Trance as Experiential Knowledge and Feminist Agency

Despite hegemonic anti-trance narratives concerning the disavowal of women’s trance, Indo-Caribbean-American women have made audacious attempts to speak about their own experiences of trance, and importantly, to allow their trance experiences to speak for themselves as evidence of divine intervention. As Sati, the author of the aforementioned blog, explained in the same entry, she was motivated to create an educational platform via her website:

Many of us Guyanese were raised in a way where we didn’t correctly understand Shaktism, or what is known as Madras religion in Guyana. Much of what we were taught was based on what others learned by word-of-mouth, teachings passed down from one pujarie to the next and ancestors’ traditions.

And no, this is not from word-of-mouth but from actual experience, from standing in attendance to our Divine Mother in multiple forms, discussing with other devotees their personal experience and from reading the S’rimad Devi Bhagavatam.¹

In this entry, Sati introduces the term “Shaktism” to readers, not only to provide a synonym for “Madras religion” but also to redeploy Indo- Caribbean ecstatic goddess-centered worship as a well-established tradition deeply rooted in Hindu cosmology. While she references a holy text about Hindu goddess worship, she more so emphasizes her credibility as a person of knowledge on the basis of her embodied personal experiences (“actual experience”) and direct access with the Divine Mother through trance.

Although male-dominated, women have gained a foothold as leaders at “official” temples, and in rare instances as Head Pujaris, through specific associations with trance. The way in which women have become appointed by the Divine Mother (and recognized by the wider congregation) as potential leaders is through what are perceived as extraordinary initial trance episodes, usually quite violent or physically demanding. For instance, Anjalie, who served for several years as a young female Head Pujari in Queens, broke her nose during her initial trance encounter with the Divine Mother. It is remarkable that she could serve as a Head Pujari given the widespread perception that young women are “unclean” due to monthly menstruation and cannot commit to becoming a “full-time” pujari. Nonetheless, although most Head Pujaris had difficulty in accepting her as a legitimate Head Pujari, she eventually received some degree of recognition because she was fortunate to be under the guidance of a well-respected guru from Guyana, one whom she shared with other Head Pujaris. Furthermore, she was dedicated to preserving and promoting the history of “Madras Religion” as firmly rooted in “ancient Tamil” practices. She once posted onto Facebook a memo clarifying the contentious issue of the Divine Mother’s identity in relation to Madrasi ethnicity and exclusive knowledge regarding trance. Maintaining a profile with the name “Samayampuram Mariamman” (in reference to the famous Mariamman temple of Samayampuram province located in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu), marking “race” as “Dravidian” and “gender” as “male,” she posted:

IF you worship an Idol depicting the Goddess Mariammen, why then do you call it Kali???/Go get an image of BadraKali and worship it. This Devi may have many names but dont call it what it doesnt show. Why call kali when you need Mariammen? SAme as calling a cop when you need a doctor. When the Dravidians of Chennai (then MAdras state) were incorporated with the hindus of calcutta into the West, the language barrier caused many misunderstandings thus leading hindus to relate mariammen to kali ... heres a tip, if you attend “kali temple” and you “play” ... you are not

MADRAS_you are a MADDD RASS ... you know your a Madras when

you say mari-ammen ... (December 30, 2011)

In this post, Anjalie makes the distinction between “Kali” and “Mariamman” in order to explain how the origins of Mariamman worship are rooted in “Dravidian” or South Indian traditions. She also differentiates between spirit mediumship as “play” vs. “manifestation,” the latter being associated with “Madras” religious heritage and a source of social prestige on the basis of cultural distinction. Soon after becoming a Head Pujari, her manifestation of Mariamman, “Mother in her sweet form,” became relatively more controlled and restrained in conducting the procedures of the puja.

