Synopses & Reviews
Listen to what I am about to tell you: do not read this book alone. You really shouldnand#8217;t. In one of the most playful experiments ever put between two covers, every other section of
Trance-Migrations prescribes that you read its incantatory tales out loud to a lover, friend, or confidant, in order to hypnotize in preparation for Lee Siegeland#8217;s exploration of an enchanting India. To read and hear this book is to experience a particular kind of relationship, and thatand#8217;s precisely the point: hypnosis, the book will demonstrate, is an essential aspect of our most significant relationships, an inherent dimension of love, religion, medicine, politics, and literature, a fundamental dynamic between lover and beloved, deity and votary, physician and patient, ruler and subject, and, indeed, reader and listener.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
Even if you canand#8217;t read this with a partnerand#151;and I stress that you certainly ought toand#151;you will still be in rich company. There is Shambaraswami, an itinerant magician, hypnotist, and storyteller to whom villagers turn for spells that will bring them wealth or love; Josand#233;-Custodio de Faria, a Goan priest hypnotizing young and beautiful women in nineteenth-century Parisian salons; James Esdaile, a Scottish physician for the East India Company in Calcutta, experimenting on abject Bengalis with mesmerism as a surgical anesthetic; and Lee Siegel, a writer traveling in India to learn all that he can about hypnosis, yoga, past life regressions, colonialism, orientalism, magic spells, and, above all, the power of story. And then there is you: descending through these historiesand#151;these tales within tales, trances within trances, dreams within dreamsand#151;toward a place where the distinctions between reverie and reality dissolve.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
Here the world within the book and that in which the book is read come startlingly together. Itand#8217;s one of the most creative works we have ever published, a dazzling combination of literary prowess, scholarly erudition, and psychological explorationand#151;all tempered by warm humor and a sharp wit. It is informing, entertaining, and, above all, mesmerizing.and#160;
Review
and#8220;Whether or not you fall into a trance while reading this book, the intellectual delight that comes from allowing yourself to surrender to it is reward enough. As in all of his work, Siegel challenges us to examine the infinite aspects of subjective reality more deeply than we could alone. He does so with wit, scholarship, passionate engagement, and, most of all, humor.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Anyone who has fallen under the spell of a master storyteller, hypnotist, Indian Yogi or shaman, illusionist, or con artist, will have experienced a little of the force of Lee Siegeland#8217;s Trance-Migrations: a book in which Siegel simultaneously plays all of these roles. Part memoir, part exploration of hypnotism and storytellingand#8212;by turns erotic, comic, and poignantand#8212;Trance-Migrations seduces readers into losing themselves within it, to reflect upon the power of stories to make dreams reality, be they in a fable of ancient India, a Hollywood movie, our own bed at night, or on a therapistand#8217;s couch. We awake from his spell to a deeper understanding of the power of suggestion and how it can create whole civilizations as well as individual lives: an achievement, and a book, that seems impossible until it is experienced.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Professional Indologist and amateur magician Siegel spins a spiral disc of fascinating histories, captivating memoir, and mesmeric metafictions. Never has the phrase and#8216;hypnotic proseand#8217; been so literal. When I woke from reading, I had an overwhelming compulsion to praise this book.and#8221;
Review
andldquo;At turns provocative, entertaining, and hilarious, much of it is intended to be read out loud to a lover or a friend. It thus literally performs its thesis: that trance states and their illusions are the generators and very nature of human relationships (particularly erotic and therapeutic ones), political phenomena (like colonialism), religious phenomena (like repetitive ritual, enchanting mythology, and charismatic authority), and, most of all, those magical practices we call reading and writing.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;The wisdom of India, wittily reimagined.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Vast like the subcontinent itself and teeming with outrageous and exotic characters,
Net of Magic is an enthralling voyage through the netherworld of Indian magic. Lee Siegel, scholar and magician, uncovers the age-old practices of magic in sacred rites and rituals and unveils the contemporary world of Indian magic of street and stage entertainers.
