love is the trance of worlds without gods

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Natalia González Martín, Crowded Head, 2021, oil on wood, 11 3/4 x 8 1/4 inches Natalia González Martín, how dare you, 2023, oil on wood, 29 7/8 x 23 5/8 inches, courtesy of galerie sébastien bertrand Natalia González Martín, this spell of fine weather, 2023, oil on wood, 20 1/2 x 10 5/8 inches, courtesy of galerie sébastien bertrand Natalia González Martín, extraordinary devotion (ii), 2023, oil on wood, 20 1/2 x 10 5/8 inches, courtesy of galerie sébastien bertrand

essay

by TOBIE NATHAN

artwork by NATALIA GONZÁLEZ MARTÍN

French ethnopsychiatrist Tobie Nathan explores the intersection of culture, belief, and mental health. In his book Philtre d’Amour (published by Éditions Odile Jacob, 2013), he explores the magical and therapeutic aspects of love potions in different cultures and the diverse anthropological perspectives on love.

on the nature of spirits

Zars are spirits, invisible beings… In Semitic languages — Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, the language spoken by the Ethiopians of Gondar — the word “zar” literally means the “stranger,” the “other.” In Hebrew, guer; in Arabic, gher; in Amharic, zar … these beings traverse the countries where these languages are spoken: Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt. It’s likely from this last shore that the zars traced the Mediterranean coasts all the way to Morocco, where they are sometimes called by another name, mlouk, the “proprietors,” in the rites of the Gnaoua… In Arabic, the word “zar” is very close to another, zayar, which means the “visitor,” the one who performs the ziara, the “visit.” And thus a chain of meanings appears, distancing us from the temptation to substantiate spirits, devils, and demons. Staying as close as possible to the languages, we could venture a definition: the zar, the stranger who comes to visit us, is truly our “proprietor.”

Therefore, these are not “spirits” in the sense we moderns might think of them — legendary figures, extracted more or less artificially from some myth. Here, the zars are both concepts (the “stranger,” the “visitor,” the “neighbor,” the “proprietor”) and everyday beings. We encounter them every day, every moment. They outline the reverse side, this other face of the human world.

Zars are simultaneously beings and concepts. They are philosophical ideas but possess a life of their own, with intentions and a tangible presence of otherness. We, as moderns, are far from this understanding. We equate concepts with thoughts; for us, they can’t exist independently. Concepts need humans to conceive them. If we accept the existence of “others,” of strangers, it’s merely a way to think about certain common traits. This is evident in philosophical debates that challenge the very notion of a stranger. Why are they labeled as strangers? The concept splinters and fades. Soon, they might consider the idea that the subject is strange to itself, much like Rimbaud writing in A Season in Hell that “I is another.” Not so foreign to oneself because the strangest entity to oneself is the “I.” They engage in paradoxes: “The stranger is within,” they propose. Freud argued that man is not the owner of his own mind, but rather a plaything of another entity within, which he called the “unconscious.” Later, he used a bold metaphor: the “self” is like a child riding a huge horse. The child thinks he or she is in control, but the horse — the “id” — goes where it wants. As a metaphor, the word “stranger” has lost its original meaning, except in its legal context. Legally, a stranger is simply someone who doesn’t share my nationality. That’s all.

For moderns, there are no strangers in the truest sense. They only know similar beings living in different places. In contrast, the zar, the “other” in Ethiopian philosophy, steps into human life on its own terms. It attacks a person without warning. It isn’t a concept but an occurrence. It isn’t a fantasy but an act. As the radical other to humans, they project their negativities onto it. Illnesses, misfortunes, bad luck, and accidents are often seen as the zars’ wrath. Hence, they serve as both explanations and mysteries. We perceive a different philosophy that allows for concepts to be alive, manifested through the challenges they impose on humans. These complex beings, yet everyday concepts, embodied in human suffering, force us to establish connections. […]

I wish I could describe them, but is that even possible? Merely trying to express their reality within the framework of my thoughts dissolves their very existence. If I were to say they were invisible, that, like humans, they had a gender, male or female, that they formed families, that they had a religion … slowly, the readers would drift toward mythological discourse. They would think I was recounting a legend. Instantly, tales from The Thousand and One Nights would spring to mind, or the composite beings of Greek or Mesopotamian myths, the statues of ancient Egypt, Hydras, Centaurs, or Sphinxes… The unique nature of the zars, their presence, would inevitably elude them.

I sense them through the pain I feel; I sing and dance to summon them; their presence is a solemnity that throws me to the ground … precisely what we call “falling into a trance” …  because they are, above all, “beings-there,” ‘hadarat.

