Panel

Panel Abstract: Magic and Buddhism in Southeast Asia: A Critical Reassessment of the Field
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Panelists: Dr. Craig Reynolds, Dr. Kate Crosby, Dr. Catherine Newell, Dr. Bas Jarend Terwiel, Dr. Justin McDaniel

Recent work in Southeast Asian Studies has called for a complete re-assessment of the traditional separation of religion and magic. In the past, magic has been associated with local culture or seen as an animist leftover. Perhaps the most persistent critical discourse is based upon a common rhetorical dichotomy -- worldly/non-wordly (or mundane/supramundane). This is a translation of the Pali words “lokiya” (wordly) and “lokottara” (above the world). By relegating the technology and practice of magic to a worldly pursuit, it effectively removes it from the realm of religion and human aspiration. It ignores the complex emotions that are tied to magical practice. It is reduced to a commercial practice, a cultural practice, a psychological coping mechanism, or a superstition. It is not noble or supramundane. It is explained away as a domesticized, vernacularized, or hybridicized form of classical Buddhism. This panel of philologists, historians, and religious studies scholars (Craig Reynolds (Australia National University), Kate Crosby (School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London), Bas Jarend Terwiel (University of Hamburg), and Justin McDaniel (University of Pennsylvania) want to offer a new set of approaches to the study of Buddhist magic in Southeast Asia. We are interested in the individual histories of magicians, powerful images, and ritual manuals and how these images participate in relationship with each other -- how they create rich visual and ritual fields which create local histories, promote new developments in practice, and invoke emotions, memories, and ethical questions. In the end the panel hopes to redefine the pejorative connotation of the word “magic” in the study of Southeast Asian religions and culture.

Contact Information: Dr. Baas Jarend Terwiel <baasterwiel@hotmail.com> Dr. Justin McDaniel <jmcdan@sas.upenn.edu> Dr. Kate Crosby <kc21@soas.ac.uk> Dr. Catherine Newell <cn10@soas.ac.uk> Dr. Craig Reynolds <Craig.Reynolds@anu.edu.au>