Sensing the Spirits: The Healing Dramas and Poeticsof Brujeria Rituals

Raquel Romberg TelAviv University

Abstract: Following the path suggested by Joseph Murphymore than a decade ago, this paper explores the sensuous 'spiri-tuality of healing rituals in Puerto Rican brujeria, stressingtheir performative, embodied nature and significance. Carefullycrafted gestures, meticulously manipulated objects, poeticallystrung words, and before spiritually inspired music and dancecreate dramatic experiences. The voices of Spiritist entities,Santeria orishas, and the recently dead reveal sources of af-flictions and solutions in a totalizing, emotional event involvingall the senses. This is where healing begins. The interpersonal,present-oriented pragmatic space that emerges during brujeriaritual challenges notions about the centrality of belief in healingrituals.

Keywords: Puerto Rico, brujeria, spiritism, symbolic healing,performance

Resume : En suivant les chemins suggeres par Joseph Mur-phy il Ya plus d'une decennie, cet article explore la spiritualitesensuelle des rituels de guerison de la lrrujerio. portoricaine, ensoulignant leur nature et leurs significations performatives etincarnees. Des gestes soigneusement reproduits, des objets ma-nipules avec precaution, des enchainements de mots choisis pourleur evocation poetique, des musiques et danses d'inspirationspirituelle determinant des experiences dramatiques. Les voixdes entites spirituelles, des orishas de JaSanteria et des defuntsrecents devoilent les sources d'affliction et leurs solutions dansdes evenements emotionnels complets, accaparant tous les sens.C'esL alors que commence la guerison . Lespace interpersonnelpragmatique axe sur Ie present qui emerge durant les rituelsde brujeria remet en question les notions relatives au caracterecentral de la croyance dans les rituels de guerison.

Mots-cles : Puerto Rico, brujeria, spiritisrne, guerison symbol-ique, performance

Anthropoiogica 54 (2012) 211-225

The skin is faster than the word.-Massumi 2002

In the last few years, anthropologists have beenrevisiting issues related to the body and the senses in

postcolonial contexts as critical lenses through which toexplore those histories from below or counterhegemonicembodied memories that have been silenced in colonialarchival records. Inspired by this scholarship and follow-ing the path suggested by Joseph Murphy (1988, 1994)for the study of the religions of the African Diaspora, thisarticle explores the sensuous spirituality of healing andmagic rituals in Puerto Rican bricjeria (witch-healing).Like in other vernacular religions of the African diaspora,the interpersonal, present-oriented, albeit "inter-tem-poral" and "inter-ritual," pragmatic space that emergesduring healing, divination and magic rituals challengesthe assumed precondition and centrality of institutional-ized beliefs and doctrines, suggesting instead their essen-tially perforrnative, embodied nature and significance.'By stressing the performative aspects of ritual, Murphyis able to show how spirits "are worked" in communalceremonies in the various religions ofthe African diaspora(1994), their major similarities and specific local differen-ces, and invite a renewed reflection on the socio-historicalprocesses that have shaped and are shaping such similar-ities and differences."

From an embodied perforrnative perspective, thetransmission and articulation of socio-cultural, estheticand religious values-drawn from home and host coun-tries-informing processes of religious recovery, continu-ity, creolization and adaptation in the African diasporahave taken place not just through discourse but mainlyfrom one body to another (cf. Stoller 1997, my emphasis),"

Building on these premises, I draw on my ethno-graphic work in order to focus on the dramas and poet-ics of such "workings" in Puerto Rican hrujeria rituals.Through detailed, intimate ethnographic vignettes, I showhow carefully crafted gestures, meticulously manipulated

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objects, poetically strung words, and spiritually inspiredmusic and dance create an inter-temporal and inter-rit-ual, dramatic experience that is in itself healing. Whenthe voices of Spiritist entities, Santeria orishas, and the-recently dead become suddenly manifest during brujeriarituals, divination, trance and the making ofmagic works,their power is sensed, their immateriality embodied (seeCsordas 1990, 1993). This is when the spirits reveal tothe living the sources of affliction and their solutions ina totalizing, emotional event that involves all the senses,where the body and the mind, as well as otherworldly andthis world causes, are treated in tandem; in sum, wherehealing begins. Marked by impromptu interventionsof the spirits, these and other spiritual manifestationsof brujeria derive from a "spiritual economy of affect"that also informs the perforrnative significance of heal-ing rituals and magic works, their embodied nature andtheir effectiveness in transforming the emotional, pro-prioceptive and (to some extent) physiological states ofparticipants. Here I build on the idea of "moral economy"(Romberg 2012b) in order to address the simultaneousmaterial and spiritual concerns of brujeria with well-being. The added analytical framework of "economies ofaffect" will help me in making the connection betweencharisma, embodiment and healing," Some aspects of thisspiritual economy of affect will be explored by focusing onthe visible, albeit mostly obscure, ways in which healingand magic rituals proceed.

