Buddhism has, from its origins, maintained that certain individuals can develop extraordinary mental abilities (abhijñā)—described as higher knowledge or psychic powers that emerge through meditative practice. These include psychic powers (ṛddhi), mind-reading or telepathy, recollection of past lives, and clairvoyance (perceiving karmic destinies). Does the Buddhist training (e.g., the four heavenly abodes–meditation) of transformative benevolent “psychic powers,” and its epistemic categories and indigenous terms, allow to question the Western logic of different domains (magic versus religion; parapsychology versus philosophy/psychology, the monadic self as the individual basis of cognitive emotions, etc.)?
Lower Himalayan Region, India, South Asia
Kalindi Kokal