Meyer 1998

'Make a Complete Break with the past.
' Memory and Post-Colonial Modernity in Ghanaian

Pentecostalist Discourse
Author(s): Birgit Meyer
Source: Journal of Religion in Africa, Vol. 28, Fasc. 3 (Aug., 1998), pp. 316-349
Published by: BRILL
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'MAKE A COMPLETE BREAK WITH THE PAST.'
MEMORY AND POST-COLONIAL MODERNITY IN
GHANAIAN PENTECOSTALIST DISCOURSE'
BY
BIRGIT MEYER
(ResearchCentre Religion & Society, Universityof Amsterdam)
'My grandmother no more celebrates the Homowofestival,' my friend

Adwoa told me when we discussed the currently hotly debated question
as to how modem Ghanaians could relate to their culture. The Homowo
festival is the most important festival of the Ga, the traditional inhab-
itants of Accra, in which they commemorate the end of a period of
famine by mocking the hunger that tormented them before. Adwoa
remembered well that, in her youth, the whole family would gather in
her grandmother's house, a modem villa in the prestigious quarter of
Labone (Accra), to celebrate Homowoand that the family elders would
sprinkle food all around the house and pray to the ancestors as cus-
tom would have it. Thus, to conduct a traditional festival in a highly
modern context did not pose a problem as such. What makes all the
difference now is that recently her grandmother, now in her eighties, be-
came a member of one of the many pentecostalist churches2which have
become increasingly popular all over Ghana. For her, the Homowofes-
tival has become a 'primitive thing' and she claims that she has moved
beyond such traditional customs because she has been bornagain.
'Make a complete break with the past' is an often-heard cry in pen-
tecostalist circles. This cry is diametrically opposed to current cultural
policies of the Ghanaian State which aim at a restoration of national
pride in the 'national heritage' and stimulate the revival and celebra-
tion of various 'traditional' festivals, such as the Homowo,on a national
scale. Schools have been assigned an important role in the conserva-
tion of this heritage and are held to teach their pupils the rich and
colorful Ghanaian 'culture,' that is, the myths, rituals, songs and dances
of Ghana's ethnic groups. The key symbol for the promotion of national
culture is the Sankofa-bird,a bird which turns its head and looks back-
? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1998 Journal of Religionin Africa,XXVIII, 3

Memoryand Post-colonialModernityin GhanaianPentecostalist
Discourse 317
ward in the direction from where it came. This symbol, which is para-
phrased as 'Go back and take it,' is understood as a call to retain valu-
able 'traditional' elements rather than allow Ghanaian culture to be
swallowed up by Western values. It is an attempt to rescue local cul-
ture against what is represented as the onslaught of Westernization and
globalization, a process which started in the colonial days and which
has been going on steadily after Independence.
While other groups in society, among them leaders of the Catholic
and Protestant mission churches, try to come to terms with local tradi-
tions and to reconcile new and old ideas in order to develop a genuinely
African synthesis, pentecostalists oppose this revaluation of tradition
and culture. They emphasize the 'global' character of this variant of
Christianity (cf. Poewe 1994) and the necessity to break away from
local traditions. The notion of rupture, I argue, forms a key to a better
understanding of current Ghanaian pentecostalism. The appeal to 'time'
as an epistemological category enables pentecostalists to draw a rift
between 'us' and 'them,' 'now' and 'then,' 'modern' and 'traditional'and,
of course, 'God' and the 'Devil.' In this way pentecostalist discourse
takes up the language of modernity as it spoke to Africans through
colonialization, missionization and, after Independence, moderniz-
ation theory. Indeed, a clear analogy exists between the pentecostalist-
and, for that matter, the Protestant in general-conceptualization of
conversion in terms of a rupture with the past and modernity's self
definition in terms of progress and continuous renewal.
With regard to the Ghanaian context, the analogy between Protes-
tantism's and modernity's language should certainly not be understood
in terms of a mere accident. As I show elsewhere (Meyer 1998), his-
torically conversion to Protestantism was the flip side of becoming
moder in social, economic, and political respects (cf. Van der Veer
1996). Protestant missions certainly propagated the new temporal sense
which Habermas-inspired by Hegel-found to be the characteristic
feature of modernity: Rather than perceiving life as a continuation of
longstanding traditions, moder subjects focus on an elusive present
that has be renewed continuously by breaking with the past, and are
to draw normativity from the present (Habermas 1986). This, at least,
summarizes the modern condition according to modernist discourse.
Yet there are reasons to assume that the adoption of this new tempo-
ral sense and the 'break with the past' which it entails is more prob-
lematic than it sounds, both in the West and, as we shall soon see in
some detail, in Africa.
For ever since Protestant missions were active in Ghana, they faced

318 BirgitMeyer
the problem that converts would not fully comply with the Protestant,
modem ideal to break with previous practices such as the worship of
ancestors and familial gods and reliance on native medicines. Such fail-
ures were described as 'sliding back' or 'relapsing' into 'heathendom'
(cf. Meyer 1996, 1998). By employing such temporalizing rhetori-
cal strategies, 'tradition' was represented as a matter of the 'past,' al-
though actually it concerned a life form which co-existed with the
modem, Christian one, and which had a dynamics of its own. Current
Pentecostalist discourse clearly takes up this temporalizing strategy.
By emphasizing continuously that being bornagain entails a 'complete
break with the past,' pentecostalists even celebrate the notion of rupture
much more than nineteenth and early twentieth-century Protestant
missionaries.
This paper looks closely at how pentecostalism seeks a rupture from
a 'tradition' or 'past' which it has previously helped to construct, thereby
engaging in a dialectics of remembering and forgetting. At the same
time, the focus of the argument is on believers' inability to make a com-
plete break with what they conceptualize as 'the past' and to become
'free' modem subjects, and on how pentecostalism allows them to ad-
dress their ambivalent stance towards modernity. The specific pente-
costalist attitude towards 'the past' is placed in the context of postcolonial
debates about the importance of the 'African heritage' to national cul-
ture. My aim is to contribute to a better understanding not only of the
popularity of pentecostalism in Africa, but also of the relationship
between religion, memory and modernity in a globalizing world.
in Ghana:war againstSatan
Pentecostalism
I became acquainted with the pentecostalist movement in Ghana
through my study of a split in the EvangelicalPresbyterian Church(EPC)
during my fieldwork among the Peki Ewe in the Volta Region, about
150 km northeast of Ghana's capital Accra. The EPC is a former mis-
sion church that grew from the evangelizing efforts of German Pietist
missionaries of the Norddeutsche who worked among the
Missionsgesellschaft
Ewe of southeastern Ghana and southern Togo since the second half
of the nineteenth century (cf. Meyer 1996, 1998). At two points in time,
conflict arose between EPC leaders and members of a prayer group,
and eventually led to secession. In 1960, due to a conflict over prayer
healing, an independent Spiritual church called Agbelengor(later The
Lord'sPentecostalChurch)was formed after a split in the congregation of
Churchin Peki Blengo.
the EvangelicalPresbyterian
In attempting to avoid the loss of ever more members to similar

andPost-colonial
Mermoy in Ghanaian
Modernity Pentecostalist
Discourse 319
churches, by the end of the 1970s the EPC began to Africanize its
liturgy and accepted a pentecostally oriented prayer group within the
church. In order to extend the project of Africanization to the doc-
trine, in the 1980s the church leader Noah K. Dzobo started to develop
an African theology that would do justice to African culture and religion
(e.g., 1988a, 1988b, 1992, n.d.; cf. also Meyer 1992, 1998: chapter 5).
While most local EPC pastors simply ignored this new theology, the
prayer group opposed this positive valuation of Ewe religion. To its
members, the determined, positive incorporation of tradition boiled
down to the invitation of Satan himself into the church. In this conflict,
Pentecostalization was opposed to Africanization. That the conflict took
place along these lines should, however, not blind us to the fact that
the proponents of Pentecostalization stood much closer to traditional
worship than they themselves were prepared to acknowledge. Exactly
because they regarded local gods and spirits as really existing agents
of Satan, they strove to exclude them with so much vigour, thereby
placing themselves in a tradition of Africanization 'from below' which
was developed by the first Ewe converts and which had much in com-
mon with African cults propagating radical cleansing (cf. Meyer 1992
for a detailed analysis).
The members of the prayer group eventually split away from the
EPC and formed a church of their own: the Evangelical Church
Presbyterian
'of Ghana'(EPC 'of Ghana'). This choice of name shows that the seces-
sionists regard themselves as the true custodians of the missionary her-
itage. Indeed, diabolization of Ewe religion was a characteristic feature
of missionary discourse, which represented conversion to Christianity
as a turn away from the power of the Devil and his agents, that is, the
local gods (cf. Meyer 1992, 1996). In its attempt to renew the church,
the EPC 'of Ghana' placed itself in the missionary tradition and, at
the same time, took current pentecostalism as a model.3
Of course, this turn towards pentecostalism is not a mere local affair.
In recent years, in Ghana the growth of the number of pentecostalist
churches and of their members has been phenomenal.4 This increase
in membership took place at the expense of that of mission churches
and of African independent or Spiritual churches. The pentecostalists
differ from the Spiritual churches, importantly, in that they do not
indulge in any form of nostalgia-there are no attempts, in Fernandez
terms, to 'return to the whole' (Fernandez 1982). They claim to rely
on the Word alone and reject the use of religious objects such as par-
ticular gowns, candles, incense-a practice condemned as worship of
idols, or even as 'occultic.'5
Pentecostalist churches have a strong appeal both in rural and urban