They do, of course, slip into stories with a naive construction… Humans have trampled on their culture, poured scalding liquid on their abode without a second thought, triggering their wrath… Or they have ignored their call, delayed in paying them the homage they demanded. Yet, in the background, there remains a haunting, primary question: why? What does the zar want from humans? What happens to it when it leaves its zar life, its attachments, said to be like those of men, to venture into our villages and homes? The only way to unravel some of this mystery is to observe the scene, like [the French writer and ethnologist] Michel Leiris in 1932 and many others after him.

In contrast to the trance that Leiris did not experience, here is the story of a woman who found solace in it. The arrival of a zar, as I mentioned, typically reveals itself through an illness. Consider this woman who has become irritable. She constantly picks fights with her husband, accuses him, even resorts to violence. Naturally, he responds, scolding and pushing her away. She then sinks into a state of listlessness, a kind of melancholy. At night, she can’t sleep, tossing and turning in bed, waiting for sleep to come. During the day, she loses interest in her usual activities, no longer bustling in the kitchen or caring for the children. It’s as if the functions that connect her inner world to the outside have been disrupted. She stops eating, speaks little, never smiles, and avoids the company of her friends or family. Inevitably, she rejects any sexual intimacy with her husband. This paints a picture of a sort of depressive state, in a world where depression is not recognized, where connection is constant, and the isolation of a person is nearly impossible, except in the deep of night, just before the rooster crows, between 3 AM and 5 AM.

An elderly woman might then ask: “What’s happening to her? Is she ill? Could it be a zar?” Reluctantly, she will be brought to a priestess, a mistress of the zars, like Michel Leiris’s Malkam Ayyahou. The diagnosis is always a process of trial and error. The patient is shown objects, scents, colors, music, and songs known to please specific zars. Here, we meet a Sudanese zar mistress, a connoisseur of perfumes. To determine the spirit’s family, she performs an “opening of her box.” She possesses several such boxes, dozens perhaps, each containing incense, the signature scents of a group of zars — complex fragrances composed of primary essences like al mistika, a type of aromatic resin, myrrh, sandalwood, camphor, licorice root, benzoin, and Persian cherry extract. She perfumes her patient with these different scents, presenting her with colors, fabrics, and scarves, which she waves in front of her eyes or wraps around her head. Grabbing a tambourine, she initiates rhythms, immediately taken up by the drummers assisting her. Each sequence is known to belong to a specific zar.

At a certain moment — triggered by a specific scent, the beat of a rhythm, or the words of a chant — the patient is “seized.”

Her swaying becomes more insistent, the oscillation turns rhythmic, her head pivots from side to side, or her torso rocks back and forth. She starts to tremble violently. She stands up, growls, drools, and rolls her eyes. It is no longer she who moves, but she who is moved; it is no longer she who dances, but she who is danced. She is pushed and jostled. They say she “falls.” This leads to the most intense moment of the ceremony: the sacrifice. An animal is slaughtered, sometimes a chicken, sometimes a sheep, or even a bull. If it’s a chicken, the patient drinks the blood directly from the wound. For larger animals, the assistants of the officiant rush to collect the spurting blood in glasses, pots, and plastic basins as it pulsates from the severed carotid artery.  The sacrificial blood is mixed with the zar’s signature perfume, and the woman drinks it, much like Leiris’s Emawayish did from a porcelain cup. Then, the spirit is questioned; it is asked to reveal its name. Sometimes it will declare its name through the human’s mouth. If not, the priestess will decide its identity.

This, in summary, is the dynamic of their encounter. At the beginning, she was merely a woman, burdened with problems common to all — issues with her husband, her family, her children. By the end of the ceremony, she is united with an entity, both invisible and powerful, the zar. ‘Hadra, meaning “presence,” is what these ceremonies are called in Arabic, as we have seen. For the zar has become a presence. But where is the being during the trance? It is above (they say it “mounts” the woman, like a rider mounts a steed); it is around, enveloping her, it is everywhere, occupying all the space in her world; it is within, speaking from inside, through her voice, becoming the “owner” of her very body. Thus, we can debate the boundary between the identities of the possessed and the spirit (and many have done so!), but the essence is that they are indeed two beings: the human and the nonhuman, the self and the other, the visible and the invisible, the familiar and the foreign, united in myriad ways. They move from a state of superimposition, a blur of identities, to the marvel of a frenzied union. The ritual, in its complexity, first distinguishes them, then allows them to merge, until they blend into one. Before the ceremony, you see the woman; during, you see the zar; after the ceremony, you no longer know if you are dealing with one or the other.

on the nature of the bond we establish with spirits

The existence of a true “other,” someone who is not merely a reflection of ourselves, a powerful, irresistible drive toward this other that manifests as an illness, a wild and passionate encounter, the establishment of a bond that alternates between fusion and the assertion of identity… The picture is clear; the similarities are striking.

