Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas PDF Download

Author: Claudia Müller-Ebeling
Publisher: Inner Traditions
ISBN: 9780892819133
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The first comprehensive guide to the shamans and tantrikas of Nepal • 605 color and black-and-white illustrations, including 135 color thangkas. • Includes more than 20 psychoactives never before documented. • The result of 18 years of field research. The Himalayan kingdom of Nepal may be the only culture in the world where both shamanic and tantric techniques are still alive and in full practice today. The result of eighteen years of field research, Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas presents for the first time a comprehensive overview of shamanism that is based on the knowledge and experience of the different tribes from that region. Included are original statements from the various ethnic groups and 135 color thangkas, which act as visual guides to the specific practices of the tantric tradition. In addition to the thangkas, the book is lavishly illustrated with numerous photos of different shamanic healing ceremonies, ritual objects, and culturally significant plants that have never been published before. The book also contains a wealth of original recipes, smoking mixtures, scientific tables, charts, and descriptions of more than 20 plants whose psychoactive properties and uses by shamans have never before been researched or documented.

Author: Alex Wayman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317722779
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
First published in 1995. The volume is divided into four sections: The introduction places the position of the Buddhist Tantras within Mahayana Buddhism and recalls their early literary history, especially the Guhyasamahatantra; the section also covers Buddhist Genesis and the Tantric tradition. Next is the he foundations of the Buddhist Tantras are discussed and the Tantric presentation of divinity; the preparation of disciples and the meaning of initiation; symbolism of the mandala-palace Tantric ritual and the twilight language. The third section explores the Tantric teachings of the inner Zodiac and the fivefold ritual symbolism of passion. The bibliographical research contains an analysis of the Tantric section of the Kanjur exegesis and a selected Western Bibliography of the Buddhist Tantras with comments.

Author: Claudia Müller-Ebeling
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 159477661X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Book Description
An in-depth investigation of traditional European folk medicine and the healing arts of witches • Explores the outlawed “alternative” medicine of witches suppressed by the state and the Church and how these plants can be used today • Reveals that female shamanic medicine can be found in cultures all over the world • Illustrated with color and black-and-white art reproductions dating back to the 16th century Witch medicine is wild medicine. It does more than make one healthy, it creates lust and knowledge, ecstasy and mythological insight. In Witchcraft Medicine the authors take the reader on a journey that examines the women who mix the potions and become the healers; the legacy of Hecate; the demonization of nature’s healing powers and sensuousness; the sorceress as shaman; and the plants associated with witches and devils. They explore important seasonal festivals and the plants associated with them, such as wolf’s claw and calendula as herbs of the solstice and alder as an herb of the time of the dead--Samhain or Halloween. They also look at the history of forbidden medicine from the Inquisition to current drug laws, with an eye toward how the sacred plants of our forebears can be used once again.

Author: Larry Peters
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1623170311
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Reflecting sixteen years of intensive fieldwork, this book is a rich chronicle of the daily lives, belief systems, and healing rituals of four highly revered Tibetan shamans forced into exile by the Chinese invasion during the 1950s. Larry Peters lived and studied closely with the shamans in Nepal, learning their belief system, observing and participating in their rituals, and introducing many dozens of students to their worldview. Including photographs of the shamans in ecstatic ritual and trance, this book—one of the most extensive ethnographic works ever done on Tibetan shamanism—captures the end of Tibetan shamanism while opening a window onto the culture and traditions that survived centuries of attack in Tibet, only to die out in Nepal. The violent treatment of shamans by the Buddhist lama has a long history in Tibet and neighboring Mongolia. At one point, shamans were burned at the stake. However, in the mountainous Himalayan terrain, especially in the difficult to reach areas geographically distant from the Buddhist monastic urban centers, shamans were respected and their work revered. Peters’s authoritative and meticulous research into the belief systems of these last surviving representatives of the shamanic traditions of the remote Himalayas preserves, in vivid detail, the techniques of ecstasy, described as pathways to the shamanic spiritual world.

