Ancient Wisdoms for Modern Times: Analysing Contemporary Challenges through the Lens of Tantra and Shamanism

South Asian tantric and shamanic traditions revolve largely around rituals aimed at harnessing transcendental powers.

Such powers allow tantric practitioners not only to pursue liberation (mokṣa) but, importantly, also enable them to influence worldly affairs, similarly to shamans. Thus far, empowerment and divinisation rituals have mostly been studied in view of practitioners’ love interests (Golovkova 2020), the recognition of one’s true self (Timalsina 2007), merging with a venerated deity (Khanna 2016), and their impact on gender relations (Biernacki 2007). The majority of such studies is text-based and concentrates on tantric traditions of the past, ignoring their intertwining with other practices related to shamanisms and folk religions (Acri and Rosati 2022).

With the workshop ‘Ancient Wisdoms for Modern Times’ we wish to expand current scholarship and observe the relevance of South Asian esoteric practices to contemporary times—not only in view of practitioners’ personal contexts but, significantly, in relationship to urgent collective challenges. At a time when dominant positivistic outlooks driven by competition and growth are failing to address the problems that the world at large and its inhabitants face, we intend to shift our attention to epistemic and cosmological realities that transcend mainly anthropocentric, dichotomous existential frameworks, in order to explore how these engage with complex contemporary issues.

Since tantric and shamanic knowledge systems are far from extinct and, moreover, have traditionally been actively applied to practitioners’ everyday lives and worldly matters in general (as opposed to being relegated to otherworldly, philosophical domains), they constitute resources that ought to be considered when confronting contemporary worldly challenges of both personal and collective nature. Having thus far rarely been acknowledged in this light within academic literature, we propose to study tantric and shamanic practices, and the cosmologies they are embedded in, in relation to predicaments such as the current ecological crisis, pandemic outbreaks, conflicts of various nature, the perseverance of patriarchal dominance and other exploitative relationships, and the rise of mental health issues. Significantly, colonialism and the geo-political power discrepancies ensuing therefrom have exposed South Asia exponentially to some of these problematics, rendering the exclusion of indigenous knowledge systems from scholarly discourses around their overcoming unjustified.

The workshop ‘Ancient Wisdoms for Modern Times’ will gather both senior and early career scholars from a variety of disciplines—spanning anthropology, neurocognitive sciences, area studies, psychology, religious studies and gender studies—and espousing various methodological approaches—including participant observation, ethnography, textual analysis and historical analysis. In addition to being transdisciplinary, the workshop will bring together scholars from various positionalities—crossing the boundaries between observers and practitioners—and geographies.

This event is organised In collaboration with European Association for South Asian Studies, SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies and Lyon Catholic University.

Presenters

• Prabhavati Reddy, George Mason University, Virginia, USA
• Stefano Beggiora, University Ca' Foscari, Venezia, Italy
• James Mallinson, SOAS, University of London, UK
• Lidia Guzy, University College Cork, Ireland
• William Sax, Heidelberg University, Germany
• Annette Hornbacher, Heidelberg University, Germany
• Ruth Westoby, SOAS, University of London, UK
• Lubomír Ondračka, Charles University, Prague
• Richard David Williams, SOAS, University of London, UK
• Fabio Armand, Lion University, France
• Monika Hirmer, SOAS, University of London, UK