Luigi Monteanni 27 Kasurupan: Spirits Taxonomies and Interpretation in the Practice of Kasenian Réak Luigi Monteanni University of Bologna, Italy e-mail: monteannilu@gmail.com Published online: 25 December 2020 Cite this article (APA): Monteanni, L. (2020). Kasurupan: Spirits taxonomies and interpretation in the practice of kasenian Réak. Jurai Sembah, 1(2), 27-35. https://doi.org/10.37134/juraisembah.vol1.2.3.2020 Abstract Kasenian réak is a regional variant of the Javanese horse dances from Bandung, Indonesia. Commonly known in the archipelago as jaranan, kuda lumping or jathilan, the Javanese horse dances are a group of ceremonial musical performances during which a group of performers, led by a trance master, undergo voluntary possessions on behalf of spirits of the ancestors and other supernatural beings, under the influence of a musical ensemble. In different possession and trance phenomena around the world recognizing the acting spirit is often the key to communication with the supernatural being and treatment of the possessed. Thus, more or less different and precise taxonomies may be developed in order to do so. In réak, the possessed behaviour is interpreted by the trance master and members of the group in order to meet the spirit’s various demands and act accordingly to manage the possession. The purpose of this article is to examine the spirits’ taxonomies at play in réak as a case study. I do this in order to show in which sense analyses of the phenomenon of possession based on classification often fail to grasp the complexity and thus the significance of the experience. The outcome will underline which benefits can be obtained by a an approach that gives more value to a context-based ethnography of the possessed and its peculiarities than to the development of a general theory of possession with comparative purposes. Keywords: Possession, performance, supernatural beings, taxonomies, West-Java Introduction When we talk about spirit possession in the common sense, we usually employ the term in a way that does not take into account the different cultural specificities and taxonomies of the experience. Rather, thanks to countless literary accounts and their various renditions in popular, mass culture, the term is used in a way that brings together radically different beliefs and interpretations of altered states of consciousness, ideas of self and identity and, of course, other-worldly beings (Cohen, 2008). Beyond what may seem a merely linguistic issue, such a narrow and generic understanding of possession may even prejudice the validity and legitimacy of any in-depth inquiry on the phenomenon, implying many logical and theoretical biases that such an employment may generate. The latin word itself from which the term derives (possidere), shows how the Christian, catholic perception of the phenomenon as an undesirable state of consciousness caused by a nefarious supernatural being has shaped the concept in a very cultural-specific interpretation shared by the majority of the global North (Beneduce, 2002). Specularly, many regional cultures don’t have a generic term to address possession, usually preferring ethno-specific expressions which describe the experience more accurately (Azzaroni, 1994). But what do we really talk about when we talk about spirit possession? Academic anthropological studies on the subject agree that spirit possession “commonly refers to the hold exerted over a human being by external forces or entities more powerful than she is” (Boddy, 1994, p. 407). According to Bourguignon, possessions can be divided into two forms: “One form of possession causes a change in bodily functioning; the other form of possession alters consciousness, awareness, the