Modernity and Re-enchantment: Religion in Post-revolutionary Vietnam

6. Spirited Modernities: Mediumship and Ritual Performativityi n Late Socialist Vietnam

194 6 Spirited Modernities: Mediumship and Ritual Performativity in Late Socialist Vietnam Kirsten W. Endres Introduction In recent years, lên đồng spirit mediumship has been drawing an evergrowing number of devoted believers and initiates. Temples dedicated to the pantheon of the Four Palaces [Tứ Phủ] receive a constant stream of visitors seeking to transact with the spirit world for existential needs and economic benefits, and prominent master mediums attract large and diverse clienteles of mediumship initiates who believe they cannot succeed in this life unless they repay their debt with the Four Palaces from a previous incarnation by entering into the spirits’ service and becoming a medium (see Fjelstad and Nguyen 2006). From the bubbly liveliness of Hanoi’s overflowing markets (Schütte 2005), a veritable “spirit industry” has emerged: shops that specialize in wholesale and retail of ritual robes and frills, family enterprises producing intricate votive paper objects, musicians and assistants organizing their busy schedules over their cellphones in the midst of an ongoing ritual, and — last but not 06฀Kirsten฀p194-220.indd฀฀฀194 7/3/07฀฀฀10:37:35฀AM Spirited Modernities: Mediumship and Ritual Performativity 195 least — master mediums [đồng thầy] who cater to the needs of their followers and followers-to-be, prepare and perform initiations and other rituals, organize pilgrimages to remote temples, and keep the incense in their private temples burning. The upsurge of religious and ritual activity that has become apparent in Vietnam since the onset of the economic reforms known as Ðổi Mới is by no means unique in the region, nor is it peripheral. The resilience of Max Weber’s paradigm of an inexorable Entzauberung (disenchantment, de-mystification) of the world in the towline of “modernity” has in fact been undermined by a thriving religious fervour that has accompanied the (re)emergence of capitalist market relations in different parts of the world, including Asia (see Keyes; Hardacre, and Kendall 1994; Comaroff 1994; Taylor 2004a). Observers note that the dynamic interrelation between religion and economic development even brings forth “the growth of new forms of religiosity in the context of economic activity and wealth creation itself” (Roberts 1995, p. 2). The rise of “prosperity religions” (Roberts 1995; Jackson 1999), “amoral cults” (Weller 1994) and “occult economies” (Comaroff and Comaroff 2000) also indicates that salvation is often enough sought in wealth acquisition and the pursuit of worldly goods rather than in fostering ethical values. Moreover, the multi-faceted and divergent responses to the unleashing of the spirits of capitalism have significantly contributed to a critical reflection on the notion of a singular modernity. Instead, it has been suggested to speak of multiple, vernacular, alternative, or “other” modernities (Eisenstadt 2000; Pels 2003; Knauft 2002). Vietnam’s rapid integration into the global economy has likewise produced its own local sets of religious palimpsests through which people contemplate, negotiate, and performatively enact the dynamisms and vicissitudes of market relations. The rise of goddesses like the Lady of the Realm (Bà Chúa Xứ) or the Lady of the Storehouse (Bà Chúa Kho) as pop idols of the Vietnamese religious world (Taylor 2004a, Le Hong Ly 2001) and “spiritual agents” with whom people transact for economic and other this-worldly benefits (Taylor 2004a, p. 85) nicely exemplifies how such religious icons are continuously re-inscribed with meanings that, in turn, reshape human reality. The same may be said of the spirits1 who inhabit the Four Palaces. But the study of lên đồng mediumship also opens up a further perspective on how the vibrant developments which have been taking place on a multitude of levels in contemporary late-socialist Vietnam are played out through actual ritual practice. Influenced by Turner’s treatment of ritual 06฀Kirsten฀p194-220.indd฀฀฀195 7/3/07฀฀฀10:37:36฀AM 196 Kirsten W. Endres as a genre of social action that “confront[s] problems and contradictions of the social process” (Turner 1987, p. 94), recent approaches to ritual enactments have called attention to the role of performativity in the social construction and transformation of human reality (Schieffelin 1998; Köpping and Rao 2000). Rather than being concerned with how ritual reflects the social order and molds people’s social identities, a performative perspective on ritual emphasizes the creative and contingent processes involved in ritual activities and looks at how “people fashion rituals that mold their...