Jacobson, Jr.

7/28/2019 Jacobson, Jr.

1/34

" c E s p i r i t u s ? N o . P e ro l a M a U a dE x is te " : S u p e m a t u r a i s i n , R e H o u sC h a n g e , a n d t h e P r o b le m o f E v l i nP u e r to R ic a n F U k R e l ig io nC. JEf fPEY JACOBSON JR.

ABSTRACT A life-history-based, ethnographic study of first- andsecond-generation Puerto Rican m igrants to Cleveland, Ohio,examined religious and ethnopsychological conceptions of alteredstates of consciousness and the supernatural. This articledescribes t h e unexpectedly rich and complex lexicon of evil andmalevolence ( l a maldad) that emerged in many of t h e study's 6 0interview s. It is suggested that individuals undergoing religiouschange acquire and use an increasingly radicalized Christiannotion of evil t o describe, condemn, and replace traditional c o n -ceptions o f t h e supernatural (including witchcraft). However,while the social effect may b e to stigmatize and eradicate whata r e perceived as "superstitious''concep tions of the supernatural, avariety of liter alistic narratives ofencounters with supernaturalevil suggest that key psychocultural dispositions may b e retained.

To supp ose belief in the Devil outd ated and supe rstitious is false . . . no idea that fitsinto a coherent worldview can properly be cal led supersti t ious . Those who bel ieve inthe devil without fitting this belief into a worldview may be superstitious, but those whohave a coh ere nt structure embracing the concep t are not. [Russell 1989:2 2)Witches embody al l the contradictions of the experience of modernity itself, of itsinescapable enticements , i ts self-consuming passions , i ts discriminatory tactics , i tsdevastating social costs . [Comaroff and Comaroff 1993, quoted in Geschiere 1998]

E t h o s 3 1 ( 3 ) : 4 3 < M 6 7 . C o p y r ig h t 2 0 0 3 , A m e r ic a n A n t h r o p o l o g ic a l A s s o c ia t io n .


2/34

Evil in Puerto Rican Folk Religion 43 5

D urin g a brief life-history in terview con du cted in 19 98 with a48-year-old Pu erto Rican Glevelander nam ed Luis,11 askedabout Spiritism (Mesa Blanca Espiritismo), a Puerto Ricanderivative of the 19th-century French Spiritist movement(Koss 1980) that accompanied migrating Puerto Ricans tothe United States during much of the 20th century (Garrison 1977; Har-wood 1977). Widely recognized and practiced alongside informal, PuertoRican folk Catholicism, e spiritismo was one of several key interview top ics"unusual drea m s" and "religious visions" were others that I used to elicitconceptions and descriptions of altered states of consciousness (ASCs)during recorded l ife-history interviews with 60 Mainland Puerto Ricanmigrants between 1 997 -98.2 For Luis, as for ma ny o ther "con verted," "bornagain," or evangelical Christian Puerto Ricans interviewed and examinedhere, Protestantization and p rocesses of religious m odern ization had begunto reorder and polarize a diverse and morally ambiguous cluster of tradi-tional Catholic-Spiritist and o the r Catholic-syncretic, supern atural ex pres-sions and sensibilities. Drawing partly on Pentecostal and more generalevangelical Protestant Christian notions of demons and deliverance, this"reordering" also clearly retai n ed a kern el of the trad ition al witchcraft be -lief and accusation . We can see this in Luis's measu red response to my q ueryabout espiritismo .

JJ: Do you know anything about Spiritism or anyone that practices it?Luis: A person who hurts another person is influenced by the devil, understand?And if he is fooling around with Spiritism to hurt somebody, he's evil andconsorting with the devil, and he's dangerous.3Echoing a theme also suggested with the title, "I don't believe in spir-

its, but I know that evil exists," a remarkably common sentiment in theinterviews, Luis's statement expresses a complex and ambivalent moral-religious sensibility toward the supernatural. One the one hand, he ap-pears to reject traditional espiritista conceptions of spirits and thesupernatural. Consistent with sectarian Protestantand especially Pente-costalcondemnation of Catholic idolatry, his statement uses the lan-guage of "evil" and the "devil" to rhetorically distance himself fromtradition al sp iritualistic beliefs by dem on izing the m . As we will see , Luis'sstatement also indexes his modern Christian identity and morality, and inso doing, it con stitutes an im portan t speech act in a religiously fractional-ized inner-city Puerto Rican community.On the other h and, Luis's and man y similar statemen ts to be examin edhere express a realistic and radical sense of supernatural evil: "la maldadexiste." When Luis warns that a Spiritist "consorting with the devil" toharm someb ody is "evil" and "dan gerous," the message is also clearly on eof concern or caution: "these people can harm you." Thus, while stigma-tizing and demonizing the spiri tualist ic sensibil i t ies of tradit ional folk


3/34

43 6 ETHOS

religious orientations, his statement also suggests the retention of theseorientations in a radicalized, evilistic form. Though avoiding the vocabu-lary of brujeria (witchcraft), Luis's warn ing epitom izes it, tha t is, th e beliefand assertion that certain individuals or spiritual entities have the powerto effect bad (and good) through a command of magicalin this case dia-bolicalpractices.

The co mm on use and rich elaboration of con ception s of evil and ma-levolence among persons of all religious and mental-health status back-grounds in this study was largely unexpected. Aiming at providingperso n -cen tered, descriptive-phenomen ological acco un ts of altered statesof consciou sness in a migran t com m un ity, I expected to elicit a wide vari-ety of reports of religious and other normal and abnormal visions, halluci-nations, dreams, and so on. However, the nature and preponderance of"evil-speak" raised a number of interpretive questions and, in this sense,presented a "problem." Was evil-speak to be understood as a "religiouslycorre ct" m an n er of respondin g to culturally (in)sensitive queries about thesup ern atural, tha t is, the taking of a position against supernaturalism andsupersti t ion? Or was this language more referential and l i teralist ic,communicating a fearful, experiential/subjective sense of and "belief in"radical, supernatural evil? Either in its literal or rhetorical forms, how isChristian fundamentalist diabolism different from (or the same as) moretraditional notions of witchcraft and sorcery (e.g., in Seda-Bonilla 1973)?Is witchcraft retain ed or conserved, and if so wh at metaphysical an d rhe-torical forms does it take?Resulting in part from the evocative nature of the questions asked, thesymbolism of evil and the devil emerged repeatedly in the interviews andimposed a complex moral-interpretive framework on my attempts both toelicit and describe participant understandin gs an d reports of altered states ofconsciousness. The attempt to sort out this interpretive "problem of evil"4and the wealth of life-history material I could draw on provided an unusualopp ortun ity to explore the uses of "evil" in a religiously modernizin g HispanicCaribbean migrant community. As this exploration will suggest, evil-speakplays imp ortant rhetorical and experiential roles in the expression of "modern"Christian iden tities an d spiritualities. In diverse ways, it also symbolizes inthe sense of sign or "symptom"the struggle to find moral meaning and anacceptable modern notion of self in an inner-city, economically depressedand marginalized migrant Caribbean community.

Approaches to evil from anthropological and historical perspectivesprovide some orien tations for interpreting and u nd erstandin g expressionsof evil and diabolism among modernizing populations. As Parkin (1985)


4/34

Evil in Puerto Rlcan Folk Religion 437

has n oted, anthropologists have given limited atten tion to "evil," per se, asa social or religious theme. Where they have examined forms of humanand supernatural malevolence, it has generally been in the context of ex-plorations of witchcraft and sorcery. Broadly defined as the belief thatcertain individ uals have the power to effect bad or good throug h co m m an dof magical practices, witchcraft is thought to occur in all human societies(Boyer 1994; Kluckbohn 1967 ), although m an y of the classic anthro pologi-cal studies of witchcraft have focused on traditional rather than modernsocieties, and many of these studies have been conducted in Africa (e.g.,Douglas 1970; Evans-Pritchard 1976).The recent florescence of studies of witchcraft in Africa, and the"modern forms of African witchcraft" as discussed referenced in the sec-ond epigraph (Comaroff an d Comaroff 199 3; Ge schi ere 1 998; O n yin ah2001), suggest that in spite ofand perhaps because ofmodernization,witchcraft beliefs and practices persist in many parts of Christian Africa.Although among migrant Puerto Ricans here, there was little explicit useof the language of witchcraft, as I have suggested, the basic ideas an d formsof traditional Puerto Rican witchcraft appear to persist alongside contem-

porary Christian no tions of "deliverance." Using the West African con textof Ghana as an example, Onyinah (2001) has suggested that an emergentform of "witch demonology" represents a synthesis of Pentecostal Chris-tianity and traditional African religion (in which belief in witchcraft per-sists). The syn cretism of traditional witchcraft an d Christian dem on ism isalso apparent here (though not openly expressed) and suggests that Pen-tecostalism may , as in oth er Asian an d African con texts (G eshiere 1998),selectively retain or take up traditional conceptions of evil and malevo-lence.Significant non witchcraft-focused anthrop ological stud ies of evil asdemonism and diabolism provide additional orientations. Examples in-clude Kapferer's (1991) analysis of Sinhalese exorcism ritual, in whichthera peu tic efficacy is seen as arising out of a dram atize d en gage m en t w ithmenacing but foolhardy and greedy demons, thereby containing and de-clawing them; Taussig's (1980) examination of the "devil pact" in SouthAmerica; and Csordas's discussion of "demons and deliverance" amongnew Englander charismatic Catholics (1993:165-227). Csordas's analysishighlights Pentecostal deliverance from demons and the embodied meta-phor of "casting out" former, sinful aspects of self and behavior in theprocess of being healed or reborn in the spirit. Employing a pheno-menological approach to much the same effect as Kapferer (1991), Csor-das's analysis suggests that the objectification and identification of"demons" (as emotion, sins, sinful tendencies) is a necessary step in theindividual's "deliverance" from them. Although highly ritualistically andrhetorically elaborated for a time (with an apparent "peak" in the 1970s),


5/34

43 8 ETHOS

demon ology, deliverance, an d th e rh etoric of evil have declined consider-ably in the New England Catholic Charismatic community (Csordas 1993).This, how ever, is n ot th e case in C leveland's Pue rto Rican evangelicalChristian Community in the late 1990s, the prolific language and symbol-ism of devils and evil was most common among active Pentecostal andCatholic Charismatic congregants in this study. Still, the language andsymbolism of evil extended beyond these religious subcommunities, andit was com mo nly uttered by adhe ren ts of nearly all faiths and beliefs (Sev-enth Day Adventism, Catholicism, Mita Evangelism, Spiritism, and evenIslam), not just Pentecostalism.