Unlike Santeria, Vodou and Candomble, brujeria isnot based on a stable community; a pre-established hier-archy or initiation-based membership. Rather, brujeriarituals are more indeterminate in their ritual proceduresand the attributes of their participants. Since brujeriarituals are heavily dependant on the emergent natureand spontaneous ways in which the spirits manifest them-selves, it is impossible to uphold the assumed central-ity of institutionalized doctrines and worship, especially. among groups of heterodox followers of brujeria." Theresilient nature of brujeria also challenges any type ofdeterminism-whether historical, political, or self-ori-ented-in relation to the shape and place that the body;the senses, and affect take in ritual dramas (see Aretxaga2005; Crossley 2001; Desjarlais 1997;Lock 1993; Navaro-Yashin 2007; Scheper-Hughes and Lock 1987; B. Turner1984). This is where I see the contribution of Alain Bad-iou's (2007) insistence on the potential transformative andinnovative power of emergent situations, which begin withan exceptional (even if) ephemeral break in the flow ofnormative reality. Such breaks ocelli' each time the spir-its manifest themselves in mediums or in objects dur-ing consultations and rituals. Having briefly situated the

212/ Raquel Romberg

unique heterodoxy and indeterminacy of brujeria practi-ces, I center my analytical discussion on the emic notionof manifestaciones (manifestations), a root paradigmand generative ritual anchor for "working the spirits" inbrujeria and other Afro-Latin religions (Romberg 2009).Manifestaciones encapsulate both the embodied and prag-matic nature of these religions, and explain the sensuous,dramatic and poetic ways in which the spirits are sum-moned and "worked" during ritual events,"

In the last three decades, anthropological perspec-tives inspired by phenomenology; poststructuralism andpostcolonial studies have discussed the sensuous theatric-ality of healing rituals in terms of experience, the bodyand performance." The questions I pose here, however,emerge directly from the particular pragmatics of bru-jeria, the eclecticism of its rituals, the heterogeneouscharacter of its participants, and the heterodoxy of itsmoral economy. How is it that people of diverse socialclass, ethnicity and gender-most of whom actually "donot believe in these things"-come to consult with brujosand other types of healers when they feel their lives arecoming apart? How could I, also among those who "donot believe in these things," sense even for a flash thepresence of entities that had been foreign to my life untilthen, and be moved and transformed by them? Beforeproceeding further, however, a few comments about thepeculiarities of brujerfa are in order.

With the American invasion of Puerto Rico, aftercenturies of declining Spanish colonial rule, many (richand poor alike) began to convert to the newly establishedAmerican Catholic and Protestant Churches on the island(Hernandez Hiraldo 2006; Silva Gotay 1985, 1997). Asa result, many families ended up being constituted byindividuals affiliated with distinct religious traditions inunprecedented combinations (Agosto Cintron 1996). Itwas in this eclectic religious atmosphere, with its variouslogics of practice, that many of the brujos I worked withwere raised, shaping in great measure their individualritual styles. Some combined popular Catholicism, Spirit-ism and creole reworkings of African-based healing andmagic practices. Others added American Protestant ele-ments as a result of their upbringing in Catholic familiesthat converted to Protestantism. One of the youngest ofall the healers I worked with was raised by an espirit-ista mother in New York, where he had the opportun-ity to expand his ritual knowledge among Cuban and"N uyorican" babalawos as well as other healers fromSouth and Central America, continuing his initiation inSanteria under an exiled Cuban babalawo in Puerto Rico.A botanica owner and espiritista in her mid sixties (withwhom I lived for several months) was raised by a Spiritist

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grandmother, and blended New Age versions of Spirit-ism with an ecumenical form of Christian religiosity (seeRomberg 2007). A Nuyorican healer married to a: PuertoRican eepiriiista santera developed a personal style thatcombined various Asian, Native American and New Agemodes of healing with traditional Puerto Rican Spiritism.

