Toward the end of the eighteenth century, African-derived spiritual practices glossed as “obeah” came to be intensely associated with pathologies of the imagination, first by British Caribbean slaveholders, and then much more widely by others. This article focuses on how early writings about, and legal regimes against, African Caribbean spirit work were shaped by theories of mind-body interaction during the final decades of British Caribbean slavery. Medical ideas about the powers of the imagination had played a key part in the decriminalization of “witchcraft” across Western Europe in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This study examines how, conversely, medical theories of the imagination influenced the criminalization of obeah as a capital offense in British Caribbean colonies in the context of rising abolitionism and slave rebellion. I argue that the colonial association of obeah with imaginative pathology was used by slavery defenders to explain away high rates of slave mortality and to portray severe measures of social control as paternalistic. Reciprocally, the chapter points to how early writings about, and laws against, obeah informed theories of mental influence on bodily health during this period and thereafter.

中文翻译：

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18 世纪末和 19 世纪初英属加勒比地区反对“奥比”的想象力和法律制度

到 18 世纪末，源自非洲的精神实践被称为“obeah”，开始与想象的病态密切相关，首先是英属加勒比奴隶主，然后是其他人更广泛地使用。本文重点关注关于非洲加勒比精神工作的早期著作和反对非洲加勒比精神工作的法律制度如何在英属加勒比奴隶制的最后几十年受到身心互动理论的影响。在 17 世纪末和 18 世纪初，有关想象力的医学观念在整个西欧的“巫术”合法化中发挥了关键作用。本研究探讨了如何反过来，在废奴主义和奴隶叛乱兴起的背景下，想象的医学理论影响了在英属加勒比殖民地将 obeah 定为死罪。我认为，奴隶制捍卫者利用将 obeah 与富有想象力的病态联系起来的殖民关联来解释奴隶死亡率高的原因，并将严厉的社会控制措施描述为家长式作风。反过来，这一章指出了早期关于服从的著作和反对服从的法律是如何在此期间及之后为心理影响身体健康的理论提供依据的。