Als Soefis het op hun zenuwen krijgen... Antropologiebeoefening tussen voorstellings- en belevingswereld.

Abstract

When Sufies have a fit of nerves ... Anthropology between experience and reality. In general anthropologists pay little attention to the physiological aspects of the behaviour they study in rituals. An exception to this rule is Barbara Lex, who formulated a model of the effects certain types of behaviour have on the human body. In this article this model is used to gain insight in the dikr-rituals of Sufi brotherhoods in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Singing, respiration, percussion and bodily movements function as driving techniques, which are used to create a trophotrophic tuning of the dervishes nervous system. In that way, so is hypothesized, the Sufis experience a fusion between religious conceptions and emotions. It is suggested that Lex' model can be used to study certain types of religious experience, for instance the feeling of communitas and communication with the supernatural realm. In rituals associated with these experiences a psychological, physiological and emotional condition is created, by which all sorts of religious images and representations can be experienced as a reality.