320 BirgitMeyer
areas and to members of all classes. Many people initially approach a

pentecostalist church in order to solve problems related to health and
wealth, and in many cases move from one church to another until the
desired result is achieved. Yet satisfaction about the improvement of
one's situation alone cannot account for a person's decision to become
a member of a pentecostalist church. Certainly the specific perspective
on the world with its emphasis on individual salvation in the Here-
after and prosperity in this world, the distinctive, spiritual form of
pentecostalist worship, and the plenitude of congregational activities also
play an important role in a person's decision to stay on.
Most members are either middle-aged married women, who often
have to rely on themselves and take care of their children without
receiving much assiStance from their (absent and/or jobless) husbands,
or young educated men and women, that is, people worrying about
their future life and experiencing a great gap between dreams and
actual possibilities. As the pentecostal churches, in the same way as the
mission churches, strongly oppose the practice of polygamy and limit
participation in the Holy Communion to first wives and non-polyga-
mous husbands, they are not attractive to men and women who fail
to live up to Christian marriage norms. In terms of social placement,
these churches are most attractive to people who attempt to move
upward economically, mainly by business and trade, yet have rela-
tively little say in the male-oriented gerontocratic power structure which
still is of great importance in Ghanaian society. Many of them seek to
liberate themselves socially and economically from their extended
families and to be successful in life independently. The pentecostalist
churches offer them a new individualist ethics which matches their
aspirations to achieve power and esteem irrespective of age and origin.
Next to pentecostalist churches of the older type represented by
denominations such as the Churchof Pentecost,the ApostolicChurchand
the Assembliesof God,6a newer type of pentecostalism recently emerged
especially in urban areas. Called 'charismatic' and including organiza-
tions such as Dr. Mensa Otabil's International CentralGospelChurch,Bishop
Duncan William's ChristianAction Faith Ministries and Rev. Sam K.
Ankrah's International Bible WorshipCentre,these churches were founded
by Ghanaians in the mid 1980s, are strongly internationally oriented,
and have branches in Europe and the USA (cf. Gifford 1994; Van Dijk
1997). The new 'charismatic' churches especially appeal to young and
middle-aged people of both sexes for whom success in life is not a mere
dream and who have started to prosper, often by being involved in
international trade.

andPost-colonial
Menmoy in Ghanaian
Discourse 321
After my first encounter with Ghanaian pentecostalism in Peki, I had

ample opportunity to visit pentecostalist churches in other parts of the
country, especially Accra, and to talk to members of these churches.
Moreover, there is a plethora of popular media such as books, maga-
zines, tapes and video films which reproduce a certain distinctively pen-
tecostalist message. Although differences exist especially between the
older and newer type of pentecostalism, these churches definitely share
a number of characteristic features which distinguish them from ortho-
dox mission churches. Hence it is possible for pentecostalists to commu-
nicate about certain views of the world irrespective of their particular
denomination. Indeed, denominationalism as such is regarded as sin-
ful in these churches, for one pentecostalist group should not claim to
be holier or better than any other.7 For that reason, I believe that there
is a sound base for an analysis of pentecostalism in Ghana in more
general terms (though, of course, ethnographic studies of particular
churches are also important). In this essay I draw on observations made
during my research both in Peki in 1991/92 and in Accra in 1996.
What, then, makes pentecostalism so special that it is justified to set
aside differences between churches and approach it as one cultural com-
plex? Pentecostalist churches all share a particular set of religious ideas
and practices, such as baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues
(glossolalia), divine healing, and a strong emphasis on personal prayers.
Their services have a similar liturgic form, and congregational life is
organized along more or less the same patterns (cf. Meyer 1998: chap-
ter 6). Also, they share an elaborate discourse on the Devil and demons,
and offer rituals during which these powers of darkness manifest them-
selves and are exorcised-a practice called deliverance.Deliverance is
organized during weekly prayer meetings, public 'crusades' and prayer
services on the national level. Many pentecostal churches also run so-
called 'prayer camps' where people with persistent troubles receive long-
term treatment and where large deliverance sessions are organized at
regular times open to anyone who feels in need of healing or protection.
Clearly, deliverance, which is conceptualized as a 'spiritual'fight between
God and Satan and which aims at a person's liberation from all forms
of 'occultic' bondage, is the feature which is most relevant to the dis-
cussion of the notion of rupture which stands central in this essay.
Deliveranceand the urgeto becomenew

While mission churches such as the EPC maintain that conversion
implies crossing the boundary between 'heathendom' and Christianity

322 BirgitMeyer
once and for all, and that there is no need for Christians to look back
and talk about demons (cf. Meyer 1998: Chapter 6), pentecostalist
churches continuously dwell on this boundary. In their view, it is impor-
tant to keep on fighting Satan, who is believed to be operating in the
guise of traditional spirits. As I have emphasized elsewhere, it would
be too simplistic to understand this struggle against the Devil merely
in terms of a break with traditional worship. On the contrary, through
the image of the Devil, old spirits and deities are integrated into the
Protestant universe of discourse as 'Christian' demons (Meyer 1992). In
this sense, the precondition for a rupture from 'heathendom' is the con-
struction of 'heathendom' in terms of a fusion of old and new ideas.
Deliverance is not considered to be brought about instantly, but
rather is regarded as a long-term process. Even people who became
'born again' already, are urged to search their souls for the presence
of evil entities. The meaning of 'deliverance' has been explained in
DeliveranceProcedure, A Handbookfor ChristianWorkers(1993), a booklet
written by the EPC 'of Ghana' pastor S.Y. Kwami. The publisher is the
'Prayer Warriors Ministry' of the ScriptureUnion,a non-denominational
association which also runs book-shops with pentecostalist literature and
provides a forum for pentecostalists of various denominations. As this
text brings together systematically a great number of aspects of deliver-
ance, which I also encountered in discussions with pentecostalist leaders
and members, it is well-suited to provide insight into the pentecostalist
stance towards this phenomenon. Kwami explains that it is not enough
for a person's spirit to receive salvation and for a person's body to be
healed; the soul, too, is in need of deliverance:
After the spirit is saved, i.e., when eternal salvation through faith in Christ is
secured, the soul will undergo daily, continuous deliverance. In other words, your
MIND must now be continually RENEWED, your EMOTIONS must be con-
tinually CONTROLLED and your WILL must be continually SURRENDERED.
The reason is that Satan does not give up on a person just because he has become
bom again. On the contrary, he seeks to gain control and can only do so through
the soul. That is why the Bible says we must possess our soul. Immediately you
become born again, you enter into a battle. The battle ground is your soul. Satan
will attack your mind every day. He will invade your emotions with anger, anx-
iety, lust, etc. He will invade your will with disobedience. Each time you disobey
God you fall into Satan's snare. You don't need a new birth all over again for
restoration. You need forgiveness or APHESIS (which is deliverance), in order to
come out of his snare. Without this continuous deliverance of your soul, you can-
not grow into maturity (1993: 2/3, capitals in original).
Kwami emphasizes that in his view deliverance does not follow 'auto-
matically' from an experience of being born again. It is not confined
to a person's initial experience of renouncing satanic powers in the

Discourse 323
course of conversion, but rather is 'a continuous process in the life of

every believer' (ibid.: 4). Christians should be taught how to 'set them-
selves free,'8 rather than relying on the prayers of specially trained
pastors (ibid.: 23). He discusses in detail seven areas in which deliver-
ance is relevant. Through a close investigation of his views much insight
can be gained into pentecostalist attitudes towards 'the past' and gen-
esis of modern persons.
The first area concerns 'deliverance from the immediate past,' that
is, the life time of a person prior to his or her becoming born again.
Kwami emphasizes that a person has to renounce actively all past sinful
attitudes. He lists a whole catalogue of morally wrong attitudes which
include anti-social attitudes such as anger, hatred and criminal acts; sex-
ual practices involving pornography, masturbation, homosexuality, in-
cest, rape or bestiality; psychological troubles such as anxiety, inferiority
complex, heaviness of spirit, and grief; wrong personal behavior such as
self-aggrandizement, secrecy, prejudice, indiscipline, greed, and corrup-
tion; and, interestingly, also acute poverty. This indicates that in pente-
costalist discourse poverty is not so much regarded as a socio-economic
condition, but rather as a (result of) sin, while 'blessings of the Lord'
are supposed to materialize in prosperity. Born again Christians are
advised to get rid of the spirits which are held responsible for all these
sinful attitudes by obeying the Holy Spirit, possessing their souls, pray-
ing without ceasing ('become a praying machine'), witnessing Christ
through a new life style, and attending a good Christian fellowship.
Interestingly, past sinful attitudes are represented here as autonomous
entities still able to haunt a person even after he or she underwent a
profound change. Later on, I discuss in some detail the notion of person-
hood entailed by this representation. Here my immediate point is that
a striking contrast exists between the ideal of possessing one's soul and
the actual reality of war, in which a person rather is vulnerable to be
possessed by the personifications of attitudes relegated to 'the past.'
The second area is about 'deliverance from the ancestral past,' that
is, the past lives of parents, grandparents, and great grand parents.
Kwami explains that people will be punished for sins committed by
any of these preceding three generations. Many families in Ghana are
said to suffer from ancestral curses, and even born again believers are
not automatically free from these curses. For example, there are some
families in which all males become alcoholics or die at an early age;
others in which tragic deaths occur at certain times; still others whose
members never prosper despite the fact that they are hard-working. In
some cases, the women never succeed to get a (permanent) husband