In addition to such eclectic religious trajectories, theworking experiences of brujos have also shaped theirhealing and magic styles. As a result of new commercialand state opportunities afforded by the system of wel-fare capitalism and American commercial investmentsin Puerto Rico under the commonwealth, brujos-vmanyof whom have experienced working in American-ownedfactories or state agencies-expanded their previousritual areas of involvement (Romberg 2003:210-235).Having acquired additional cultural capital pertaining tonew systems of production and redistribution, they havebeen able to attend not only to the spiritual but also thematerial welfare of their clients (as will become evidentbelow). As brokers among state, business, and profes-sional networks, they are sought out when mainstreammedicine, psychology, or social work fail to provide solu-tions to a variety of health, relationship and economicproblems, but more comprehensively, for promoting one'sbendiciones (blessings) or ultimate success in life.

Defined in terms of both material and spiritualprogress, the quest for bendiciones has been moldedrecently by consumer and welfare capitalist values andsensibilities, which add a concern for the material con-ditions of human existence to the hitherto exclusivelyCatholic and Spiritist spiritual understandings of ben-diciones. The connection between spiritual and materialblessings is hence established: material success-meas-ured by one's acquisitive power, social status, and overallprogress-attests to having been gifted with spiritualblessings and vice-versa (Romberg 2011b). What all thismeans in matters of ritual practice will become apparentbelow

Even though a uniquely personal style characterizeseach healer's practices, the similarities, especially con-cerning basic ritual gestures, communication styles dur-ing divination, possession, and even the components oftheir altars, are too compelling to overlook. These ritualsimilarities suggest a kind of spiritual lingua franca thatenables individuals of various backgrounds and religiousorientations (myself included) to move in and out ofthesevarious types of vernacular healing systems with quite aremarkable (and, in my case, even unexpected) ease. Partof this ease, I believe, is the result of inter-temporal, his-torically layered, embodied inter-ritual traditions enactedby healers and eventually recognized by their clients. This

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issue needs further clarification in light of the essentiallyheterogeneous social profile of those who seek help frombrujos.

Contradicting the expectations of healers about theirclients' predispositions regarding magic (no less thansome anthropological interpretations of it), the distinc-tion between belief and efficacy, inexplicable as it mightbe to some skeptics, highlights the critical role of the per-formative in the spiritual economy of brujeria. Wheredoes belief stop, and where do "memories of the flesh"begin (Young 2002)7While these are questions that phil-osophers and anthropologists of religion ponder, theyacquire a different meaning when asked from an ethno-graphic perspective (see Romberg 20lla). In the case ofbrujos, for instance, the reality of their own possessionis never questioned or predicated on their belief in spir-its. Rather, it is the result of the spirits' whims. Further-more, since no theological learning is involved in brujeriapractices, training their bodies to surrender to the willof the spirits during veladas (nighttime seances) is theonly type of learning brujos will ever acknowledge. Andyet, to assure the effectiveness of their rituals, they doexpect their clients to (cognitively) believe or to have faithin what they do during the consultation. Brujos achievethis via performative means, all sorts of proofs and testsof their possession, which often conceal this very purpose,not unlike the theatricality of possession so masterfullyconveyed by Michel de Certeau (1990).8.What I find particularly challenging in vernacular

religious practices such as brujeria is the perforrna-tive reality of its consultations. Marked by "continuousand relentless deferral," the truth of healing and magic"is a truth continuously questioning its own veracity ofbeing" (Taussig 1998:247). Given, as mentioned above,that brujeria practices are structured neither by initia-tion hierarchies nor by a prescriptive theological or ritualcorpus (as Santeria and Candomble), their legitimationdepends heavily on the charisma of practitioners, makingthe potential fragility of each consultation a constitutivefeature of its very experience. The perforrnative realityof consultations is thus highly indeterminate. The char- .ismatic, perforrnative excellence of brujos embodyingthe spirits, voicing their words, and interpreting theirencoded messages generates a wholly multisensorial heal-ing event. A seeming paradox results: whereas this realitymanifestly depends on the performative excellence of bru-jos, consultations are ultimately constituted (and experi-enced) as the result of the whims and dictates of spirits."It's not me," brujos often clarify. "It's the spirits tellingme to tell you." When brujos reveal that they do not directthe proceedings of consultations-that they are not the

