Becoming a spirit medium: initiatory learning and the self in the Vale do Amanhecer

Drawing on ethnographic data from the Brazilian mediumistic religion known as Vale do Amanhecer (Valley of the Dawn), this article addresses the learning process at the core of mediumistic development. The process of learning is here approached as a multi-layered experience, which is embodied, intuitive, performative, conceptual and inter-subjective. I will illustrate how the relationship between mediums and spirits is established in trance states through what Thomas Csordas calls a ‘multi-sensory imagery’. The discussion examines the concurrence of emotions, feelings, somatosensory experience and doctrinal discourses in developing mediumistic skills, which simultaneously engenders the attributes of extendability and multi-dimensionality that ground the notion of the self, informing the conceptualisation of trance.