Ever since social anthropology and comparative religion have emerged as scientific disciplines, seemingly archaic and universal phenomena of “possession” have fascinated scholars. Kristin Bloomer’s book Possessed by the Virgin opens a new window into practices of possession in southern India: the possession by Mary, mother of Christ, observed in Catholic communities in the state of Tamil Nadu. The study is a remarkable piece of work because it gives deep insights into hidden but highly popular religious practices that flourish in the borderland between local forms of Catholicism and Hinduism.Possessed by the Virgin tells the stories of three—or, rather, four—Catholic women and their special relationship with Mary: Dhanam, a poor Dalit woman in a village in southern Tamil Nadu, experiences possession of a Hindu god and Mary, who both come on her during the miscarriage of her first child; she later becomes a healer by the grace of Mary. Rosalind, a college-educated single mother from a lower middle-class family in Chennai, acts as a medium of Mary, passing on Mary’s messages to a large crowd of devotees who flock to her “Our Lady Jecintho prayer house”. Nancy, an unmarried young woman living and struggling with her parents in Chennai, reports visits of Mary and shows stigmata.The three women have little in common besides their intensive relationship with Mary. Their environment, experiences, and practices are very different. Rather than being typical of Marian possession, they are three examples of the wide spectrum Marian possession takes in southern India. The fourth woman represented in the book is the author herself. Bloomer relates her Catholic upbringing in the United States, her doubts and questions regarding hegemonic power relations in Church and society in general, and the situation in South Asia in particular. She extensively reflects on the implications of her own background for her investigation into Indian Catholic practices.The diversity of the three examples of Indian women before the backdrop of the researcher’s own experience are a challenge for the analysis of Marian possession, and the author struggles to find a meaningful analytical frame. In the course of the study, Bloomer takes up several interpretative approaches, but an overall concise argument is lacking. The most prominent framework presented in the book is the literary-structuralist aham/puram dichotomy. The author refers to the poetic conventions of corresponding interior and exterior “landscapes” as conceptualized in classical Tamil Cankam literature. Although the use of Cankam conventions as a leitmotif with literature-inspired paragraph headings give the study a beautiful poetic touch, the analytical value of the concept remains unclear. The bodily dimension of representation and possession is discussed as mimetic practice, which is rather descriptive than explanatory.Most fruitful is the interpretative perspective that puts the agency of the possessed women in the center of analysis. Bloomer concludes that Marian possession opens up a gendered space for women, a wide field beyond conventional societal constraints which allows women to negotiate power relations in their social environment. This does not make women “rebels” in the sense of Western feminism, but enables them to contest existing boundaries of religion, society and gender. As the examples of the three Indian women show, the individual gain can be quite different.The strength of the publication is the narrative power of the author. Bloomer is a master of storytelling, she vividly and empathically portrays the characters. The reader feels her great sympathy and love for them, and one is drawn into the dramatic life stories of the protagonists, getting as close as one could imagine—in some instances even too close and a bit uneasy when intimate details are related. Bloomer’s command of Tamil is an invaluable asset, because many subtleties and concepts are mediated and negotiated by language; the language is indeed the key, as the author writes. Bloomer’s deep love and understanding of Tamil culture that highly values language and literature is underscored by her poetic style of writing. Bloomer does not content herself with relating life stories and religious practices. In accordance with Tamil literary conventions that connect inner feelings with physical landscapes, she poetically describes the environment of her characters, adding an important dimension rarely present in academic studies.Overall, Possessed by the Virgin is highly recommended for readers with a general interest in the religious landscape of India and equally for scholars specialized in the Tamil sphere. An impressive apparatus of footnotes allows nonspecialists to follow, and the references to Tamil literature and language are a delight for the expert. The value of the book lies less in its concise analytic conclusions than in its exemplary poetic style of writing—a thick description, sympathetically bringing to life the “dramatis personae,” and taking the reader on a fascinating trip into the borderland between South Indian Hindu and Catholic traditions.
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Open Access
Oct 31, 2021
Hassan Ramzan + 1
