Unseen Beings and Tibetan Eco-Daemonology

In this presentation, Erik Jampa Andersson will introduce his research on the enchanting and oft-misunderstood world of Tibetan eco-daemonology – exploring the complex ways that evolving ‘nature spirit’ paradigms have informed Tibetan historical perceptions of health, the environment, and more-than-human sociality in a volatile and multicultural world. Erik will shed new light on a diverse selection of materials, including the rGyud bZhi (‘Four Tantras’) medical corpus, ritual manuals from the gCod (‘Severance’) tradition, and the gNyan ‘Bum (Nyen Collection) of the Bön canon, demonstrating a centuries-long continuum of nuanced and multivocal negotiations between Buddhist philosophy and indigenous animistic knowledge. Further attention will be paid to the environmental context of evolutions in ritual technologies and ecological paradigms, supported by both historical and paleoclimatic data. This research challenges longstanding ‘psychological’ approaches to spirit ontologies in Tibet, largely rooted in appeals to ‘rational’ anthropocentric empiricism, instead highlighting the ways in which they have helped Tibetan peoples negotiate the complexities of being human in a more-than-human world. Reflecting upon the challenges imposed by the so-called ‘Anthropocene,’ this timely presentation seeks to inspire more thoughtful and critical scholarship on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in Tibet and the Himalayas, and earnest consideration of its relevance to the present ecological crisis.