324 BirgitMeyer
or barrenness, impotence, and complicated deliveries are common. In

others, madness prevails and many children are mentally retarded;
uncontrolled emotions, depressions, sexual perversions, nightmares tor-
ment the family members. Sometimes chronic diseases may be common
in a family or family members are married to spirits in their dreams.
Kwami attributes this type of suffering to a blood covenant made be-
tween a family member and a satanic force, for Satan, as the author ex-
plains, 'like God, seeks to establish blood covenant relationships with
men. This he did with our fore-fathers' (ibid.: 8). In stating this, Kwami
reiterates the missionary adage, that before Christianity came to Africa,
Africans were serving the Devil, albeit unconsciously (cf. Meyer 1992).
In this way, traditional religion is completely diabolized and represented
as a matter of the 'past' (though actually it is quite alive in the present)
which born again Christians are to 'leave behind' (though actually they
keep on thinking about it all the time), if they, to take up the theme of
pentecostalist and modern personhood, want to possess their souls.
In Kwami's view, the whole spectrum of African rituals, such as
chieftaincy rites, twin rituals, puberty rites, out-dooring, traditional
marriages and wedding, traditional festivals (among them, of course,
Homowo)are 'avenues Satan uses to ensure continuity with generations
yet unborn' (ibid.). The same blame is put on the ritual of pouring of
libation which is mentioned in one sentence with witchcraft, sorcery
and ritual murder. He advises Christians after becoming born again to
denounce these blood covenants explicitly and to inform the family
about this: 'Go to your village, call a family meeting and tell them that
you have turned back absolutely on these practices. Make your stand
known and stand firm on your declaration' (ibid.: 9). This declaration
implies that a person refuses to take part in pouring libation to the
ancestors, thereby refusing to take part in a ritual through which family
ties are symbolized and confirmed.
The reason why even born again believers may still be affected by
ancestral curses is that, salvation being an individual affair, a person
may have failed to renounce these forces personally in order to break
the covenant with Satan. And even if a person did so, he or she may
be visited by Satan over and over again, because he refuses to let his
people turn away from him easily. Thus, 'coming out of ancestral
bondage is real business. It requires time, effort, perseverance and faith
to overcome' (ibid.: 10). The emphasis laid on the difficulty of getting
rid of ancestral curses indicates the tremendous difficulties pentecostal-
ists encounter when attempting to sever family ties. Certainly they expe-
rience a tension between the continuous importance of these ties in

andPost-colonial
Memory in Ghanaian
Discourse 325
their lives and the pentecostalist propagation of the independent indi-

vidual. Below I shall return to this topic extensively.
Thirdly, Kwami devotes attention to 'deliverance from occultic bond-
ages.' He mentions a whole range of organizations which he classifies
as 'occultic.' Among them are lodges, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam,
Shintoism, Animism, Hare Krishna, Eckankar, the Theosophical Soci-
ety, Christian Science, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and a number
of African Independent Churches. These organizations are accused of
involving themselves in practices such as
astrology, spiritist healing, magic, juju, palm reading, astral travelling, transcend-
ental meditations, parapsychology, ancestral spirit worship, necromancy, pouring
of libation, Satan worship, fetishism, witchcraft, voodoo, mamiwater worship, div-
ination, sorcery, reincarnation beliefs, marriage to spirits (ibid.: 12).
Moreover they make use of certain ritual objects such as talismans,

rings, black powder, the 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th books of Moses, pendu-
lums, candles, incense, amulets, and indulge in practices such as ritual
baths, invoking spirits, casting spells or charms to control the will of
other people. Thus diabolizing virtually all religions other than pente-
costalist Christianity, Kwami asserts that anybody who ever had any
connection with any of these organizations prior to becoming born
again has to denounce such links and destroy all objects related to
them. It is important to note that the 'occult' organizations condemned
here are attended deliberately by individual persons in search of knowl-
edge and power. These people do not regard 'traditional' religion as
equipped to help them achieve these things in a modernizing world
and prefer to turn to foreign sources of power. As such, they are similar
to the pentecostalist movement, which also promises individuals to
catch up with modernity.
A fourth area concerns 'deliverance from demonic control and influ-
ence.' Although Kwami does not consider it likely that born again
Christians are fully possessed by demons, certain areas of their life may
still be controlled by such forces. Comparing a person with the city of
Accra, Kwami describes these areas as similar to the suburbs where
armed robbers operate, while the seat of the government-a person's
soul-is safe from them. Taking up another metaphor of modernity,
Kwami advises born again believers to make 'a quick X'ray' (ibid.: 15)
of themselves in order to discern inappropriate, extreme behavior with
regard to food, sexuality, dreams, or emotions towards others. Such
forms of behavior may be due to the presence of demons who have
been able to find 'doorways' to enter the person concerned. These

326 Birgit Meyer
doorways are mainly created through a person's previous indulgence

in the practices mentioned earlier. Kwami offers a 'sample prayer' which
persons concerned are to say in order to cast out the demons dwelling
in them:
You demons who came into me as a result of the sin of bestiality which I com-
mitted 20 years ago, I have confessed my sin and have been forgiven and cleansed
with the precious blood of Jesus. You have no right to dwell in me. I command
you now, in Jesus' name, to leave me at once. Come out in Jesus' name (ibid.: 20).
Over and over again, the presence of occult forces is explained by ref-
erence to 'the past.'
Having briefly discussed deliverance from 'Christian religious bond-

age' (that is, denominationalism claiming to know the sole way to the
truth) and from 'chronic ailments and addictions' Kwami turns to
'curses.' This chapter reiterates much of what he stated in the chapter
on ancestral past. He urges people to be aware that a great number
of curses run through four generations and that they may never stop,
as long as people keep on practicing the worship of idols:
... if you also partake in idol worship with its attendant rites like pouring of liba-
tion, togbezikpui[stool, BM] customs (common among Southern Ewes), and a host
of witchcraft practices, enshrined in our traditional festivals, which have been cun-
ningly put under the umbrella of 'culture,' then know that you are extending the
expiry date to another four generations. If your children also continue in your
footsteps, then the curse will continue perpetually. This is the reason why it is
imperative for this present generation in Ghana to do away with idol worship
(ibid.: 33).
Present-day Christians are to confess the sins of their ancestors, thereby

liberating the dead as well as the generations to come.
I have exposed Kwami's stance in some detail because it expresses

polemically the uncompromising stance towards 'culture' and 'tradition'
of pentecostalist discourse, a stance already shown in Adwoa's grand-
mother's refusal to celebrate Homowo.In advocating a 'complete break
with the past,' pentecostalists define themselves in opposition to groups
in society which strive to overcome the ruptures brought about by colo-
nialism in general and missionization in particular. These groups do so
by placing themselves in a long-standing tradition which lies at the base
of their African identity: a return to African 'roots' which is expressed
by the Sankofa-symbolmentioned in the introduction. Earlier I referred
to the attempts of theologians of orthodox mission churches, such as
the former EPC-Moderator N.K. Dzobo and the Bishop of Kumasi

andPost-colonial
Memo?y in Ghanaian
Discourse 327
Peter Sarpong, to reconcile tradition and Christian faith; thereby trying

to restore the rupture brought about by Western missionaries' diabol-
ization of African religion. In a recent, much-discussed publication,
Sarpong, for instance, argues that Christian faith and pouring of liba-
tion are compatible (1996), a stance abhorred by pentecostalists.
As in many other post-colonial African societies, in Ghana the attempt
to overcome the legacy of colonial cultural imperialism by linking past
and present in a constructive way is subject to state policy. In a doc-
ument titled The CulturePolicyof Ghana(n.d.-but probably written in the
early 1990s) the Government declares that cultural imperialism entailed
... the total denial of our history,the denigrationof our systemof values and the
replacementof our essentialreligious,social,politicaland economicstructureswith
structurescarefullyfashionedto ensurethe perpetuationof the subjugationof our
people, the nurturingand enhancementof an inferioritycomplex in our person-
ality and the continuousservicingof both the ego and the materialwell-beingof
the colonial metropolisby the colonial structuresso established(n.d.: 1).
Far from propagating a blind return to customs and traditions of

the past, state policy strives to 'retrieve and restore our history and herit-
age in order to protect and project them for posterity and to mobilize
and motivate the people of Ghana by propagating ideas which foster
national pride, social cohesion and consciousness' (ibid.: 3).9 Clearly, this
is not a matter of mere nostalgia, or an adoption of circular notions
of time as attributed to Africans by Mbiti (1969).10Rather, pride of his-
tory and culture is regarded as a precondition for 'development' and
'progress.' In Ghana, I met a great number of artists and intellectuals
who supported this project and who were furious about the pentecost-
alist stance towards 'the past' which was at right angles to their own."
In their view, people needed to be conscious and proud of their heritage
in order to move on.
The struggle between these two parties can certainly not be under-
stood as an opposition between 'tradition' and 'modernity,' but has to
be seen in terms of conflicting views on modern identity. Despite all
differences, both parties share the view that 'progress' is extremely
important and seek to construct new identities with which people are
able to move on towards the future. In this context, both employ a
particular construction of 'the past'-positively in terms of 'heritage' in
the case of the proponents of the Cultural Policy, or negatively in terms
of 'curse' in the case of the pentecostalists. While the former seek to
construct a self-assured national identity by closing the rupture brought
about by colonial imperialism, the latter promise individuals to secure
their personal, modern identity by making the break complete. These

