ABSTRACT
This chapter presents spiritualism as one among a limited number of coping techniques open to women with a traditional feminine role. It is an example of the way in which ritual is used to accommodate oneself to such a role. Concepts of illness and health provide a recurring ingredient of these ritual beliefs and behaviour; preoccupations with bodily ailments provide the symbolic idiom in which statements about social relationships are made. The advice-seeking aspects of spirit possession have been noticed by psychiatrists. For example, M. G. Field focuses attention on the advice-giving role of mediums and oracles in Ghana. However, this aspect of spirit possession has to some extent been neglected by social anthropologis. The emphasis on definitions and explanations is particularly strong in developing circles. Among other things, developing mediums are instructed in how to present messages from spirit.