Taussig's examination of devil pacts in South America (1995) is oneof a number of primarily Latin American anthropological and social-his torica l explora tion s of pop ular acco un ts of diabolism an d the devil pact.Eviden t in folktales, morality plays, an d everyday n arrativ e, n otion s of thedevil pact have been documented throughout Middle and South Americaincluding Colombia (Friedman 1994; Taussig 1987), Peru (Cuen tas 1986;Nugent 1996), Central America (Edelman 1994), Ecuador (Crain 1991;Miles 1994), and Mexico (Cervantes 1991, 1994). If, as Cervantes has ar-gued persuasively for Mexico, diabolism throughout Latin America has itssou rces in the diffusion of Euro pean an d Span ish Inqu isition n otion s ofevil and th e devil (Cerv an tes 1 994 ), an d if, as argued in th e mo re econom i-cally focused diabolical pac t litera ture , diabolism is sustain ed by often ex-treme economic stratification, then we would also expect to see it in theSpanish Caribbean.

Oddly, however, little has been written on diabolism and evil per se(as "devil pacts" or otherwise) in the Caribbean, although the concept ofmalevolence variously infuses the morally ambiguous protectoras, santos,loa, an d orishd of African -Christian po pu lar religious forms. W hile I couldfind no writings on Puerto Rican folklore of the devil or diabolism thatwould help explain its prominence among contemporary migrants, briefacc oun ts of witchcraft (primarily directed at the above men tioned Catho-lic syncretic forms: Espiritismo, S an teria, etc.) are provided in several gen-eral ethnographic studies, among which Seda-Bonilla's (1973:chap. 4) isthe m ost exten sive (see also Buitrago 197 3; Mintz 1974 ). As I in ten d toshow, key dim en sion s of witchcraft as described in small-town Pue rto Ricoin the 1950s (Seda-Bonilla 1973) are retained among small-town migrantsto the mainland inner city in the late 1990s, though these are generallycou ched in the m ore "religiously correct" language of idolatry and dem on ism.

Although "rete n tion s" of traditional con ception s of witchcraft and evilare suggested in the observations of On yin ah, Geshie re, an d others in con -tem pora ry Ch ristian Africa as well as in the ethno graph ic data he re, theseare n ot the kin ds of religious or supe rna tural retentions, or typically high-lighted, in accounts of Protestant sectarian movements in Latin America,


6/34


the Caribbean, an d elsewhere.5 In Cox's (1995) world survey, as well as inthe Puerto Rican ethn ograph ic literature , Pentecostalism's retentio n of su-pern aturalistic dispositions and sensibilities occur in the service of deism,specifically monotheism. However, little mention is made of the fate ofwitchcraft and other conceptions of supernatural evil or malevolence.Agosto-Cintron's overview of early 20th-century Puerto Rican social andreligious change, for example, acknowledges the condemnation of tradi-tional religious practices, but it highlights Pentecostalism's strengtheningof the traditional dependence on the supernatural to resolve problems.Although traditional practices are condemned, particularly those associated with theSaints . . . what we are seeing [with the rise of Pentecostalism] is a strengthening oftraditional religiosity whose fundamental premise is the absolute dependence on thesupernatural to resolve problems and to deal with misfortune. Even though the diverseCatholic Saints and magical practices have been replaced by a single entity, God, thecharacter of religion has not changed. Moreover, the distinct elements that accompanythe Pentecostal religious experience, like speaking in tongues, prophesizing, and seeingvisions are a perfect match for the ample ritualism of popular religion [1996:117-118,my translation]In his classic, biographic account of the religious conversion experi-

ences and healing of the P uerto Rican sugarcan e wo rker Don Taso and hiswife Elizabeth, Mintz (1960) has shown howthrough its emphasis onhealingPentecostalism retains and builds upon an experiential core oftraditional spirituality. As told to Mintz by Elizabeth, Taso's conversionexperien ce is facilitated by her recogn ition of a spiritua listic or su pe rn atu -ralistic disposition in him (following her and her daughter Carmen Iris'sconversion):His daughter Carmen Iris attends the services and returns with sensational stories.Then Eli [his wife] does the same; she m akes the events she has seen directly relevantto Taso. Som ething mo tivates her to urge him to attempt to cure himself through asupernatural agency and she must suppo se he may listen. He goes at her urging, andexperiences a strange physical sensation and a cure, which he seems almost entirelyincapable of describing as a personal experience. [Mintz 1960:248 , emphasis added]Like oth er acco un ts focused on th e mean ing of the holy in healing an dPentecostal conversion, Mintz's ethnography demonstrates the notion thata newly acquired religious affiliation and orientation builds on traditionalexperiential scaffolding of spirituality and religiosity.What is less fully addressed in Mintz 's accountand in Agosto-Cintron's (1996)is the fate of traditional folk expressions of spiritualityand ethnopsychology that are not positively sanctioned within Pente-costalism. These include certain spiritualistically interpreted premoni-t ions, visions, trance-states, and dreams as well as traditional notions ofwitchcraft and accompanying moral frameworks (for example, "sin" asambition, wrath, envy, evil eye, etc.) that occur outside the formal relig-ious service a n d framework (an d the Bible). As we will see, these spiritua l


7/34

4 4 0 ETHOS

expression s are often rooted in con crete experien ces of supe rnatura l pres-ence. What, if anything, becomes of these more mundane, or "profane,"signs and experiences and to cultural expectancies to share and interpretthem as spiritually meaningful? Can the diverse Catholic Saints an d magi-cal practices simply be "replaced by a single entity, God," as Agosto-Cin-tron (1996) suggests? If not, how, in symbolic, psychological, andembodied terms, is the more traditional, generalized disposition towardsupernaturalism "pruned" to accommodate the strictly monotheistic re-ligiosity of modern evangelical Protestantism?

As suggested in Luis's ambivalence toward espiritismo, and in thephrase "Spirits? No. But evil [la maldad] exists," and in dozens of otherexamples from over sixty interviews, many traditional Puerto Rican idi-oms of the supernatural (espiritus, san tos, protectoras, brujeria, mala in-fluencia, celajes, presendas) and their experiential forms (dreams,visions, apparitions, celajes, presences) are recognized by newer, moreconservative forms of evangelical Christianity as idolatrous and demonic.Also applied to the statues, altars, and other paraphernalia of cult are thesaints of Catholicism; the labeling of such experiences as idolatrous ordemonic is an important aspect of self-presentation, and it suggests thatthe ability to identify and name evils is a rhetorical skill thatechoingCsordas and Kapferermay also play a role in Pentecostal healing anddeliveranc e. It also poin ts out the mo re general spiritual im portance (andcontested nature) of altered states of consciousness in Puerto Rican folkreligion a nd psychology, sum m ed in the age-old religiocentric argumen t tha t"my G od is holy, yours is a demo n ," or "my experien ces a re sacred, yoursare demonic." Revealing a uniquely Puerto Rican cultural elaboration ofthe Pentecostal language and imagery of deliverance and a more generallyelaborated cultural sense of supernatural evil, the symbolism of evil as ex-plored h ere ma intain s a largely unsp oken , but clear, relation to mo re tradi-tion al forms of witchcraft accu sation an d diabo lical pa cts. As we will see,it is also reinforced in the lived experience of demonic visions and night-m ares, which themselves often suggest a posttraum atic o r dissociative origin.

In th e disc ussion tha t follows, I begin with a brief, preliminary look attwo ethnographically described spiritualistic traditions within Puerto Ri-can folk religion (cult of the saints Catholicism), namely brujeria (witch-craft/sorcery) and espiritismo (Spiritism), both of which historically havebee n targets a nd sou rces of evil-speak. Next, I briefly discuss the sam plingand data collection methods used in this study and then provide an over-view of the sam ple ch ara cter isti cs a nd a repre sen tative listing of the formsof evil-speak across religious and mental-health categories. In the heart ofthe analysis , I provide a more extended examinat ion of part ic ipantviewpoints on the nature and meaning of "la maldad" across a religious-biographical spectrum, from "traditionalist" amalgamations of Spiritism


8/34

Evil in Puerto Rican Folk Religion 441

and Catholicism to transitional or "modern" forms of conservative evan-gelical Christianity. Focusing on the powerful and generally overlookedrole of con ceptio ns of evil an d m alevolence in the selection and reten tionof traditional forms of spirituality, the analysis attempts to portray cul-tural-psychological significance of evil, and its me diatin g role, in th e relig-ious modernization of the migrant Puerto Rican.