328 BirgitMeyer
diametrically opposed options are hotly debated in newspapers, as well

as on radio and TV. The state, however, does not exert any direct
pressure on pentecostalists to change their attitude. On the contrary,
as politicians realize that they need the political support of the pente-
costalist leaders, in their speeches they often resort to typically Chris-
tian vocabulary.'2 Despite their misgivings about the Cultural Policy,
pentecostalists are not against the modern state and nationalism as
such, they rather attempt to Christianize it.13
I am tempted to suggest that pentecostalists attribute more immediate
power to 'the past' than the proponents of the Cultural Policy, who
transform it into a reified national heritage and culture which forms
the basis for the pride of the nation. Pentecostalists, by contrast, fear
'the past' because it is a source of personal disturbance, rather than a
beautiful museum of national history, a lieu de memoirein the sense of
Nora (1989). For from being considered as part of a 'harmless "culture"'
(Peel 1994: 163), 'the past,' in their view, haunts people and stands in
the way of their making progress. A person may embody a demon and
bear the marks of past events without being aware of it on a conscious
level (for an understanding of the past as embodied rather than dis-
cursive, see De Boeck 1995). In this discourse, 'the past' is a dangerous
creature which refuses to let a person get out of its clutches. Persons
may not be able to constitute themselves as self-conscious persons of
the present, as modern people, because 'the past' refuses to let them
go. They cannot reach modernity's ideal of possessing their souls, but
are rather possessed and controlled by outside forces. 'The past,' here,
is not represented as something to be remembered and cherished, but
rather as a force imposing itself upon a person as an uninvited guest.
It is not a root from which to grow, but rather a trap which prevents
progress.
For pentecostalists, remembrance therefore does not have the task
to restore history in order to serve as a basis for an identity that may
well carry a person into the future. Instead, remembrance is to reveal
the occult sources of present troubles. It is a practice which ultimately
aims to get rid of 'the past' by becoming aware of, and cutting off all
possible links with the satanic. Hence Kwami's urge to search one's
soul continuously and locate oneself in the present, through a process
of continuous renewal. Freedom is imagined to be achieved at the
expense of history, by destroying all links with 'the past.'
Clearly, the pentecostalist stance towards 'the past' evokes the well-
known notion of tradition as a rope which subsequent generations keep
on tying and into which they are tied.'4 The imagery of binding is

andPost-colonial
Memory in Ghanaian
Discourse 329
powerful in this context. Deliverance basically boils down to the dis-

cernment and symbolical untying of bonds, bondages and covenants
with the satanic. Persons will only be able to progress, if they have liber-
ated themselves from 'past' entanglements, even if these links originate
from a time prior to their birth. As Kwami explains, liberation from
'the past' entails renunciation of ties created at different levels: of ties
brought about through participation in national and ethnic festivals,
through family rituals, and through personal connections with so-called
occultic practices and organizations.
Clearly, a person's liberation from the family, both of living relatives
and ancestors, is a matter of major concern. Kwami's text echoes the
fact that, in pentecostalist circles, much emphasis is laid on deliverance
from 'ancestral curses'15 and from the 'immediate past16 in which a
person may have been involved in libation prayers and participated in
various family rites of passage. Of crucial importance is Kwami's appeal
to born again Christians to inform their families-whose heads are inter-
estingly supposed to be located in the villages which are thus repre-
sented as the abodes of traditional culture and hence the Devil-about
the fact that they broke the covenant which linked them with Satan
through their family. Indeed, in practice the 'complete break with the
past' boils down to a break with one's family, and progress translateswell
into individualist patterns of production, distribution and consumption.
Yet, the pentecostalist ideology of 'breaking with the past' should not
blind us to the fact that, actually, this break is difficult to achieve fully
and once and for all. As a matter of fact, pentecostalists continuously
think about 'the past' and keep on breaking all sorts of ties revealed
through remembrance. The emphasis on rupture serves very much as
a temporalizing strategy-a 'denial of coevalness' (Fabian 1983), so to
speak-through which persons with whom one actually shares time and
space are represented as backward, as not deserving a place in the
modem world and as hindering one from becoming fully born again
and modem. Moreover, it is essential to realize that the alleged break
from 'the past' is only made possible through a practice of remembrance
in the course of which this 'past' is constructed. Clearly remembrance
here is used in the service of 'anti-memory' (Werbner 1998). This issue
will be further clarified in the next section.
Tracing'thepast'
Many pentecostalist churches, especially those of the charismatic type,
have adopted a questionnaire which the people who come for deliverance

330 BirgitMeyer
are to fill in before they receive prayers (see appendix).'7 Such forms
are adopted where deliverance is organized on a large scale and where
those seeking help are more or less educated strangers. The medium
of questionnaire is telling as such. Cataloging a number of sources for
psychological and physical troubles in the form of a list, the question-
naire narrows down the full range of personal experiences to a limited
number of types. In this way, people seeking deliverance become cases
and are attributed with exactly those illnesses which the makers of the
questionnaire are able to heal.
Interestingly, the questionnaire is not used for any administrative
purpose. After a person has answered all questions, he or she hands
over the document to the pastor in charge who uses it as a diagnostic
means. After the deliverance session, the person receives the question-
naire back and is told to make sure that it is either destroyed or kept
at a safe place. This suggests that the questionnaire may be placed in
the Protestant tradition of methodological self-search (cf. Weber 1984:
139ff.), and that its main purpose is to stimulate a person to develop
a particular self-image and a continuous practice of self control. Yet
even if no use is made of such a standardized form-for instance,
in the context of deliverance prayers on the level of the congre-
gation-the pastors in charge of deliverance pose the same questions
personally to their clients. In any case, persons seeking deliverance
from spiritual or bodily troubles are asked to conduct a radical self-
search and think about their possible involvement with satanic entities
in the past.
As the questionnaire clearly echoes the pentecostalist view on deliv-
erance, it is very well-suited for an examination of the practice of trac-
ing 'the past.' Having enquired about a person's particulars, such as
name, address, occupation, church affiliation, baptism in the Holy Spirit
and position in the family tree, the form focuses on past, and possibly
unconscious involvements with diabolical spirits. In order to reveal'spir-
itual exposures,' it first enquires about a person's family background,
that is, the church or religion of both parents and their possible involve-
ment in 'spiritual churches, secret societies, lodges, fetishism, occult wor-
ship.' Moreover, it asks about incisions on one's body and their meaning,
the names of family shrines, ancestral stools, possible chieftaincy conflicts
in the family and special stories concerning one's upbringing.'8
Under the heading of 'personal spiritual exposures' the form urges
the person to mention 'any spiritual churches you have attended' and
to 'indicate objects used in worship or processes you were made to go
through,' to 'mention any fetish or native clinic attended, reason(s) for

Memoy and Post-colonialModemniyin GhanaianPentecostalist
Discourse 331
going there, and objectives used on you or processes you were made
to go through and rituals you had to perform' as well as 'any secret
societies, occult, etc."9 Then the person filling in the form is invited to
go through a list of personal characteristicsand tick whether they apply.
These characteristics encompass excessive emotions such as anger,
hatred, bitterness, unhappiness, restlessness, cruelty, and stubbornness;
excessive fears concerning water, snakes, etc.; 'sexual perversions'; and
drug addictions. In the light of Kwami's booklet, it is obvious that all
these characteristics may be interpreted as a sign of demonic presence.
Another area of interest concerns 'strange experiences,' such as hallu-
cinations, clairvoyance, the loss of precious things, abortion, and sexual
abuse. As a next step, the form inquires about dreams. A great number
of dream images are mentioned, such as 'attending regular meetings
somewhere with some people,' 'going to specific markets,' 'cooking and
eating' (all these images, which, interestingly, form part of a stock of
traditional dream images,20are regarded as indications of witchcraft);or
the experience of sexual intercourse whilst asleep, seeing or playing with
snakes, swimming or playing in a stream (indications of Mami Water
spirits).21Not until after all these questions have been answered can the
person state his or her present complaints and earlier attempts to deal
with the problem.
Thus, in order to solve a certain problem a person may encounter
and for which help is sought, he or she has to think about the past
and about dream experiences. Dreams are regarded as a link between
the past and the present, between the invisible realm of the 'spiritual'
and the visible realm of the 'physical,' through which relevant insight
can be gained into current problems. Dreams reveal the significant
course of a person's life which may be hidden from his or her eyes
when awake.22
I have already mentioned that in spite of a fierce opposition against
'tradition,' pentecostalist discourse also incorporates traditional views.
Therefore it will not come as a surprise that pentecostalist and tradi-
tional dream interpretation fully converge in that both view dreams as
indicative of the presence of certain forces or as omens for matters to
happen in near future. Contrary to Western ideas, dreams are regarded
not as subjective projections, but as objective revelations of the presence
of outside forces operating through a person without him or her being
aware of it on a conscious level.
The main message of the questionnaire is that the rupture with 'the
past' can only be brought about by a process of remembering, in the
course of which existing ties are uncovered.23People are made to realize

