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Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and its Healing Traditions
Sudhir Kakar, a psychoanalyst and scholar, brilliantly illuminates the ancient healing traditions of India embodied in the rituals of shamans, the teachings of gurus, and the precepts of the school of medicine known as Ayurveda.
"With extraordinary sympathy, open-mindedness, and insight Sudhir Kakar has drawn from both his Eastern and Western backgrounds to show how the gulf that divides native healer from Western psychiatrist can be spanned."—Rosemary Dinnage, New York Review of Books
"Each chapter describes the geographical and cultural context within which the healers work, their unique approach to healing mental illness, and . . . the philosophical and religious underpinnings of their theories compared with psychoanalytical theory."— Choice
"With extraordinary sympathy, open-mindedness, and insight Sudhir Kakar has drawn from both his Eastern and Western backgrounds to show how the gulf that divides native healer from Western psychiatrist can be spanned."—Rosemary Dinnage, New York Review of Books
"Each chapter describes the geographical and cultural context within which the healers work, their unique approach to healing mental illness, and . . . the philosophical and religious underpinnings of their theories compared with psychoanalytical theory."— Choice
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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354 people want to read
About the author
Sudhir Kakar
64 books83 followersSudhir Kakar is a psychoanalyst and writer who lives in Goa, India.
Kakar took his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Gujarat University, his Master’s degree (Diplom-Kaufmann) in business economics from Mannheim in Germany and his doctorate in economics from Vienna before beginning his training in psychoanalysis at the Sigmund-Freud Institute in Frankfurt, Germany in 1971. Between 1966 and 1971, Sudhir Kakar was a Lecturer in General Education at Harvard University, Research Associate at Harvard Business School and Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
After returning to India in 1975 , Dr. Kakar set up a practice as a psychoanalyst in Delhi where he was also the Head of Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology. He has been 40th Anniversary Senior Fellow at the Centre for Study of World Religions at Harvard (2001-02), a visiting professor at the universities of Chicago (1989-93), McGill (1976-77), Melbourne (1981), Hawaii (1998) and Vienna (1974-75), INSEAD, France (1994-2013). He has been a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute of Advanced Study), Berlin, Centre for Advanced Study of Humanities, University of Cologne and is Honorary Professor, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam.
A leading figure in the fields of cultural psychology and the psychology of religion, as well as a novelist, Dr. Kakar’s person and work have been profiled in The New York Times, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Die Zeit and Le Nouvel Observateur, which listed him as one of the world's 25 major thinkers while the German weekly Die Zeit portrayed Sudhir Kakar as one of the 21 important thinkers for the 21st century. Dr. Kakar's many honors include the Kardiner Award of Columbia University, Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association, Germany ’s Goethe Medal, Rockefeller Residency, McArthur Fellowship Bhabha, Nehru and ICSSR National Fellowships and Distinguished Service Award of Indo-American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Board of Sigmund Freud Archives in the Library of Congress, Washington and the Academie Universelle des Culture, France. In February 2012, he was conferred the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the country's highest civilian order.
Sudhir Kakar’s twenty books of non-fiction and six of fiction, include The Inner World (now in its 16th printing since its first publication in 1978), Shamans, Mystics and Doctors , (with J.M. Ross ) Tales of Love, Sex and Danger,Intimate Relations, The Analyst and the Mystic, The Colors of Violence,Culture and Psyche, (with K.Kakar) The Indians: Portrait of a People, (with Wendy Doniger), a new translation of the Kamasutra for Oxford world Classics, Mad and Divine: Spirit and Psyche in the Modern world and Young Tagore: The makings of a genius. His fifth novel, The Devil Take Love will be published by Penguin-Viking in August 2015.
Sudhir with Katharina Poggendorf Kakar
Sudhir Kakar is married to Katharina, a writer and a scholar of comparative religions and artist. He has two children, a son Rahul who is in financial services, and a daughter Shveta, a lawyer, both in New York.
