In Western theatre we talk of actors so enraptured that for a moment or an hour they live the part. But, on the whole, Western acting is perceived as an elegant mode of artifice. Actors impersonate, but never lose perspective on who they themselves are. During field study in West Java, Indonesia, in 1977-1978 and 1982, I encountered examples of a different type of acting. In certain trance dance forms the actors were said to enter an altered state and become mediums for another presence: their own personalities were displaced in their bodies by some other being.l The appeal of this type of acting is twofold. First, there is the attraction of voyeurism: these forms allow audiences to see beyond their everyday existence into the normally hidden world of the spirits who perform-gods and demons, wild and mythical animals, and the dead. The second appeal is spectacle: since these spirits are endowed with superhuman powers, the entranced performers often engage in activities beyond the limits of mere mortals. As if playing with spirits were not exciting enough, performers frequently prove the validity of their visitation by literally playing with fire. I have, for example, seen performers walk on blazing coals, roll torches over their bodies, eat light bulbs, douse themselves in boiling water, and pierce their bodies with swords. Scholars generally assume that these dances are of great antiquity, and some hypothesize that they are derived from archaic, ritual forms which-under the impact of succeeding waves of foreign culture (Hindu, Islamic, and Western)-have often lost their original meaning.2 It is not my intention in this article to analyze or psychoanalyze the forms to seek