332 BirgitMeyer
that the problems they encounter in the present originate in past ties
which they had already forgotten or about which they never had any
clear knowledge. In pentecostalist discourse, 'tradition' is represented as
the trauma of the born again person. Despite the emphasis on rejecting
'the past,' people are told that 'the past' matters, because it inscribes
itself into their bodies. Of course, filling in the questionnaire (or answer-
ing the pastor's questions about one's condition), is just the first stage
of deliverance. As 'the past' does not work through consciousness,
but rather uses other, non-discursive means to assert its presence, such
as dream images, bodily pains, or possession, it can be cast out only
in the context of a prayer session (see below).
Against this background, it is not surprising that the questionnaire
only asks about a person's actual troubles at the end. These troubles
clearly are regarded as symptoms which are effects of a hitherto unknown
origin. Healing is to be achieved by constructing a case in terms of
'linear determinism' (see Zizek 1994: 2), that is, by attributing historical
sources to present troubles. Gradually, people become aware of the
powers which are dwelling within them and which may expose them-
selves violently during the deliverance sessions. By becoming conscious
of these powers-the satanic Other within oneself-, designing a case
history and, subsequently, rejecting this history, eventually patients may
(re)gain control over their lives. What is at work here is a dialectics of
appropriation and rejection of 'the past.' This dialectics makes pos-
sible a practice of confronting links with the satanic in order to become
pure and free, a practice of becoming aware of one's links with 'tradi-
tion' and hence one's family in order to become 'moder,' a practice
of remembering in order to forget. In this way, pentecostalist discourse
about rupture allows members not only to approach the ideal of
modern, individual identity, but also to address all those ties which
they seek to leave behind but which still matter in their lives.
The presenceof occultforces in people'slives

Until now the pentecostalist stance towards deliverance may appear
as quite abstract, as a matter of discourse or worldview. Yet it certainly
concerns a lived experience. In order to grasp how people's experience
of the presence of occult forces in their lives relates to the attraction
of modernity and how pentecostalism mediates between the condition
persons seek to leave behind and the one they wish to achieve, it is
essential to have a close look at particular cases. The cases discussed
below originate from my fieldwork in 1992, but, as I realized during

andPost-colonial
Memory in Ghanaian
Discourse 333
my last visit to Ghana in 1996, similar ones still occur all over Ghana.
The reason why I make use of these cases is that a more profound
analysis is only possible with some amount of knowledge about the cul-
tural context in which they evolve. Given my expertise in the study of
Ewe religion and culture, I prefer to rely on Ewe conceptions of, and
attempts to get away from, satanic forces.
In the prayer camp of Agbelengor at Tokokoe, I met a fifty-one year

old woman from Avetile, currently a teacher in Accra and a member
of Agbelengorfor about twenty years.24 Her continuing troubles with
Wuve (the Peki state god),25which started when she attended teacher
training college in her twenties, brought her to Agbelengor's'National
Deliverance' in the beginning of April 1992. She claimed that she did
not know much about the worship of Wuve as such. To her, 'it is a
hateful and destructive spirit,' 'a menacing demon,' who 'captures peo-
ple to serve them.' Wuve was one of the 'false gods who come from
Satan, the father of lies.' When he appeared in dreams, people saw him
as a tall creature dressed in black. In her family, Wuve 'married a lot
of women-so you cannot get a husband to marry. Instead when you
dream in the night, you see a man coming to sleep with you and all
that.' Possibly, she believed, Wuve brought other spirits with him, such
as the Mami Waterspirits which are famous for their sexual activities,
because all spirits are connected with each other. A great demonic
network made it possible for a family spirit to call in other forces to
act upon a person. As a result of Wuve's approaches, virtually all the
women in her family failed to marry or if they did so, they got divorced
quickly. Wuve also carried the 'spirit of poverty' with him, hence nobody
in her family prospered. Wuve also visited her in her dreams in the
shape of different men with whom she would have sex. Her mar-
riage, a failure, resulted in divorce. In the past, Agbelengor
pastors, laying
hands upon her, had alleviated her troubles enough for her to return
home without getting terrible headaches. Her main problem, however,
remained unsolved: as the history of her family's involvement with
Wuve was not yet completely uncovered, Agbelengor failed to separate
her fully from her family. Of her family's link with Wuve, she knew that
long ago her paternal great grandfather had successfully approached
this god to make his infertile wife pregnant. However, at the baby's
birth, the spirit also entered the family: 'You see, spirits don't die, thus
when you invite one into your family he comes and stays. Only you
[as an individual] can try to get out of it, but still he will be in there.
He will be there until Jesus Christ comes.' In her view, Wuve had

334 BirgitMeyer
access to her (and other family members) since her childhood: 'Spirits
have no limitation. Even when you are in the mother's womb, they
can still trouble you and then get you. As you are growing, they start
manifesting themselves.' For a long time, she had refused to partici-
pate in family ceremonies requiring the pouring of libation. She was
eagerly awaiting her full separation from this familial spirit so that she
could have a good marriage and achieve prosperity.
In an earlier discussion of the role of priestesses in Ewe religion, I

suggest that spirit possession offered a possibility for women, unable to
integrate themselves as strangers into their marital family, to strengthen
the ties they had with their own family (Meyer 1998: Chapter 7). Once
such a woman was installed as a priestess of a local god [tro], she was
respected and sometimes even feared by her natal relatives as well as by
other people in town. Wuve's appearance in the teacher's dreams fits
Ewe ideas about how spirits approach their future priestesses. Clearly,
his appearance has to be interpreted as an attempt to possess the teacher
in order to make her his priestess, and thus as a force trying to relate
her firmly to her family. Yet, the strengthening of blood ties seemed
to be no solution for this Christian women who would rather opt for
separation. According to the Christian viewpoint, spirits roam about in
families and seek to bring all members, Christians included, under their
control. In contrast to willing hosts of possession, the teacher refused
it, and sought a full separation from the god, in effect, from her per-
sonified and embodied link with her family in the village. Freedom for
her, was separation from her relatives and being able to lead her life
peacefully as a teacher in Accra. Without knowing how she actually
lived in Accra, I understood through our discussion that her striving
for the spiritual liberation from her family was parallelled by a more
prosaic liberation in social-economic terms. Trying to succeed as a mi-
grant in Accra and by adopting the modern profession of teaching-
indeed, for a long time, thesymbol of modernity-she attempted to find
her way independently of her extended family. Like so many others in
a similar situation, she sought to close herself off in order to prevent
family members from asking for all sorts of assistance and thus intrud-
ing into her life permanently (cf. Nukunya 1992). Yet, the ties she
wanted to leave behind clearly manifested themselves through her
body, thereby reminding her of her history and identity and refusing
to let her go.
The same striving for separation appears in the following case, but
here it is inspired by the threat of witchcraft [adze].
ChristianK.,26a preacher in the EPC 'of Ghana,' told me the story

Memo?yand Post-colonialModerniyin GhanaianPentecostalist
Discourse 335
of his daughter, a young, well-educated woman married to a prosperous

businessman in Accra. Her only problem was that she frequently suffered
miscarriages. When Christian K. was called to see her recovering in
hospital, he told her to read Is 49: 26, 'I will make your oppressors
eat their own flesh and they will be drunk with their own blood as
with wine.' He fasted continuously, prayed to God to make this text
come true for her, and asked his daughter to let him know of any
dreams she had. The night after his return home to Peki, she dreamt
that her husband's grown-up son Ben and her own paternal aunt [her
tasi] approached her with some other people; together they put their
hands inside her womb to remove a baby. This clearly indicated witch-
craft. Later on she dreamt that she saw Ben and the others approach
the room in which she was staying, but they could not enter because
they saw the Isaiah verse burning on the wall. In the morning, she
called her husband's son to ask him what was going on. He confessed,
apparently, that he, his father's relatives and her tasi were joining forces
to prevent her from having a child. Her husband called together all
the people she had seen in her dream. While some denied their par-
ticipation, others admitted it. Christian K. attributed the witchcraft
attack on his daughter to envy: he suspected that the son of his daugh-
ter's husband and other relatives feared that the birth of a new child
would diminish their chance of profiting from the businessman's wealth.
Why his own sister was involved was less clear to him, but he assumed
that she was motivated by envy as well. Eventually, his daughter gave
birth to one child, but later on she had another miscarriage.
Both old gods and witchcraft are thought to operate within the frame-
work of the family. But while the attempts of gods to possess a person
are confined to people who have such gods in their family, adze attacks
can occur in any family. Therefore the fear of witchcraft is more wide-
spread than the fear of being possessed by old spirits. Spirits get access
to a person through blood ties, witches [adzetowo]ultimately destroythese
ties by feeding on relatives' blood and flesh. Among the Ewe, adze is
regarded as a destructive force motivated by envy on the part of family
members and close friends. Especially the paternal aunt is regarded as
a potential witch, who may indeed have some culturally credible reason
to be envious of her brothers' children because they inherit family prop-
erty and have access to the paternal home whereas her own children
belong to her husband's clan. But any other person may also have rea-
sons to seek a relative's downfall through adze.A witch may invite other
witches to participate in a cannibalistic meal. In order to get access to
a person, however, a witch has to make use of family ties. Therefore,