Author: Evelyn C. Rysdyk
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620557959
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
An experiential guide to the shamanic spiritual practices of the Himalayas shared by a 27th-generation Nepalese shaman • Presents step-by-step, illustrated instructions for authentic Himalayan shamanic practices, including physical and spiritual healing, shamanic journeys, and ceremonies • Includes exercises to meet the ancestors in your shamanic lineage, techniques to use your voice as a shamanic tool, and practices for negotiating the spirit world safely • Details shamanic chants and rituals, how to create an altar, and the sacred objects of the shaman, along with exercises and techniques for using them properly There are few areas of our world where shamanic traditions have been preserved in their original context and form. Nepal is one of these rare and special places. In the shadow of the Himalayas Nepalese shamans, known as dhamis or jhankris, are still consulted for healing and divination, as well as for providing comfort and maintaining harmony. Following the devastating earthquake in Nepal in 2015, shamanic teacher Evelyn Rysdyk and 27th-generation dhami Bhola Nath Banstola decided it was time to safeguard Nepalese shamanic knowledge for future generations by recording the practices in a book. With this comprehensive, experiential guide to the ancient spiritual traditions of Nepal, Rysdyk and Banstola present step-by-step instructions for authentic Himalayan shamanic practices, including techniques for physical and spiritual healing, shamanic journeys, and advanced ceremonies, such as the Kalchakra Katne, a shamanic ritual for removing toxic energies from an individual. They include exercises to help you meet the ancestors in your shamanic lineage, techniques to use your voice as a shamanic tool, and practices for negotiating the spirit world safely. They detail shamanic chants and rituals, how to create an altar, and how to use the sacred objects of the dhami/jhankri, including the mala, the magic mirror, the drum, and the Khurpa, the shaman’s magic dagger. Rysdyk and Banstola also examine the importance of Nepalese cosmology in shamanic ritual and spiritual deities such as Hanuman, Garuda, and the Nagas. Illustrated with photos and Rysdyk’s artwork, the book also explores the history of Nepal, its culture and myths, and the different ways Nepalese shamans serve their communities. Written specifically to share the traditional Himalayan shamanic method with the Western world, this guide not only preserves these ancient teachings but also reveals how they are still relevant in the modern world.

Author: Andrea Acri
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000686442
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
This book explores the cross- and trans-cultural dialectic between Tantra and intersecting ‘magical’ and ‘shamanic’ practices associated with vernacular religions across Monsoon Asia. With a chronological frame going from the mediaeval Indic period up to the present, a wide geographical framework, and through the dialogue between various disciplines, it presents a coherent enquiry shedding light on practices and practitioners that have been frequently alienated in the elitist discourse of mainstream Indic religions and equally overlooked by modern scholarship. The book addresses three desiderata in the field of Tantric Studies: it fills a gap in the historical modelling of Tantra; it extends the geographical parameters of Tantra to the vast, yet culturally interlinked, socio-geographical construct of Monsoon Asia; it explores Tantra as an interface between the Sanskritic elite and the folk, the vernacular, the magical, and the shamanic, thereby revisiting the intellectual and historically fallacious divide between cosmopolitan Sanskritic and vernacular local. The book offers a highly innovative contribution to the field of Tantric Studies and, more generally, South and Southeast Asian religions, by breaking traditional disciplinary boundaries. Its variety of disciplinary approaches makes it attractive to both the textual/diachronic and ethnographic/synchronic dimensions. It will be of interest to specialist and non-specialist academic readers, including scholars and students of South Asian religions, mainly Hinduism and Buddhism, Tantric traditions, and Southeast Asian religions, as well as Asian and global folk religion, shamanism, and magic.

Author: Dmitry Ermakov
Publisher: Bo & Bon by Dmitry Ermakov
ISBN:
Category : Bo Murgel
Languages : en
Pages : 904

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Book Description
Comparative study between Tibetan Bon and Buryatian Bø religion of ancient Shamanic traditions.

Author: Christian Rätsch
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594776601
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 559

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Book Description
An examination of the sacred botany and the pagan origins and rituals of Christmas • Analyzes the symbolism of the many plants associated with Christmas • Reveals the shamanic rituals that are at the heart of the Christmas celebration The day on which many commemorate the birth of Christ has its origins in pagan rituals that center on tree worship, agriculture, magic, and social exchange. But Christmas is no ordinary folk observance. It is an evolving feast that over the centuries has absorbed elements from cultures all over the world--practices that give plants and plant spirits pride of place. In fact, the symbolic use of plants at Christmas effectively transforms the modern-day living room into a place of shamanic ritual. Christian Rätsch and Claudia Müller-Ebeling show how the ancient meaning of the botanical elements of Christmas provides a unique view of the religion that existed in Europe before the introduction of Christianity. The fir tree was originally revered as the sacred World Tree in northern Europe. When the church was unable to drive the tree cult out of people’s consciousness, it incorporated the fir tree by dedicating it to the Christ child. Father Christmas in his red-and-white suit, who flies through the sky in a sleigh drawn by reindeer, has his mythological roots in the shamanic reindeer-herding tribes of arctic Europe and Siberia. These northern shamans used the hallucinogenic fly agaric mushroom, which is red and white, to make their soul flights to the other world. Apples, which figure heavily in Christmas baking, are symbols of the sun god Apollo, so they find a natural place at winter solstice celebrations of the return of the sun. In fact, the authors contend that the emphasis of Christmas on green plants and the promise of the return of life in the dead of winter is just an adaptation of the pagan winter solstice celebration.

Author: Christian Rätsch
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594776598
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
A comprehensive survey of the therapeutic, historical, and cultural uses of cannabis in traditions around the world. • The most complete visual record of cannabis culture ever published. • Christian Ratsch is one of the world's foremost ethnopharmacologists and is the current president of the German Society for Ethnomedicine. Marijuana Medicine explores the role of hemp in medicinal systems spanning the globe. Cannabis has accompanied the development of human culture from its very beginnings and can be found in the healing traditions of cultures throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Even today it is an important part of many Asian healing traditions: in Ayurveda cannabis is praised for its tonic and aphrodisiac qualities and in traditional Chinese medicine it is cited as a superb antidepressant. It also remains a significant part of the healing and visionary traditions of Latin American curanderos and Brazilian, Nepalese, and Indian folk medicine. Modern research has confirmed the effectiveness of marijuana's application in treating such diseases as asthma and glaucoma. Christian Ratsch profiles the medicinal, historical, and cultural uses of cannabis in each of these societies and medical systems, providing remedies and recipes for those interested in how cannabis can be used to treat specific conditions.

Author: Andrew J. Hund
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
A thorough and detailed resource that describes the history, culture, and geography of the Himalayan region, providing an indispensable reference work to both general readers and seasoned scholars in the field. The Himalayas: An Encyclopedia of Geography, History, and Culture serves as a convenient and authoritative reference for anyone exploring the region and seeking to better understand the history, events, peoples, and geopolitical details of this unique area of the world. It explores the geography and details of the demographics, discusses relevant historical events, and addresses socioeconomic movements, political intrigues and controversies, and cultural details as to give an overarching impression of the region as a coherent and cohesive whole. Readers will come away with a vastly heightened understanding of the geographical region we recognize as the Himalayas, and grasp the issues of geography, history, and culture that are central to contemporary understandings of the human culture in the region. The alphabetically arranged and succinct entries provide easy access to detailed, authoritative information. Additionally, sidebars throughout the book relate compelling facts that point readers to new and interesting avenues of exploration. The volume also includes a chronological overview of the region, ten primary source documents, and a comprehensive bibliography of supporting works.