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of her pace is matched by the chubbiness of her physiqueand overall clumsiness of her clothes, as well as by herdull, inexpressive visage. Before opening the cards forher, Haydee makes a few unexpected general commentsabout this young, sad-looking client. These address theobvious neglect of her parents and her wish to make easymoney, which introduces the first warning: "Because ofthat money you'll shed tears." Suddenly, indicating theupcoming revealing words of the spirits, Haydee soundsthe bell several times, bangs on the table a few times,and states, "You're spoiled; you're rebelling; If you do it[drugs], you'll catch HIV Look, you can't buIIshit me; youcan't cover up anything with me, because those who comewith lies, 1 throw them out. Here, the bruja is 1!"

Adding to the unfolding drama, Haydee snaps herfingers up and down several times, proclaiming her vision:"iVy, camjo! (Oh, ShiL!).15They want to see you on theground, like that, on the soil. Your enemies want to seeyou 'back and forth, back and forth, and up and down" [avernacular expression for prostitutes that characterizestheir life as an endless going up and down the streetsin search for clients]. This was to be the key divinatoryaphorism given by the spirits, which alerted to manyother potential dangers, with sad consequences, if thewarning was not taken seriously. Haydee corroboratesthat vision with another, "Youmade that comment [aboutselling your body] not long ago. But remember that thewoman who sells her body is worth nothing."

ABmentioned above, the power of the vision increasesas the medium disengages from authoring the vision,while reinforcing the authorship of the spirits. "Forgiveme, Miriam, for telling you these things. I was giventhese things [by the spirits] perhaps to open your eyes,to prevent you from falling into that error .... Youwant toget married in white, don't you?" Sensing now Miriam'semotional state and asserting her own divinatory poweronce again, Haydee voices Miriam's innermost thoughts,not just in the past but also in the present: "You want tocry"" Giving her a hopeful solution, she adds to the visiona future outcome, "1 see the blue mantle that shelters[armpa] you .... What do you want to be, a nurse? I wantto see you beautiful, all dressed in white .... Thank Godyou arrived here. [She bangs forcefully on the table, indi-cating the spiritual nature of her statement.] Youarrivedjust in timel"16

As the consultation comes to an end, Haydee writesa recipe for a cleansing bath for Miriam, reassuring her:"Don't worry; I see you dressed as a nurse."

While Reina, the assistant median, and 1 have beenvisibly moved by the divination session, Miriam sat insilence throughout most of the time. Offering to pay for

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the cleansing products (quite an unusual gesture), Hay-dee asserted her total commitment to Miriam-a com-mitment that was elevated to a spiritual timeless bond,articulated and blessed in the following "closing" prayer.!?

My God anclcelestial Father, at this moment I closethis humble altar,whichhas been opened for the goodand closedfor the evil. ... Alwayskeep my head high,like you do,my God,because remember that I pleadand yougive,1plan and youbreak, we declare but youdecide;you're the only011ewhogoverns, together withLa Caridad, and I put everything in you hands. I begyouto giveme strength to continuemy obra espiriiual;to helpme to help others.

In this introductory plea, Haydee reasserts in adouble move of extreme humility and empowerment thather power to heal stems from God and La Caridad (herpatron saint)-it is not hers. And by virtue of this uniqueposition she intercedes for Miriam, who stands as a proxyof Haydee's dead daughter: "Now, look at thi youngster .... [Raising her voice] Take care of her! [In a tremblingsobbing voice1Accompany her! 1 plead with you for heras if she were my own daughter. Don't destroy her! Don'tallow anyone to harm this poor soul. Youknow that she'sat the beginning of her flowering youth, beginning herlife .... Remember that she feels lonely. She didn't tellme-but I know what she feels-Lhat she doesn't have asingle friend, that she feels there's no one to advise her."Following up on the theme ofthe "daughter," Haydee pos-itions herself as her "spiritualmother"-another proxy,and asks God that "every time she feels destroyed in herheart, you bring her to the doors of this home ... [sob-bing]; that 1 receive her in my heart; that 1 gather herin my arms as I would my own daughter." Stressing yetanother level of somatic mimesis, Haydee "thinks" thethoughts and "feels" the feelings that Miriam has hadand has: ''AlJthe approaching negativity-drive it. away![Sobbing] Because, remember, that everybody belittlesher, everybody humiliates her. [Crying] She didn't tellme, but 1 know it is so."