Kakar took his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Gujarat University, his Master’s degree (Diplom-Kaufmann) in business economics from Mannheim in Germany and his doctorate in economics from Vienna before beginning his training in psychoanalysis at the Sigmund-Freud Institute in Frankfurt, Germany in 1971. Between 1966 and 1971, Sudhir Kakar was a Lecturer in General Education at Harvard University, Research Associate at Harvard Business School and Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
After returning to India in 1975 , Dr. Kakar set up a practice as a psychoanalyst in Delhi where he was also the Head of Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology. He has been 40th Anniversary Senior Fellow at the Centre for Study of World Religions at Harvard (2001-02), a visiting professor at the universities of Chicago (1989-93), McGill (1976-77), Melbourne (1981), Hawaii (1998) and Vienna (1974-75), INSEAD, France (1994-2013). He has been a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute of Advanced Study), Berlin, Centre for Advanced Study of Humanities, University of Cologne and is Honorary Professor, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam.
A leading figure in the fields of cultural psychology and the psychology of religion, as well as a novelist, Dr. Kakar’s person and work have been profiled in The New York Times, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Die Zeit and Le Nouvel Observateur, which listed him as one of the world's 25 major thinkers while the German weekly Die Zeit portrayed Sudhir Kakar as one of the 21 important thinkers for the 21st century. Dr. Kakar's many honors include the Kardiner Award of Columbia University, Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association, Germany ’s Goethe Medal, Rockefeller Residency, McArthur Fellowship Bhabha, Nehru and ICSSR National Fellowships and Distinguished Service Award of Indo-American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Board of Sigmund Freud Archives in the Library of Congress, Washington and the Academie Universelle des Culture, France. In February 2012, he was conferred the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the country's highest civilian order.
Sudhir Kakar’s twenty books of non-fiction and six of fiction, include The Inner World (now in its 16th printing since its first publication in 1978), Shamans, Mystics and Doctors , (with J.M. Ross ) Tales of Love, Sex and Danger,Intimate Relations, The Analyst and the Mystic, The Colors of Violence,Culture and Psyche, (with K.Kakar) The Indians: Portrait of a People, (with Wendy Doniger), a new translation of the Kamasutra for Oxford world Classics, Mad and Divine: Spirit and Psyche in the Modern world and Young Tagore: The makings of a genius. His fifth novel, The Devil Take Love will be published by Penguin-Viking in August 2015.
Sudhir with Katharina Poggendorf Kakar
Sudhir Kakar is married to Katharina, a writer and a scholar of comparative religions and artist. He has two children, a son Rahul who is in financial services, and a daughter Shveta, a lawyer, both in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 23, 2016
There is a place of worship in my home state (Chottanikkara Temple) where the possessed are regularly brought for curing. They are brought in the presence of Kali, our fierce , blood-drinking goddess who frightens the living daylight out of the evil spirits so that they make a quick exit out of the bodies they are inhabiting. Sometimes the victims hammer nails into a nearby tree (with their foreheads!) and the demon is forever imprisoned there. From the number of nails i that tree, it must contain at least a thousand.
The process of exorcism, especially at twilight, is extremely creepy to watch. I used to dread going there as a kid. As I grew older, I became very superior in my atheism and started to pooh-pooh such "primitive" practices.
But they may not be so unscientific, and may possess some curative value - Sudhir Kakar says in this book. This particularly Indian way of looking at psychology is very intriguing and refreshing.
The process of exorcism, especially at twilight, is extremely creepy to watch. I used to dread going there as a kid. As I grew older, I became very superior in my atheism and started to pooh-pooh such "primitive" practices.
But they may not be so unscientific, and may possess some curative value - Sudhir Kakar says in this book. This particularly Indian way of looking at psychology is very intriguing and refreshing.
November 20, 2014
I’ve never read Sudhir Kakar before this book — never even heard of him. For those who don’t know, he is an Indian psychoanalyst (Freudian) who has taken a keen interest in dissecting the Indian psyche. He’s written extensively on psychology, but he’s also known as a novelist. I’m definitely going to be reading more of him in the future.
