Healing and Therapy

Jarken Gadi: "Transcendental Meditation as a Means to Tackle Depression Among Urban Youth in India"

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi developed the Transcendental Meditation technique (TM) in the 1950s program based on ancient meditative yoga practices. According to a recent UNICEF report, one in seven Indians between 15-24 years of age feels depressed. However, social and cultural stigma often prevent youth from seeking medical/psychological help or treatment. Hence, in India the reported incidence stands at a meagre 1.6% A team of researchers from UCLA in studies conducted showed that depressive symptoms decrease by 50% over a 12-month period in those practicing TM. The question is thus, if, TM can help deal with issues of depression among Indian youth, particularly through a technique that has originated in India but is relatively unknown. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of TM in improving mental health among Indian youth through an evidence-based study conducted over a four-month period with youth (aged 18-29 years of age) from the city of Pune that has the largest student youth population in the country. TM will also align itself with India’s flagship healthcare program- The Jan Arogya Yojana that envisages preventive and curative healthcare with mental health being a prima area of focus.

Judit Kis-Halas: "Eco-Cosmology, Shamanic Discourse and Perspectives of Healing: The Construction of a New Sacred Site in Hungary"

Keya is the founder and leader of a Hungary-based spiritual-community. As a former disciple of Amazonian and Peruvian shamans, she regularly consumed ayahuasca. Nowadays she considers herself as an artist and an eco-shaman. The idea of creating a sacred grove in the small South Hungarian village where she had house came to her mind right before the pandemic. After long and careful planning, the construction works began in 2022 and have been gradually progressing with major or minor interruptions since then.

Drawn on the author’s interviews with Keya, and her ongoing ethnographic fieldwork at the site (starting in 2019), the paper introduces the building of a special ritual and healing complex, which, when completed, will serve as the community’s base. 

First, on the example of ceremonies and rituals carried out at particular phases of the construction process, the paper presents how shamanic discourse and healing activities as two fundamental characteristics of the community’s religious-spiritual identity are represented in them. Second, it examines the ongoing construction of this new South Hungarian sacred site from a comparative angle and place it among similar alternative spiritual endeavours in socialist and post-socialist Europe. Finally, broadening the scope of investigation to a more global scale, the paper attempts to interpret the events in the context of eco-cosmologies and environmental healing.

Andrej Kapcar: "Pop Spirituality: The Application of Popular Culture in Contemporary Esoteric Practices"

Magical practices, as part of the larger contemporary esoteric milieu, have undergone significant changes in the past decades. Relying previously on the exclusivity of knowledge and membership, the shift towards individuality in practice and accessibility has been a common denominator for several of the post-modern esoteric movements. Among one of the most influential new “schools” of magic undoubtedly belongs Chaos Magick, which can be traced back to practitioners such as Austin Osman Spare. With the rise in popularity of individual, custom-designed magical rituals, popular culture has proven to be one of the important aspects associated with the practice. Influential, able to reach a wide audience and depicting visually attractive supernatural events, and abilities, it is of no surprise that several practitioners have started to include depicted fictional characters and places into their rituals. At the same time, many practitioners are artists themselves and intentionally manifest the esoteric knowledge in their audio-visual art. This presentation will focus on the mutual interaction between the occult knowledge represented through visual means in popular culture and the magical practice of modern magicians. 

Sára Eszter Heidl : "The Event Religion Phenomenon" 

In my presentation, I focus on transformational festivals, which are in the spotlight of many researchers interested in temporary events as contemporary rituals. In a fast-paced, constantly changing world people need to unwind and enjoy the moment even more than before. Festivals give participants intense experiences, which help them break away from their everyday lives, find a liminal community, relax, transcend, and then return to the structure.

Based on empirical fieldwork conducted in Hungary, I built a four-dimensional approach to investigate event-based communities from a religious studies point of view. Examining the festival area and period, the symbols and objects found at an event, the community formation and cohesion, and the inward, personal experiences can show the religion-like and spiritual characteristics of the festival and its participants. While religion is changing nowadays, many people try to find beliefs and practices that are most fitting for them. Visiting events induces spiritual experiences, and gives opportunities to find harmony, body-soul balance and alternative methods.

I compare a ‘spiritual’ mindfulness (Everness, Siófok), a ’traditional’ Catholic (Lélek, Szombathely) and a non-religious (Fekete Zaj, Mátrafüred) music festivals in my research, the main results of which I will introduce in this presentation.

