This book focuses on the theme of magic in Tibetan contexts, encompassing both pre-modern and modern text-cultures as well as contemporary practices. It offers a new understanding of the identity and role of magical specialists in both historical and contemporary contexts.
Combining the theoretical approaches of anthropology, ethnography, religious and textual studies, the book aims to shed light on experiences, practices and practitioners that have been frequently marginalized by the normative mainstream monastic Buddhist
traditions and Western Buddhist scholarship, which focuses primarily on meditation and
philosophy.
The book explores the intersection between magic/folk practices and Tantra, a complex, socio-religious phenomenon associated not only with the religious and political elites who sponsored it, but also with 'marginal' ethnic groups and social milieus, as well as with lay communities at large, who resorted to ritual agents to fulfil their worldly needs.
Table of Contents
Introduction, Cameron M. Bailey, Dongguk University, South Korea
and Aleksandra Wenta, University of Florence, Italy
Chapter 1: The Zla gsang be'u bum: A Compendium of ritual magic and sorcery, Amanda Nichole Brown, Florida State University, USA
Chapter 2: Magical Results of the Rituals in the Tara-mula-kalpa's Continuation Tantra, Susan Landesman, American Council of Learnt Societies Fellow, USA
Chapter 3:The Vajrabhairavatantra: Materia Magica and Circulation of Tantric Magical Recipes, Aleksandra Wenta,University of Florence, Italy
Chapter 4: The Magic that Lies Within Prayer: On Patterns of Magicity and Resolute Aspirations (smon lam), Rolf Scheuermann, Heidelberg University, Germany
Chapter 5: The Yogin's Familiars: Protector Deities as Magical Guides, Cameron M. Bailey, Dongguk University, South Korea
Chapter 6: Emic perspectives on the transubstantiation of words in Tibetan-script textual amulets, Valentina Punzi,University of Tartu, Estonia
Chapter 7: The Magical Causality of Poison Casting and Cancer among Tibetan Communities of Gyalthang, Eric D. Mortensen, Guilford College, UK
Chapter 8: Is there Magic in Gcod? An Expedition into (some of) the Complexities of Sadhana-Text Enactments, Nike-Ann Schröder, Humboldt University, Germany
Chapter 9: Trainings for Sorcery, Magic, Mystic, Philosophy - for that which is called “the Great Accomplishment”: Alexandra David-Neel's Written and Unwritten Tibetan Grimoires, Samuel Thévoz, University of Vienna, Austria
Afterword, Conceputalizing the 'magical' Tibet and beyond, Nicolas Sihlè, Centre for Himalayan Studies, France
