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Podcast: New Books in Indian Religions
Episode: D. E. Osto, "Paranormal States: Psychic Abilities in Buddhist Convert Communities" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Description: A number of converts to Buddhism report paranormal experiences. Their accounts describe psychic abilities like clairvoyance and precognition, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, and encounters with other beings such as ghosts and deities, and they often interpret these events through a specifically Buddhist lens. Paranormal States: Psychic Abilities in Buddhist Convert Communities (Columbia UP, 2024) is a groundbreaking exploration of these phenomena and their implications for both humanistic and scientific study of the paranormal.D. E. Osto examines accounts of paranormal phenomena experienced by convert Buddhists from around the world collected through an online survey and interviews, placing them in...