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Pollution and Purity: Understanding Voices as Punishment for Un-Wholly Sins

Powell, Adam J.

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Authors



Contributors

Angela Woods
Editor

Ben Alderson-Day
Editor

Charles Fernyhough
Editor

Abstract

Drawing on Mary Douglas’ influential text Purity and Danger, with its argument about the structures of pollution and purity that inhere in many cultures, this chapter seeks to explore the link between individual voice-hearers’ understandings of their hallucinatory experiences as deserved punishment and broader structural–anthropological suggestions that symbolic transgressions of sociocultural categories demand ritual restitution. Specifically, two case studies from the Voices in Psychosis interview data are used to illustrate how Douglas’ observations concerning the cultural classifications of ‘anomalies’ and ‘abominations’ illuminate the role played by sexual mores and suicidal ideation in the self-understanding of some voice-hearers.

Citation

Powell, A. J. (2022). Pollution and Purity: Understanding Voices as Punishment for Un-Wholly Sins. In A. Woods, B. Alderson-Day, & C. Fernyhough (Eds.), Voices in Psychosis: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (82-90). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192898388.003.0010

Online Publication Date Sep 8, 2022
Publication Date 2022-09
Deposit Date Nov 4, 2022
Publicly Available Date Nov 4, 2022
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 82-90
Book Title Voices in Psychosis: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Chapter Number 10
ISBN 9780192898388
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192898388.003.0010

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