In a studied exercise of unmasking, to dispel anydoubts about the authenticity of her mediumship, Hay-dee bewilderingly asks, "Oh my God, why do ;you permitme to shed tears for this young woman who is not mydaughter?" Pondering whether there's an ultimate pur-pose, according to the Laws of Spiritism, she continuesin a breaking voice, "Oh my God, I had my child and youtook her away from me, and who knows, couldn't thisbe my daughter reincarnated, the one you took, the one1 always saw as suffering, always felt my heart achingfor?"18Finally placing her mediumship in a general quest

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beautiful, a professional woman all dressed in white ... Isee you dressed as a nurse," her words acted as a "ver-bal missile" (Malinowski 1935:248). It was a powerfulinvocation, imbued with the spiritual power and strongemotions accompanying the manifestation of the spirits'revelation of the future. Austin's performatives suggeststhat the ritual effectiveness should be sought and meas-ured in the process of enactment, no less than in resultsafter the ritual event (Abrahams 1977). Robert Desjar-lais (1996) seems to arrive at the same conclusion. Hequotes the reflections of a patient who underwent a Yolmohealing ritual, "When the spirit returns .. .it feels like ajolt of electricity to the body" (159), and stresses thatthe goal of these rituals is "to jumpstart a physiology"(160). Indeed, according to Jeanne Favret-Saada (1989),certain gestures, words and attitudes within the realm ofritual "do"-they effect immediate results beyond theirfunctional materiality when performed within the frame-work of "magic." She described a case where the head ofa farm had been bewitched and an unbewitcher consulted.By performing the minute acts of "indirect violence" and"aggressive defense" (50) the unbewitcher prescribed,the farmer's wife effected a drastic change of the condi-tions instigated by witchcraft without any participation byher husband, the witchcraft's object. Empowered by andfeeling the pleasurable effects of efficient action, the wifehad promoted the beginning of the whole farm's recov-ery, eventually evidencing the truth of the un-bewitcher'sdiagnosis.

Perhaps the transformative, healing and reconstitu-tive power of divination rituals resides in the multisen-sorial drama they create, engaging healers and clientsin a spirits-driven script that supersedes their individualwills and the status-quo. Actors are not really responsiblefor what happens. During possession, brujos become ves-sels for their ancestors and guardian spirits, their bodiesbecoming amplifiers ofthe spirits' messages. On occasionthey host the evil forces that have attacked their clients,order them to stop pestering their victims, expiate theirevil deeds, enlighten their spirits, and send them off tocelestial mansions. Clients, too, become receptacles asthey fall victim to negative forces and as they absorb thedivinatory and redressive acts brujos perform on theirbehalf. Even though they are believed to unfold accord-ing to the whims of spirits, not humans, rituals have thepower to transform how we feel, think and act.

After a few days, having removed the cast herselfwithout the intervention of a doctor, Miriam came to seeHaydee again. For several weeks, Miriam joined in withthe few habitues at Haydee's home-altar, receiving regu-lar treatments for her recovering leg, and nurturing and

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Photograph 1: Haydee blowsthe sacred smoke of the Indio onMiriam's leg (photoby author).

caring for her spirit. Completely free of charge, Haydeeapplied herbal compresses regularly on Miriam's leg,infusing this sacred mixture with the healing powers ofthe Indio (an Amerindian spirit) through puffs of smokefrom his cigar. Between treatments, Miriam participatedin Haydee's daily routines as a surrogate daughter, din-ing'with Eliseo (Haydee's son) and occasional guests. Shejust hung out all day at the house. Haydee called her miahijada-my godchild-and bestowed on her (as prom-ised during the improvised prayer at the end of her firstconsultation) the intimacy and demands of a mother.

