Of trances, theta states, and shamans
Books and Authors17 Touko 2025

Of trances, theta states, and shamans

"Every part of India has shamans; you could say its part of folk culture. They call Himachal Dev Bhoomi because every village is home to several deities. Every village also has its main deity and a shaman, who is the medium of that deity. He can communicate with that deity when he goes into a divine possession trance that is ritually invoked. The villagers communicate with their devis and devtas for everything and in pooch sessions, the shaman or goor will answer questions as the deity. To a westernised mindset, this sounds like superstition. But you cannot ignore the lived experience of millions of people across centuries and say 'Yeh bakwas hai; this is nonsense!' Scholars like Sudhir Kakkar and Oliver Sacks accepted that the sacred healing rituals of shamans are far more effective than modern psychotherapy because they take the whole field of the person - family community mythology - into consideration" - Documentary film maker and author of 'Shamans of the Himalayas', Anu Malhotra talks to Manjula Narayan about the strong connection that villagers in Himachal have with their local deities, divination, altered states of consciousness of shamans, and how the belief system persists despite the onslaught of modernity and migration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Jaksot(348)

The Road to Zanskar

The Road to Zanskar

"Even in winter, twice a month, the first postmen in Zanskar in the 1980s climbed rock faces and crossed frozen rivers -- if you fell in, you could die -- in a journey that took three days, to deliver...

26 Maalis 57min

Slow and steady wins the race

Slow and steady wins the race

"The fossil fuel age gave us speed. This, on the one hand, allows us to think, 'I'm going faster', but it never defines 'faster to where, and to what?' You become a victim of speed -- always trying to...

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The quiet pull of the Pune police procedural

The quiet pull of the Pune police procedural

"The way I look at it, whydunnit is actually more important than whodunnit. There are only so many permutations and combinations you can think of in terms of whodunnit. It's finite whereas whydunnit i...

12 Maalis 48min

A return to the land

A return to the land

"We went in with urban confidence and rural reality hit us in the face at every turn! Establishing a farm is probably the most difficult thing I've done. I think everybody should do it."- Arti Dwarkad...

5 Maalis 54min

Using stick figures to demolish dubious politics, doublespeak and more

Using stick figures to demolish dubious politics, doublespeak and more

"You may try to believe that you are living in a First World country and that your reality differs from that of a poor person in your vicinity. But, at the end of the day, you will face the same exist...

26 Helmi 1h 5min

A fight against forgetting

A fight against forgetting

"Comics and literature allow us to enter worlds through our imagination; it is a medium of not-saying. We read because we want to get into the interior worlds of say, a family living in a room in Algi...

19 Helmi 59min

A people willing to sacrifice their lives to save nature

A people willing to sacrifice their lives to save nature

"The Salman Khan story reached the headlines and people thought, well, if the Bishnois can go for him so effectively, it's not safe to poach there. It has actually reduced poaching. So many Bishnoi di...

13 Helmi 55min

Jewellery: Of ornamentation and adornment

Jewellery: Of ornamentation and adornment

"I don't think you will find anyone in India who doesn't wear a piece of jewellery [of some sort]. The Amrapali Collection is a pan Indian one. The jewels in this book are worn by pastoralists, the ag...

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