Just found a news item about a Hindu mystic who had himself ritually buried. He was supposed to go into a trance, and then emerge from the “grave” a few days later. Except he died for real instead.

I’ve also heard that this same scenario was one of the possible demises of the one of the founders of an early rival to Christianity, Simon Magus. His followers buried him, with the intent that he would rise again from “the dead,” just like Jesus did. Only he didn’t.

Anyway, this is one of the things that interests me the most about Hinduism, is that they still practice variations of really really old rituals.

Another much older news item I liked showing India’s diversity of traditional magic rituals is this one about how a 9-year old girl was “married” to a dog in order to break an evil-spell on her.