Let's characterize the "band of *mitnabim* (prophesiers or speakers-in-ecstasy)" as we encounter them in Samuel I, Chapters [[Samuel 10 JPS 1985|10]] and [[Samuel 1 19 JPS 1985|19]]. What kind of people were they and in what kinds of practices did they engage? In the passages from Samuel, we meet the band of *mitnabim* as they descend from a shrine, probably in a high place or *bamah*, such as the one mentioned at the end of Chapter 10. What would their worship up in the shrine have looked like? Based on the descriptions in the Hebrew Bible, and also scholarship about the period, we can say with some confidence that they would have worshiped in a natural setting alongside standing stones, sacred *asherah* trees, and alters for incense and sacrifice. They would have engaged in ecstatic practices, sometimes described as speaking in ecstasy or speaking in tongues, which involve a trance like state of consciousness described in Chapter 10 as " becoming a different person" and "receiving a new heart". These descriptions seem to correspond to [[Nissinen on Prophetic Ecstasy in Near East|Martti Nissinen's]] characterization of ancient near Eastern prophetic practices as bringing on an altered state of consciousness sometimes described as "becoming another person". In our text in Samuel, this process of self transformation (literally the transformation of the self) is consistently tied to receiving upon oneself "the spirit of God", which seems to correspond to Nissinen's characterization of the transformation undergone by the prophetic practitioner as interpreted by the society as becoming possessed by a deity. We know from many biblical depictions, including the text from Samuel in which the band of prophets is pictured as descending from the shrine while playing musical instruments, that music and song were part of prophetic practice (think also of Miriam the Prophetess, with her tambourine, dance and song, at the parting of the Red Sea). So it seems likely that in the sacred grove, amidst [the mind-altering smoke](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cannabis-found-altar-ancient-israeli-shrine-180975016/) wafting up from the sacrificial fire, the band of prophets would have played their instruments as they sang, chanted and prayed. What might they have been chanting? Given the central significance of divine names in Canaanite-Israelite tradition, and the use of divine names in ritual contents in Psalms and later Jewish practice, it seems likely that the *mitnabim* were chanting divine names in their state of divine trance/possession. Ecstatic chanting necessarily involves work with the breath, and probably also physical movement, and thus we find that the prophetic practice of the *mitnabim* described in Samuel could not have been wholly unlike the practices taught by Avraham Abulafia, in which one enters an altered state of consciousness by chanting the letters of the divine names while utilizing the breath and physical motion. We also know from biblical descriptions and archaeological evidence that most Israelites during this period were pluralistic in their religious sensibility. They worshiped Y-H-V-H alongside *baal*, *asherah* and various other Canaanite-Israelite deities, sharing both cultic practices and family life through intermarriage with neighboring peoples, as the Hebrew Bible testifies: *And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods*(Judges 3:5-6). So, should we imagine that the band of prophets shared their shrine up in the high place with their Jebusite or Amorite loved ones, participating in each others' sacred fires? That depends on whether we imagine them as thinking like the intermarried and religiously pluralistic Israelites described above in Judges 3:5-6, or alternatively, as thinking like those who condemned them. The narrator in Judges concludes the above description by stating *And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD...(ibid. v. 7).* So we know which side he was on. But based on the story, we also know that the more enlightened camp existed. In which camp were the *mitnabim*? Most likely, different bands of prophets fell in different places along the spectrum of opinion between these two poles. The *mitnabot*, as our fictional ancestors, would have sided with the more pluralistic perspective, because their focus was on love for humanity and commitment to [[The Huma'n Covenant]]. Another interesting aspect of the prophetic practice described in Samuel is that unlike the other forms of prophecy with which we are familiar in the Hebrew Bible, it did not involve chastising a king, predicting the future or composing a prophetic poem. The prophetic nature of the practice described in the verses seems to be about the altered state of consciousness ("becoming another person" and "receiving a new heart"), together with speaking in ecstasy and playing music as they descend from the shrine. In Samuel Chapter 19:24, the prophetic practice of the band of prophets also includes "falling down naked all day and all night" in the desert at the feet of Samuel. From another angle, the texts also teach us something about the social status of the prophetic band. If we accept one scholarly interpretation of the question posed by passers by in Samuel 10:12 *And who are their fathers*, as way of saying derisively that their fathers are nobody special, then the *mitnabim* are not the children of notables, unlike Saul who is known as the son of Kish. The fact that they do things like roll around naked in the desert might explain why commentators say that the verb/adjective that describes them, *mitnabim*, is sometimes pejorative, and used colloquially to mean not prophetic – but crazy. And so it seems that while anything associated with the Hebrew root of prophecy, נבא, carries some gravitas in Israelite society, the *mitnabim* are a counter-culture, not the social elite who wield economic and political power, nor are they the official prophets of kings, nor does it seem they are judges. They are not outcasts, because however weird they seem, they are acknowledged to be possessed by the spirit of Y-H-V-H. But they occupy a liminal place in society, one overly saturated with incense, ecstasy and divinity – and sometimes radical politics – for the very well-to-do. --- [^1]: