Bradley Kitaoka - Week 3

               This week I read “Gifts From the Spirits: Spirit Possession and Personal Transformation Among Silicon Valley Spirit Mediums” by Karen Fjelstad and Lisa Maiffret. Something that surprised me from the reading was the process to become a medium. I originally thought that people became mediums because they wanted to become mediums. However, after reading this it sounds like people become mediums because they were chosen by a spirit and even if they didn’t want to be a medium, they had to be one. Another thing that was surprising was how draining the process was to become a medium. Each person’s story told how when they were picked by a spirit, they became ill or started acting very differently from how they usually act. Something I thought was interesting was that even though people can be possessed by the same spirit that spirit can act differently in different people because the spirit somewhat amplifies the personality traits of their medium. I think the most surprising thing for me though was that it seems like possession is a good thing. My knowledge of possession come from Hollywood where the ghost a demon possesses someone, and it makes them evil. But after reading this it seems like possession is a good thing where the spirits are typically nice and they can improve a person’s life.

Cite: Bugbee, T. (2018, November 29). 'The Possession of Hannah Grace' Review: A Demon Makes for a Noisy Corpse. Retrieved April 11, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/movies/the-possession-of-hannah-grace-review.html

Question: Can people reject being chosen as a medium or do you have to be a medium once chosen?