Tantric Buddhism and Altered States of Consciousness

This book explores the role of altered states of consciousness in the communication of social and emotional energies, both on a societal level and between individual persons. Drawing from an original reading of Durkheimian social theorists (including Mauss, Hertz, and Hubert) and Jungian psychology, Louise Child applies this analysis to tantric Buddhist ritual and biographical material. She suggests ways in which dreams and visionary experiences (including those related to the 'subtle body') play an important and previously under-explored role in tantric understandings of the consort relationship.

Louise Child is Lecturer in Religious and Theological Studies at Cardiff University, Wales, UK.

Contents: Altered states of consciousness, symbols, and social theory; Consciousness, power, and renunciation; Consorts, myth, and sacrifice in Hindu tantra; Sacred physiology, yoga, and death; Identity, biography, and shamanic death; The purification of aggression; Transmission and identity; The subtle body and emotional energy; Bibliography.