In this book, he investigates some of the various healing traditions that exist in India, like ayurveda, tantric healing, shamanism, demonology, and the cults that have evolved around certain god-men and women in India. He is seeking to understand these traditions on their own terms, while at the same time trying to translate them into an idiom familiar to western or westernized audiences.
One of his central claims is that the Indian psyche is more dependent on relationships than the western one. An Indian individual is more constitutive of his or her relationships with other people in their communities than the western person, who is more clearly marked as an individual. He skillfully shows how Indian therapies have evolved to respond to the particular needs of the Indian patient — they are much more concerned with reintroducing a mentally ill patient into their community than they are with reinforcing the individual’s independent sense of self. But Kakar shows that western and Indian approaches often intersect and interlap, as the distinctions between the two traditions aren’t quite as stark as they first appear. Westerners are also concerned with relational problems, and Indians are also concerned with establishing an independent self — what matters is where the emphasis is placed.
Kakar writes in an engaging, affable, downright amusing style. His ethnography is top grade stuff — he records his experience as fully and as honestly as he can possibly do, lending a welcome complexity to the healers we meet throughout this book. Possibly his greatest strength is his evenhandedness and his objectivity. Another writer in his place might have passed judgement on the pir who claims bhutas (demons) are possessing his patients — Kakar refuses to judge. The most he will do is offer an alternate diagnosis of the pir’s patient, one rooted in psychotherapy, while still holding the pir’s evaluation in high esteem. In doing so, Kakar holds true to Freud’s maxim that there is no correct form of psychotherapy — any form of therapy that works to help a patient is good, and valid. And the pir’s ministrations certainly work.
Kakar’s strength is in his lack of cultural snobbery, but I find myself wishing for a bit of reflection on the conclusions he draws about the differences in the Indian and western psyches. What does it mean for society to have a psyche that is heavily dependent on one’s relationship to one’s community? When said community is hierarchical, sexist, casteist, communal and classist, we are forced to wonder if a reintegration into society really is the goal of therapy that Indians should be aiming for.
Navigating these questions while still retaining objectivity and respect for cultural traditions is extremely difficult, and I doubt most of us could manage it. But Kakar might just be the person who could tackle these questions and come through unscathed. I am eager to explore his (extensive) works to see if he ever does try to engage with these larger normative questions about psyche and society.
In this book, he investigates some of the various healing traditions that exist in India, like ayurveda, tantric healing, shamanism, demonology, and the cults that have evolved around certain god-men and women in India. He is seeking to understand these traditions on their own terms, while at the same time trying to translate them into an idiom familiar to western or westernized audiences.
One of his central claims is that the Indian psyche is more dependent on relationships than the western one. An Indian individual is more constitutive of his or her relationships with other people in their communities than the western person, who is more clearly marked as an individual. He skillfully shows how Indian therapies have evolved to respond to the particular needs of the Indian patient — they are much more concerned with reintroducing a mentally ill patient into their community than they are with reinforcing the individual’s independent sense of self. But Kakar shows that western and Indian approaches often intersect and interlap, as the distinctions between the two traditions aren’t quite as stark as they first appear. Westerners are also concerned with relational problems, and Indians are also concerned with establishing an independent self — what matters is where the emphasis is placed.
Kakar writes in an engaging, affable, downright amusing style. His ethnography is top grade stuff — he records his experience as fully and as honestly as he can possibly do, lending a welcome complexity to the healers we meet throughout this book. Possibly his greatest strength is his evenhandedness and his objectivity. Another writer in his place might have passed judgement on the pir who claims bhutas (demons) are possessing his patients — Kakar refuses to judge. The most he will do is offer an alternate diagnosis of the pir’s patient, one rooted in psychotherapy, while still holding the pir’s evaluation in high esteem. In doing so, Kakar holds true to Freud’s maxim that there is no correct form of psychotherapy — any form of therapy that works to help a patient is good, and valid. And the pir’s ministrations certainly work.
