Week 4 - Mary Moua

(Len Dong spirit ritual in Hanoi)

Materialism vs. Spirituality

In “‘We Have Len Dong too’: Transnational Aspects of Spirit Possession”, Karen Fjelstad describes her accounts and interactions with Vietnamese spirit mediums and their transnational experiences with spirit possession ceremonies and rituals. In addition to reading about the history behind Len Dong, its different uses and purposes, and how it serves as a resource to those who practice it, I thought it was interesting to read about how there are tensions between various spirit mediums on the issue of materiality versus spirituality. In the reading, Fjelstad notes that material goods and resources are necessary for the performance and maintenance of possession ceremonies and rituals, but an increasing use of material goods brings up the question of whether too many material goods leads to a distraction of materialism. This is especially interesting to me because you would think that spirit mediums would independently perform their own possession ceremonies and rituals without caring about how others perform or practice their rituals, but there’s this tension and competition that exists between spirit mediums so it’s especially interesting to know that they’re not always in solidarity. It brings up the question of why are they competing in the first place and what will they necessarily gain from this competition? Why are they trying to outcompete one another? Furthermore, in relation to the question about materialism versus spirituality, who gets to determine what counts as materialism and what doesn’t? Aren’t rituals supposed to have materials? Do you only need the minimum requirement of materials needed for these rituals or is anything more than the minimum requirements what is considered materialism? Is it a negative thing to have too many materials for rituals? I assume that spirit mediums practice ceremonies and rituals individually and independently so competition and tension among spirit mediums is unnecessary to some extent. However, reading Fjelstad’s article proves otherwise and with the relaxed U.S.-Vietnam trade relations, it’s easier for ritual goods and materials to be transported between both countries which once again only perpetuates this issue of materialism versus spirituality and how much is too much.

Source:

Fjelstad, Karen. "‘We have len dong too’: Transnational Aspects of Spirit Possession." Possessed by the spirits: Mediumship in contemporary Vietnamese communities (2006): 95-110.

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