This presentation investigates technologies of affect and detachment, focusing on Deliverance practices on the media in Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity (PCC) in contemporary Africa. The efforts to detach from local spirits, seen as evil, are one of the distinctive feature pf PCC (Robbins 2015). Possession, which occurs during deliverance rituals, was discussed as a dramatization of the perceived conflict between identity as members of the extended family and modern individualism (Meyer 1998). However, research has demonstrated that the spirits of witches that possess individuals during deliverance rituals are specific persons from the family or the surroundings of the possessed (Muratsu 2023). Thus, rather than reducing possession to representational conflicts, it is necessary to discuss it by focusing on the possessing spirits and its relationship with the possessed in their lived experiences.
This presentation investigates possession in the media. PCCs in contemporary Africa have expanded their influence through various media such as radio, televised broadcasts, DVDs and YouTube. In this context, possession phenomena that occur during deliverance rituals have also been spread as media content. The possessed spirits include not only traditional spirits such as witches and local deities, but also a wide range of spirits such as the leader of opposing religions, or particular ethnic groups. In the media, the rituals are also often performed in a more staged manner than face-to-face. If we consider deliverance as a technology of affect, these different methods elicit different affects, thus allowing for the emergence of different spirits as entanglements (De Anotoni 2017) with different characteristics. By comparing possession in face-to-face encounters with possession in the media, this presentation depicts how detachment as a process emerges through affects, feelings, and attunements with the environment in spiritual practices in the context of the widespread mediated practices in PCCs.
