India and Spiritism

[Troll_ov_Grimness]

What are the animistic or shamanic practices of India?
do they exist?
thanks

 

[Pleroma]

Yes, they do and they raise the dead.

http://content.ebscohost.com/pdf9/pdf/2004/KXO/01Jun04/15888550.pdf?T=P&P=AN&K=15888550&S=R&D=aph&EbscoContent=dGJyMMvl7ESeqLM4yOvsOLCmr0qepq5Ssqq4S7GWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGssk2xqLJNuePfgeyx44Hy

 

[Vinayaka]

It is rare, and most Hindus wouldn't know much about any of it. But as usual, there will be a great deal of variance within the answers you get. Not sure why you put this in the Hinduism DIR though.

 

[Riverwolf]

Well, my beliefs incorporate general animism, but I don't know if it's actually the same type as India's indigenous religions.

 

[Troll_ov_Grimness]

It is rare, and most Hindus wouldn't know much about any of it. But as usual, there will be a great deal of variance within the answers you get. Not sure why you put this in the Hinduism DIR though.

because spirits communing with the faithful is one of the most basic common beliefs of religion


Thank you Plemora
This really bad wikipedia article answers all of my questions
I study the relationship between spiritism, psychosis, mania, and energy within the body. This answers all of my questions for today lol thank you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vetala
In Hindu folklore, the vetala is an evil spirit who haunts cemeteries and takes demonic possession of corpses. They make their displeasure known by troubling humans. They can drive people mad, kill children, and cause miscarriages, but also guard villages.
They are hostile spirits of the dead trapped in the 'twilight zone' between life and afterlife. These creatures can be repelled by the chanting of holy mantras. One can free them from their ghostly existence by performing their funerary rites. Being unaffected by the laws of space and time, they have an uncanny knowledge about the past, present, and future and a deep insight into human nature. Therefore many sorcerers seek to capture them and turn them into slaves.

 

[Vinayaka]

Graveyards? Hindus are cremated. This info on wiki is dubious at best. Certainly there is no vast resource field out there other than a couple of Wiki or Wiki like pages saying something about it, mostly as some kind of myth. But one could conjecture it is another reason for cremation, I suppose. Not sure on this one.

 

[Troll_ov_Grimness]

It is really hard to get information about this sort of thing.

Kundalini awakening psychosis is like the mark of Cain
its not very sociable . nor is being a sorcerer for that matter .

but at least now I have a word I can put to search engines

for those interested,

PENGUIN CLASSICS COLLECTION,
THE FIVE-AND-TWENTY TALES OF THE GENIE

Half mythical, heroic and sagacious, the emperor Vikramaditya is widely regarded as India's greatest monarch. This collection of stories tells of the ruler's fabled encounter with a vetala, a genie who inhabits the body of a corpse. The emperor begs the spirit for his help against a mighty necromancer and is told in return twenty-four tales, each of which presents a situation he might face as a king and culminates in a riddle that he must solve. With each answer, Vikramaditya displays his deep wisdom, proving himself to be the ideal monarch and winning, in the twenty-fifth tale, the guidance he needs from the vetala to destroy his powerful enemy. Written down in medieval times but inspired by an oral tradition stretching back centuries, these wise and witty tales rank amongst the great masterpieces of Sanskrit literature.

 

[DeviChaaya]

Animism and spiritism are common in folk Hinduism, especially folk Shaktism. Possession by the Goddess was at one point quite common amongst villagers in rural India. It's not as common any more due to growing westernisation.

 

[Riverwolf]

It is really hard to get information about this sort of thing.

Kundalini awakening psychosis is like the mark of Cain
its not very sociable . nor is being a sorcerer for that matter .

but at least now I have a word I can put to search engines

for those interested,

PENGUIN CLASSICS COLLECTION,
THE FIVE-AND-TWENTY TALES OF THE GENIE

...wait, what? Djinni are Arabic, not Indian.

 

[Pleroma]

...wait, what? Djinni are Arabic, not Indian.

The Arabian nights were taken from these Indian stories.

 

[Surya Deva]

Animism and spiritism are common in folk Hinduism, especially folk Shaktism. Possession by the Goddess was at one point quite common amongst villagers in rural India. It's not as common any more due to growing westernisation.

I would say its not westernization but modernization. Animism and spiritism is common among folklore of all cultures in the world, but many of these belies were held by illiterate simple village people, and when they were modernized and educated the vast majority lost these beliefs.

