Of Polluted Spirits and Compromised Identity: Pentecostal Depictions of Causality and the Repositioning of Human Agency in Cameroon

Abstract

Thanks to the mass media, specifically television, Pentecostal discourses involving polluted human spirits and defective human agency are captured and disseminated in audio-visual form in Cameroon. These representations are about evil spirits residing in, as well as corrupting, the personality of innocent individuals. Victims of evil spirits are portrayed as colonized vessels incapable of exercising agency without the intervention of an all-powerful pastor. In this article, I expose the ways in which these representations of malevolent forces – that are strongly connected to aspects of African non-church religious beliefs – influence conversations between viewers, particularly to the extent that they express doubt about whether these forces really do affect people’s agency. The narratives doubting human agency as described in this article draw from Emmanuel TV representations of causality. This is further grounded in Cameroonians’ desire to align their spirits with benevolent forces through the intervention of pastor TB Joshua.