As a colony of Spain for most of its modern history, Puerto Rico wasand still is a largely Catholic society. However, as many have noted,throughout the Spanish colonial period, Spanish Catholic orthodoxy wasprimarily an upper-class, urban phenomenon, and to a great degree ex-cluded or neglected the rural peasant and slave classes. In smaller townsand rural con texts (from which study participants mostly came ), com m un alrites an d rituals associated w ith folk Catholicism an d th e Cult of the Sain tshave long been m ain taine d (Agosto-Cintron 1996; Fitzpatrick 1971; Mintz1973). However, much of what occurs (and has historically occurred) un-der the rub ric of rural "Catholic religiosity" focuses on dom estically b asedrites, rituals, and alters, som etimes incorpo rating the beliefs an d prac ticesof former African slaves and their descendents in Puerto Rico and else-where in the Caribbean an d perh aps even , as some have suggested (Rouse1982), those of the original Taino inhabitants (who evidently also useddomestic altars).In the con tex t of this variegated an d class-differentiated Pu erto R icanfolk Catholic landscape, witchcraft found its sources and sustenance.Rooted in medieval and early modern Christian theologies and sermons,in pre- and early Christian European/Mediterranean folk conceptions ofwitchcraft (the evil eye and other magical passions), and in the colonial-ists' fears of African an d ind igeno us slave uprising s and co n cer n s abo ut thedissemination of African religions (considered "black magic" rather than"real" religions), witchcraft (especially the witchcraft accusation) has alongif constantly evolvingtenure in the Puerto Rican popular imagina-tion. While for ma ny of higher socioeconom ic stan din g and u rban midd le-class culture witchcraft m ay today be inn ocuous or outdated "su pe rstitio n ,"among the p opular, or rural peasan t, classes it appe ars to have been widelyretained an d conserved bo th in the language of brujeria/hcchicerid an d, aswe will see, in th e m ore "co ntem porary " Christian evangelical language ofdevils, dem on s, an d evil.Beginning in the mid-19th century, the Christian-spiritualist teachingsof the French Spiritist Alan Kardec became popular among Puerto Rican

urban intellectuals. By the middle of the 20th century, a Puerto Ricanadap tation know n as Mesa Blanca Espiritfsmo had ce n ters an d fallowings


9/34

44 2 ETHOS

in many towns throughout the island (see Harwood 1977; Ross 1980). Bythe time Puerto Rican and North American ethnographers began to docu-m en t asp ects of Puerto Rican folk religion in the m id-2 0th cen tury (MintzI960; Seda-Bonilla 1973 ; Steward 1956 ), it con sisted of a complex m ixtureof Cu lt of the Sain ts Catholicism an d locally articula ted am algamation s ofespiritismo, santeria, an d santerismo. One key to understanding the com-plexity of evil symbolism in the interviews presented in this article is toap prec iate how each of these religious sub culture s is susceptible to witch-craft accusations from "outside," and especially from more orthodox andconservative forms of Christianity.

The Spiritist-directed witchcraft accusation as described in Seda-Bonilla's (1973 ) ethno graphic study of the pseudon ym ous rural Puerto Ri-can farm community Tipan in the 1950s is instructive. It points out theheterogeneity of religious beliefs and practices within a small community(as he re ), an d it suggests the co m m on use of the witchcraft idiom, on e tha timplies the existence of "evil powers" and their accessibility by certainmalevolent persons, or "witches."

Spiritists persistently denied and rejected witchcraft, [but] they were precisely theones suspected of practicing it and were sought after to perform it. Their persistentnegation confirmed to many Tipanecos that they were in fact witches, whereas affirma-tion by the Spiritists would have been seen as negation or disparagement of the evilpowers. In other words, if someone in the community said that he could "cast spells,"or that he was a sorcerer, his assertions were considered as so much hot air, since inmaking them he was presuming to have powers he did not have. [Seda-Bonilla 1973:104]W ith the exception of an overlay of conservative Pro testantism (vigorousand well rooted in Cleveland, but only incipient in Tipan 50 years earlier),Seda-Bonilla's description accurately represents many of the forms of

"Catholic" religious differentiation, identification, and belief observedamong Puerto Rican-born mainlanders interviewed here (i.e., non-SpiritistCatholics, Spiritist-Catholics, Spiritists, malevolent Spiritists, witches,charlatan-Spiritists). As we will see, building partly on the tradition al foun-dation of orthodox and syncretic forms of folk Catholicism, spiritualism,and witchcraft, evangelical sectarian Protestantism has intensified andradicalized the rhetoric of malevolence.Although there is little mention of "evil-speak" in the religious rheto-ric or folklore of earlier eras of rural Puerto Rican community life, Seda-Bon illa's ethn og rap hic acc ou n ts of witchcraft a n d Spiritism in TipAn in the1950s suggest that w itchcraft accusation s were cen tral to conception s ofmalevolence. To further appreciate the considerable range of culturalelaboration of evil, both semantic and metaphysical, it is helpful to exam-ine briefly esp iritista co n cep tion s of evil as discussed in Kardec's The Bookof the Spirits (1975). For analytic purposes here, these conceptions rep-resent a significant metaphysical and symbolic departure from the puni-tive, radical evil suggested by both medieval and contemporary Christian


10/34

Evil In Puerto Rlcan Folk Religion 443

n otion s of the Devil or Satan . Though M esa Blanca E spiritismo h as a fairlyelaborate sense of mala influencia6 ("bad influences," the idea that way-ward spirits ha un t an d harass th e living) and a reputatio n for malevolenceamong some com mu nity me mb ers here (as in Luis 's quote) and in Tipdn,formal espiritista doctrine explicitly rejects any notion of absolute evil, orof the devil as an eternally dam ned being.In The Book of the Spirits, Kardec writes:

in the belief of backward peoples there is an acceptance of malevolent gods and demons;but for anyone w ho accepts the benevo lence of God, it is illogical and contradictory tosuppose that he would be able to create eternally damned beings destined to acts of evilin perpetuity, for this would be the equivalent of negating his benevolence. [197 5:90 ]From its in cep tion , Spiritism a ttem pte d to demystify an d deradicalize evil,to take the fear and darkness out of medieval Christian thought. ThusKardec's theodicy eliminates beings damned to evil and to acts of evil inperpetuity, essentially declawing the Christian devil.This less radical sense of supern atural m alevolence in the espritista doc-trine can be un derstood formally in term s of Kardec's con ception of a h ierar-chy of spiritual levels against which all souls and spirits (including the self)can be m orally m easured . It also provides valuable insights into P uerto Ricaninterpretations of the supernatural and altered states of consciousness. InKardeckian Sp iritism, relative evil replaces radical evil (Sa tan , the Devil, eter-nal dam nation ) in th e form of a band of morally retarded, but n ot inh eren tlyevil, spirits that "haunt" houses, souls, and relationships:

The Spirits pertain to different classes and they are not equal in power, intelligence,science or morality. The highest orders of spirits, the superior spirits are distinguishedfrom the others by their perfection, know ledge, proximity to God, purity of sentimentand love of the good. These are the angels or pure spirits. The other classes are pro-gressively less perfect, and belong to inferior grades attracted by our passions like hate,envy, jealousy, pride, etcetera, and they find pleasure in el mal. (1975:19)Reifying Christian conceptions of spirit, and clearly retaining themoral thrust of medieval (Thomistic) Christian notions of sin (as in theSeven Deadly Sins: ha te, envy, jealousy, pride, etc.), the message con vertsSatan, the eternally damned devil, into humanized spiritual beings (virtu-ally "passions") who are "more embroiling/deceptive and rumor monger-ing than malicious . . . of l it tle conseq uen ce and m ean ne ss. These are thegoblins or ghosts, the wandering spirits" (1975:19).In the conception of "rumor-mongering spirits of little consequence,"the image of the devil is replaced by a watered down notion of evil that isperha ps m ore ch aracte ristic of African and Native Am erican cosmo logies,as a trickster and mischievous, but rarely terrifying and awful.7 In thepopular religious context of late-19th-century rural Puerto Rico, part of

Spiritism's popularity was its ability to attenuate the supernatural terrorassociated with the medieval Christian devil.8


11/34

4 4 4 ETHOS

Notions and expressions of evil embodied in witchcraft, devil pacts,and mischievous spirits can be seen as products of the unique historical-religious conditions of colonial Puerto Rico, where a diffuse, rural, magic-laden folk Catholicism (distinguished from the Catholic orthodoxy of theurb an elite) exchan ged beliefs and prac tices with African slaves (and theirdescendants) and, later, with the hierarchical, moral cosmology ofKardeck ian Spiritism. As a social rhetori cal phe n om en on , this language ofevil was partly evoked in the interviews by my queries about espritismo,an d in th is form, it reinforced a nu m be r of socially and spiritually alienat-ing stereotypes.Using the spiritual-religious trajectory traveled and experienced bym an y of the pa rtici pan ts (folk Catholicism conservative Protestantism)in their experiences of religious change, the following section begins bylooking at the comments of one of the few acknowledged Espiritistas (the"starting point" of this trajectory), one who is also very aware of the per-spective of conservative Christian ity.

