Transgressing Boundaries: Digital as a Space for Esoteric Practices

Apparently a group men sitting on the floor, some of them clapping, some playing drums; except form two they are dressed in long white dresses, some wearing a kufi (head wrap)

My doctoral dissertation, which I defended at the Institute of Ethnology at the University of Heidelberg, is on the topic of “Zar Ritual and Expression of Gender Identity in Hormozgan Province, Iran.” In Hormozgan, Zar is a general term for all spirits that attack people for various reasons and a method of treating a possessed […]

The Research Network for the Study of Esoteric Practices

Interface of RENSEP website on computer and on mobile phone

I recently had the pleasure of giving a guest talk entitled “The Research Network for the Study of Esoteric Practices (RENSEP),” at the newly founded Center for Advanced Studies ‘Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices’ at Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. I had visited Erlangen on the days before for a working meeting with Bernd-Christian Otto and Mariano […]