Kakar’s strength is in his lack of cultural snobbery, but I find myself wishing for a bit of reflection on the conclusions he draws about the differences in the Indian and western psyches. What does it mean for society to have a psyche that is heavily dependent on one’s relationship to one’s community? When said community is hierarchical, sexist, casteist, communal and classist, we are forced to wonder if a reintegration into society really is the goal of therapy that Indians should be aiming for.
Navigating these questions while still retaining objectivity and respect for cultural traditions is extremely difficult, and I doubt most of us could manage it. But Kakar might just be the person who could tackle these questions and come through unscathed. I am eager to explore his (extensive) works to see if he ever does try to engage with these larger normative questions about psyche and society.
July 19, 2021
In this book, Freudian psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar examines a range of alternatives to mainstream psychiatry / psychotherapy that are pursued across India. They are largely traditions that predate psychiatry, and which weren’t developed primarily as a path to mental health, but rather as methods to develop mind and spirit – but which came to fill a void. Included in this exploration are a Sufi Muslim Pir, a Balaji Temple exorcist, an Oraon bhagat, Tibetan Buddhist / Bon healers, cultists, tantrics, and Ayurvedic doctors. The chapters are organized by the type of healer, and the ten chapters are split between shamans (Pt. I,) mystics (Pt. II,) and Ayurvedic healers (Pt. III.)
This book is at its best and most interesting when it’s describing the author’s visits to various temples, shaman huts, and other places where healers reside. He tells what he learned and experienced at these places, which ranges from reassuring (shamans and healers getting at least as good a result as their mainstream psychotherapeutic counterparts) to mildly horrifying (people chained to cots, or being blamed for their condition -- i.e. being told their faith is inadequate.) I found many of the cases under discussion to be fascinating, and learned a lot about how mental illness is perceived by different religious and spiritual traditions.
While Kakar is trained in a Western therapeutic system, he maintains a diplomatic tone about these indigenous forms of therapy – some of which are quite pragmatic but others of which are elaborately pseudo-scientific. I found this book to be insightful about various modes of treating the mind that are practiced in India
This book is at its best and most interesting when it’s describing the author’s visits to various temples, shaman huts, and other places where healers reside. He tells what he learned and experienced at these places, which ranges from reassuring (shamans and healers getting at least as good a result as their mainstream psychotherapeutic counterparts) to mildly horrifying (people chained to cots, or being blamed for their condition -- i.e. being told their faith is inadequate.) I found many of the cases under discussion to be fascinating, and learned a lot about how mental illness is perceived by different religious and spiritual traditions.
While Kakar is trained in a Western therapeutic system, he maintains a diplomatic tone about these indigenous forms of therapy – some of which are quite pragmatic but others of which are elaborately pseudo-scientific. I found this book to be insightful about various modes of treating the mind that are practiced in India
April 4, 2021
The observant Kakkar beautifully explains in detail the different healing traditions in India and looks at their approach taken towards Mental Health. I enjoyed all the case studies within the text and how he looks at the same from a Psychoanalytical perspective.
July 24, 2020
An excellent book for people like me who are trying to connect the western science and Eastern mysticism
November 11, 2025
What a stunning book, both anthropological and psychological! Although I am very fond of authors well-versed in ethnopsychology, anthropology, and psychoanalysis, I must acknowledge that I was not expecting to encounter a book like this one. Undoubtedly, this essay stands as a paramount contribution to the field of comparative psychology, regardless of whether one agrees with Kakar’s Eriksonian psychoanalytic framework or his inevitable cultural bias. It is not possible to write about this matter without a stand point or a cultural frame.
What is truly surprising is the way he focuses on and swims through a manifold variety of healing traditions — mystical, religious, Ayurvedic, and guru-oriented — trying to understand and decode why they can be at once useful, curative, or potentially dangerous. In other words, Sudhir Kakar is neither a follower of the “New Age” trend, nor a Western scientistic reductionist, nor a cultural supremacist, nor even a naïve believer. His stance lies somewhere between that of the scientific seeker, the honest sage, and the ethically engaged therapist.