‘Hadra, the “presence,” this passion that overtakes us and binds us to another from a different world, is the very prototype of the state of being in love.

Just like love, it comes from outside, not from within. Like love, it is an incarnation. It embeds itself in the body, asserting its existence through sensations. Like love, it forces a person out of their selfishness, becoming an exclusive preoccupation with the other. Like love, it transforms the person, who, after the inaugural moment of the first trance, becomes a lifelong devotee.

Now, let’s revisit the story of the patient treated by the Sudanese healer, in light of this understanding. After the ceremony, during which she had become, for the duration of the ritual, the “other” that had possessed her, she returns to being herself. The adepts, the spectators, the passersby have witnessed a mutual definition of identities. They have seen her embrace the other to the point of merging with it. After the trance, she is even more herself for having been the “other.” This is the key! Clément Rosset, speaking of lovers, articulates this same paradox: “The intervention of love does not result in giving oneself away to the other, but in rediscovering oneself through the other.” […]

sex

The sexual connotation did not escape Michel Leiris, who had just completed five years of psychoanalysis. He notes that the rhythmic movements of the trance, known in Ethiopia as gurri, during which the adept is mounted by the zar, resemble a sexual relationship with an invisible partner. When she sleeps alone, she is said to receive her night lover, who will seize her as an incubus. However, the sexual question seems secondary to me — I mean that if sexuality plays a part in the encounter, it is on a par with all other relational capacities. Similarly, one cannot claim that romantic passion solely translates as sexual desire. Certainly, there is no passion without sexuality — but it is a means in the service of fusion, always insufficient to overcome the lack, except during brief moments of ecstasy. Both Charcot with his “hysteria” and Freud with his “conversions” thought that sexuality explained the trance, but they were asking the question backward. What comes first is the incredible encounter with the “other” from another world, of a radically distinct nature. The Ethiopian ritual achieves an association of a human with a spirit. Logically, such an encounter can only occur through fusion where one lends the other its being in the world, and the other rewards the first with its qualities. For one can only grasp radical otherness by merging with it, experiencing it through the senses.

That is why we can assert that trance, the presentification of otherness, is the prototype of romantic passion. In universes where such trances invoking the invisibles are possible, throughout Africa, certainly, in populations of African origin, in Brazil, in Haiti, in the Antilles, in much of the Maghreb, still, in India in Muslim temples, in Malaysia, in Indonesia … passion is primarily experienced in a relationship with a spirit. In our modern worlds, in Europe, where the last traces of Dionysian cults disappeared not long ago, where we witnessed the agony of the remnants of the tarantella, suffocated under the influx of tourists, journalists, and ethnologists, in a small village in Apulia, only love remains. In a word: trance comes first. Passion was first expressed for the invisibles; it was only much later, during the first millennium BCE, in our civilizations, that it came to invest humans. Despite his efforts, Michel Leiris was a “modern.” He, who sought a radical therapy, a metamorphosis to extricate his malaise, despite his assiduity to the cult of Malkam Ayyahou, awaiting the trance, only managed to fall in love. His inner world was indeed invaded by an “other,” but it was not capable of hosting an invisible. There was no place in him for an other with radical strangeness. The zar could not descend — where could it have landed? In Leiris, there was barely room for a woman. And when she appeared to him, this woman, merely a woman, with her human (too human?) interests, he was frightened and turned away.

We have gathered some knowledge. We now know that the paradoxical sensations of romantic passion, the uncontrollable drive toward another, the sensation of being as if teleguided by forces coming from elsewhere, the always unsatisfactory quest for fusion … all these sensations accompany, in the same way, a distant rite, shrouded in mysteries, poorly understood, even if often described by ethnologists. Until now, it was called a “possession trance.” Adhering to the concepts of its practitioners, I prefer the term “presentification.”

Confronted with the two realities, that of the presentification of beings and that of romantic passion, Michel Leiris could not, did not, know how to “enter into a trance.” He did not manage to offer presence to the invisible.

Romantic passion is indeed the trance of worlds without gods.

END

EXCERPT FROM PHILTRE D’AMOUR: COMMENT LE RENDRE AMOUREUX? COMMENT LA RENDRE AMOUREUSE? (LOVE POTION: HOW TO MAKE SOMEONE FALL IN LOVE) BY TOBIE NATHAN, ÉDITIONS ODILE JACOB, PARIS, 2013.