jason price
I can’t remember now when the deliverances began. It might have been just then. It’s entirely possible. Sometimes glossolalia leads to rapture. The Holy Ghost sweeps in unannounced and starts chasing out demons. But it could also have been after Pastor Jiya’s sermon. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. What does matter, at least in this context, are the deliverances. For that is where we can begin to understand what is going on when we hear, “ Holy Ghost…FIRE! ”, the song which brands our ethical soundscape and offers the most salient clues as to what kind of “exercises in ethical self- discipline” might be enacted during the “visceral orientations” regularly being generated at places like HOGEM (Hirschkind 2001: 623, 640). Deliverances are the central element of HOGEM’s religious practice. They appear at the tail end of most services and can go on for hours. A deliverance can be understood as the process wherein demonic spirits are cast out of human hosts by powerful men and women of God. The practice often takes the form of an epic battle between good and evil, waged over the terrain of a single human body. Beliefs associated with deliverance are ultimately etiological – behind every problem, behind every sickness or disease, behind every bad behaviour or abnormality, behind all misfortune and loss... a demon is there. Demons are spiritual emissaries of Satan whose main aim is to inhibit human beings from fulfilling their potential as forms of life created in the image of God. They come in many forms – there are animal demons such as snakes and crocodiles, behavioural demons like the evil demons of lesbianism or
alcoholism, and humanoid demons such as spiritual husbands and spiritual wives. Demons infiltrate persons, often at night, particularly when people are engaging in bad behaviour, though this is by no means a prerequisite for being possessed, since everyone is susceptible to evil spirits, to some degree, at all times. The only way to ensure good health and good fortune, then, is to be delivered regularly after having received Jesus Christ as your Lord and personal saviour (in others words, to become born-again). Deliverances are conducted by spiritually mature people. This usually refers to a Man of God or his chosen cognates. At HOGEM, Pastor Jiya conducts most of the deliverances; though his junior pastors play important roles in handling less troublesome deliverances, and preparing serious cases for him to finish off. The mainstream churches in Malawi do not engage in this practice, nor do all Pentecostal churches. This makes HOGEM rather unique, specialising in a popular form of spiritual healing that many Malawians are curious about – due, in large part, to the wildly popular television productions of the Nigerian televangelist, T B Joshua, who does similar work. Music is an essential element for deliverances at HOGEM. During a typical service, such as the one I first visited, the worship team will collaborate with pastors and congregants to create a sonic environment that mitigates shifts into the altered states of consciousness necessary for deliverances to happen. This is impossible to describe adequately in words. What you have to imagine is being kind of entrapped on all sides by something like a shifting series of thick webs of song and speech. The experience
transmutes time and space into something less real – what the philosopher John L. Austin might consider a ‘felicity condition’ for deliverance.
Once the scene – or rather, the sensorium – is set, the work can begin.
Pastor Jiya circles the room. The air is thick with utterances, sweat, expectation. He closes in on one particular woman. He stands before her, cocks his head, and stares deep into her closed eyes. Her prayers pick up. She shuffles backwards. An usher flies in, pulling the chair out from behind her. Another usher fills the space left by the chair. She waits for the fall, arms outstretched. Pastor Jiya puckers his lips. He blows cool air on her face. This heats her up even more. Then – “In the MIGHTY Name of Jesus!!!” – he releases his grip on her head as she falls like a brick towards the floor. The ushers scramble to catch her head before its hits the ground. Pastor Jiya walks away – he is the hunter – there are more demons to be had. The body of the woman is lifted off the ground by the ushers and carried through a thicket of bodies and chairs, and set on the burgundy carpet of the stage where she moans and rolls and waits. Pastor Jiya marches on. He shoots the Holy Ghost into a series of supplicants – “BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG” – some fall, others don’t. Green plastic chairs slide here and there. Ushers run all around, trying to anticipate where the action will be next. Sweat pours down Pastor Jiya’s shiny globe. He looks around, heaving. “Has everyone that needs to be prayed for been prayed for? Yes.” He then turns back to the stage. Several bodies are there. The junior pastors have been working on them – “OUT! OUT! GET OUT!” they yell, patting and slapping
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