Siegel's journeys take him from ancient Sanskrit texts to the slums of New Delhi to find remnants of a remarkable magical tradition. In the squalid settlement of Shadipur, he is initiated into a band of Muslim street conjurers and performs as their shill while they tutor him in their con and craft. Siegel also becomes acquainted with Hindu theatrical magicians, who claim descent from court illusionists and now dress as maharajahs to perform a repertoire of tricks full of poignant kitsch and glitz.
Masterfully using a panoply of narrative sleights to recreate the magical world of India, Net of Magic intersperses travelogue, history, ethnography, and fiction. Siegel's vivid, often comic tale is crowded with shills and stooges, tourists and pickpockets, snake charmers and fakirs. Among the cast of characters are Naseeb, a poor Muslim street magician who guides Siegel into the closed circle of itinerant performers; the Industrial Magician, paid by a bank, who convinces his audience to buy traveler's checks by making twenty-rupee notes disappear; the Government Magician, who does a trick with condoms to encourage family planning; P. C. Sorcar, Jr., the most celebrated Indian stage magician; and the fictive Professor M. T. Bannerji, the world's greatest magician, who assumes various guises over a millennium of Indian history and finally arrives in the conjuring capital of the worldand#8212;Las Vegas.
Like Indra's netand#8212;the web of illusion in which Indian performers ensnare their audienceand#8212;Net of Magic captures the reader in a seductive portrayal of a world where deception is celebrated and lies are transformed into compelling and universal truths.
Synopsis
Part non-fiction, part short fiction; part memoir, part essay,
Trance-migrations is both an entertaining and informative read and a thoroughly original and creative experiment in metafiction. Combining great erudition with sophisticated word play and bawdy humor, it alternates sections containing stories-- both fictional and non-fictional--to be read by the reader to her or himself with sections of stories to be read aloud to a listener. In the latter cases Siegel intends that the listener actually go into a hypnotic trance out of which the reader will eventually awaken her or him. In this way the narrative form of the book and#147;performsand#8221; a hypnotic and#147;induction scriptand#8221; out of which the listener awakens to find that it is impossible to tell what and#147;reallyand#8221; happened, just as in hypnosis the line between fact and fiction is irremediably blurred. Siegel uses hypnosis and the dynamic between hypnotist and hypnosand as a way of exploring other power dynamics -- between lovers, between writer and reader (or listener), between masculine colonial culture and the and#147;feminizedand#8221; East, between God (or gods) and mortals, and ultimately between memory and#150; historical and personal and#150; and constantly shifting meaning. The book is above all about reading as a hypnotic experience. Through stories based on motifs and characters from both Indian mythology and from real life (notably Abband#233; Faria, a Goan Catholic monk who gained notoriety in the early nineteenth century with demonstrations of magnetism in Paris, and James Esdaile, a Scottish surgeon for the East India Company who experimented with mesmerism as a surgical anesthetic in Calcutta), Siegel epitomizes and elucidates the psychological and political dynamics of a fascination with a mysterious Orient, and reveals the anxieties embedded in such fascination.and#160;
About the Author
Lee Siegel is professor of religion at the University of Hawaii and a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. His books include
Laughing Matters: Comic Tradition in India, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Table of Contents
IN[TRO]DUCTION: Reading, Listening, and Hypnosis
MAYAVATIand#8217;S SPELL: India, Stories, and Hypnosis
Part One: For the Reader
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Childand#8217;s Story
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Hypnographerand#8217;s Story
Part Two: For the Listener
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Storytellerand#8217;s Tale
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Magicianand#8217;s Tale
LE SOMMEIL LUCIDE: Religion, Sex, and Hypnosis
Part One: For the Reader
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Abband#233;and#8217;s Story
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Sculptorand#8217;s Story
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Psychiatristand#8217;s Story
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Screenwriterand#8217;s Story
Part Two: For the Listener
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Translatorand#8217;s Tale
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Writerand#8217;s Tale
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Readerand#8217;s Tale
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Listenerand#8217;s Tale
AN-ESTHETICS: Politics, Medicine, and Hypnosis
Part One: For the Reader
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Surgeonand#8217;s Story
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Anesthesiologistand#8217;s Story
Part Two: For the Listener
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Patientand#8217;s Tale
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Mesmeristand#8217;s Tale
BIBLIOGRAPHY: History, Fiction, and Hypnosis