Spirit-spouse (formal marriage, not stated as consummated in dreams -- may be in waking "visions" instead)
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AFRICA
“The spirit possession is interpreted by diviners, and in most cases the interpretation is expressed in terms of “marriage” to the spirits.”
Elizabeth & Paul Adjin-Tettey : “Akan Religion”, p. 214 . In :- Jordan Paper (ed.) : Through the Earth Darkly. Continuum, NY, 1999. pp. 207-218.
In "the Kalabari religion suggest that women married to water-spirits tend to experience difficulties having children and that ‘such women are difficult to control, unamenable to household routine, and so make bad wives’"(Horton 1969, p. 38 -- quoted in "Gamba Spirits", p. 355).
Horton, R. 1969 : "The types of spirit possession in Kalabari religion". In :- J. Beattie & J. Middleton (edd.) : Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa. London: Routledge. pp. 14-49.
There are in Gorongosa two kinds of marriages of humans with possessing-spirits, both whereof allow simultaneous marriage of the spirit-possessed human with another human : nfukua spirit-marriage (which for a woman spirit-medium "introduced the rule of matrilocal residence, and her fiancé had to live in her parents’ madembe" -- p. 369, n. 3), and the gamba spirit-marriage (which for a woman spirit-medium required patrilocal marriage, so that she resided at her fiancé parents’ madembe). For both of these two types of marriages, explicit permission must be obtained from the spirit for concurrent marriage to a living human.
Victor Igreja; Be´atrice Dias-Lambranca; & Annemiek Richters : "Gamba spirits ... and healing in ... Gorongosa, Mozambique". JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE (N.S.) 14 (2008):353-371. https://web.archive.org/web/20140611132008/http://www.gorongosa.org/sites/default/files/research/062-igreja.pdf
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EUROPE
In western Europe, “the point of all occult practice was sexual relations with the spirits of the elements. ... . ... all through the eighteenth and nineteenth century, there were plenty of magicians who devoted all their time and efforts to achieving such a “counterpartal marriage.””
John Michael Greer : The New Encyclopedia of the Occult. Llewellyn Publ, 2003. s.v. “Elemental”.
Such "counterpartal marriage" betwixt mortal and spirit is prominent in the writings by Thomas Lake Harris. https://www.google.com/search?num=100&safe=off&es_sm=122&q=spirit+%22counterpartal+marriage%22&oq=spirit+%22counterpartal+marriage%22&gs_l=serp.12...56637.56637.0.58620.1.1.0.0.0.0.107.107.0j1.1.0....0...1c.1.46.serp..1.0.0.qmxLCP-XdZ4
“a number of authors from Radomir Ristic (Balkan Traditional Witchcraft) to Robin Artisson (Witching Way of the Hollow Hill) have stated or implied spirit marriages.
It's also common with Faery Seerership and other forms of Celtic Shamanism to have a Fae wife or husband. RJ Stewart and Orion Foxwood have written on the subject.”
http://walkingthehedge.net/wildgeekhang/index.php?option=com_agora&task=topic&id=928&Itemid=94
“Sexual intercourse with a Demon is blissful ecstasy.” http://www.angelfire.com/empire/serpentis666/Incubus.html
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ASIA & OCEANIA
Shortzy of Siberia – “Shortzy shamans have a celestial wife as the main protecting spirit” Kalweit 1988, p. 140.
Jeju Island -- “a dead person’s soul is said to enter the sick person and speak. The simbang must then discern who the spirit is ... . If he does not, the patient may go mad. Sometimes the spirit of the dead person is thought to sleep with a patient of the opposite sex; this can cause marriage problems and even lead to divorce if the patient then refuses to sleep with his or her spouse.”
Daniel A. Kister : Shamanic Worlds of Korea and Northeast Asia. Jimoondang, Seoul, 2010. p. 163
Ipili of Papua -- "the omatisia woman (omatisia wanda, "the bog iris woman") ... was the boys' wife, ... this spirit wife" (p. 99).
"If a yange bird ("a long-tailed bird of paradise, variously identified ...) flew overhead ..., the boy surmised that the girl of his choice was ready to accept a offer of bridewealth. ... . ... the yange bird symbolized the woman's grass skirt" (p. 105). [Cf. the Borneo and Luzon island myths of the goddess whose skirt flew in the guise of a bird, which was shot down by a man, allowing him to capture and marry her.]
