Although spirit possession is common in Asian cultures, the explanation and diagnosis of spirit possession in specific communities are closely connected to how the locals imagine the body. The popularity of mediums in Vietnam must also be considered within the overarching political context. Ghost beliefs and ghost-related stories, although they were forbidden within the state’s socialist narrative between 1975 and the 1990s, remain a “robust resource for expressing political as well as spiritual sentiments” in postwar Vietnam. This paper explores the diagnosis process of spirit possession and therapeutic treatment for pathogenic possession in a Vietnamese community based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Ho Chi Minh City. The local theological understanding of body and spirit applies people with resources to adopting allopathic medicine and religious therapy simultaneously. In this sense, the concept of karma, the ghost possession, diagnosis of disease, and healing through dialogue or communication comprise a flexible system that helps to release internalized unhealthy relationships and traumatic memory that are ignored by the government, official narratives, and overt family dynamics.
