Madness or Mysticism? The Unconscious Ascetics of Power and Hunger

Abstract

Bessie Head's A Question of Power and Dambudzo Marechera's The House of Hunger present spiritual battles of a psychic rather than a psychological nature. Both novels rely on autobiographical protagonists who display an acute awareness of spiritual conflict. This manifests itself partially in their awareness of racism as a spiritual evil that responds to visible difference, but it moves beyond this awareness into a wider consciousness of states of being beyond empirical experience. This consciousness is not surprising from either an African traditional perspective, or from the perspective of any other form of mysticism, although empiricist readers have attempted to rationalise and categorise it. Even without training in ascetic practices, the protagonists of Marechera and Head experience visions which evoke those of the North African Desert Fathers, including St Antony. This paper raises the possibility that both Head and Marechera display awareness of existence, and conflict, in a spiritual dimension, and that this conflict takes on particular physical dimensions. The argument in Foucault's Madness and Civilization is applied to show how the diagnosis, or even suspicion, of insanity serves to isolate and alienate, and thus to obscure valid critiques of the nature of power in society, particularly in a post-colonial context.

Keywords:

• mysticism
• psychoanalysis
• empiricism
• epistemology
• visions

Notes

1 In the iconic photographs taken by the British South Africa Police, between Nehanda's arrest and execution, she wears a shawl and her three companions are dressed in rags.

2 Freud's use of the word demon refers to either good or bad apparitions or spiritual forces, and thus corresponds more closely to the original Greek δαιμόνιον (daimonion) which means simply a spirit or deity. Obviously, early and medieval Christians use the term in its negative sense, as an infernal spirit. For the purposes of this paper, I will continue to use the term in its original and Freudian sense, so as to suspend judgment on the apparitions that both protagonists encounter. Since it is clear that these are apparitions who serve as characters in the texts, I find the use of the term ‘hallucinations’ to be particularly patronising and inaccurate.

3 Here Pattison is citing Veit-Wild; the correct reference to her book is 1992: 175.

4 In Lilford (1996: 49) I cite an instance from Lan (1985: 93) who says that among the Korekore, children are seen as ‘wet’ and unformed, but achieve ‘dryness’ as they mature.

5 Eshmûnên, now Al Ashmonin, was about 500 kilometres from their starting point in Alexandria.