Doctoral Dissertation: The Call to Mediumship: Social, Psychological, and Psychobiological Characteristics of Participant in an Afro-Brazilian Religion

这项研究，这是在人类学，心理生物学和心理健康的接口休息，将作出重要贡献，我们的社会，文化和宗教经验的生物层面的理解。 具体来说，该项目询问宗教专家与其他宗教参与者的区别是什么，以及巴西宗教成员中某些类型的宗教参与和精神疾病之间是否存在任何关系。 宗教专家，或媒介，通常被视为社会和/或心理边缘的个人，他们利用宗教参与作为一种认可的出口，往往等同于西方精神疾病的倾向。意识状态改变的生物学本质通常与这种类型的宗教参与有关，这表明生理学的前因可能是将这些人与其他宗教参与者区分开来的因素之一。社会和心理因素对这种生理倾向的发展、表达和经历的贡献需要在像萨尔瓦多巴西这样的背景下进行研究，在这种背景下，宗教信仰体系影响了异常和正常的概念，并可能为这些个体塑造不同于心理医学范式主导的环境的结果。 这项为期12个月的心理生物文化研究建议采用民族志，心理学和心理生物学的方法相结合，探讨在巴西Candomble中扮演精神媒介角色的熟练者生活中三个领域的融合：社会因素，包括人口统计学和生活史变量;心理特征，包括人格特质和心理症状;和心理生物学，以注意力和唤醒调节的形式。 本研究将有助于以下几个方面：1）探索因素，使个人倾向于medianship，2）解决问题周围的关系仪式化的改变状态的意识，精神病理学，和3）贡献的信息，可以帮助改善精神疾病的心理医学方法在非西方的情况下。

This research, which rests at the interface of anthropology, psychobiology, and mental health, will make an important contribution to our understanding of the social, cultural, and biological dimensions of religious experiences. Specifically, this project asks what characteristics distinguish religious adepts from other religious participants, and what if any relationship exists between certain types of religious participation, and mental illness, among members of a Brazilian religion. Religious adepts, or mediums, have typically been viewed as socially and/or psychologically marginal individuals who use religious participation as a sanctioned outlet for tendencies often equated with western categories of mental illness. The biological nature of the altered states of consciousness often associated with this type of religious participation suggests that physiological antecedents might be among the factors that distinguish these individuals from other religious participants. The contribution of social and psychological factors to the development, expression, and experience of such physiological predisposition needs to be examined in contexts like Salvador Brazil, in which religious belief systems affect concepts of deviance and normality, and may shape different outcomes for such individuals than in environments dominated by psychomedical paradigms. This 12-month psychobio-cultural study proposes to employ a combination of ethnographic, psychological, and psychobiological methods to explore the confluence of three domains in the lives of adepts who play the role of spirit medium in Brazilian Candomble : social factors, including demographic and life history variables; psychological characteristics, including personality traits and psychological symptoms; and psychobiology, in the form of patterns of attention and arousal regulation. This study will contribute to the following: 1) explore factors that predispose individuals to mediumship, 2) address questions surrounding the relationship of ritualized altered states of consciousness to psychopathology, and 3) contribute information that could help improve psychomedical approaches to mental illness in non-western contexts.