Roger Bastide’s studies of Afro-Brazilian trance

Record summary

French-Brazilian sociologist Roger Bastide published influential analyses of Afro-Brazilian religions, including Candomblé ritual, initiation, possession and social organization. His work offers a period-specific framework for comparing trance phenomenology with community roles, bodily training and symbolic systems rather than isolating ‘psi’ claims from culture. Bastide’s categories and translations are historically important but not beyond criticism, and Candomblé communities are internally diverse. The lead should be read as scholarship on a religious tradition, not as a report validating literal spirit incorporation.