Dream and Charisma. “Theories of Dreams” 
in the Jamaa-Movement (Congo) 
By Johannes Fabian 
The importance of dreams in charismatic movements has been widely 
recognized. Two of the best monographs should be mentioned in this context- 
Sundkler, in his acount on “Bantu Prophets”, has stated: “In order to undei^ 
stand the religious life of leaders and followers in the organizations a stud} 0 
their dream life is essential” (1961: 265). Burridge, writing on a cargo cult m 
New Guinea, went even farther, making what he calls the “myth dream 
a basic hypothesis in his study (1960). However, it seems to me that bo 
authors take the explanatory significance of dreams too easily for beim 
granted. They rely - as everyone else - on some vaguely defined psychoanalyt| c 
theory. Their findings, based on this unreflected assumption, sound accepta 
but neither of them has really tried to put the theory on trial. Both SundKLE * 1 * 
and Burridge are mainly concerned with the content of dreams - a vel ^ 
important aspect. But content comes in forms and we would expect them 
tell us more about the ways in which content is being formulated, interpr 0 ’ 
and manipulated by the leaders and followers of their movements. From xCl 
own experience with dreams in the Jamaa movement I have my doubts t 
any of them could serve as material for psychoanalytic interpretation. I s 
deal with this problem later on. 
Leaving aside psychoanalytic theory and the problems of its appli ca 1 
the present paper tries to throw some light on the complex field of interm c 
* This paper is more an ethnographic contribution than a theoretical eSSc 
As it is being written in the field the author has little access to comparative literature- 
Field work on the Jamaa movement was made possible through grants from ^ 
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, New York, the Departm 6 
Anthropology, and the Committee on African Studies, at the University of Ch lC 
I should like to express my gratitude to Fr. Bertien Peeraer for introducing me 
Jamaa, and to Robert Lagamma for help in editing the paper. 
to th e