Visited by spirits – ‘Betwixt and between’ in meditation and solitary confinement in Myanmar

Abstract

This article takes as its starting point the similar, yet differing, experiences of hearing voices among prisoners in Myanmar. It discusses why the experience of hearing voices described by prisoners is regarded as an occasion to share compassion when it occurs during meditation retreats and as torture when it occurs in solitary confinement. The article uses the concept of liminality to make sense of variations in these spiritual experiences and focuses on three factors: the presence or absence of communitas; a master of ceremony or other guidance; and whether the experiences take place at the volition of the person or is forced upon him. This leads to the conclusion that solitary confinement, due to its forced nature and the absence of communitas and guidance, represents a situation in which the prisoner is at risk of prolonged liminality and social harm which can unhinge him from his interrelational self.

The politics of prison air: Breath, smell, and wind in Myanmar prisons

“… 3 For an ethnographic analysis of meditation practices in Myanmar prisons, see Gaborit (2020a). For an introduction to the philosophy of breath, see Škof and Berndtson (2018).…”

The danger of “the truth”

“…For example, when I as a psychologist and prison researcher create knowledge about prisons, it not only affects prison authorities on an epistemic level, it has the potential to affect ontological possibilities within prisons. Thus, when I argue that prisoners in Myanmar hearing voices in solitary confinement and in meditation is not a symptom of individual mental illness but a result of the structural violence of confinement and isolation, I am consciously challenging a specific ontology (Gaborit, 2020). I am challenging the ontology in which mental illness is an expression for preexisting dispositions and vulnerabilities and creating an alternative truth in which hearing voices becomes a logical reaction to structural violence rather than a symptom of mental illness.…”