336 BirgitMyer
people suffering pains which they attribute to a witchcraft attack are

sure that some close relative is to blame, even though they may not
be sure, specifically, of the witch's identity. Adze is thus indicative of
tensions within the family. Here, too, witchcraft is 'the dark side of
kinship' (Geschiere 1994).
Tensions about property clearly are perceived to be at the heart of
the case described above. Here the tasi and the husband's grown-up
son Ben are suspected of combining forces to prevent a young woman
from giving birth to a child and thus meeting a condition for a lasting
marriage. Frequent miscarriages are often interpreted as relatives' at-
tempts to sabotage a marriage through witchcraft, thereby hoping to
profit more from a man's wealth and eventually his estate. Through
his prayers, the woman's faithful father sought to protect his daughter's
marriage, secure her fertility, and free her to make full use of her hus-
band's assets.
The two cases discussed both concern the perceptions of urban

women who attribute their troubles-one the inability to get married,
the other to reproduce and thereby turn her marriage into a success-
to spirits or witches which make use of blood ties. The women expect
pentecostalist Christianity to make them inaccessible to these entities.
The problems of these women cannot be regarded as exceptional, per-
sonal psychological disturbances, but are rather shared by a great num-
ber of others. Popular magazines and feature films abound with stories
concerning the difficulty urban women have with interference from
members of the extended family (both their own and that of their hus-
band) and their juju.27This struggle has to be placed against the back-
ground of a general trend among the (aspiring) middle classes towards
'increasing isolation and cohesion of the nuclear family.' This trend is
found while there is an increasing need for family assistance among
less educated people in the rural areas who find it difficult to make
their living (Nukunya 1992: 28). Thus, while the poor make claims for
family assistance, the more affluent try to eschew obligations associated
with the extended family and claim that in modern times one can only
take care of one's immediate kin. Given pentecostalism's strong empha-
sis on the importance of the nuclear family as a God-given institution
which is laid down in numerous publications, its popularity among
people who are involved in a struggle to close themselves off from kin
does not come as a surprise. Yet, it still is a struggle which is experi-
enced as problematic, not an accomplished reality. The perceived conflict
here is between a notion of personhood and identity tied to being part

MemoyandPost-colonial in Ghanaian
Discourse 337
of a family, and the striving to be a modern individual realizing a new,

independent life in the city. What impedes the realization of this ideal
is the extended family in the village, of which the women concerned
wish to get rid without being fully able to do so. This inability stems
from both the concrete pressure poor relatives put on them through
visits, and an uneasy feeling about full indulgence in a new individu-
alist ethic which runs counter to traditional family-centered values. The
fear of being bewitched by envious relatives in the village certainly is
part of this uneasy feeling (cf. for similar observations, see Bastian 1993;
Geschiere 1994; Rowlands and Warier 1988). These village ties are
regarded as matters of the past, which embody themselves through per-
sons beyond their will and consciousness and which prevent them from,
to take up Kwami's expression, possessing their soul. They form the
focus of the deliverance ritual to which we now turn.
7he deliverance
ritual
Deliverance rituals are attended by established members and also by
outsiders, who often have tried in vain to find remedies for their troubles
in the orthodox mission churches or at traditional shrines. During deliv-
erance meetings the exorcists, a team termed Prayer Force, call forward
all people with bodily, spiritual or financial problems. Each exorcist
attends to one person upon whom he lays his hand in order to continue
the work of Jesus on earth, who also liberated people from evil spirits.
The afflicted, while calm under the exorcist's hand, is considered filled
with God's Spirit. But if the person starts moving, this condition is
attributed to the presence of evil spirits disturbed by the power of the
Holy Spirit touching the person through the mediation of the preacher.
Often a person falls down and starts to vomit or to move in a particular
way so that it is easy for the exorcists to gather which spirit manifests
itself through him or her.28 The person may also become aggressive
and assault the pastors, whose only answer is a laconic smile or even
laughter, thereby making it clear that men of God are not to be fooled
by and highly superior to the powers of darkness. Once a person
appears to be possessed, the exorcist calls upon his colleagues to drive
out the demon who is considered to harm the afflicted person.
This exorcism often goes hand in hand with the afflicted person's
symbolical separation form his or her family. During the deliverance
and the EPC 'of Ghana' in Peki, preach-
prayers I witnessed in Agbelengor
ers explicitly stated that they were 'cutting' the ties linking a person
with the family (cf. Meyer 1998: Chapter 6). Thus, Satan is tied up-

338 BirgitMeyer
pentecostalist discourse explicitly talks about 'binding the Devil with

a rope'-through the untieing of social relations between people. All
family ties are represented as potentially dangerous. How faithful Chris-
tians view the Devil's power over blood ties was summarized pointedly
by the catechist of the EPC 'of Ghana' Emmanuel Brempong in an
account of how he delivered a Krobo woman from a family god:
As long as you belong to that clan, to that family,and you don't belong to Jesus
Christ, the Devil has control though you may not serve the Devil. But he may
have control over you indirectly.And he will cause you to serve him indirectly,
but you may not know.
Brempong told me that, this being the case, exorcists always first ask
an afflicted person about his or her family. Then they pray in order
to 'break the link of communication which comes from the family. We
break it first. We break that link. Then the Devil can never supply
people to come and take away that person.' He compared this deliver-
ance strategy to American military strategies in the Gulf War: the
Americans blew up bridges and this made it impossible for Saddam
Hussein's soldiers to reach certain areas. In the same way, deliverance
destroys the links between family members. Thus, blood ties are rep-
resented as channels through which the Devil can influence a person,
even without him or her being aware of it. In short, the Devil operates
through blood ties, the Christian God severs them.
By symbolically cutting people's family ties, the deliverance proce-
dure subverts the bonds created and protected by the collective wor-
ship of particular gods as well as the bonds between relatives. This is
a distinctive feature of pentecostalism. Whereas traditionally, the fight
against evil is to a large extent focused on the restoration of bonds be-
tween people (see Meyer 1998: Chapter 3; and on Ewe religion see, for
example, Spieth 1906, 1911; Riviere 1981; Surgy 1988), Christian deliv-
erance basically unties them (see also Mullings 1984). The aim of the
deliverance sessions is to turn people into individuals who are inde-
pendent of and unaffected by family relations. Unlike traditional gods,
the Spirit of God does not bind together families, but rather turns their
members into separate individuals who are freed from the past and
able to progress.
At the same time, the deliverance ritual as such offers people a
forum, over and over again to reflect upon, and embody, their ties
with the past. At the heart of the deliverance ritual is the phase of pos-
session, when the spirits dwelling in a person express themselves. They
do so at the very moment when the Holy Spirit is supposed to enter
the person who seeks deliverance. This is the moment of the war

andPost-colonial
Memory in Ghanaian
Discourse 339
between the old and the new, a dramatization of the experience of

conflict perceived between identity in terms of membership of the
extended family and the striving for modern individualism. And even
people who do not have such dramatic possession experiences are
obliged at least to remember their ties with 'the past,' the familial curses
in which they are entangled and all the bad deeds following them.
Thus, much attention is devoted to 'the past' in order to get rid of its
consequences. In this way, pentecostalism offers an intermediary space
for members to move back and forth between the way of life they (wish
to) leave behind and the one to which they aspire.
memoryand modernity
Pentecostalism,
Despite Ghanaian pentecostalism's emphasis on making a complete

break with 'the past,' this stance does not fit the form of 'cultural amne-
sia' which Van Dijk suggests for the pentecostalist AbadwaMwatsopano
movement in Malawi whose members appear to fully turn their back
on matters of the past (1996). For Ghanaian pentecostalists, the notion
of rupture only becomes meaningful, because it urges people to remem-
ber what links them with their 'past' in order to forget. The break with
'the past,' as it were, presupposes its prior construction through remem-
brance. This happens in the context of the deliverance ritual. In the
course of this ritual, people are held to realize that they are in the grip
of 'the past,' which is represented as a fearful thing out of control, and
that they can only gain control over their individual lives-and, indeed,
become modern individuals--by remembering, and only subsequently
untying all the links connecting them with their 'past.'
Interestingly, here pentecostalism brings together two contradictory
notions of identity. On the one hand, persons are represented as the
products of their 'past,' on the other, this identity is regarded as imped-
ing the achievement of the ideal of the modern person who is fully in
control of herself. Through remembrance, the 'past' identity is constructed
in terms of links with others: a person is represented as part and parcel
of a chain of generations and a web of kinship relations. In this sense,
memory is 'a culturally mediated expression of the temporal dimension
of experience, in particular of social commitments and identifications'
(Lambek 1996: 248)-an act of identity-building. Yet, the identity con-
structed through remembrance is a negative identity, one from which
one wishes to escape, and which originates in a 'past' that a person
has to control in order not be haunted by it. The new identity of the
born again Christian is not simply built on memory as such, but on

340 BirgitMeyer
the rejection of all the links revealed by it. This new identity does not
emphasize social ties, but rather the independent, modem individual
who does not need to find positive roots in 'the past' in order to be
guided on the way towards the future.
The differences between the memory work of the proponents of the
Cultural policy and pentecostalism highlight the problematic stance of
modernity towards time which asserts the necessity of continuous renewal
and rupture from the past, and, at the same time, of constructing his-
tory and commemorating the past without becoming servants to it (e.g.
Antze and Lambek 1996: xxix). While the proponents of the Cultural
Policy assert that progress is only possible by commemorating tradi-
tional roots, pentecostalists claim that this type of memory work would
entail the full control of the present by 'the past.' In their view, being
controlled by 'the past' can only be prevented by laying bare existing
links and rejecting them, thereby depriving 'the past' of its power and
empowering the person's self-control in the present. What matters to
them is 'anti-memory' (Werbner 1998), rather than memory.
Yet, the continuous need pentecostalists have for deliverance shows
that secure control is difficult to achieve: all those ties that have been
relegated to 'the past' actually still matter in the present. Pentecostalism's
strategy of temporalization through which 'the past,' once revealed, is
mistakenly regarded as a closed period in a person's life does not actu-
ally work well in everyday life. Also for those striving to run away from
'tradition' and all the social ties and obligations it entails, these links
still matter, albeit to a variable extent.
Therefore it would be too simple to attribute pentecostalism's pop-
ularity in Ghana solely to its emphasis on breaking with 'the past,' the
birth of a new type of person, and progress. Rather than exchanging
the 'past' identity with its emphasis on family ties for a new, individualist
identity, it offers members an elaborate discourse and ritual practice to
oscillate between both and to address the gap which exists between
aspirations and actual circumstances. In this way, members are enabled
to focus on the ambiguity of the modem, pentecostalist notion of progress
which opposes freedom to cultural roots and, at the same time, asserts
the practical relevance of these roots-an ambiguity which also character-
izes their own lives and which they experience with their own bodies.
NOTES
1. For useful and stimulating comments I would like to thank my colleagues Gerd
Baumann, Peter Pels, Peter van Rooden, Patricia Spyer and Peter van der Veer, the
participants of the 13th Satterthwaite Colloquium on African Religion and Ritual, espe-
cially Richard Werbner and David Maxwell.

