Tibetan Magic

Past and Present

Cameron Bailey, Aleksandra Wenta, Cameron Bailey, Aleksandra Wenta

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781350354944
• eBook ISBN: 9781350354968
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

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

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Transliteration
• Introduction (Cameron M. Bailey and Aleksandra Wenta)
• 1 The Zla gsang beʼu bum: A Compendium of Ritual Magic and Sorcery
• 2 Magical Results of the Rituals in the Tārā-mūla-kalpa’s Continuation Tantra
• 3 The Vajrabhairavatantra: Materia Magica and Circulation of Tantric Magical Recipes
• 4 The Magic That Lies within Prayer: On Patterns of Magicity and Resolute Aspirations (smon lam)
• 5 The Yogin’s Familiars: Protector Deities as Magical Guides
• 6 Emic Perspectives on the Transubstantiation of Words in Tibetan-Script Textual Amulets
• 7 The Magical Causality of Poison Casting and Cancer among Tibetan Communities of Gyalthang
• 8 Is There Magic in Gcod? An Expedition into (Some of) the Complexities of Sādhana-Text Enactments
• 9 “Trainings for Sorcery, Magic, Mystic, Philosophy—for That Which Is Called ‘the Great Accomplishment’ ”: Alexandra David-Neel’s Written and Unwritten Tibetan Grimoires
• Afterword: Conceptualizing the “Magical” in Tibet and Beyond (Nicolas Sihlé (CESAH, CNRS/EHESS))
• List of Contributors
• Index
• Copyright Page