Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Taming the Wind of Desire: Psychology, Medicine, and Aesthetics in Malay Shamanistic Performance

Taming the Wind of Desire: Psychology, Medicine, and Aesthetics in Malay Shamanistic Performance

Laderman, Carol

Paperback

Series: Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care, Book 29

Indigenous ReligionsAnthropology

ISBN10: 0520082583
ISBN13: 9780520082588
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: Mar 10 1993
Pages: 386
Weight: 1.18
Height: 0.97 Width: 6.06 Depth: 9.03
Language: English
Charged with restoring harmony and relieving pain, the Malay shaman places his patients in trance and encourages them to express their talents, drives, personality traits--the Inner Winds of Malay medical lore--in a kind of performance. These healing ceremonies, formerly viewed by Western anthropologists as exotic curiosities, actually reveal complex multicultural origins and a unique indigenous medical tradition whose psychological content is remarkably relevant to contemporary Western concerns.

Accepted as apprentice to a Malay shaman, Carol Laderman learned and recorded every aspect of the healing seance and found it comparable in many ways to the traditional dramas of Southeast Asia and of other cultures such as ancient Greece, Japan, and India. The Malay seance is a total performance, complete with audience, stage, props, plot, music, and dance. The players include the patient along with the shaman and his troupe. At the center of the drama are pivotal relationships--among people, between humans and spirits, and within the self. The best of the Malay shamans are superb poets, dramatists, and performers as well as effective healers of body and soul.

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