While it would appear that delineating specific qualifications of “true Madras” or “ancient Tamil” goddess worship as a Head Pujari who manifests a particular presiding deity named Mariamman is exclusive and restrictive, I would argue that it actually offers a legitimizing narrative, albeit a race-based one, that operates within diasporic contexts in ways that also validate what might otherwise be perceived as indiscernible or undesirable trance experiences. For instance, a divorced Indo-Guyanese woman in her late-sixties who considers herself to be “High Caste Madras” recounted her initial reluctance to accept her trance experiences because of its gender-based stigma in Guyana:

It’s something I didn’t want, something when it happened I went to my mother and I said, ‘Oh! How am I gonna deal with this? What am I gonna tell people?’ [Her mother’s response: Well, what you want me to do?] [laughter] I said, “Alright ...” [laughter]. ‘Why didn’t you [Mother goddess] choose that Shanti? [who has a darker complexion] [laughter] She [her birth Mother] tried to tell me something to make me feel better. Because I was so annoyed by the whole thing.

But can you believe that I’m living in America and this thing [about trance], and I go somewhere and I start [to trance], and those days, it’s like, women who play, they can’t go out. Some kind of code or something. It was like a bad thing. And even the men, the men, like if you look around and women play they put their head down. It’s hard for them to accept. (October 11, 2015)

Although she does not use the term “manifest,” but rather “play,” I point out this passage to illustrate how she expresses her ability to come to terms with the realities of trance upon coming to the USA and within a community of fellow devotees in NYC. Considering she primarily attends her nephew’s Mariamman temple in Queens, her trance episodes become a part of a larger and increasingly prestigious ecstatic religious movement. She also once described that participating and helping to organize pujas is “hard work.” Meanwhile, her niece Ramona, an unmarried woman in her late twenties who “grew up in the Presbyterian church” and has never participated in Mariamman worship, recently underwent her first trance experience while attending her uncle’s temple in NYC. Ramona was initially very worried when it happened because she did not know what had exactly transpired and more so was afraid it was an episode of “demonic possession.” Nevertheless, she has been assured by fellow family members who are Mariamman devotees, as well as her uncle Head Pujari, that “it must be in her blood” to manifest a Madrasi deity and that “there nothing to be ashamed about” (October 11, 2015). In addition, her great aunt tried to help her see her condition not as negative but as a form of female empowerment by stating:

You know, that’s why, at South India they have a female deity because the woman are strong! The man hide at the back. And then, they want to bring this thing ... that, ‘No, no, women this, that, they shouldn’t make so much money ... they will this .’ But South Indian women, Madrasi women, are leaders! (ibid.).

With these statements, she consoled her niece by situating her condition within a greater ancestral history, by celebrating Madrasi women as audacious and bold.

Indo-Trinidadian-American female practitioners have also expressed similar sensibilities about women’s audacity and physical and moral aptitude in relation with trance and religious devotion. Indera, an Indo- Trinidadian-American woman in her late forties, explains:

I’ve also manifested males. When a female manifests a male shakti, they start acting Kal Bhairo, Sangani Karpen . My reasoning, why I can hold the male shaktis, is because my personality is very masculine ... I’m an alpha female and I hold male shakti ... How could she [a woman] be manifesting? You have to be a strong woman, built like a brick house; your body has to be able hold this (June 14, 2015).

These tropes of an idealized “strong woman” who manifests “a male shakti” (here used synonymously with male “Madrasi” deities), and who inherently has a “very masculine” personality, potentially challenge stereotypical notions of Indian femininity as passive through a particular somatic modality of trance. Similarly, Sati, the aforementioned blogger, once mentioned that in relation to manifestation she “loves her [Mother’s] fierce forms” (December 1, 2015). (I asked Sati why this was the case, but she declined to give a verbal explanation for her preference.)

While Indo-Caribbean-American women who regularly manifest such “fierce” or “strong” forms of Mother have forged solidarities in enacting non-normative Indian femininity, there have also been expressed antagonism and competition between women who might be seen as “showing off” or being excessive, to “look cool” and “get attention” as a way to appear sincere in devotion. Furthermore, many women are self-conscious about the way they appear to onlookers while trancing and afraid they might appear too excessive. A concrete way of dealing with this pressure has been to explain “fierce” forms of trance as falling within the purview of the racialized narrative of Madras ecstatic religiosity. For instance, young adult females who belong to a Mariamman temple in Queens once sneered and derided a YouTube video depicting presumably African-American women performing highly stylized and frenetic forms of trance.

