ABSTRACT
The healing seance is a highly formalized and controlled procedure that nevertheless develops into a loss of control in the course of performance. This loss of control appears to the observer as an eruption of force, as Durkheim might have put it, an emotional force that creates the transcendent dimension of a religious ritual. Most theoreticians of rituals assume that emotion is a given force that is channeled through various ritual procedures towards specific social goals. It is remarkable that what encapsulates the “ritual thought” at the base of the shamanic tradition is enacted as if it were almost not part of the ritual. It is left to a character that is supposed not to be in control of his behavior. Kham-Magar of agro-pastoralists had developed an original and lively shamanic tradition that is on the wane since Nepal was the theater of a Maoist insurrection.
