In this article, I explore how the cosmologies of two popular spirit possession cults-Espiritismo in Cuba and Umbanda in Brazil-exhibit forms of recursivity and self-reflexivity. Taking my cue from Don Handelman's notion that the cosmos often contains its own logic of self-becoming, I argue that in these ethnographic cases, recursivity results from the interplay between, on the one hand, the spirits' expression of their autonomy from living beings and, on the other, the spirits' contingency for their effectiveness on human belief, representation, perception, and action. In Espiritismo and Umbanda, spirits intervene in human affairs unpredictably, throwing new light on anthropological and native conceptualizations of reflexivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]