M E T H O D S A N D D A T A C O L L E C T I O NThe broader study from which evil discourses are excerpted here at-tempted to elicit conceptions and perceptions of altered states of con-sciousness (ASCs) and the supernatural in the context of one- tothree-hour life-history interviews with 60 Puerto Rican participants inCleveland, Ohio, between 1997 and 1999. The majority of participants(55/60) we re referred thro ugh social recre ation an d social service agenciescatering to Cleveland's Hispanic community. The recreation centers were

located in a on e- to two-square-mile a rea enc om passin g several n ea r West-side, inner-city Cleveland neighborhoods with comparatively higher con-cen tratio n s of "Hispan ics" (according to 1990 U . S . Census data). A smallernumber were recruited through door-to-door canvassing (N = 3) and op-portunistically from public encounters in stores and on the street (n = 2).Twenty-two of the 60 participants were recruited through the local com-munity mental-health system. With an ethnographic focus on alteredstates of con scious ne ss, the in clusion of psych iatric patien ts was expectedto diversify and enrich the findings.All of the 60 participants completed at least two interviews: One wasguided by a structured sociodemographic data sheet and the other by asemistructured life-history checklist (adapted from the "Check-Sheet ofTopics for Psy cho dyn am ic In terview s" in R. Levy's The Tahitians [1973]),Slightly abbreviated and modified to include a range of adequate probeson th e topic s of dre am s, spi rits, vision s, an d halluci n ation s, the life-historychecklist broadly followed the life course of the individual from her/hisearliest mem ories to his/her curre n t living situation . Com mon ly beginning


12/34

Evil in Puerto Rlcan Folk Religion 44 5

with a question about the first home situation that the participant could re-m em ber (nearly all remem bered "hum ble" on e- to two-room hom es in ruralor small-town settings), it endedusually during a second meetingwithquestion s on Cleveland as a place to live and p erception s of the local Latinocommunity or communities. The typical transcript from these interviewsconsisted of a little over 1,000 lines or arou nd 25 single-spaced prin ted pages.Among the multiple domains covered in the interviews, sections on"religion and the spiritual" (where I comm only asked about espiritismo) an d"morals/morality" (where I typically asked about sin, or pecado) evokedan extensiv e an d highly differentiated vocabulary an d folk psychology of eviland malevolence.9 As noted, these statements came from persons of allreligious and socio econ om ic backgroun ds and ages, an d from pers on s withand without treated psychiatric illness, although among persons with ahistory of treated p sychiatric illness they were more com m on . To fully repre-sent the rich elab oration of the language of evil in th e tran scri pts is im pos-sible here, but for the purposes of grasping the ranges of expressions of evil,I have organized a number of representative quotations from individualsof various religious and age groups (Table 1 below). These quo tes a re n otm ean t to represen t th e con cept of evil within a given religious tradition; norsince they are lifted from meaningful interview and narrative contextsshould they be assumed to have any mean ing other tha n th e fact tha t the yuse language and concepts of evil. More extensive quotes are examinedacross a range of religious backgrou nd s in the analysis tha t follows.Table 1 . Sample Averages of Selected Variables vs . Local Latino and ClevelandPopulations

Sample Cleveland Latinos Cleveland City* Un ited States(N = 6) (n = 23 ,330 , (506,000) (19988O96PR) estimates)Averageage ye ars% with lessthan9th-gradeeducationPer capitaincome (#)Poverty rate%(U.S. Census)

48

47

5,399

53

24

25

6,357

40

32

13

9,258

29

-37

~6

-21 ,000

-7Source: 1990 U.S. Census .


13/34

44 6 ETHOS

Tab le 2 . Se lec ted Ev i l -Re la ted Q uo ta tions f rom Pa r t ic ipan ts Va ry ing by Religious andPsych ia t r i c Backg roundsDescription Religious Psychiatric Hx? Qu otatio n32-year-oldfemale Mita Evangelism Yes

66-year-old Pen tecostal Nomale

53-year-old Catholicfemale

35-year-old Seventh-Daymale Adventist

No

Yes

60-year-old Pentecostalfemale

40-year-old Catholicmale

65-year-old Catholicfemale

No

No

No

(la maldad) "God is all-powerful in the universe, butevil exists."(satanas) "I think that thereare evil spirits, because thereare people condem ned andthey are evil spirits and Satanis the king of the evil spirits."(diablito) "I have strangedream s . . . I see myselffighting with little devils."(demonios) "Those people,the Pentecostals and them?They're possessed by thedevil. . . when they speak intongues, and you can'tunderstand them? They'repossessed by a demon."(la maldad) "Do you knowabout spirit ism? I don'tbelieve in witches but I knowtha t evil exists."(brujeria) "He did witchcraftagainst a family that theyhated, and this familyrespon ded b y doing witchcraftagainst them ."(espiritus malos) "Whensomeone commits a good act,demons will leave him, andthis makes Satan angry; buthe'll always return withanother evil spirit to temptone again."


14/34

Evil in Pu er to Rlcan Folk Religion 44 7

P A R n W A K T C H A R A C T B U S n C SThe sam ple overall had a lower per capita in com e an d higher p overtyrates than Cleveland's economically disadvantaged Latino population ingeneral. Largely as a result of selection methods and sites, the study sam-ple (n = 60) was, on average, mu ch older (x = 48) and less educated withlower per capita income and correspondingly higher poverty rates thanlocal Latino (which is 8 0 % Puerto Rican ), Cleveland c ity, and U . S . metro-areapopulations (see Table 1 below). Among the half-dozen or so individualswhose recorded/transcribed commentaries on evil and the supernatural

are quoted in this analysis, approximately half are male, half earn above-average income, half are active members of Christian evangelicalchurches, and half have a history of treated psychiatric illness.As suggested above, within the wider sample there was considerablereligious heterogen eity (intra-C hristian ), and w ithin individual life hi stori es,a considerable degree of religious change and experimentation was iden-tified. A comm only h eard com m en t, "it doesn 't m atter where you g o , jus tgo to ch urc h" sum med up both the general sense of religious duty an d theflexible piety of the subjects.10 Only one part icipant claimed to have noreligious or church affiliation. Nominally, 34 (57%) identified themselvesas Catholic, 16 (27%) as Pentec ostal, an d (12%) identified with o the r ev an -gelical and fundamentalist sects (Seventh-Day Adventist, Jehovah's Wit-nesses, Mita, and others). Although there were similarly high levels ofreligious involvement among Catholics and non-Catholics (based on re-ported prayer, Bible reading, and c hurch -related activities), amon g Cath o-lics (who were significantly older than non-Catholics) some of thisself-described involvement appeared to be an artifact of the frequentprayer and religious activities of the social group from which they wererecruited.11Religious chan ge, particularly after com ing to the main land, was co m-mon . Among all partic ipan ts, only 14 (25%) had rema in ed w ithin th e samefaith throughout their lives (had not reportedly "experimented with" ortemporarily joined alternative religions). Of these, most w ere older Catho-lics, although the re were also mem bers of both Mita an d Pen tecostal sec tswho had maintained church involvement since childhood. About a thirdof the larger sample (n = 19) had converted or switched from Catholicismto (primarily Pentecostal) Protestantism as adults (most after arriving tothe m ain lan d). Although som e who left Catholicism for Pen tecostal ism , forexample, had m oved on to other ecumenical Protestant chu rches (Baptistand Methodist), and some had drifted back to Catholicism, none of theparticipants whose parents' religion was non-Catholic had converted toCatholicism. Although no participants identified Spiritism as their pri-mary religion, the majority demonstrated knowledge of its practices and


15/34

44 8 ETHOS

beliefs, several acknowledged past involvement, and two reported ongoinginvolvement and participation. Thus, in the life-course of the sample as awho le, the re was a n et mo vem en t away from mostly informal Catholic andrelated traditional religious forms toward sectarian forms of Protestant re-ligiosity. It is within this general content of religious change that the lan-guage and symbol of evil plays an important sociopsychological role.

E V IL - S P E A K : R H E T O R IC A L D I M E N S I O N O F T H E T R A N S I T I O N F R O MR U R A L - T R A D m O N A L T O U R B A N M A I N L A N D P R O T E S T A N T C H R B T l A l i T Y

Am ong m igran t working-class Pue rto Ricans living in Cleveland in thelate 1990s, there was a fairly widespread acquaintance with Spiritist be-liefs and practices. However, practicing Espiritistas did not typically vol-un tee r th eir beliefs, and religious non -Spiritists were quick to condem n ordismiss them as "idolatrous" and "superstitious." The resulting acuteaw aren ess am on g in dividuals of all religious persu asion s of the stigmatizedand demonized character of Spiritism put Spiritists (and their sympathiz-ers) on the defensive, forcing them to carry out their activities under-ground (or out of town) and producing such "religiously correct"statements as "I don't believe in spirits, but I know that evil exists." An-other example of this climate of religious modernism can be seen in thecomments of 45-year-old Josefina M ., a five-year re sid en t of Cleveland an ddivorced mother of three with a history of domestic violence (as victim)and receiving treatment for symptoms of anxiety. Her elaboration anddefinition of her espiritista beliefs are carefully prefaced with a disclaimerof any involvement in witchcraft or sorcery, that is, brujeria. Because sheprovides insight into the unique contributions of formal Kardeckianespiritismo to the wider Puerto Rican lexicon of evil and misfortune, Iquote her at length:

In my father's belief, they don't believe in witchcraft or sorcery. They believe that thespirit m anifests itself through people to help them with problems in their lives, and toorient them, and to pray for that being and other undeveloped spirits that may ap-proach that person. They [the Spiritists] help by means of prayer. They help [thewayward spirit] go through a spiritual schooling in the heavens. When a person dies,they enter a spiritual school where they will be prepared. But there are spirits that havebeen corrupted, or they are blind. They don't understand and they have not been ableto find and follow that spiritual light.Josefina's opening disclaimer dem on strates an aspect of the comm on,folk religious equivalence of espiritismo and brujeria, echoing observa-tions made by Seda-Bonilla in Tipan (in the 1950s) where, as he noted,Spiritists "were precisely the ones thought to practice [brujeria]." How-

ever, despite he r earlier Pentecostal expe rime ntation , Josefina's statem en thereand her expressions in generalshow little evidence of the more


16/34


"demonological" language of evangelical Christianity. In fact, they effec-tively co m m un ica te a nd justify explicitly non diabolical no tion s of ma levo-lence. In this sense, Josefina is adept at defending her Spiritist faith andher "self' or identity from accusations of malevolence and witchcraft.Thus while her well-articulated espiritista metaphysics may, in the widercommunity, be associated with witchcraft and evildoings, Josefina's ownperspective on evil appears to normalize (as opposed to radicalize) thepsychology and symbolism of evil. This normalization or humanization ofevil is also fear abating, converting Satan and his demonic minions into"spirits that have been corrupted or [that] are blind. They don't under-stand and they have not been able to find and follow that spiritual light."Her suggestion that all spirits can find the light is, as we have seen, fullyconsistent with Kardeckian teachings (in, for example, the "Book of theSpirits"), and it expresses the potentially emotionally comforting idea thatrather than fearing the co rrupted or undeveloped spirits (Satan et al.), on eshould sympathize with and pray for them.In con trast, recall the s tatem en t of 48-year-old Luis who, whe n askedif he knew anything about espiritismo, suggested, basically, that if some-one is fooling around with it to hurt somebody, he's evil, dangerous, andconsorting with the devil. In light of Josefina's brujeria disclaimers andSeda-Bonilla's ethnographic accounts of witchcraft and espiritismo inTipan, we can see more clearly how his statement recapitulates the formof the tradition al witchcraft a ccusation and ex presses a warning. The useof a pe rha ps m ore "religiously co rre ct" n otion of diabolical evil, con sis ten twith fundamentalist, biblical Christianity, may represent a move awayfrom the "su perstitious" soundin g witchcraft accusation , but his credu lityand unease concerning the espiritista's diabolical pact also suggest a sig-nificant retention of traditional notions of the supernatural. Luis's tersestatement therefore not only demonizes Spiritism, but it also indirectlylegitimizes and reinforces it. Perhaps not surprisingly, the difference be-tween Josefina's m ore tradition al espiritista me taphysic s of evil and thoseof Luis, an active and ardent Pentecostal church member, are differencesthat are apparently surmountable within a lifetime. Luis reports beingraised in a household whe re his stepfather prac ticed espiritismo. Both Luisand his mother "converted" to Pentecostalism after coming to Clevelandin the early 1990s.

