Page 318 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

Later I talked about these observations with other video ¤lmmakers. I learned
that spirits may even have an impact on the camera, which, although a neu-
tral technological device, could still be disturbed in its operation by spiritual
forces. At times certain objects simply “refused” to be shown on camera; in the
end, one never achieved the shots one had intended and sometimes nothing
appeared at all (cf. Spyer 2001). Another video-¤lm producer and director,
Michael Akwetey-Kanyi, also explained to me that, even if a fake shrine were
set up, that it was merely a copy was not a safeguard since spirits could still enter
the shrine. He would always be sure to use as little original materials as possible
in depicting the shrine and the rituals associated with it—water instead of
alcohol, starch dyed with red coloring instead of blood—for after all, he re-
marked, “¤lm is make-believe, so people will still take all this as the real thing.”
This statement aptly captures how video ¤lms claim to reveal what actually hap-
pens in the conjuncture of the physical and spiritual realms, and yet these “reve-
lations” cannot be based on the use of original materials; because the use of
original materials is dangerous, the ¤lms have to resort to fake representations—
even though these, too, may be affected by occult forces. As there is no clear-cut
boundary between reality and ¤ction, in the process of shooting a ¤lm simula-
tion always entails the risk of mimesis, thereby affecting those who seek to rep-
resent “the spiritual” for the sake of revelation (cf. Taussig 1993).
This complicated relationship between ¤ction and reality, and the insistence
that in order to make statements about the latter one has to make use of the
former, reveals an important aspect of Pentecostal vision practices. For, in a
sense, quite similar to the make-believe of video ¤lms, Pentecostal pastors, too,
with their strong emphasis on vision as a sign of the Holy Spirit and a source
of authority, need to develop techniques that make visions available in public
at the right time. A successful Pentecostal service, as pointed out above, depends
on a particular format: the Holy Spirit is to come down, here and now, enter the
pastor, and give him visions that will make the service spectacular and thus lead
more people to church. Clearly public visions are the product of a sophisticated
set of spiritual techniques able to turn pastors into seers and give them a direct
hotline to the Holy Spirit. In this sense pastors may be seen as a camera, and
witnesses as spectators in the audience of a cinema ¤lm.
Hent de Vries (2001) has advocated dismissing the binary opposition of re-
ligion and technology, which may seem to make sense at ¤rst, and yet, when one
delves more deeply into public religion to explore the interface between religion
and technology, the suggestion is rendered dubious. For religion to articulate its
message, it depends on mediation, and hence certain techniques and even tech-
nologies are required to make the invisible accessible. De Vries has eloquently
shown how miracle and special effect, magic and visual technology, “come to
occupy the same space, obey the same regime and the same logic” (28). In my
view the danger of video technology haphazardly invoking occult forces testi¤es
to the idea that video technology and Pentecostalism inhabit the same space
and act in concert with each other. Since pastors and ¤lmmakers both depend

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