Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Essay

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spirit catches you and you fall down.

Notions of epilepsy amongst the Hmong nation are diametrically different to those of the West.

The Hmong believe that epileptic individuals are particularly fancied by malevolent spirits (called 'dabs') that enter their bodies, make them sick, and allow them to communicate with the spirit realm in order to serve as mediums to help others in their present existence and to communicate with those who are dead.

This religious belief is called shamanistic animism, which asserts that malevolent spirits are constantly seeking human souls to inhabit, particularly those of vulnerable or unloved children (although Lia, in this case, was the favorite child) and that epilepsy is but one instance of the spirit's inhabiting the human body.

In Hmong culture, epilepsy is referred to as quag deb peg (I.e. "The spirit catches you and you fall down.").

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Perceived as an honorable condition, the epileptic individual is obligated, by his or her culture, to use these phenomena in order to help others.

In fact, many Hmong shamans are epileptics, and achieve acclaim as physical and spirit healers for the physically and emotionally sick individuals of their cultures. Recipients of their help are, sometimes, helped. It may be due to the fact that impact of their treatment acts as placebo. Nonetheless, efficacious results reinforce cultural beliefs about healing characteristics that epileptics possess. As a result of their belief in this process, Hmong individuals would certainly be against western medical interventions that seek to cure epilepsy in any which way or manner.

Inclusive amongst other rituals and customs that contradict western medical tradition, is the fact that some Hmong perform traditional animal sacrifice, related, too, to cultural myths of….....

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