 

[Troll_ov_Grimness]

I've never done yoga so I can't really comment on that but as reiki is a western adoption of shinto but more based on therapeutic touch, it is still possible to solitarily undergo ritual purification and spirit soul transformation transcendence without any drug use, just like reiki practitioners dont use drugs.. but through entreating genie or kami (shinto) for instance one can attain transcendence by oneself.
so it is worth studying for this reason.

one might say that transcendence through 'lower' spirits is not authentic. but not all cultures agree.

still, the experience is valid, the interpretation might be different, but the psychosis is always present

 

[Surya Deva]

I don't really disbelieve some of the folklore about ghosts, spirits, gods and goddesses and spiritual being. It is unanimously accepted in Hinduism that they are a part of our empirical world of samsara. However, to commune with these ghosts, spirits, gods and goddesses is not generally enjoined in Hinduism, because they are seen as inferior realities and having impurities, especially ordinary spirits, who under the influence of ego can deliberately misguide humans, pretending to be guides etc. Tantriks(especially within the shakta branches) routinely work with these spirits, invoking them to do ordinary humans tasks and perform magic

In Hinduism the general attitude is that tantra is tamasic meaning most inferior, dark practices for those who have impure minds and are fascinated with occult practices like spiritism etc Alternatively, Hindus consider Yoga to be sattvic meaning superior, light, virtuous practices for those have pure minds and are yearning for enlightenment/self-realization, the transcendental reality beyond spirits and gods. This i seen as the ultimate goal of life, so generally Hindus don't want to waste time with lower grade practices.

 

[DeviChaaya]

In Hinduism the general attitude is that tantra is tamasic meaning most inferior, dark practices for those who have impure minds and are fascinated with occult practices like spiritism etc Alternatively, Hindus consider Yoga to be sattvic meaning superior, light, virtuous practices for those have pure minds and are yearning for enlightenment/self-realization, the transcendental reality beyond spirits and gods. This i seen as the ultimate goal of life, so generally Hindus don't want to waste time with lower grade practices.

Unless, of course, you're a practitioner of tantra. Many practitioners of tantra do not consider it tamasic. For instance, I don't. Many Hindus who don't practise tantra don't think it's tamasic either.

 

[Riverwolf]

The Arabian nights were taken from these Indian stories.

Doesn't really address my confusion.

Stories are always inspired by other stories. But last I checked, Djinni were native to Arabia, not India.

 

[Riverwolf]

Unless, of course, you're a practitioner of tantra. Many practitioners of tantra do not consider it tamasic. For instance, I don't. Many Hindus who don't practise tantra don't think it's tamasic either.

I'm one who is of the belief that a practice is not inherently any one guna, but can be any of them. There's Tamasic Tantra, and Sattvic Tantra. There's Sattvic Yoga, and Tamasic Yoga. All the paths have Sattvic, Rajastic, and Tamasic manifestations from what I've seen.

 

[Troll_ov_Grimness]

Doesn't really address my confusion.

Stories are always inspired by other stories. But last I checked, Djinni were native to Arabia, not India.

Its a poor translation choice by the translator

 

[Surya Deva]

Unless, of course, you're a practitioner of tantra. Many practitioners of tantra do not consider it tamasic. For instance, I don't. Many Hindus who don't practise tantra don't think it's tamasic either.

It is the official position of Vaishnava Hindus who comprise the majority of Hindus. Official in the sense that Shaiva and Shakta religion are classified by the Vaishnava Puranas as tamasic.

In general I would be right in saying Hinduism has mostly been a more sattvic pure path for self-realization/god-realization through Yoga. In general Hindus are not interested in communing with and invoking spirits.

 

[Troll_ov_Grimness]

occult knowledge is generally coveted and kept secret
it is possible that the very same yogis who speak out against communion with spirits are the same who practice that themselves for personal power. and so, it is in their interest to spread untruths that other austerities are superior; to keep the everyman poor

 

[Surya Deva]

No, they would not be really yogis they would be tantriks. In Hinduism yogis come in all different types: Raja yogis(yoga of meditation) Karma yogis(yoga of service), Jnana yogis(yoga of knowledge) and the most popular form bhakti yogis(yoga of devotion or love)

In the Tantra tradition there is Hatha Yoga and Kriya Yoga, but this is actually a subset of the tantra tradition and has very little in common with the main tantra tradition which is based on agamas and tantras and is strongly based on tantra rituals, which in the main texts can include several occult practices like death rituals, ritual sex, animal sacrifice, ritual intake of food, wine and blood. However, the traditions that follow this can either follow them literally(LHP) or symbolically(RHP)