How to Make Up One's Mind: Reason, Passion, and Ethics in Spirit Possession

What does it mean to know one's own mind, to make up one's mind, or to be of two minds? The paper explores some of the assumptions Westerners make about mind and confronts them with elements from the ethnography of spirit possession among Malagasy speakers. It challenges the assumption that a unified state of mind, exemplified by pure reason as opposed to passion, is the necessary basis for sound ethical judgment and action.