Between Tasavvuf and Spiritism: The Case of Enis Behiç Koryürek

Abstract

In this article, I explore the changing relationship between humans and spirits and between the self and the divine in Turkey by focusing on the encounter of the poet Enis Behiç Koryürek with a Sufi spirit at a séance in 1946. Based on the scholarship on religion as mediation, I suggest that the poet’s Sufi-spiritist practice brought forth a differently mediated self-divine relationship by forming links between different temporalities, modes of channelling the divine and forms of power and sociality. I believe this analysis of the case of Enis Behiç is helpful in understanding the evolution of ‘alternative spirituality’ within the country’s specific modernisation history, particularly due to the personalised, direct and instant relationship formed with a spirit without prior religious practice, belonging or guidance.