Profs and Pints Online presents: “A History of India’s Magic,” a look at the ancient origins and remarkable evolution of a venerable performance art, with Shreeyash Palshikar, an assistant professor of history at Albright College who teaches a class on magic in world history.

[ This talk will remain available in recorded form at the link given here for tickets and access. ]

Get ready to go on a remarkable scholarly journey into India’s past and worlds beyond our understanding. Your guide, Dr. Palshikar, is a scholar of Indian magic who has performed in an Indian circus, created an Indian inspired magic show, and journeyed to India on a Fulbright fellowship to study its last traditional street magicians.

We’ll start by analyzing stories and rituals from the Vedas and other ancient texts, considering whether—and how—magic differs from religion. We’ll analyze magic as a performance art from the earliest times and find new ways to understand texts that describe acts and relationships that appear impossible to modern science. And we’ll look at assertions that ancient texts contained mystical secrets to construct airplanes and atomic bombs, and that their incantations or mantras could help someone defeat enemies, obtain a lover, levitate into the air, or even become invisible.

Next, we’ll consider how the cultural context of magic changed in Mughal India when magicians formed an integral part of the courtly culture of grand spectacular entertainments. Again, we are faced with historical descriptions of amazing magical acts performed by itinerant magicians who levitate, cause lakes to freeze, and can even speed up time and make a tree grow quickly from a seed and bear fruits.

Finally, we’ll consider magic in the colonial context. Indian magic was both fascinating and threatening to the colonial sense of superiority. Tales of the wonders of Indian magic inspired Indian magicians to come to the West and Western magician to visit India, with the result being magical cross-cultural encounters that changed the way magic is performed all over the world.

You’ll end up knowing about secret sutras and fake fakirs, and you might even learn a trick or two.

Profs & Pints Online: A History of India's Magic.