After Miriam's leg was almost healed and she hadrecovered most her ability to walk, Haydee decided it wastime to conduct a special cleansing ritual, which, clueto thegravity of her case, was framed as an "exorcism." Hay-dee set up a whole afternoon free of clients and recruitedReina and Armando (a santero-espiritista just arrivedfrom New York) to assist her in this expecteclly difficultexorcism. We all gathered in her living room. Reina, Hay-dee and Armando danced and sang to musica somtera,playing Yoruba and Catholic praise songs to the Afro-Cuban rhythms of rumba that celebrate and summon,one by one, the orishas/saints. Haydee fell into trance,after which we all heard this message: "She needs a bitof love. But [the spirits] tell me that she has a beautifulcuadro [set of guardian spirits]. Because what she has, isa sad arrastre [drag, incarnated negativity], which shedoesn't have to carry by herself. Because she is not toblame for what happens to her. Because God will hear

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Photograph 2: Miriam's exorcism (photo by author).

The spiritual trajectory engineered dramaticallythrough sacred and poetic words, and vivified in materialsymbols, beckoned a parallel spiritual transformationfrom a marginal, beaten, polluting youngster into a Santa.But unlike Turner's (1974) pilgrimages, Miriam's trans-formation emerged from an internal progression withinherself.

The gradual development ofMiriam's self engineeredduring the exorcism evokes other contexts, other worldsof meaning. The unfolding stages of her transformationparallel the sequence of actions driving the developmentof adolescent fictional heroes as suggested in VladimirPropp's morphological study (1968)of Russian fairy tales.Victor Turner found (1974:37-42) similarly patternedsequences of actions exemplified in the historical dramasthat produced the martyrdom and sainthood of Canter-bury Archbishop Thomas Becket (1118-1170), and thepatriotic heroism of parish priest Miguel Hidalgo, in 19thcentury revolutionary Mexico. What is shared by fairytales and historical dramas ending, respectively, with thetriumph of a beaten adolescent and the establishment ofa religious or political icon is a parallel between the pro-gression of the action (beginning with a conflict, followedby a magical intervention, leading to a resolution) and thedevelopment of the persona.

Turner suggests four phases of public action for"social dramas" (1974:37-42) that might identify thisprogression: a "breach," moving to a "crisis," rising toa "redressive action," and ending with the "reintegra-tion" of the main character, now transformed. In Miriam'scase, the "breach" is her polluting, marginal state, vividly

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depicted as a girl whose cries are unheard, mocked andshunned even by those closest to her. Her marginalityreappears in the "crisis" stage, as her willingness "to sellher body," putting her health, and probably her life, atrisk. The ritual progresses to the third stage with theenactment of a "redressive action," in which all the insultsand offenses Miriam had endured are set right, compen-sated by the magical aid of Haydee and the promise offuture protection and guidance by God, the spirits andsaints. In the fourth and final "reintegration" stage, Mir-iam emerges as a transformed "sacred" self. Through aninspiring yet arduous journey driven by a progressionof sensuous images-closing doors, mocking eyes, open-ing hearts, sheltering saints and guiding hands-Miriamenters (at least for the duration of the ritual) the symbolicdomain of a sacred existence, becoming-like pilgrims,Becket, and Hidalgo-a "total symbol," that is, a "symbolof totality" (Turner 1974:208).

Images and Gestures that "Do"Have Mary Magdalene, Becket and Hidalgo become rootmetaphors and symbols, engendering a wide range offuture associations and motivations for action? As longas at least some groups continue to recognize their mean-ing and imbue them with renewed transformative power,historically-constituted religious and national root sym-bols such as Mary Magdalene, Becket and Hidalgo tendto persist and engender new realities, even if in vastlydifferent contexts from those in which they originated andregardless of how they originated. Without such humantropes, how could we experience ritual, be transformed,or even recognize that transformation in ourselves or inothers? In Massui's terms, how could we feel the feeling?25

The power of symbolic gestures within Spiritism isevidenced, for instance, in cleansing gestures. As "root"gestures they encapsulate the basic belief in the spirit-ual component of our "self" and its connection to otherselves-past and present, living and dead-and to thecosmos. The gestures performed in cleansing the bodyfrom evil influences, for instance, evoke in practitionersparticular feelings and sensations with respect to free-ing their spirit and mind from negative inf1uences andthoughts. Outsiders might "see" nothing but hands mov-ing up and down, and around, the body.