But how is this change effected and maintained? How does the indi-vidual overcome the tradit ional depen den ce on santos, espiri tus, and pro-tectoras and replace this variegated supernaturalism with one focused ona single entity , God ? As I have begun to suggest, it appears th at th e sym-bolism of an absolute, radical evil (as opposed to the more quotidian andmorally ambiguous evil suggested by Josefina) provides a conceptual orpsychological lever that facilitates this pruning and polarization process.


17/34

45 0 ETHOS

It also ap pe ars, from the s tate m en ts like those of the following two partici-pants , that a key part of acquiring this leverageand of navigating thespace between superstition and proper Christian faithis the acquisitionan d u se of the language of evil an d the devil.In the following passage, in which a 46-year-old former Pentecostalsect member reflects on the Pentecostal rejection of both espiritismo andCatholicism, we also gain insight into the central, but at times confusing,role of demonism in processes of religious change:

Most Catholics believe in Espiritismo, and they use the figures of the Saints and theydo w hatever is done with those. Any espiritista you see is Catholic, but you don't seean espiritista that's Pentecostal. 'Cause when they com e into Pentecostal [ism] they justput all that aside. I don't know, maybe that's why [longtime friend] Ramona says I'vebecome an apdstata [apostate, impious]. I don't know, but she thinks in a differentperspective. I believe that a person can have their don, like a gift, and not necessarilyhave to be Pentecostal, you know ? They are people who se e . . . but then if you're notPentecostal they say, "then that's the devil telling you." And the thing is, they find inthe scriptures verses to support that, you k now? And it makes you to think, I mean, isthis from God, or isn't it?Echoing the aforementioned religious trajectory from Spiri t ist-

Catholicism to Pentecostalism (and beyond), Felipe's statement revealsthe common association of espiritismo and its hierarchy of spirits withCatholicism and its hagiography of saints. Of grea ter in terest, how ever, isthe reference to the question of the "holy" or "nonh oly" cha racter of vi-sions. Felipe's statements suggest the interchangeability of supernaturalexperiences between religions: The idea that, as before (for example,Catholic spiritualist), he will still expect to receive divine messages andvisions; only now they will be called something else. Indeed, they reversetheir moral polarity, and when Felipe later leaves the Pentecostal sect,they are again reversed. His statement clearly captures the sense of con-fusion and ambivalence felt by those traversing the symbolic and psycho-logical space between the two traditions. Socialized to believe in and seekencounters with spirits and the supernatural in their traditional, popularreligion, individuals who, like Felipe, later turn to forms of evangelicalChristianity (perhaps due to the stresses accompanying migration) findthat there is room for only one kind of legitimate vision: that inspired bythe Holy Spirit.

"Born again," they learn that outside the context and tutelage of thecu/to, their visions or other en coun ters with the supernatural are neitherlegitimate n or holy and therefore m ust be diabolical. And if they find them -selves once more outside the legitimizing context of the church (as Felipedid, due to the reproach brought about by a recent divorce), such visionsand experien ces of the sup ernatural again revert to their diabolical c hara cter.But how can the sam e kin d of visionary experien ce be both diabolical and


18/34

Evil In Puerto Rlcan Folk Religion 451

divine? This is the contradiction voiced by Felipe, who sees inconsisten-cies in th e Pen tecostal interpretation of superna tural experience.In Felipe's musings on the legitimacy of religious visions, in Luis'scaution s abo ut th e dan gers of malevolent espiritismo, or even in Josefina'sdefense of her own espiritista belief, we see the use of a set of symbolicassociation s (black s with black magic or witchcraft, witchcraft w ith Spiri-tism; Spiritism with Catholicism, Catholicism with idolatry, etc.) to de-monize others' religious beliefs and experiences while also indirectlyself-identifying as pious an d Ch ristian . The types and forms of accu satio n ssuggest that traditional idioms of brujeria (and other notions of the super-

natural, spirits, santos, protectoras, etc.) are being replaced with a morereligiously correct (evangelical Christian) language and imagery of thedevil. How this language might be acquired in the process of taking on anevangelical Ch ristian identity can be seen in an instructive exam ple of therhetorical use s of the language of evil (as accu sation of diabo lism).After recently arriving to Cleveland from Puerto Rico and taking upresidence with his devoutly Pen tecostal sister and her two young chi ldren ,55-year-old Miguel join ed his sister's Pe ntec ostal sec t. It app eared thi s de-cision was made in part because of a lack of other social and spiritualsupports and econ om ic dep en den ce on his very religiously involved sister.A self-described former esp iritista a n d bru jo,12 Miguel gives a primer onthe dyn am ics of witchcraft while also un in ten tion ally revealing pa rt of thesocial-rhetorical processes by which the Christian language of the "devil"comes to replace the language of "sain ts" or "pro tecto rs" that are key im -ages and entities in both Spiritism and folk Catholicism.In the following passage, which is part of a more extended discussionof the differences between Santeria and Espiritismo, Miguel describes theform and meaning of spiritualistic diagnosis (extrayendo causas).13 Nota-ble here is the manner in which his language reveals an ambiguous relig-ious standpoint, suggesting that he is straddling both espiritista andevangelical Christian (Pentecostal) perspectives or beliefs. Also key is thepresence of Miguel's sister who interrupts occasionally to edit and explainsome of his references to the supernatural.

JJ: And how does on e extract a cau se?ME: Well . . . i t's l ike . . . a m yth, beca use w e would feel l ike we co uld m ove

through the air, in a "trance" as they say. And then we would be possessedby demons . The demon would occupy our bra ins and then th is demonwould be able to say to another person, "look, you have this and this andthis [pro blem), and so-an d-so is doing this to you." And wh ile this dem onhas possessed us , this so-cal led saint or protectionbecause they acquiren a m e s . . . . these demons acquire names of saints or protectors, and when . . .

S ister : (interrup ts to corre ct or clarify) he's calling the devil a "protection" or "saint"


19/34

452 ETHOS

ME: . . . he [th e devil) take s advantage of our me ntal transition [to tranc e] andtakes possess ion of our cerebros [l it. brains, used like "mind") . . . suppos-edly. So we go into trance, we leave this world as we say, l ike a personwithout a l ife, but then that's when the demon comes to have life inside ofus , and that's wh en h e can relate things to the othe r person. I m ean , thatdemon, disguised as a protection or a santo, that demon, tells the otherperson, "you have this, you have that, they are doing this to you, and theyare working with su ch and such [herb, magic, et c] , and I am going to do awork or spell for you so that that person ends up prostrate in a bed, or sothat that person has to use crutches, or so that that person spends the restof his l ife in a wheelchair, or so that when he is walking along, he falls .

Miguel appea rs to struggle (even w ith the help of his sister) to replacetraditional "protectora" notions of espiritus and santos (i.e., the super-natural) with as yet unassimilated notions of the Christian devil. Wellaware of his sister's conservative Christian presence and her tendency tocorrect him, he hesitates at times, inserting disclaimers or other seemingindices of religious correctness ("it's . . . like a m yth " or "it possesses ourminds . . . supposedly," "the so-called saint or protection"). From the per-spective of the outside observer, it appears that Miguel is still learning toapply th e language of "devils" to the older sobriqu et "pro tector spirits," forhe ca n n ot q uite (y et) explain himself wi thout the use of these term s. Whilehe correctly (from his sister's vantage) suggests that the "demon wouldoccupy our brains," he slips into an older usage when he adds, "thesedem on s acquire the n am es of saints or protec tors." And it is precisely herethat his sister interrupts and corrects him, pointing out that "he's callingthe devil [the "real" force o r issue for her] a protection or sain t." Evidentlyfor Miguel, however, there is a lingering disposition to consider the "real"force or issue a protector or saint, and thus to unwittingly reveal himselfas no t yet con vinced or at least not yet rhetorically capable as self-presentingas a Pentecostal Christian in belief and orientation.

