Tibetan Magic: Past and Present - Paperback

by Cameron Bailey (Editor), Aleksandra Wenta (Editor)

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.

Author Biography

Aleksandra Wenta is Lecturer in Indology and Tibetology at the University of Florence, Italy.

Cameron Bailey is an independent scholar, USA.