Within brujeria, the spiritual effects of symbolicactions and images vary. When Haydee encircled Mir-iam's body-in the same manner I had seen her encir-cle her own body and those of others-her arms tracedwhirlpools of air from Miriam's head to her toes, markingoff a trajectory along which harmful negative thoughtsand feelings could be safely swished away. As she wascleansing Miriam, when Haydee mentioned the sea and its

Sensing the Spirits /219

The enactment of a wish summons its effect. This basicidea of materialization lies at the core of what brujos do,from their hermeneutical frameworks for dreams, visions,trance and divination, to the operative logic behind theirmagical works and the actual performance of cleansing,healing and retaliation trobajo«

ConclusionEven though magic and healing rituals appeal' as theeasiest ethnographic materials to document empiricallybecause of their visible gestures, palpable substancesand audible sounds, these very qualities are also at theroot of the challenges they pose for ethnographic text-ual authority, representation and theorizing (Cliffordand Marcus 1986; Hazan 1995; Marcus and Cushman1983; Stoller 1994). How do these essentially sensor-ial and grounded acts accomplish anything beyond themanifestly visceral? The words uttered during divinationand healing are meant to be sensed, pot just listened to,embodied, and not just understood. The extended ethno-graphic case presented here has shown the complexitiesofmagic, divination and healing rituals that merge variousspeaking voices and registers, that encompass the shiftingbetween several speech genres and non-linguistic soundsproduced by clapping, banging and bell-ringing.s'' Inaddition to integrating several speech genres-personalnarratives, aphorisms, proverbs, magic recipes, each ofwhich defines a particular temporal perspective-whenlinguistic registers of Catholic priests, Protestant pas-tors, Black-Church and charismatic media preachers,and santeros are intertwined, a trans-religious spiritualexperience is thus generated. Such totalizing ritual eventsmay transport participants into a unique "spiritual time"that contravenes conventional, every day forms of com-munication, perception and feeling."

Within this spiritual economy of affect, indeterminacyis key (Romberg 2012a). The spiritual world has it ownlogic and sensuous modes of working. Within this spirit-ual economy, clients can hardly expect a usual course ofaction, which makes the ensi ng of the spirits open to bothlong-term and new clients, and believers and non-believ-ers in Spiritism and brujeria. Expectations are almostalways upset in these open-ended, anxiety-producingevents, opening the possibilities of experiencing a trulyuniversal spiritual lingua franca as well as a mystical, aweproducing disorientation and puzzlement." I have arguedhere that healing works for participants in rituals regard-less of belief; when the indeterminacy of brujeria ritualsprovokes an outburst of affect, and their uncertainty stirsa flickering sense of transcendence. When the charismaand artifice of brujos are such that they are not. sensed,

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they both reinforce the sensing ofthe emergent presenceof the spirits and dispel any remaining skepticism oftheirtrue presence, even for a flash.

AB spirits are "worked" within brujeria in such total-izing, yet impromptu rituals, the spirits are made to besensed as the originating and directing force of rituals. Inorder to assure that no maneuvering takes place, brujosrelentlessly engage in artful revelations that aim at dis-pelling suspicions of their skilled performances. Theseand other proof-providing corroborations performed bybrujos are meant to reveal that it is the spirits' manifesta-tions and their will-not the will of brujos-that whichguide the rituals they perform as well as their entirelives. On the surface this might seem contrived. Whereasthose who "work" the spirits are charismatic mediumswho enact multisensorial, inter-temporal and inter-ritualspiritual events, indeterminate as they might be, sens-ing the spirits and their revelations is what really heals.Clients are asked to have faith-it's true-but not in spir-its or in mediums. Rather, they are expected to make aleap of faith in trusting the emergent reality manifestedduring rituals. The words of a client I quoted elsewhere(Romberg 2003) make now full sense to me. While wait-ing to be consulted a woman said, "I don't believe in thesethings, but it works." Paradoxical as it may sound, the lackof belief does not prevent things to happen, if the rightprocedures are executed with excellence.

Semantically meaningless vocables, onomatopoeicexpressions, sounds produced by banging on a table, clap-ping hands and tapping on a bell may suddenly be heardin the midst of a consultation, adding to the opacity, excite-ment, and sometimes the anxiety, of what goes on duringdivination." When brujos reveal that it is not they whospeak when they deliver the messages from the spirits, orwhen they unmask unsuspecting clients as being skepticalabout the efficacy of their work, they are skillfully per-forming the theatricality of manifestaciones, dispellingthe craving for certainty that their mystery elicits.