Meanwhile, despite the animosity that exists between Indo-Trinidadians and Indo-Guyanese women (most likely exacerbated by multiculturalist agendas with the NYC context and the rise of ethnonationalism),² trance still offers a modality to garner some degree of gender equality and neutrality. Trance may be interpreted as divine intervention that operates as a generative site, creating a transformative and emancipatory space for Indo-Caribbean-American women to (re)conceptualize and enact newly engendered performativities while supporting a particular ecstatic religious narrative. Indera described a scenario whereby she manifested Madrasi deities at a temple with predominantly Indo-Guyanese leadership and membership:

Several years ago, when I went to temple, I started to manifest because it was a Big Puja [annual or biannual puja ceremony], and six women came to shut me down. Kal Bhairo [Madurai Veeran] pulled me in and I was the first woman to manifest with all of them [male assistants, or pujaris] ... not just on the side [of the room] but with them [pujaris] because I guess Mother wanted to show that I was different and don’t try to shut me down ... I left then and later I thought ‘if Masta and Mother allowed you to then you’re very special and that they are trying to show you that women are allowed to manifest.’ (June 14, 2015)

In this particular occasion, her ability as well as Mother’s instructions compelled her to manifest Madrasi deities and this ultimately legitimized her actions as having the divine authority to trance in public among male leaders. It should also be mentioned that Afro-Guyanese and Afro- Trinidadian-American women rarely attend “official” Mariamman temples in NYC, although I did encounter one Afro-Trinidadian woman who regularly attended Anjalie’s temple and sometimes went into trance but was always quelled in order to receive healing during jharay sessions. I, too, have participated in several jharay sessions in NYC and Guyana, especially since so many individuals have warmly welcomed my presence and have repeatedly encouraged me to “see Mother.”

Trance is often described as an intense struggle or traumatic situation that occurs unexpectedly, spontaneously, and sometimes unwelcomed. In the following episode, Indera describes the struggle of submitting her body to a deity Mother’s little sister, Kateri:

When the men brought the kargam [Divine Mother sculpted with turmeric paste, coconut fronds, and flowers placed into a brass vessel], I remember my legs moving, something commanding my legs to move. That’s when the power struggle started. ‘I don’t know who you are, but you need to leave.”

My stomach, my womb would be going off. When you prevent shakti from coming it’s painful! I would plant my feet solid on the ground. Ladies were saying ‘Let go! You’re chosen. It’s OK.’ ‘It’s OK? No! This is my body!?’ I’m arguing that. An hour later, and then ‘fine, fine.’ It was such a power struggle! My back my legs, my lower back were in pain. The manifestation of Mother Kateri was there, they stopped it, and they brought me to her, they explained who she was. I was chosen before I was born. I was doing this in my previous life. But ‘why this? I’m a party girl, why me?’ (emphasis mine, June 14, 2015)

In this episode, Indera recalls being in a semiconscious state when the “power struggle” between herself and Mother Kateri initially took place. Indera describes how preventing “shakti from coming” is physically painful and tormenting. In this episode, she tried to physically resist the deity by restraining her body with “feet solid on the ground.” She also expresses not knowing who was penetrating her body until it was explained to her later. She also expresses her shock of being inhabited by a deity since she never sought to become a woman who would trance or participate in an ecstatic religion. Furthermore, she reluctantly communicates a sense of loss of agency since she was unable to keep the deity from overtaking her body. A large part of retelling this trance episode was to emphasize the frightening inability for her to control her own body and outcomes. At the same time, she also conveys the onerous process of taking ownership of trance by reconceptualizing its potential beneficial meanings. She claims that Mother Kateri had “chosen” her and that she should submit to divine authority. Trance is remobilized as potent in equipping experiential knowledge.

I have been fortunate to have numerous Indo-Caribbean-American women confide their thoughts concerning trance, Madrasi religion, and concomitant issues related to their trance experiences. But the majority of women whom I have encountered (at nine different Amman temples located throughout NYC and two in Guyana) who routinely trance do not verbally articulate what happens while they experience trance. In fact, many women simply remark that they cannot remember their actions when in trance. Nonetheless, the ambiguous meanings of trance, as most devotees would agree is often the case, can always present the potential of embodied experience as knowledge and divine authority mediated through highly stylized, potent, and visceral displays of entrancement.