Kakar’s writing is elegant and empathic. He moves gracefully between clinical observation, cultural insight, and personal reflection, always with remarkable ease: you won’t find any obscure passages. The reader feels that he does not merely study India’s spiritual healers and patients but listens to them, as if he were attending to the unconscious of an entire civilization. His capacity to translate symbolic experience into psychological understanding is remarkable, bridging the gap between anthropology and psychoanalysis in a way few authors have managed since Freud or Geertz.
What remains difficult to understand is why this major work has never been translated into Spanish, or why it is not considered one of the essential readings in the fields of anthropology and psychology. For instance, the tantra chapter is brilliant, simple and effective. Its absence in our academic curricula is, in itself, a symptom of the same cultural divide that Kakar sought to heal: the inability of Western academia to take seriously the wisdom embodied in non-Western forms of therapy, experience, and belief. And, remember, Kakar does it without losing his critical tone: he doesn’t buy anything; he reflects.
What is truly surprising is the way he focuses on and swims through a manifold variety of healing traditions — mystical, religious, Ayurvedic, and guru-oriented — trying to understand and decode why they can be at once useful, curative, or potentially dangerous. In other words, Sudhir Kakar is neither a follower of the “New Age” trend, nor a Western scientistic reductionist, nor a cultural supremacist, nor even a naïve believer. His stance lies somewhere between that of the scientific seeker, the honest sage, and the ethically engaged therapist.
Kakar’s writing is elegant and empathic. He moves gracefully between clinical observation, cultural insight, and personal reflection, always with remarkable ease: you won’t find any obscure passages. The reader feels that he does not merely study India’s spiritual healers and patients but listens to them, as if he were attending to the unconscious of an entire civilization. His capacity to translate symbolic experience into psychological understanding is remarkable, bridging the gap between anthropology and psychoanalysis in a way few authors have managed since Freud or Geertz.
What remains difficult to understand is why this major work has never been translated into Spanish, or why it is not considered one of the essential readings in the fields of anthropology and psychology. For instance, the tantra chapter is brilliant, simple and effective. Its absence in our academic curricula is, in itself, a symptom of the same cultural divide that Kakar sought to heal: the inability of Western academia to take seriously the wisdom embodied in non-Western forms of therapy, experience, and belief. And, remember, Kakar does it without losing his critical tone: he doesn’t buy anything; he reflects.
November 2, 2025
What an extraordinary book which delves into various intriguing healing traditions in India with a scientific lens. Amazed at the amount of research that must have gone into bringing this book to life. Sudhir Kakar has done a marvellous job of accumulating all his experiences and using his psychotherapy background, putting them into perspective (without any judgement or bias) for a modern educated reader. Quite an enlightening read.
May 7, 2024
Shamans, Mystics and Doctors
by Sudhir Kakar
p. 1982, University of Chicago Press Edition 1991
Mental illness is a subject near and dear to my heart. I deal with mental illness at least once a month in the course of my job as a criminal defense lawyer. Some of my clients are what they call "dual diagnosis" which typically means substance abuse + mental illness. Of course I'm interested in different approaches to curing mental illness, from western psychiatry to eastern Shamanism. Here is a truth about this entire area: Anything works as long as the patient and the doctor share the same believe system. This means that the curative power, for all these practices, lies with the patient rather than the Doctor/Shaman/Wizard.
This is the central thesis of Sudhir Kakar's illuminating Shamans, Mystics and Doctors. Kakar is an Indian Psychotherapist who wrote a book about the curative practices of a variety of Indian traditions: Muslim and Hindu Shaman. Shamans is divided into several chapters, each of which profile a different Guru or discipline with an approach to treating mental illness.
Considering the depths that traditional Freud inspired Psychotherapy has reached since Kakar wrote this in the early 1980s, his medical Doctor psychiatric oriented appears almost as dated as the Muslim and Hindu shaman's who exorcise demons by name. However, Kakar is right on when it points out that ANY approach to healing and mental health can work so long as there are a healer and a patient who believe in the SAME THING.