Memoy and Post-colonialModenmiyin GhanaianPentecostalist
Discourse 341
2. By 'pentecostalistchurches'I refer not only to internationallyspreadpentecostal

churchesof Americanand Europeanorigin,such as the Church of Pentecost
or the Assemblies
of God,but to all churchesin the pentecostalspectrum,includingthe so-called'charis-
matic' churches(for furtherclarificationsee below).
3. The PietistAwakeningof the nineteenthcentury,of which the NMG-missionaries
were part, developed into the Gemeinschaftsbewegung. At the beginningof the twentieth
century,a factionof this movementgraduallytook the course of Pentecostalism.Thus,
there is a line from nineteenth-centuryAwakenedPietism to twentieth-centuryPente-
costalism(Lange 1979; Maccia 1989; Ruhbach 1989).
4. Accordingto the last surveyby the 'Ghana EvangelismCommittee,'Pentecostal
churches (representedin the PentecostalCouncil) increasedwith 43% between 1987
and 1992 comparedto the growthof the numberof Africanindependentchurchesby
only 16%. While averagechurch attendancein the formerchurchesgrew by 38% in
the same period, it decreasedby 2% in the latter (1993: 16, 21).
5. This rejectionof ritual objects and negative stance towards'tradition'has also
been observedby other studentsof pentecostalismin Africa(e.g. Gifford1994;Marshall
1993; Schoffeleers1985: 21, 1994: 110; Van Dijk 1992). Yet one may even wonder
whether the supposed backwardorientation of African Independent churches (e.g.
Sundkler 1961; Fernandez 1982), which has dominatedanthropologists'views, really
forms a general feature of these churches.Work on GhanaianIndependentchurches
(Baeta 1962; Mullings 1984) revealsan aggressiverefutationof traditionalreligion(for
a discussionsee Meyer 1998: Chapter6). For a critiqueon anthropologists'approach
to AfricanIndependentchurchesas basically'nostalgic'see also Van Dijk (1998).
6. The firstPentecostalChurchestablishedin Ghanawere the Assemblies of God.The
first branch of the Apostolic Churchwas establishedin 1935, from which the Church of
Pentecost split away in 1953 (cf. Opoku 1990: 9/10).
7. When I askedpeople about the reasonsfor which they had become membersof
a particularpentecostalistchurch,I never heardanyone mentionany fundamentaldoc-
trinal issue (such issues were only raised with respect to churchesoutside the pente-
costalistspectrum).Rather,people said that the church they were attendinghappened
to be close to their home, that a friend had introducedthem into it, or that it was
here that they had been healed from certain troubles.
8. In order to escape satanictemptation,born again Christiansare advisedto play
sermonsand Christianmusic on cassettesduringthe night when demons are especially
active.They also are encouragedto deliverothers.When they conductdeliverancefrom
demons they have to make sure to anoint and seal the room, or even to 'disinfect'it
if it is conductedin a private home. Since pets like cats and dogs may be possessed
by the demons which were cast out, they have to be removedfrom the room (ibid.:
21/22).
9. Subsequently,the NationalCommissionof Culturewas installedin orderto pre-
serve traditionand to revivetraditionalfestivals.I am most gratefulto Mr. Mawutodzi
Abissathfor explainingthe commission'swork to me.
10. In 1996 there was a lot of commotionabout the Trokosi-issue, that is, the custom
of letting a young female member of the family serve for all her life at the shrine of
a local priestin order to counteran evil deed committedby one of her male relatives.
This custom,which is practicedin the southernVolta Region (Ewe and Adangbe),has
been attacked severely by the Christian NGO International Needs.Its representatives
attempted-quite successfully-to 'free' these 'slaves of the gods' by persuadingthem
to take cows in exchange for the girls. Governmentaland legal organizationssuch as
the Commission for HumanRightsand Administrative
Justicejoined the oppositionagainstthis
customwhich they regardedas violatingHuman Rights.This shows that the state does
not propagatethe continuationof 'traditionalcustoms'for the sake of tradition,but
takes into account issuesof human rights.Yet, state representatives struggleto make it
clear that with their oppositionto this particularcustom they do not wish to attack
'traditionalreligion'as such.

342 BirgitMeyer
11. For instance, the famous Ghanaian film maker, Kwa Ansah, dedicates his impres-
sive work-feature films such as LoveBrewedin an AfiicanPot, HeritageAfrica,and the doc-
umentary film Crossroadsof Trade-to an appreciation of tradition; by neglecting this
heritage, modern life can only end in disaster. In discussions about his films (organized
by the Goethe Institute, Accra, November 1996) he expressed despair and anger about
the pentecostalist rejection of tradition.
12. For instance, the Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings often alludes to the fact
that he views himself as the 'redeemer' of the Ghanaian people and that, in order to
do so, he had to 'exorcise devilish powers' (that is, execute a number of generals). Before
the elections of 1992 he attended a pentecostalist service where he wept and asked for
forgiveness for the sins he had to commit for the sake of the country. He also main-
tains close relationships with the 'charismatic' leader Duncan Williams.
13. This was very clear in the period prior to the elections in December 1996, when
pentecostalists organized prayer meetings in which they prayed for peaceful elections
and the power of God to infuse the state. Important in this context is also that certain
'charismatic' leaders, despite their firm disapproval of African religion, emphasize that
Western missionaries misrepresented the role of Black people as being cursed and
inferior and restore pride for African Christians (e.g. Otabil 1992).
14. An often mentioned Ewe proverb which explains history as an ongoing process
of weaving says: Xoxotonu wogbeayyto do, that is, the new is woven on to the old. In
his explanation of the proverb's moral teaching, Dzobo relates it to postcolonial debates:
'In this proverb "the old" stands for the "traditions of the past," and it is maintained
that the traditions of the past form the foundation of the present and so traditions
should be respected. The proverb is meant to develop a positive attitude to and respect
for traditional practices' (1973: 73). The proverb is often cited with exactly this inten-
tion, thereby legitimizing the importance of tradition for the present by tradition.
15. That ancestral curse was a topic of major concern among pentecostalists is also
illustrated by the fact that there exists a tremendously popular book on 'Ancestral
Curses' (n.d.), written by Opoku Onyinah, a pastor of the Church of Pentecost.
16. The notion of 'immediate' past as referring to a person's life prior to conver-
sion, is revealing because the very expression suggests that a person's past extends his
or her own life span and includes preceding generations.
17. I received the first questionnaire in 1993 by mail from my mentor G.K. Ananga.
When I returned to Ghana in 1996, I noticed that it was used in many churches. The
questionnaire was explained to me by Rev. Joseph Essilfie from the InternationalBible
WorshipCentre,a 'charismatic' church of the new pentecostalist type which devotes much
attention to deliverance. In this church, more than 100 forms were filled in weekly. He
informed me that the form was based on the publication I Believein Deliveranceby the
Nigerian preacher Abraham Chibundu. Unfortunately, I couldn't trace this book.
18. All this information is to reveal whether a person was dedicated to certain spir-
itual entities during childhood. For instance, if a number of children born to a couple
have died, the parents may decide to call in the protection of a family god or any
other spirit and mark their baby with particular incisions. The presence of a stool, of
course, is regarded as a sign of a family's involvement with powers which may try to
bring family members under their control. Especially in a case of conflict about chief-
taincy, family members may have recourse to witchcraft and magic and this is supposed
to bring about harm even to following generations.
19. Of course, this list of occultic instances is fully in line with the diabolization of
spiritual churches and African religion also mentioned by Kwami.
20. Rather than conceptualizing dreams as a complex series of events, there is a
strong emphasis on dream images which are supposed to convey certain messages. For a
similar conceptualization of dreaming among the Peruvian Quechua see Mannheim (1991).
21. Mami Waterspirits are supposed to dwell in beautiful towns at the bottom of the
ocean. According to pentecostalist imagery, these spirits try to tempt human beings with

