Abstract
Ian Hogbin's article, ‘Spirits and the Healing of the Sick in Ontong Java’ (1930), sketches out the relationships that were perceived to exist between the living and the spirits of the dead amongst the inhabitants of a small coral atoll in the Western Pacific. Episodes of illness constituted crises when this relationship was articulated through the institution of spirit mediumship, in order to effect a cure for the patient. The structure of Ontong Javanese seances is compared with spirit mediums' seances in Bali. The seances of both cultural groups are analysed in terms of a model of symbolic healing recently proposed by Dow (1986). Symbolic healing of the clients' specific problem is located within, and dependent upon, a more generalised process of therapy that affects all the participants in the seance. This therapy hinges on the nature of the emotional relationship between the living and the spirits they associate with their dead relatives.
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