Kakar also notes that the central experience held in common by all the various methods of Indian mental curing is the disassociation of the self- getting "outside" your self, how you do it doesn't matter, but it needs to be guided by someone else, you can't do it yourself.
by Sudhir Kakar
p. 1982, University of Chicago Press Edition 1991
Mental illness is a subject near and dear to my heart. I deal with mental illness at least once a month in the course of my job as a criminal defense lawyer. Some of my clients are what they call "dual diagnosis" which typically means substance abuse + mental illness. Of course I'm interested in different approaches to curing mental illness, from western psychiatry to eastern Shamanism. Here is a truth about this entire area: Anything works as long as the patient and the doctor share the same believe system. This means that the curative power, for all these practices, lies with the patient rather than the Doctor/Shaman/Wizard.
This is the central thesis of Sudhir Kakar's illuminating Shamans, Mystics and Doctors. Kakar is an Indian Psychotherapist who wrote a book about the curative practices of a variety of Indian traditions: Muslim and Hindu Shaman. Shamans is divided into several chapters, each of which profile a different Guru or discipline with an approach to treating mental illness.
Considering the depths that traditional Freud inspired Psychotherapy has reached since Kakar wrote this in the early 1980s, his medical Doctor psychiatric oriented appears almost as dated as the Muslim and Hindu shaman's who exorcise demons by name. However, Kakar is right on when it points out that ANY approach to healing and mental health can work so long as there are a healer and a patient who believe in the SAME THING.
Kakar also notes that the central experience held in common by all the various methods of Indian mental curing is the disassociation of the self- getting "outside" your self, how you do it doesn't matter, but it needs to be guided by someone else, you can't do it yourself.
August 24, 2016
One of the most interesting reads, about a subject I've been curious about since long. The episodic encounters with the spiritual over-class of India is very well documented. Sudhir Kakar puts himself in several settings to try and extract an essence - or as psychologists would distill it, to the elements that coerce both, the godmen and their followers, to isolate/insulate/exclude themselves from the bigger society in pursuit of their religious calling/discipline.
The book tries to dissect the Indian setup, to lead us to understanding why religion and spirituality (still) hold a solid ground. Author's own narratives, several first-person accounts, an understanding of spiritual frameworks, and their correlation to western psychology. It gave me much fodder for thought, and built a further interest in such stuff.
The book tries to dissect the Indian setup, to lead us to understanding why religion and spirituality (still) hold a solid ground. Author's own narratives, several first-person accounts, an understanding of spiritual frameworks, and their correlation to western psychology. It gave me much fodder for thought, and built a further interest in such stuff.
August 14, 2016
A very good attempt to bridge the Western Psychoanalysis[Freudian] and Indian healing traditions[Ayurvedas,Ojhas,Gurus,Tantriks,so and so forth].A very good research with tons of information on the ancient mystic traditions and their contradictory western partners.In his claim that Tantrism is more adept in tackling psychic disorders than Ayurvedas... he is 100% correct as he himself says that Ayurveda practice in India today is nowhere compared to that practised before....
"With extraordinary sympathy, open-mindedness, and insight Sudhir Kakar has drawn from both his Eastern and Western backgrounds to show how the gulf that divides native healer from Western psychiatrist can be spanned."—Rosemary Dinnage, New York Review of Books.
"With extraordinary sympathy, open-mindedness, and insight Sudhir Kakar has drawn from both his Eastern and Western backgrounds to show how the gulf that divides native healer from Western psychiatrist can be spanned."—Rosemary Dinnage, New York Review of Books.
September 20, 2018
Someone who grew up in India, learns Western psychoanalysis (and Freudian-based, for the most part, at that), takes a look deep into some healing practices of his culture. A pretty interesting journey, overall. He doesn't make any major judgments on any practice and even questions some of what psychoanalysis does. I especially enjoyed the part about Ayurveda. But definitely not a mind-blowing book.
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June 26, 2007This is for anyone who likes to know the facts on the Supernatural.
June 8, 2010
Trying to bring the mystical and the enlightened and to explain it from the point of view of psychology is a hard job. A good attempt.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews