A Psychology of Ghosts: The Regime of the Self and the Reinvention of Spirits in Indonesia and Beyond

Abstract

The afterlife is currently being psychologised on a global scale. Based on a comparison of recent transformations in the reality of ghosts in eastern Indonesia and in contemporary Hollywood ghost series, this paper explores the links between spirits and changing conceptions of self in a global world. In Indonesia, ghosts are becoming traumatised, while in the West spirits increasingly struggle with emotional problems. In different ways, the paper suggests, spirits are becoming implicated in the globalisation of an interiorised and psychologised understanding of what it means to be human. As humans are encouraged to think of themselves as psychological beings, human spirits and ghosts are reinvented in a variety of ways—East and West. I argue that, ironically, it is the very hegemony of the powerful discourses and institutions that drive the globalisation of a psychological understanding of the self into ever more contexts and locations that is leading to these new forms of re-enchantment. The new kinds of ghosts that are currently emerging in the folds of global governmentality do so, it would seem, not in spite of the power of governmental reason, but by virtue of it.

Keywords:

• Spirituality
• Governmentality
• Subjectivity
• Trauma
• Vampires

Notes

 [1] I would like to thank Greg Acciaioli, editor of Anthropological Forum, as well as two anonymous reviewers for their very critical, insightful and productive comments.

 [2] The original reads as follows: ‘Awas! Suanggi Pemakan “Burung”. Televisi hanya menghadirkan efek seram dalam visualisasi beriat mistiknya. Tapi, di Tobelo suanggi betul-betul memakan mangsa. Kemaluan korban raib disikat … Tobelo kini dilanda isu hantu perempuan’

 [3] I take the concept of mediascape from Appadurai (1990) to denote the global media flow of images, concepts and narratives.

 [4] See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9879388/ns/technology_and_science-science/ (accessed 17/3/11). These numbers should, of course, be treated with caution. They clearly vary significantly. They also do not necessarily indicate an increase in ‘lived beliefs’. Rather they might, just as significantly, reflect an increased willingness to publicly declare a belief in ghosts and spirits.

 [5] Ghost is ranked as number 79 on the list of the world's top grossing movies ever. See http://www.filmsite.org/boxoffice.html (accessed 16/3/11).

 [6] See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099653/ (accessed 16/3/11).

 [7] An Internet poll in 2010 found Ghost whisperer to be the second most missed of all cancelled shows that year, see http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/ustv/s56/flashforward/news/a236830/flashforward-is-most-missed-axed-show.html (accessed 16/3/11).

 [8] See http://www.vanpraagh.com/index.php?p=Store (accessed 17/3/11).

 [9] See James van Praagh description of his abilities on http://www.vanpraagh.com/index. php?p=Abilities (accessed 17/3/11)

[10] I use the word ‘sciencescape’ as a complement to the assortment of global landscape terms coined by Appadurai (1990) to denote the flow of scientific theories and concepts on a global scale. In particular, I am here interested in the global spread of scientific concepts associated with the ‘psy-disciplines’ of the regime of the self.

[11] North Maluku (also known as the northern Moluccas) is an archipelago located between the northern tip of Sulawesi and the western tip of Papua. Famed as the area of origin for cloves and nutmeg, the islands have been known as ‘The Spice Islands’ in Europe since the Renaissance. Until it became a separate province in 1999, North Maluku was part of the province of Maluku (Moluccas), administered from the capital of Ambon some 500 kilometres to the south. The administrative separation from Maluku happened against the backdrop of Christian-Muslim violence in the Ambon area, a violence that spawned much of the anxiety that would generate the ensuing conflict in North Maluku between late 1999 and 2001 (Bubandt 2001; van Klinken 2007).

[12] The following account of the vampire or drakula is a distillation of a more detailed analysis published in Bubandt (2008a). Data for the analysis was gathered during fieldwork in 2004 and 2007.

[13] A VCD (Video Compact Disc) is a low-resolution alternative to the DVD and, until recently, the favourite medium for video viewing in Indonesia.

[14] The fear that human genitalia (and male genitalia in particular) may shrink or disappear due to magic or sorcery is widespread throughout Indonesia and Southeast Asia. It was first reported in the medical literature in 1895 under the name of koro in a case from southern Sulawesi (Edwards 1984), but koro has since been observed in many instances throughout the world with such consistency that it was included in 1994 as a culture-bound syndrome in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) published and later updated by the American Psychiatric Association (Bernstein and Gaw 1990; DSM-IV-TR 2000, 900).

[15] For an account of the Health as a Bridge to Peace (HBP) concept, see the WHO website at www.who.int/hac/techguidance/hbp/about/en/ (accessed 18/3/11).