The Dynamic Cosmos is a collection focused on spirit possession, a phenomenon that has long fascinated both academic and popular audiences. The introduction to the work, composed by Diana Espírito Santo and Matan Shapiro seeks to provide structure to the wide-ranging essays by proposing that their works collectively examine the phenomenon through the concepts of play, paradox, and simultaneity. The first is most prominent in the editors’ description of their goal with their use of play conveying the idea that spirit possession embodies aspects of uncertainty and contradiction much as a mock combat is intended both to represent genuine fighting while being understood as decidedly not meant to harm. Closely allied with play is the concept of paradox, which the editors link most strongly to the idea that spirit possession represents both the volition of the person possessed and the alleged spirit possessing him or her.
The ten essays that...
University of California Press