Th ese ex am ples i llustrate a largely rhetorical aspe ct of religious tran s-formation and expression, one that requires the acquisition of the languageof the Christian devil to refer to traditional, multifarious conceptions ofthe sup ern atura l. This language appears to play an imp ortan t symbolic andpsychological role by giving a n am e to , and explaining the power and poten cyof, many traditional expressions of spirituality (dreams, premonitions,hexes, etc .). By na rrowin g wh at can be tho ugh t of as a divine visionary (orother "legitimate" religious) experience, it also sanctions and discreditsunauthorized visions. The pruning of a multifarious supematuralistic re-ligiosity into a monotheism requires a substantial conceptual and sym-bolic reorganization and revaluation, and the symbol of evil, particularlyradical diabolical evil, appears to facilitate this process.But since much of what we have considered here is rhetorical (i.e.,

talk abo ut pro per categories, beliefs, an d values) an d also somew hat ab strac t,i t is st i l l unclear whether a pruning and polarization of the tradit ional


20/34

Evil In Puerto Rican Folk Religion 4 5 3

religious imagin ation is, in fact, takin g place. In some ways, it app ears tha tthere h as simply been a renamin g, rathe r than a restructuring, of this imagi-na tion (i.e., the disposition to believe in spirits rem ain s strong). In effect, thebelief in a se t of mischievous m alas influencias h as been transformed in to thebelief in a more dangerous, radical idea of the devil. Forms of talking aboutspiritual encounters and even beliefs about spiritual encounters have beentransformed, but a core supernaturalistic disposition remains.

O T H B A S D E M O N : B B S A N D U T B A U S M M D E M O N P O S S E S S I O N J U O

In this section, I examine more literal accounts of diabolical or de-monic contact in which individuals describe other's behaviors as demoni-cally possesse d, or a devil is described as a life-threatenin g aggressor in arealistic nightm are vision. These accoun ts come mostly from partic ipa n tswho are longer-term, enthusiastic members of their Christian sects. Par-ticularly amon g those who integrate dem on ic imagery in to nig htma re n ar-ratives and visions, they suggest a fuller Christian evangelical orientationand literacy.

In the following excerpt, 31-year-old D avid C , w ho, like Miguel, wasa relatively recent mainland arrival and Pentecostal convert, we see thelanguage of demo ns applied to the em otional a ttacks (ataques de grito) ofDavid's aun t an d gran dm other. As previously seen , this language is evokedwhen questioned about espiritismo. In his response to being asked abouthis family's participation in espiritismo, David begins by reiterating thelocal conceptual association of espiritismo with brujeria, and goes on todescribe the emotional/demon attacks.

D C : Th ey told me that . . . yes , I kn ew som ethin g about that with m y grand-mo ther, and m y aunt w ho would get these . . . the y would both get the seattacks , not convuls ive attacks , but attacks of shouting [ataques de grito] .Sometimes my aunt and somet imes my grandmother would get these a t -tacks , and 50 people couldn't hold her down. She was l ike a demon, l ike abeing from a nothe r world, and her ey es wou ld rotate back and all of this . . .i t was real ly something, and the same thing with my aunt. She gets theseattacks [se le peganj.

David con tin ues by describing how this would typically hap pen durin gfamily fights and arguments, thus providing an unusual Christian-moralinterpretation of a recognizable Puerto Rican idiom of distress known asataques de nervios. Traditionally associated with nonreligious ideas ofnervous stress and grief, the a taque is generally recognized as an app ropri-ate cultural response to any of a cluster of culturaUy significant stressorsalmost always involving family (death, family conflict, violence, trauma,and so on ) (Gu arnac cia and Far ias 1988; Gu arna ccia et a l. 198 9,1 99 6) .


21/34

4 5 4 ETHOS

In David's account, ataques de grito occur under conditions (family fightsand arguments) typical of the ataque de nervios idiom. However, they arealso interpreted as demonic possession.The form of the ataq ue de grito as described by David is also rem in is-cent of accounts of demonios (or malo) encima (demonically afflicted)from the Pentecostal church services as described by other informants.For exa m ple, Isabel R., a longtime m em be r of a stable Pen tecostal congre-gation in the co m m un ity, describes th e involvement of the devil in a physi-cal fit of screa m in g by a m an durin g a Pentecostal cu lto (service) who wentup to be prayed for and was then stricken. Suddenly, according to Isabel,"he got up an d he started screamin g and screaming and this man just flew,

not flew, but corrid hastafuera [ran out of the church] like a bad spiritwho did no t wan t to be in chu rch ." Isabel similarly in terpreted the behav-ior of a wo ma n in a Pen tecostal service who "was ju st sitting down an d allof the sudden she started screaming and rolling in the floor, rollando asi. . . in the chu rch ." Ritualized episodes of demo nios or malo encim a areculturally distinguished from the ataque. However, in their trancelike be-havior and their parallel, cath artic in terpretation s (on e releases/expressesgrief, the o the r sin ), they sh are en ough features to explain how, in David'saccount, a sympathetic ataque interpretation might be conceptually re-placed by a dem onic, al ienating on e.

Another literalistic account of the experience of the demon in theform of the "possessed other" comes from 33-year-old Ana V., a lifelongm em ber of the Mita Christian C hurc h, who had recen tly moved to Cleve-lan d from Pu erto R ico following th e dea th of a family m em be r. Like David,she uses a dem on ic idiom to interpret the eye rolling and ugly con tortionsof her boyfriend. However, instead of an ataque de nervios or an episodeof demonios encima, she describes a more extended (and evidently psy-chot ic1 4) incident that supports her claim of his long-term diabolical in-volvement (in the form of a "pact"):

He had made a pact with the devil. He doesn't know what a church is. He doesn't knowhow to pray. He couldn't say an "Our Father." He doesn't know what a cross is. I meanhe grew up from a very young age in evil/bad ways. His grandfather had a bad upbring-ing [se aclamaba a to malo], his mother had a bad upbringing. This is what he learned,evil/badness . . . and he had an attack, and his fingers stiffened, and bent back, and hiseyes rolled in his head, and he was physically different, his color. What he did was heturned off the lights and told me not to come into his room, to leave him alone. And Isaid, "why are you doing this?"Con tinuin g, Ana describes her religious respon se to this fearful en cou n terwith evil:

My faith In God has kept me standing, so .. ., my faith in God has never wavered. Infact I feel closer to him, because I'd say "Diocito you are white and the other is black.From the black, I derive nothing. With you who are white, I see light and clarity". .. .lie finally cumc out, and so far, it hasn't happened to him again. But it is awful to see


22/34

Evil In P ue rto Rlcan Folk Religion 4 5 5

a person, a human body, contort [doblar] . . . and when we had sex, I saw in his facea fury, and after that I didn't dare open my eyes. You're done? Ok. And to me it feltlike it hadn't been him, it wasn't him.As Ana reflects back on this impressive an d frightening in terperson alexperience, we can see her command of the language and symbolism ofevil and with it her own Christian piety. The recognition and labeling ofthe demonic other provides a mechanism or idiom for expressing theChristian, holy self. But as with statements from other participants, thisnarrative also suggests the speaker's very strong belief in or acceptance ofthe idea of supernatural, diabolical evil. Ana's Christian religiosity is re-flected in h er co n cep t of, a n d faith i n, a stron g and good God, bu t its highlypolarized form also provides plenty of room for a threatening and oppor-tunistic devil.Of course, Ana's narrative can also be read as a discourse on fear. Inthis reading, the extreme fear provoked by the bizarre behavior of herboyfriend can be seen as invoking in her a prayer response by which sheis able to co un ter an d/or n eutrali ze tha t fear. Like the idiom of evil, pray eris a highly elaborated psychological dimension of evangelical Christianspirituality. As a set of diverse everyday practices, prayer is helpful notonly for the amelioration of mundane stresses and tensions but also forcoping with more terrifying encounters with evil.As it will bec om e m ore ev iden t in th e final exam ples, acts of identify-ing, labeling, and renouncing the deviland thereby, perhaps, obtainingcontrol over itare not unlike the ethnodiagnostic processes ofEspiritismo (and Santeria as described by Felipe above) where "causes"are "extracted" (or named) and then "cleansings" are prescribed. As wewill see, Ana's attempt to cope with her boyfriend's terrifying, demonicvisage and behavior throug h evil-renouncin g pray er reveals not on ly a kindof narrative template but also a behavioral schema for coping with theextreme fear invoked.

H Y P N A B O C a C D E M O N A T T A C K SHaving heard statements in which religious "others" (especiallyEspiritistas and Catholics) were demonized, and accounts in which an-othe r person was demon ized (by labeling his behavio r as "possessed"), wewill now examine narratives in which a supernatural devil appears in re-alistic, nightmarelike visions. In one sense, the range of statements andimages explored thus far has progressed along a continuum of increasingthreat and fearfulness, from Josefina's almost reassuring Spiritist notionsof a band of morally blind spirits, to Luis's quasifearful warnings about

malevolent espiritismo, to the terrifying imagery of Ana's experience of herboyfriend's possession. Continuing this progression, each of the following


23/34

45 6 ETHOS

narratives involves a "vision" of the devil accompanied by intense andoverwhelming fear and evoking a seemingly desperate, Christian prayerresponse. Of course, since the nightmare eventually comes to an end, theparticipant can always depict the prayer act as resolving the crisis andadd ressin g th e ter ror . Christia n faith is affirmed, an d the efficacy of prayeris substantiated.The following narratives also differ from those already seen in termsof the interview con text. With the exception of An a's narrative in responseto question s abo ut h er boyfriend's un usual behavior, mu ch of the languageof evil and dem on s thu s far arose in response to questions about E spiritismo.As questions of belief, they evoked statements or narratives of belief (forexam ple, "I do n't believe in spirits but I know tha t evil exists"). In thi s finalsectio n , we will see the language of evil expressed through the m ore literal,exp erien tial n arrativ es of realistic nigh tmare visions (as related by devout,evangelical Christians). Each of these narratives is structured by a fearfulinterpretation of whatfrom a more strictly psychological perspec-tiveappears to be hypnagogic sleep paralysis, and each roughly followsthe na rrative se quen ce seen in Ana's accou nt above: growing fear, iden ti-fication of evil, prayer, resolution.If, in ex ploring these diverse P uerto Rican expressi on s of evil we havebee n m oving along a co n tin uu m of inc reasing fearfulness, the n we are alsomoving in the direction of increased literalism. In their form of telling,these accounts are given as evidence for the reality of an individual's "be-liefs": "this really happen ed to m e, it's no t merely belief (cf. Good 1994).Con stituting, from the partic ipan t's perspective, a kind of "empirical" evi-dence, these more literalistic idioms of the belief in evil go beyond thoseseen earlier, an d the y suggest tha t amo ng the m ore evangelically socializedPuerto Ricans interviewed here, supernaturalism persists in a highly po-larized form and with a highly culturally elaborated symbolism of evil. Inthese narratives, we see how "cultural elaboration" includes the domainof experien ce.The first of the supernatural-demon-encounter narratives resembleswhat is popularly known as an "out of body" experience. It was related by33-year-old Isabel R. (who described the church -based , demon ios encim aepisodes above) in response to questions about waking dreams.

