In this volume, Sudhir Kakar once again brings an extraordinary depth of psychoanalytic and Indian sensibilities to bear on topics of sainthood, religious ritual, and healing in India, as well as the profession of psychoanalysis itself. Here he seeks explicitly to explore not only the psychological but also spiritual dimensions of these topics, and the ways in which these dimensions are entwined. Kakar links this expanding agenda to a “romantic resurgence” in the West of a vision of life as a quest for union with a higher power or spirit and a realization of the fundamental connections between oneself and the universe.

In the first part of the book, Kakar explores the lives and teachings of four of South Asia's modern and, in some respects, “divinely mad” spiritual virtuosi: Rajneesh (also known as Osho), Tibetan Buddhist Tantrik Drukpa Kunley, Hindu saint Swami Muktananda, and Mohandas Gandhi. Beginning with the iconoclastic,...

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