
In my experience, that either doesn't matter tremendously, or we tend to develop a certain sense of depth, or both. I tend to actually say something if I feel like I'm more me than not, but then I have so much more issue with being percieved as a liar later than being percieved as a failure now. As a result, however, I've learned that if I can't say "Um, I'm just me", I'm more out than I thought I was.
Lately, though, I keep feeling like I'm not out at all, and then discovering when it comes time to pull out that I was far further gone than I could tell - and everybody else knew it. *shrugs* So much depends on context, I'm sorry if these aren't helpful answers.
What happens without testing if the horse cannot clearly discern the degree of possession?
Well, what happens depends on the expectations of the folks involved. Since I have never expected full amnesiac trance of myself, it doesn't bother me if I don't achieve it. However, I do indeed fret every time that my trance isn't "deep enough" and my Mama and all my fellow Heathens (depending on which context I'm in) assure me every time that I did quite well enough for the situation at hand, and it doesn't matter if I'm dancing a shadow or over the deep end if I'm not holding court. Since my doubt has a side affect of preventing me from dispensing advice unless I'm downright compelled to, this works just fine for me.
But others who do tend to hold court? Different rules, I'd guess.
You know who might know, I can try and ping for info - I have friends who are in Kemetic Orthodoxy, and that's probably a more helpful context to answer your questions.
This is such a sensitive topic. I hope I haven't mangled it. *very tired, and so worried*
--Ember-- |
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