On Spirituality & Technology

Well it seems like I refer to one of my old texts quite a bit (Sacred Realms: Essays in Religion, Belief, and Society) when talking about articles from this course. But you know what, a lot of the stuff that we read always reminds me of stuff that I have read about in this text. This week's reading was Sconce's Mediums and Media, and what did this article remind me of? An article that I had read before about Malaysian women being possessed as a reflection of gender imbalance in the corporate workplace. The reason I thought of this article is pretty obvious I think, in that they both discuss possession as a form of protest amongst women in differing societies.

Sconce mentions this: "Within the context of Spiritualism's model of electronic presence, women 'mediums' and 'trance speakers' were able to raise feminist issues and debate them freely without necessarily challenging directly the overall social order."

On the other hand, Ong mentions this about Malaysian women: "Spirit possession episodes may be taken as expresions both of fear and of resistance against the multiple violations of moral boundaries in the modern factory. They are acts of rebellion, symbolizing what cannot be spoken directly, calling for a renegotiation of obligations between the management and workers".

It seems like the difference here is that the European women are using the channeling of "mediums" to send a proactive message out to society, whereas the Malaysian women are sending a reactive and expressive message that doesn't necessarily overtly address the issue of gender imbalance, but implies it.

Another interesting part in Sconce's article is the part that mentions how the Kate Fox movement still flourished despite many counterattacks against her supposed ability. People will believe what they want to believe, and I guess although I myself have not experienced supernatural encounters (and do not wish to!), we cannot dismiss the fact that there are those who have. Be it from heightened consciousness to supernatural phenomena, having deceased relatives, or living in a haunted location, I have heard and read about acquaintances' anecdotes of encounters with ghosts. The thought of such an encounter undoubtedly "scares the crap" out of me, but it is definitely interesting to read about sometimes.