It is something like you get nervous when you see a traffic cop when you are driving.
1 Like
Well, in the sutta on loving-kindness, the devas in the forest, influence the monks but it’s not called possession.
1 Like
Possessing be perhaps you become a puppet of someone else.
Within the field of Buddhist Studies I haven’t seen or read critical textual research on the subject of spirits or even of the devas. It seems to me in this field so far we either have one extreme of those writers who except traditional Buddhist cosmology or those who reject it as a type of textual inclusion. However in the field of Christian studies I have read a few books who try to understand what the early Christian texts culturally understood when they referred to spirits, powers, and demons and such. One Christian theologian who has done this type of scholastic and textual work is Walter Wink. He wrote a book called Engaging the Powers. In this book he tries to
look at what the supernatural world meant to the people of old and new testament and then he tries to understand what the implications would be for us in modern times. I think it would be amazing if someone would apply the sort of
methodology applied in Walter Winks research to the early Buddhist texts.
3 Likes
Oh dear, Sarath! Are you going over the speed limit? What possessed you to do that? 
We are possessed by our cravings. It doesn’t really matter who is at the other end of the leash when we relinquish our cravings and emerge into Right Freedom.
3 Likes
What if a deva possesses a human!? Would the human’s spiritual faculties be enhanced, for that period? Māra, was a deva after all. 
1 Like
I have come to think of the gods in the suttas as being incarnated perfections of various qualities. For example, there are the gods who love to create and the gods who control the creations of others. Yet in that perfection there is no middle way. One is either Earth or Air, either Fire or Water. Their qualities clash in that very fierceness of their perfection.
So yes, to be possessed by the devas of perfection would be an affliction. Some might even call it OCD.
Having myself paid homage to and been possessed by the gods of creation, I find that well-traveled path to be a dead end. Now I seek a middle path. Even perfection dies after eons.
2 Likes
Wow, that video is astonishing.
Only the girls were possessed? Maybe a kind of mass hysteria letting them vent frustrations? (I really thought the occasionally-cheerful girl in blue was faking it until she slammed down hard on the floor.)
Are Buddhist monks chanting in the background?
Well, most girl are easily possessed than man, but man also can be possessed too. “Maybe it’s just hysteria”, maybe… First, you will feel like cold and pain in your rib, then you will lost control to your body, and finally you lost your consciousness. I don’t know if it’s hysteria but we in Indonesia often seen this, and sometimes we must take care this before it’s turn to chaos.
It’s not Buddhist monks, it’s Islamic priests who chants verses from Quran. 
3 Likes
You know, it’s funny to watch until you feel cold and pain on your rib. When you feel it, just keep your consciousness by chants something and go away as far as possible… 
2 Likes
Just ran across this study on madness in the Pali Canon: http://journals.equinoxpub.com/BSR/article/viewFile/26533/22670
3 Likes