"the boy passed his omatisia plants on to a successor, a "newcomer" ..., telling the spirit wife to go ..., then, the spirit wife circulated from one male to another." (p. 106)
Aletta Biersack : "Batchelors and Their Spirit Wife". In:- Pascale Bonneme`re (ed.) : Women as Unseen Characters ... in Papua New Guinea. U of PA Pr, Philadelphia, 2004. pp. 98-115. http://books.google.com/books?id=t8Yl0IGg-M4C&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=
Enga of Papua -- "the sangai/sandalu bachelors' cults, in which the spirit woman came to the bachelors as seductress and bride" are distinguished from "the female spirit cult, in which the spirit woman came to mature, married men as co-wife." (p. 156)
"The female spirit cult presented the immortal sky woman to men ... as a second wife, who came to men as a bride, but remained a virgin with a closed vagina, giving men protection against the menstrual fluids of human females." (p. 175) {Normally, virgin women menstruate more than non-virgin women, because non-virgin women never menstruate while they are praegnant; and non-virgin women may easily be impraegnated immediately after each childbirth, so that they never do menstruate. Are the non-menstruating praegnant women really instead considered to be protecting men from menstruating virgins, including from virgin spirit-women?}
"Enga sangai origin myths ... he suddenly feels something like an earthquake ... . ... Suddenly the most beautiful woman he has ever seen appears ... and flashes of lightning with her smile, indicate that she is a sky being. She ... cuts a cluster of pandanus nuts, steams them them together with sweet potato ... to seduce him." Another man, however, on he attempting to seduce him likewise, shot her to death with an arrow. (p. 169) {With the slaying of a sky-woman with arrows, cf. the Skidi Pawnee rite of shooting to death with arrows a woman personifying the morning-star.}
Polly Wiessner : "Of Human and Spirit Women : From ... Seductress to Second Wife". In :- Women as Unseen Characters ... in Papua New Guinea. pp. 154-178. http://www.anthro.utah.edu/PDFs/wiessner/04%20Human%20and%20spirit%20women.pdf
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SOUTH AMERICA
“Future shamans also receive a spirit-woman from the spirits of the dead, who will become “his wife” (na de>du). This spirit-woman is said to be a jaguar (yanandu), who from then onwards accompanies the shaman, always sitting next to him during curing sessions”.
Joana Miller : “Body Ornaments and Alterity among the Mamainde^”, p. 72. In :- Fernando Santos-Granero (ed.) : The Occult Life of Things : Native Amazonian Theories of Materiality and Personhood. U of AZ Pr, Tucson, 2009. pp. 60-80. http://books.google.com/books?id=ucNxdSTOY10C&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=
S^ipibo, in Peru -- "A Shipibo-trained shaman described how only very experienced shmans might one day, in their visions, meet and get to know a woman who, over time, will become his wife and spiritual partner. However, there are strict rules". p. 237 of Daniela Peluso : "Ayahuaca's Attractions and Distractions". In :- Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond. pp. 231-55. with note 24 (on p. 251) : Fernando Santos-Granero : "Sensual Vitalities ... in Native Amazonia". TIPITI` 4(2006):55-80.
https://www.academia.edu/8725066/Peluso_D._M._2014._Ayahuascas_Attractions_and_Distractions_Examining_Sexual_Seduction_in_Shaman-Participant_Interactions._Ayahuasca_Shamanism_in_the_Amazon_and_Beyond_ed._Labate_Biatriz_Caiuby._Oxford_Oxford_University_Press [title too long for OpenOfficeWriter hyperlink]
“When a shaman initiates a journey to the worlds of powerful spiritual beings after drinking ayahuasca, ... He can enter into exchange relations with them ... by marrying a supai huarmi, usually an anaconda that appears as a beautiful woman with long black hair, her face decorated with delicate black designs.”
Els Lagrou : “Agency and Alterity in Cashinahua Image-Making”, p. 224. In :- Fernando Santos-Granero (ed.) : The Occult Life of Things : Native Amazonian Theories of Materiality and Personhood. U of AZ Pr, Tucson, 2009. pp. 214-34.
"A supai huarmi (female spirit ) appears before a man ..., and sometimes a supai runa (male spirit) appears before a woman ..., but sometimes the supai huarmi also fall in love with hunters."
Blanca Muratorio :The Life and Times of Grandfather Alonso, Culture and History in the Upper Amazon. Rutgers University Press, 1991. |
http://books.google.com/books?id=PtDqGzUo0sAC&pg=PA182&lpg=PA182&dq=
There was "Cashinahua woman shaman who married the snake spirit, who came to make love to her at night, and, because of her new spirit husband, no longer had sex with her human husband. One of the signs of her alliance with the spirit world was her deformed mouth, eaten away by the spirits, people said; another was her successful healing of fever in small children.
Among the Napo Runa, the supai, the forest spirits with whom the shaman interacts, enter into sexual relationships with humans, often long-term; one shaman was taught by a supai huarmi, female spirit, and his wife made pregnant by a supai runa, male spirit. The daughter of a famous Napo Runa shaman told an interviewer, “My mother gets angry when she wants to sleep with my father. The supai huarmi gets between them and doesn’t let him.”"
Stephan V. Beyer : Singing to the Plants : a Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon. Univ of NM Pr, 2009. Chapter 12 : "Sex".
http://www.singingtotheplants.com/2007/11/sex-and-the-plant-spirits/ & http://books.google.com/books?id=fTrRL_EMbxgC&pg=PT137&lpg=PT137&dq=
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