I. M. Lewis's analysis of zar spirit-possession rites

Record summary

I. M. Lewis's Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism, published in 1971, is a major comparative source for zar and related possession traditions found across North Africa and the Middle East. It is relevant to visionary research because trance, spirit speech, healing, gendered ritual roles, and altered states are described as social practices with recognizable conventions. The work remains useful for locating cases and terminology, although later scholars criticized Lewis's broad typologies and some functionalist explanations. It should be read alongside local and feminist ethnographies.