Isabel R.:JJ:IR:JJ:IR.JJ:IR:JJ:

Oh yepHave you ?. .. uhuh, when I had my surgery in my legs, I don't know if I told you ...yea!Did you?. .. about the nail?Ohhh. .. didn't I tell you about that?You had stepped on a nail?


24/34

Evil in P ue rto Rlcan Folk Religion 4 5 7

IR: Exactly, and the y had to oper ate on m e. W hen I first got her e the y had tooperate on m e. And, i t was about two week s later, I wen t hom e. I was ly ingon e night [wh ispering], y a l [then loudly] I me an I was AWAKE, but m y ey eswere closed. I saw myself floating. I was going, then I was afraid that I wasgoing to fall , and I could literally see my body in the bed.

JJ: RightIR: . . . and I didn't want to go now here, I just wanted to . . . . cas i cerca del

ciel ing and [loudly] "no I don't want to go nowh ere!" and I would k eeppraying and p raying and pr aying, y por favor and I was just, I thou ght it wasthe de vil , dije porfavor repren de, and I ca m e do wn . But I l iterally see m yselfin the bed . . .

JJ: WowIR. . . . and I saw my self com ing dow n and get into m y body.In the con text of wh at she perceives as waking con sciousn ess, Isabellooks down upon her own body, senses she has died, and fears that hersoul or spirit is being stolen away by the devil. She begin s to pra y desp er-ately to God "por favor reprende" and then descends back into her body.Although her own body is the primary object of her visual perception, theexperience is infused with fear and with the idea that the devil has come,like the grim reaper, to steal her away.Isabel's account also strongly resembles the form of a hypnagogicdream (or nigh tmare, sleep paralysis with hypnagogic im agery). However,two qualities distinguish he r expe rien ce from ma ny othe rs reported in theliterature (Firesto ne 1985 ; Hufford 1982; Jo n es 19 31 ; Kracke 197 9; Ted-lock 1992). The first is the interpretation of diabolical agency. Althoughthematically consistent with many other fear-laden interpretations of thehypnagogic nigh tmare (in cub us, Old Hag, etc.), the devil is no t com mo nlymentioned in hypnagogic nightmare accounts, and in this case, it is evi-dently a by-product of Isabel's religious orientation and cultural context.Also unique is her apparent ability to respond intentionally with prayerduring the experience. In general, the literature on hypnagogic hallucina-tions describes the dreamer's largely passive relationship to the contentsof consciousness, particularly in terms of physical response (indeed, thebody is tem porarily paralyzed), and few cases are described in which thesubject is able to chan ge th e affective imagery or plot of the d ream -eve n t.Although perhaps intrinsically structured by the hypnagogic experience,Isabel's acco un t recalls the dem on narrative of Ana V., who respon ded toher boyfriend's demonic episode by naming and then "reprehending" eldiablo. As noted, such a narrative structure suggests the importance ofprayer as a tool for warding off evil (and fear) while also portraying thespeaker as religious (or God fearing).In an oth er exam ple of wha t appears to be hypnagogic sleep onse t pos-sibly following bedtime prayers, 35-year-old Ruben E., a devout and very

involved evangelical church member, reports a dreamlike experience inwhich he feels himself being suffocated by the devil:


25/34

45 8 ETHOS

Ruben E.: The dream was ab ou t. . . wel l I had several dreams. One was . . . I went tobed , and I don't k now if I prayed that night or not but I we nt to bed . Myoldest s o n . . . . I s leep all different ways but I was s leeping this on e night onmy stomach for whatever reason. And it felt l ike an evil presence puttingmy head into the pi l low . . .

JJ: push ing you dow n?RE : U hu h, and I was suffocating in th e pillow and in my dream . . . but it was so

real, that it was happeningJJ: Like you were awak e?RE: Yea. So at that mom ent, a l l I sa id in my dream, in co n sc io u sn es s] , 'cause

I felt it happening, I said the name of Jesus seven times. Actually it was theseventh time I said Jesus' name, and the presence just l ifted up off of me.

JJ: And then you wok e up?RE: Then I wok e, and [he s ighs deeply in relief].Ruben's narrative takes the form of a literalistic experiential account.

Having begun to fall asleep while prayin g, Ruben is sudden ly, con sciouslyaware of himself lying facedown in his own bed resisting a force to whichhe attributes a suffocating and deadly intention. Immobile and impotent,he fears for his l ife and begins to pray, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. . . ." On thesev en th pray er, th e pres en ce lifts up off of him . W hen aske d to explain theexperien ce, he begins with a notion of agency ("it could be somebody . . . ")as if to suggest either that a person came into his room, or that a spiritualagency had co me (or been sen t by somebody) to do this, perha ps throughbrujeria, or sorcery. But he pauses and returns to the idiom of the super-n atural devil, "it could jus t m ean the devil was trying to attack m e."

As in Isabel's account, the primary object or content of Ruben'saw aren ess is fearful imm obility in the felt pre sen ce of an un seen , maliciousintentionality. Perhaps in the experience itself or in its retelling, fear con-denses around the image of the devil. As in the fearful narratives of Anaand Isabel, the perceived existential threat evokes a desperate prayer toGod. In the telling, praye r conscio usn ess replaces fear con sciousness, andevil is released. And as in both Ana's and Isabel's accounts, the narrativeco he res as a testimo n y to the efficacy of pra ye r and C hristian faith. We seeno t only the power of God but also the Christian ity of the person .

A final exam ple involving a somew hat m ore "violent" and kine stheti-cally elabo rated form of in capa city ca n b e seen in Luc hita M.'s descriptionof a reported struggle (una lucha) in which she feels totally, physicallyoverwhelmed and violently beaten by a large demon-man whom she callsthe devil. This passage is not only unique in its violence but also in itsliteralism, for Luchita reports bruises and exhaustion upon awakening.When asked if she ever had nightmares, Luchita responded only, "yes."W hen asked if she recalled any ni ghtm ares at all in th e last couple of yea rs,she elaborated:


26/34

Evil In P ue rto Rlcan Folk Religion 4 5 9

Luchita: No, no nightmares . I don't know , the only bad . . . I don't kn ow if i t was anightmare, but there is something that I don't really l ike to talk about be-cause i t upsets me [me pone mal], but I had a dream about the devil , I hada dream that ther e was this terrible struggle, awful, som eth ing th at I felt Icouldn't win. He had closed the doors , the shutters and then he began tohit me and throw me against the walls, he would hit me so hard that I wouldfly through the air, and I was panic-stricken, terrified, and I wanted thedream to end but I couldn 't en d it and as I struggled I got weaker and weakerand as a last resort [a lo ultimo empiezo a pedirle a dios] I began to prayto God, and I say, "My God he lp m e, God, I am h ere w ith you , You are h erewith me, help me. You can't let this (evi l ) overcome me." And then thestruggle ended and he disappeared. And wh en I wok e up the n ext day, I wasbruised and my body ached terribly as if I had been in a fightJJ: And wh at doe s the devil look like?

L: Well, not l ike he's depicted {no como lo pintan] where they say he has bighorn s and all that. He's a per son , as I saw h im he w as huge [demasiado degrande], solid, and with a terrifying face. The face is really evil, like a per-son with a really evil look, not pretty at all . But yes, he is a man. He is aman, but not at all l ike they say, with horns and a long tail , no. But yes, heis a person w ho is . . . wel l , of very bad character. . . . And . . . in the m orn-ing I awak en a s if I had b een in a terrible b attle.

Luchita cannot decide what to call the experience. Its unpleasantemotional and somatic associat ions are evoked by my query about"nightmares" (pesadillas), but she is not satisfied with this term and sug-gests that her experience was both more "real" and more disturbing thana nig htm are. As m ore rea l, it was also more fearful, an d as in Ru ben 's an dIsabel's accounts above, it inspires in the subject a desperate plea orprayer to God, "help me, don 't let this evil overcome m e."In contrast, w hile Ruben 's an d Isabel's accoun ts evolve in the con textof sleep onse t, and are largely confined in their im agery to the bod y, pro n ein bed, Luchita's narrative emphasizes the stage of waking ("and when Iwoke up th e n ext day . . . , and in the m ornin g"). It is also mu ch m orevisually and kin esthetically elaborated. In Luchita's acc oun t we go beyondthe recumbent body, and now see "doors," "shutters," and "walls," or thesense of "flying th rough the air," or of "feeling brui sed " an d "ac h[in g] ter-ribly." We also see the face of the devil, terrifying an d evil, th at of a "hug e,""solid" "man" of "very bad character." These differences in elaborationespecially the expression of exhaustion (as if waking up from very deepsleep)suggest a different kind of nightmare experience (perhaps hyp-nopompic (pre-waking) rather than hypnagogic).15 Though distinct insom e ways, they in voke a literalistic and fearful n arra tive , an d the y followprecisely the plot sequences and structures of feeling (escalation of fear toa poin t of pan ic, followed by a show of faith) seen in earlier dem on -paralysis

narratives. In the wider context of Luchita's life history, it is evident thather nightmare also repeats and recapitulates prior violent experiences.


