6 - Spirited Modernities: Mediumship and Ritual Performativity in Late Socialist Vietnam

Summary

Introduction

In recent years, lên đổng spirit mediumship has been drawing an ever- growing number of devoted believers and initiates. Temples dedicated to the pantheon of the Four Palaces [Tứ Phủ] receive a constant stream of visitors seeking to transact with the spirit world for existential needs and economic benefits, and prominent master mediums attract large and diverse clienteles of mediumship initiates who believe they cannot succeed in this life unless they repay their debt with the Four Palaces from a previous incarnation by entering into the spirits’ service and becoming a medium (see Fjelstad and Nguyen 2006). From the bubbly liveliness of Hanoi's overflowing markets (Schütte 2005), a veritable “spirit industry” has emerged: shops that specialize in wholesale and retail of ritual robes and frills, family enterprises producing intricate votive paper objects, musicians and assistants organizing their busy schedules over their cellphones in the midst of an ongoing ritual, and — last but not least — master mediums [đổng thầy] who cater to the needs of their followers and followers-to-be, prepare and perform initiations and other rituals, organize pilgrimages to remote temples, and keep the incense in their private temples burning.

The upsurge of religious and ritual activity that has become apparent in Vietnam since the onset of the economic reforms known as Ðổi Mới is by no means unique in the region, nor is it peripheral. The resilience of Max Weber's paradigm of an inexorable Entzauberung (disenchantment, de-mystification) of the world in the towline of “modernity” has in fact been undermined by a thriving religious fervour that has accompanied the (re)emergence of capitalist market relations in different parts of the world, including Asia (see Keyes; Hardacre, and Kendall 1994; Comaroff 1994; Taylor 2004a). Observers note that the dynamic interrelation between religion and economic development even brings forth “the growth of new forms of religiosity in the context of economic activity and wealth creation itself” (Roberts 1995, p. 2). The rise of “prosperity religions” (Roberts 1995; Jackson 1999), “amoral cults” (Weller 1994) and “occult economies” (Comaroff and Comaroff 2000) also indicates that salvation is often enough sought in wealth acquisition and the pursuit of worldly goods rather than in fostering ethical values.