Discourse 343
luxury things derived from the bottom of the ocean in order to turn them into spiritual
spouses. Once married to a Mami Waterspirit, a human being will experience having
sex or giving birth in dreams, whereas in actual life it is impossible to find a partner
and bring forth (cf. Meyer 1997; Wicker in press; Wendl 1991).
22. The critical study of dreams and dreaming has been comparatively neglected by
Africanist anthropology. For a long time students of religion in Africa confined them-
selves to mere documentation. For a recent, stimulating investigation of this phenome-
non, see Dreaming,Religion& Societyin Africa(Jedrej and Shaw 1992).
23. It is revealing to compare this procedure to psychoanalytic therapy, which, Antze
and Lambek explain with much insight, takes as a point of departure that we are 'never
really seeing what we commemorate in the patterns we repeat.' Hence psychoanalytic
therapy does not simply seek to 'dig up "repressed memories" but to uncover these pat-
terns and the active part we play in keeping them alive' (1996: XXVII). This is exactly
what happens in the process of filling in the questionnaire.
24. I recorded and transcribed our conversation, which we conducted in English on
2 April 1992. I promised to respect her anonymity.
25. Wuve is the state god [tro] of the Peki (Spieth.: 105-08) whom their ancestors
had brought with them from Gbidzigbe. There were two places where he could receive
sacrifices, a small forest between Avetile and Afeviefe near a stream named after the
tro and a large forest near Dzogbati. On Friday nobody was allowed to fetch water
from the Wuve stream, nor to work on or bury somebody in Peki land. It was the
common rest day of all Peki. Wuve was the only deity served by the whole group. Its
worship played an essential role in the yam festival [tedudu],the most important col-
lective ritual that was attended by all inhabitants. It involved the cooperation of the
chief and the Wuve priest, and was a politico-religious ritual aimed at the future well-
being of Peki as a whole. The yam festival, which took place in September when the
first yam could be harvested, marked the end of the old, and the beginning of the new
year. Due to the massive Christianization of the Peki area, Ewe religion became a mat-
ter of a small minority. In 1992, Wuve's worship was widely neglected and he did not
have a priest to serve him, nor any priestesses though which he could embody himself.
His shrine, which was erected in the compound of a family in Peki Avetile was kept
clean by a male member of that family, who was, however, not his priest.
26. I changed his name. Our conversations, most of which I recorded and tran-
scribed, were always in English. They took place on 6, 8, 10 and 23 March 1992.
27. My current research is on Ghanaian low budget feature films, which have become
tremendously popular since the beginning of the 1990s. In many of these films relatives
from the village are blamed for intruding and creating problems through spiritual means
(witchcraft or juju) in the marital homes of their well-to-do relatives in the city.
28. Elsewhere I describe in detail how Ewe gods and other spiritual entities mani-
fest themselves during the exorcism ritual. Since they embody themselves through the
person they possess by taking up traditional movement patterns, it is not difficult to dis-
cern the identity of the spirit concerned (1998: Chapter 6). During deliverance sessions
I encountered in Accra I did not notice such particular movement patterns. Rather, I
saw women behave in a very aggressive way and/or vomit.
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Discourse 347
Memo7yand Post-colonialModernityin GhanaianPentecostalist
APPENDIX
THE QUESTIONNAIRE
(NB: This is an exact copy of the text of the questionnaire,all slight inconsistencies
also appear in the original.)
PleaseAnswerTruthfully
StrictlyConfidential.
Questionnaire Ministration
for Spiritual/Deliverance
Particulars
A. Personal
1. Name:
2. Any special meaning of name:
3. Age: Sex: male/female
5. Occupation
6. Residentialaddress
7. Hometown
8. Maritalstatus:married/single/divorced/widowed
9. Religion/Church
10. Are you born again?
11. If yes, when and where?
12. Are you baptisedin the Holy Spirit?
13. If yes, when and where?
14. Positionin family tree:
a) father'sside b) mother'sside
B. Familybackground (spiritual
exposures)
1. Mention church or religion of parents:
a) father'schurch
b) mother'schurch
2. Mentionany previousreligiousworshipof parents,such as namesof spiritualchurches,
secret societies,lodges, fetishism,occult worship,etc.
a) father b) mother
3. Are there any incisions/cutson your body?
4. If yes, what is supposedto be their meaningor significance?
5. Mention names of family shrines:
Father'sside:
Mother'sside:
6. Mention names of ancestralstools:
Father'sside:
Mother'sside:
7. What is your clan?
Father'sside:
Mother'sside:
8. Any chieftaincy'palaver'in your family?
Father'sside:
Mother'sside:
9. What story have you been told concerningyour birth and upbringing:e.g. when
you were ill, etc.?
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)

348 BirgitMeyer
C. PersonalSpiritualExposures
1. Mention any spiritual churches you have attended and indicate objects used in wor-
ship or processes you made to go through.
Church objects used and processes
a)
b)
c)
d)
2. Mention any fetish or native clinic attended, reason(s) for going there, and objec-
tives used on you or processes you were made to go through and rituals you had
to perform.
fetish/native clinic reason objects used/rituals
a)
b)
c)
d)
3. Mention any contact with secret societies, occult, etc.
a)
b)
c)
d)
D. PersonalCharacteristics (tick as appropriate)
1. excessive anger, hatred, bitterness (yes/no)
2. excessive fear of water/river (yes/no)
3. excessive fear of snakes (yes/no)
4. excessive fear of insects (yes/no)
5. excessive fear of heights (yes/no)
6. excessive fear of darkness (yes/no)
7. excessive/indiscriminate/repressed sexual exposure
8. sexual perversions-masturbation, homosexuality, lesbianism (tick as appropriate)
9. suicidal thoughts/tendencies
10. unseriousness over situations (laughing unnecessarily)
11. Are you normally depressed?
12. Do you worry unnecessarily?
13. Do you weep for no real/tangible reasons?
14. Are you callous? Do you enjoy seeing other people suffer?
15. Are you normally in stress?
16. Are you ambivalent that you do not know exactly what you need in life?
17. Are you excessively stubborn?
18. Are you addicted to alcohol/drug/smoking?
19. Do you have any history of repeated criminal offense?
20. Do you often soliloquize (talking to yourself)?
E. Personally-experienced
strangephenomena
1. Hallucinations - visual (do you often see figures)
- auditory (do you often hear voices?)
- olfactory (do you often smell 'something'?)
2. Do you sometimes think you have known about or seen something before, but are
not sure when or where? (deja vu phenomenon)
3. Do you sometimes just know of things before they happen? (clairvoyance)
4. Do you sometimes have money on you which you never knew how it came about?
5. Do you miss your items often?
6. Have you every (sic) wore a ring you never know how it came?

Memoryand Post-colonialModenity in GhanaianPentecostalist
Discourse 349
7. Have you lost your engagement/weddingring under strangecircumstances?

8. List any other of such similar/relatedexperience
9. Have you ever caused abortion?
10. Have you ever been sexuallyabused?
F. Peculiar
dreamstate
1. Do you experiencenightmareswhen you are being pursuedby masquerades,ani-
mals, or when falling of a precipiceor ditch?
2. being presseddown and unable to move or talk
3. attend regularmeetingssomewherewith some people
4. alwaysgoing to specificmarket
5. Did you ever receive any gift in a dream or in a trance?State the nature of gift
6. Marriageceremonyof yourself
7. Did you ever see yourselfdead?
8. Have you ever experiencedsexual intercoursewhilst asleep, or in a dream?
9. Have you ever dreamt of being pregnantwith a child, or deliveringa baby?
10. Do you dream of seeing or playingwith snakes?
12. Do you dream of flying?
13. Do you dream often of cooking or eating?
14. Do you dream often of seeing and talkingwith dead relationsor friends?
15. Mention any other personalexperiences:
G. Presentcomplaints
State the nature of your problemsand for how long you have had such problems?
1.
2.
3.
4.
H. Pastmedicalhistory
Indicate any medical attemptat tacklingthe problemsstated and their results,if any.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Please keep this document to yourself,present it only during ministrationand make

sure you collect it back the moment ministrationis completed.
Thank you, may the Lord God Almightydeliveryou from the snare of the fowler,and
may he cover you with his Pinions.
Amen!!!!


Meyer 1998

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'Make a Complete Break with the past.

' Memory and Post-Colonial Modernity in Ghanaian

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'My grandmother no more celebrates the Homowofestival,' my friend

? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1998 Journal of Religionin Africa,XXVIII, 3

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areas and to members of all classes. Many people initially approach a

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After my first encounter with Ghanaian pentecostalism in Peki, I had

Deliveranceand the urgeto becomenew

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course of conversion, but rather is 'a continuous process in the life of

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or barrenness, impotence, and complicated deliveries are common. In

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their lives and the pentecostalist propagation of the independent indi-

Moreover they make use of certain ritual objects such as talismans,

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doorways are mainly created through a person's previous indulgence

Having briefly discussed deliverance from 'Christian religious bond-

Present-day Christians are to confess the sins of their ancestors, thereby

I have exposed Kwami's stance in some detail because it expresses

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Peter Sarpong, to reconcile tradition and Christian faith; thereby trying

Far from propagating a blind return to customs and traditions of

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diametrically opposed options are hotly debated in newspapers, as well

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powerful in this context. Deliverance basically boils down to the dis-

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The presenceof occultforces in people'slives

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In the prayer camp of Agbelengor at Tokokoe, I met a fifty-one year

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In an earlier discussion of the role of priestesses in Ewe religion, I

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of his daughter, a young, well-educated woman married to a prosperous

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people suffering pains which they attribute to a witchcraft attack are

The two cases discussed both concern the perceptions of urban

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of a family, and the striving to be a modern individual realizing a new,

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pentecostalist discourse explicitly talks about 'binding the Devil with

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between the old and the new, a dramatization of the experience of

Despite Ghanaian pentecostalism's emphasis on making a complete

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2. By 'pentecostalistchurches'I refer not only to internationallyspreadpentecostal

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Antze, Paul & Michael Lambek

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