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Bakhtin observed that language is inherently dialogic as speakers respond to past utterances and anticipate future ones. Yet Bakhtin also noted that speakers can engage in monologic projects in attempts to unify voices and accents in the service of a single "carrier," such as God or nation. I argue that monologism and dialogism are copresent tendencies in speech and that they can be analyzed productively in relation to a third term, "silence," which can be dialogic as well as monologic. To attend to silence, it becomes necessary to examine monologically and dialogically oriented participant structures, pulling language ideologies and practices into the same analytical frame. I analyze the relationships between monologism and monologue, dialogism and dialogue, and silence in ritual speech at Spiritualist services. At these events, audience members silently generate healing energy, and mediums construct what I call "hinged dialogues" in which they have largely silent conversations with spirit figures and connect these conversations with living audience members who are compelled to respond in constrained but dialogically productive ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The well‐worn critique of "belief" as inadequate for understanding ritual motivation and practice has become a truism in need of reevaluation. For groups who foreground the establishment of truth in ritual practice, "belief" is a useful analytic term that brings together propositions and commitment to the relationships and systems articulating those propositions. Spiritualism is a religious movement in which mediums attempt to communicate between the spirits of deceased people and their loved ones. As Spiritualist mediums see it, their main job is to provide "proof of survival"—evidence that they are really in touch with the spirit world. In doing so, they "serve Spirit," working on behalf of those in the spirit world. Drawing on Bakhtin's treatment of dialogism and architectonics, I urge a rethinking of "belief" as a never‐completed project worked on intersubjectively. This approach to belief not only makes sense for analysis of groups who insist on the importance of truth claims but also liberates the term for use outside of Christian and self‐consciously modern contexts, as Bakhtinian dialogism is grounded in a model of the utterance and interactivity in general and not in any specific utterance or pattern of interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]