The self possessed: deity and spirit possession in South Asian literature and civilization

Orthodoxies, madness, and method

Academic and brahmanical orthodoxies

Ethnography, modernity, and the languages of possession

New and inherited paradigms: methodologies for the study of possession

Possession, trance channeling, and modernity

Notes on regional languages and models of possession

Classical literature

The Vedas and Upaniṣads

Friendly acquisitions, hostile takeovers: the panorama of possession in the Sanskrit Epics

Enlightenment and the classical culture of possession

Vampires, prostitutes, and poets: narrativity and the aesthetics of possession

Devotion as possession

Worldly and otherworldly ruptures: possession as a healing modality

Possession Tantra: constructed bodies and empowerment

Tantra and the diaspora of childhood possession

The medicalization of possession in Āyurveda and Tantra

Conclusions: Identity among the possessed and dispossessed.