Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and its Healing Traditions / Edition 1

by Sudhir Kakar

Overview

Sudhir Kakar, a psychoanalyst and scholar, brilliantly illuminates the ancient healing traditions of India embodied in the rituals of shamans, the teachings of gurus, and the precepts of the school of medicine known as Ayurveda.

"With extraordinary sympathy, open-mindedness, and insight Sudhir Kakar has drawn from both his Eastern and Western backgrounds to show how the gulf that divides native healer from Western psychiatrist can be spanned."--Rosemary Dinnage, New York Review of Books

"Each chapter describes the geographical and cultural context within which the healers work, their unique approach to healing mental illness, and . . . the philosophical and religious underpinnings of their theories compared with psychoanalytical theory."--Choice

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226422794
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	04/09/1991
Edition description:	1
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Sudhir Kakar is a psychoanalyst and the author of many books, including The Analyst and the Mystic: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Religion and Mysticism; Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality; and Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and its Healing Traditions.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
Part I - Local and Folk Traditions
2. Soul Knowledge and Soul Force: The Pir of Patteshah Dargah
3. Lord of the Spirit World
4. Other Shamans
Part II - Mystical Traditions
5. The Path of the Saints
6. Tantra and Tantric Healing
7. Cooling Breezes: The Cult of Mataji
Part III - Medical Traditions
8. Indian Medicine and Psychiatry: Cultural and Theoretical Perspectives on Ayurveda
9. The Good Doctor of Jharsetli
10. Epilogue: Healing and Culture
Notes
Index