27/34

4 6 0 ETHOS

D I S C U S S I O NThe interpretive "problem of evil" in Puerto Rican folk religious lan-guage is not the same "problem of evil" posed by traditional Christiantheodicy, which grapples with the question of how a benevolent and om-nipotent God can be rationalized and believed in light of the existence ofevil and suffering.16 For most Puerto Rican-born participants here, "evilexists" (la maldad existe), and in the form of malevolent witches, spirits,and demons, it has remained an important moral symbol within folklorean d th e pop ular religious imagin ation. In the an alysis of life-history na rra-tives here, the "problem of evil" is not theological but interpretive. Whywas there so much talk about evil and malevolence? And how do we un-derstand (and ethnographically-narratively represent) the highly elabo-rated symbo lism of evil in Pu erto R ican religious though t and language? Am ore specific ques tion , based on earlier ethn ogra phi c repo rts of witchcraftand the tensio ns w ithin folk C atholicism, con cern s th e n ature of religiousrete n tio n : How and why evil is retain ed in the tran sitio n from folk Catholi-cism(s) to conservative sectarian Christianity?To the question of "why so much evil-speak," it is crucial to stresstha t the subject m atte r of the part ic ipa n t interviews ("altered states ofcon scio usn ess" an d the "su pern atural") was evil-evocative, per se. Thoughthe life-history interview format w as m ea n t to provide a familiar or "n atu-ralistic" na rrative back drop for examin ing an d describing unu sual dreams,vision s, celajes, an d so on , the interview er's suggestion th at a perso n m ighthave had su ch an experien ce often brought the con versation into a morallycharged and religiously contested arena. Responses from across a variety

of religious group s mixed a cautio us m easu re of fearful "b elie f in the su-pernatural with a "religiously correct" sense of the existence of evil (hu-man, natural, supernatural) and the need to eradicate it . This complexamalgamation of belief, concern, and loathing is partly captured by theexpression "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil," highlighting the ideath at amo ng part ici pan ts he re (and perh aps o ther low SES urba n first-generation Puerto Rican migrants), to speak or ask of supernatural expe-rien ces can be an evil in itself. The prep on deran ce of "evil-speak" here canthus be seen as "evoked." Because of this, it is difficult to assert that evil-speak is a common or frequent part of everyday discourse, or that it is,culturally, a "key symbol" or "root metaphor" (for example, in the senseused by S. O rtn er [1973] or K. McCarthy-Brown [197 1]). Nevertheless, inits diverse forms and contexts, evil-speak posed an obstacle for under-standing the meaning and nature of altered states of consciousness, and itprovided an un usu al op portun ity (a sna psho t of the m eaning s of evil withinan d ac ross religious affiliations) to exam in e th e role an d place of the sym -bolism of evil in proc esses of religious chan ge an d differentiation.


28/34

Evil in Puerto Rican Folk Religion 461

As we have seen , expressed through changing an d con tested lexiconsof brujos, demonios, espiritus malos, and so on, the language of evil ac-complishes several discernable types of social and psychocultural work.Among its social uses, it identifies kin ds of pe rso n s (by labeling idolatro usChristians, witches, the possessed). Also, by labeling som eone or s om ethin gas dem on ic o r evil, it indirectly self-identifies the spea ker as religious a n dauth oritativ e. Social labeling an d iden tification of evil often also takes theform of a reprimand, redirection, or stigmatization, for example, of sinners,the apostate, and the interviewer. Reprimand may be self-referential aswhen a person is temp ted by evil, or other-directed, as when some partici-pan ts implied that the interview question s treaded dan gerous, evil-evocative,ground. In social terms, the language of evil also warns of supernaturaldangers and con sequences for certain behaviors, even m ere question s.

These various social uses underline the strategic importance of thelanguage of evil in contexts where traditional spiritualistic dispositions to-ward the sup ern atural en coun ter or begin to take on the "Holy Spirit"-ualismof evangelical Christianity. If a person fails to use the language in a"religiously correct" setting or sense, he or she risks various kinds ofmoral-religious stigmatization. Even among those not in the process ofreligious con versio n, th e acqu isition of certa in forms of fluency in the lan -guage of evil provides an im portan t skill in negotiating iden tity an d relation s.In addition to its social roles, and entangled in them, the symbolismof evil appears to play a number of important psychocultural roles. Bysymbolically polarizing and radicalizing a m ore undifferentiated repe r-toire of traditi on al spi ritual values and beliefs, evil provides im po rtan t ori-entations and understandings to the converting Christ ian. Conceptuallyand ethnopsychologically, the acquisition of conservative C hristian spiri-tuality draws together the diverse folk categories of espiritus, protectoras,malas influencias, Santos, La virgin, Dios, and so forth, into a set of nar-rower, mon otheistic idioms and ex pressions of the o ne Holy Spirit and the"evils" driven away by its presence. The result (at least initially) is aclearer sense of what is legitimately spiritual, believable, and sacred, andwhat is not. But if certain forms of magic and spiritualism are therebystigmatized and silenced, their experiential forms have not been entirelysquelched. In this sense, their forms are less "pruned" than polarized.

Radical evil works to polarize not only the experiential and cate-gorical domains of "spiri tuali ty" but also the social and behavioral do-m ain s of ide n tity, or the relat ion betwee n self and diverse othe rs. In thi ssense, the symbolism of evil provides a point of leverage from which topush away from other moral or ientat ions, e i ther those belonging toother persons, or those belonging to a former self. Thus, by helping todefine what one is not, evil can also be seen to play a facilitative role inproce sses of religious chan ge . This sugg ests that "getting a new religion"


29/34

46 2 ETHOS

is as much drawing oneself into something as it is pushing away fromsomething else (past behavior/self, religion).The nam ing of a horrible, perh aps private or shameful experience as"evil" can also be seen as taking som e meaningful con trol over it. As Kap-ferer (1991) describes for Sinhalese exorcism ritual and Gsordas (1993)for Ch ristian Ch arism atic deliverance, namin g and consciously identifyingthe dem on or a devil is a key step in exorcising or delivering (releasing) it.To perceive or subsequen tly recou nt trau m atic, nightmarish, or extremelyfearful experiences as evil is also to place or understand them within alarger spiritual-symbolic arena where defensive or protective patterns of"faith" or "prayer" can be mobilized. As seen in the fearful demon ac-cou n ts of Isabel and Ana, by labeling an d explaining troubling experiencesan d beh aviors as evil (nightm ares, possession -ataques), they can mobilizea culturally learned psychological defense (prayer) which allows them tocope with, contain, and explain it .This analysis suggests that among religiously searching, lower-SESfirst-generation Puerto Rican migrants, the encounter with conservativemo no theist ic Christianity strengthen s and expand s an existing conceptual

scaffolding an d lexicon of evil an d m alevo lenc e. W hile the re is explicit an d"religiously correct" condemnation and stigmatization of traditional no-tion s of the su pe rn atur al an d spirituality (including mag ic, witchcraft, an dspiritualism) as "demonic," there is also a very strongly expressed literal-istic sen se of metap hysic al evil. Statem en ts of belief as well as description sof visions, dream s, and the sh aring of these and oth er religious experiencesamong participants here all suggest the retention of a rich supernatural-ism, one that depicts as "demonic" any significant trance, visionary, or"religious" expe rien ce o ccurring outside religiously san ctioned space.The parallel with the traditional witchcraft conception, which hadexplained both undeserved misfortune (tests of faith) and the ill-gottenfortunes of others (diabolical pacts), suggests that for migrant Puerto Ri-cans of limited means, sectarian Christian evangelization accommodatesand builds on traditional witchcraft (especially the sense of malevolentagency), intensifying and polarizing it in the form of a fearful Christiandiabolism. The custom ary aversion to greed, am bition, and envy embodiedin the older, circum-Mediterranean witchcraft accusation is transformedinto a stricter biblical morality, based less on the Seven Deadly Sins orpassions than the biblical Ten Commandments (especially the First Com-m an dm en t against the sin of idolatry). The attem pt h ere to probe the spiri-tual and supernatural lives of inner-city mainland Puerto Rican migrantsevoked a rich and refractory language of evil. In addition to explainingfearful experiences and unfortunate events, this language also representsa tool in efforts to distinguish self from idolatrous other and "new self'from "old self (as in the born-again religious identity).


30/34

Evil in Puerto Rican Folk Religion 4 6 3

What is less clear from this primarily descriptive analysis is whetherpoverty and material and emotional deprivations that often accompanypoverty constitute necessary conditions for this fearful idiom. By describ-ing the language of and belief in supe rna tural evil across a variety of religious,a g e , and mental-health status groups, I have suggested the generalizedand contentioussense of supernatural evil in a working-class and dis-abled Puerto Rican community. Evil is tremendously symbolically andrhetorically elaborated, less as a critical "devil pact" and more as a com-bination or syncretism of Pentecostal demonology and traditional con cep-tions of witchcraft, as described, for example, in Africa (Geshiere 1998;Onyinah 2001).

While explo ration s an d desc riptio n s of the us es of evil-speak in Pue rtoRican discourse and ethnography have thus partly resolved key issues inthe interp retive "problem of evil" as defined he re, they have raised oth ers .If, as suggested, so m uch of the rhe tor ic of evil is or can be "backed u p " byexperiential accounts by statem en ts of the typ e, "Hey, this isn' t jus t be-lief. This really hap pen ed to m e," like those seen in the final section, the nthe question of the sources of such experiences is raised. Is it the learningof the rhetoric of evil, and the use of these categories of language andthought (as in testimon ials, or witchcraft accu sation s), that leads partici-pants here to "experience" unusual

Jacobson, Jr.

Documents

Transcript of Jacobson, Jr.