Madness and spiritism: spiritist etiology of mental health and the therapeutic-ritual techniques of "disobsession"

Abstract

In this article, the authors address the spiritualist conceptions of health and disease, focusing on the etiology of mental disorders. The spiritualist theory of human constitution and its relation to the condition is investigated. The role of concepts such as "etheric body" and "reincarnation" and its influence on the current life of the patient is analyzed. From the idea of "obsession" as pathology exchange product embodied the spirits, and therapeutic techniques used to achieve healing cure or investigate, and exemplified material based on interviews and fieldwork. The emphasis is on practical comprehensive nature of Kardecian movement incorporated the human dimension of spirituality, but with a different interpretation sustained by the "biomedicine".