Tancredi Marrone: "Rituals of Extasy: Psychedelic Festivals"

This presentation will address the group dances and the formation of cohesion within the subculture of psychedelic electronic music festivals. Collective dancing is considered also as a form of group ritual not unlike the ecstatic dances of traditional shamanic cultures albeit modified and adapted to a contemporary environment. Electronic musical appliances and laboratory psychedelic substances often substitute classic instruments and entheogens. Drawing from the countercultural philosophy of the hippie movement, spirituality is conceptualized as integrating the individual with the collective and to finding a means of creating greater empathy and connection but also healing. Inspired by the extaticu cults the achievement of a gnostic state of consciousness becomes a shared experience, no longer something that is relegated to the individual. Group rituals thus occupy a central role in the spiritually oriented psychedelic community.

Andrej Kocan: "Nixi pae chants of the Peruvian Huni Kuin"

The film Nixi Pae Chants of the Peruvian Huni Kuin follows the search for nixi pae (ayahuasca) chants. The Cashinahua people (Huni Kuin) split about a hundred years ago when a faction of them, to escape the horrors of the rubber boom, moved from Brazil to Peru and resisted contact with the outside world until the 1940s. If the Brazilian Cashinahua are world famous as protagonists of ever expanding ayahuasca shamanism, with their nixi pae songs accompanied by guitars, djembe and other instruments, Peruvian Cashinahua elders insist that guitar songs are inventions threatening their tradition. As on the Peruvian side there is no tourism, the only way of earning a substantial amount of money is by becoming a preacher or a teacher. Missionaries’ formula of teaching the young natives to become bilingual teachers and then co-opting them in spreading the new religion results in a form of self-colonization. The commodification of the ritual through tourism might not be the worst problem these native people are facing. However, the version of “traditional” ayahuasca rituals the spirituality seeking Westerners have come to know as authentic Huni Kuin tradition has most probably evolved into a staged and performed neo-shamanic version through the demand created by the very visitors.

Hee Sook Lee-Niinioja: "Temporal Spirituality in the Passing Gates of Korean Sansa Temples and its Lantern Lighting Ritual"

As a sanctuary and a pilgrimage centre for spiritual practice, the Buddhist Mountain monastery Sansa maintained living spaces for believers and practitioners. Located in forests alongside streams, the temple site rises higher from the gate to the courtyard, allowing a wider view. Pilgrims follow a similar spatial path from a profane to a spiritual world, as the spirit of place bears the atmospheric quality of a specific landscape with (i) emotional, (ii) cognitive, (iii) behavioural and (iv) social aspects. Place identity is explained through human experiences, and memories through reflections of these social structures.

Yeondeunghoe is a lantern ritual to celebrate Buddha’s birth. Temples are adorned with lotus lanterns to culminate collective rituals, while Buddha’s wisdom enlightens the nation’s mind by illuminating lanterns. Durkheim (1893) claimed two forms of consciousness. Individual consciousness highlights human uniqueness and distinctiveness; collective consciousness comprises the shared values, ideas, and universal beliefs of a group. Buddhism represents these two forms as a philosophic religion of personal salvation by renunciation of worldly desires.

My paper discusses how humans perceive the environment as they cross each gate and participate in lantern ceremonies to gain spirituality and identity. It examines how temple objects enable people to reassure themselves.

Baburam Saikia: "Pilgrimage Impacts and Diversified Narratives of a Contested Story World"

‘Parshuram kund’ is popularly known to be a Hindu pilgrimage site situated in the Himalayan region of Arunachal Pradesh, India. The mythical belief of Hindu God Parshuram getting rid of his sin at the place, has influenced in recent years thousands of Hindus across India and Nepal to come to Parshuram kund pilgrimage throughout the year especially during the time of makara-sankranti (12- 14 January) - auspicious transition day of Sun into Capricorn. However, according to some local Mishmi folks popularizing Parshuram kund as a Hindu pilgrimage site has been subduing the local folkloric and mythical importance of the place. The paper aims to analyze different narratives from both local and pan-Indian Hindu perspectives with special emphasis on local knowledge of the Mishmi tribe. This will investigate folkloric association of the Kaman Mishmis, residing nearby the ‘Parshuram kund’ area in the Wakro circle, with the place; including how they see the Hindu pilgrimage in their locality? This research intends to find out how the Hindu story has overtaken the local story and made the place a popular Hindu pilgrimage site.