Having been puzzled, seduced, and then moved by theopacity of the discourse of spiritual work (its corporeality,and acts of skillful unmasking), perhaps my own textualrituals of revelation of the poetics and gestures of divina-tion, cleansing and healing experiences remain a surfaceintimation of occasions during which the suspension ofdisbelief successfully coexisted with skepticism. By unrav-eling the technologies ofmanifestaciones, and indulging intheir magnificent performativity and expected effects, Ihave touched only Lhe"the surface, the fold, the skin, theappearance" (Taussig 1998:243) of spiritual work. Eventhough I may have become an unwilling accomplice in theritual unmasking of spirituaJ manifestations, their truth is

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actions should be motivated by love (following the modelset by Jesus), and that reincarnation gives us subsequentopportunities to improve our karma through the exerciseof our free will.

19 Her defenseless inaction seemed to be a state of beingsimilar to what Robert Desjarlais describes (1996) as theloss of the sense of presence 01: the loss of life force thatcharacterizes some states of illness among the Yolmo, aTibeto-Burman people. When a person suffers from "spiritloss" (when one of the vital components of the self, the bla,leaves the body)-the person loses Lhe volition to act anddoes not care to eat, talk, work, travel, or socialize. In fact,the person "loses the sen e of kinesthetic attentivenessor 'presence' ... that characterizes local states of health"(144-146).

20 For a review of performativc approaches to healing, see Bell(1998);Csordas (1996);Laderman and Roseman (1996);andTambiah (1968, 1985a, 1985b).

21 Several anthropologists of ritual have engaged Austin'sargument, among them Fredrik Barth (1975), BruceKapferer (1986), Roy Rappaport (1979), and Stanley Tarn-biah (1968, 1985a, 1985b),

22 This is an expres ion that indicates the presence of thespirits.

23 This is a typical Spiritist blessing and motto.24 I transcribe parts of this ritual in stanzaic form in order to

convey their poetic rendering.25 Following a perforrnative approach, the significance of'reli-

gious and national root symbols (which speak to ~ widerange of socioreligious contexts) emerge, accor-ding toTurner (1974), in historically situated social action (dramas)in particular situations (arenas), where conflicting ideolo-gies and agendas (fields) collide. Motivated by these agen-das and via the concerted symbolic actions of individuals,01' the "humanistic coefficient" (Znaniecki quoted in Turner1974:17), social dramas (as in the theater) are played outafter a series of conciliatory moves have been enacted,reaching a resolution 01' denouement.

26 See Romberg (2009) for an extended discussion of what Imean by "spiritual time."

27 Iam referring to the notion of "disenchantment" by Weber(2004 [1917]),and its critique, mostly the secularization andrationalization axioms of modernity theories, by philoso-phers who unravel the "theological" nature ofthe Enlight-enment and theories of modernity, among them BrunoLatour (1993), Peter Gay (1995) and Michael A. Gillespie(2009).

28 This may also explain why enslaved Africans were able to"see" their orishas in the images of saints imposed on themby the Catholic Church.

29 Here I followMikhail M. Bakhtin's work on speech genres(1986:60, written in 1952-3), in which speech genres deter-mine those relatively stable types of utterances definedby a particular thematic content, style and compositionalstructure, all of which depend as a whole on a particularsphere of communication.

30 Elsewhere I develop the inter-rituality of specific temporalperspectives as they appeal' in a variety of speech genresduring brujeria rituals (Romberg 2009).

31 For clients the overall purpose of consultations is to restoretheir lost well being, a goal expressed broadly and succinctly

Anths-opoioqica 54 (2012)

when they say, Vengo a resolver (I come to resolve). Theyknow consultations might involve revelations through cardreading, messages reflected in the water and glass of thefuerue (water-filled glass bowl), 01' information revealed 111

· trance, and might end with a recommendation for futurehealing, cleansing 01' magical work.

32 Charles Briggs in his micro-linguistic analysis (1996) ofcuring rituals among the Warao of Venezuela, attributesmetadiscursive power to cries, interjections, vocables, rat-tle rhythms and onomatopoeias.

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